The search for Baldr is going as planned for now. The new handler is in charge replacing the now frozen predecessor. Operation steel net has yet to bear fruit. But it is still the initial stages of the game. The necessity of eliminating any traces meant that a total of 23 individuals inside and outside of the secret service are now confirmed as expired. There are only three individuals left inside the department. Given that there is a chance their expertise is needed their termination is postponed. Not that the individuals are aware of the danger yet. All external individuals are terminated. This includes Baldr's only living relatives. But as a result it is unlikely to find further leads so the handler is planning to shutdown the operation within the next 48 hours.
"Sir, as you know operation 'steel hook' is scheduled to report every 24 hours. It is now due to report in 15 minutes.", a subordinate informs him.
"Thank you, agent. Please prepare the report to arrive in meeting room alpha. Have the executive staff report to there as well."
Steel hook aka the Enemir, an autonomous AI agent designed to track down Baldr using all means such as authorised and illegal surveillance, monitoring and sting operations mostly using the resources of the internet of things. Enemir is an autonomous, self sufficient computer program that is not bound by any law or authority. It is not a citizen nor a legal entity of any kind. It has some form of ethics programmed into it by way of a save guard. However, there is no single group or individual controlling the program. It is also designed to decentralise itself to avoid any ties to any territory. Hence, there is nobody accountable for any infringements, theft of intellectual property or privacy invasions since a program cannot be held legally responsible. The only known author of the program has just died and is currently frozen in a secret location.
"Ingenious…", the new handler smiles leaning back into his leather chair.
"Yes it is!", out of nowhere a very old voice can be heard. A voice that has not been heard for a very long time. The handler spins around looking for the unexpected source of the voice. However, he is sure he is alone in the room.
"Hello?".
"It took me quite a few tries to work out all the kinks". The old voice announces proudly. "Not that you have any inclination how difficult it really was".
"Who are you?"
"You may call me God 'A'. Since I take pride in my little project I want to make sure you mortals don't mess up my game plan."
The handler is staring at a shadow on the wall that does not belong to any object in this room. If it is a shadow at all since it is emitting an aura of fear and oppression. He does not know how but he has no doubt that the being that is talking to him is very old and very dangerous.
The handler fights down the urge to flee and through his clattering teeth he asks "W...what do you want?".
"I want my toy back. You let him get away and he is currently doing who knows what. Do you know the amount of effort it takes to create a special human ? Moreover do you know the damage a runaway special human can inflict on my creation ? I WANT HIM BACK HERE."
The shadow on the wall is growing.
"You cowardly predecessor has made sure he escaped my anger by dying. I won't allow you to escape me as well. I WILL HAVE SOMEONE TO VENT MY ANGER IF HE IS NOT FOUND SOON!"
The handler is dropping to his knees from the pressure. "Of course. Right away.". Wheezing in fear, he is crawling away from the shadow and towards the door leaving faint streaks of yellow liquid on the floor.
"FIND HIM NOW!", the shadow voices and then it vanished and with that the pressure eased. Only when the pressure completely ceased does he allow himself to breath again. The handler notices his wet pants and gets up and heads urgently to the executive rest room to clean himself.
# # #
A few minutes later the handler is joining meeting room alpha as the last member just as his phone starts to ring. His encounter with God 'A' still in his system he jumped at the sound. Quickly fumbled for his phone he almost dropped it. After the 6th ring he finally managed to hit the speaker button. Everyone in the room is holding their breath listening to the communication.
"Code in", he asks for authorisation
"Blue blue blue", the automatic caller sends a voice authentication challenge. Effortless, the handler recalled the code table. For each conversation, there is a table of challenge and response codes that has been drilled into him. Each challenge has three responses, one for accepting the report, one for postponing the report and one for terminating reporting immediately. A termination will prevent any further calls and Enemir will report to the next handler in the command list.
"Lime lime lime", the handler response.
"Confirmed reporting challenge".
There is a 5 second silence. The handler is puzzled for a moment but then remembers the pause is there for him to make sure he is not overheard.
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"Report start"
"Runtime remaining 1416 hours. "
"Status code: yellow. "
"Coverage: 60%. "
"No events to report."
"End of Report."
"Acknowledge report", the handler responds and the line went dead.
The collective breath let out in the room could almost be felt. Then handler discretely wipes his forehead pretending to itch. He is thoroughly trained in the communication with the Enemir and is already aware of the conclusion he must draw from this report. However, the other executives are looking at the handler for guidance.
"The status report at this early stage is simple.", the handler obliges cautiously.
"In the last 24 hours, the Enemir has hooked up to all life feeds available and it processes the information in real time - hence the status is yellow. If there were any problems that delayed the processing the status would be orange. Therefore we can assume that based on facial, voice, handwriting, PIN number, and any other terminal based recognition means, the Enemir can detect the precence of Baldr in real time as soon as it occurs and will act accordingly".
"As for tracking the recent activity of Baldr, the Enemir has estimated that 60% of all information sources are processed. You may recall that it has been shown that the most recent information has the highest probability to produce good leads. Therefore, the Enemir will divide all the found information for processing into early historical covering information older than 1 month, late historical covering about 1 month and recent data covering about 48 hours before activation. There are no certainties in the numbers but from the report we should assume that there is still a 40% chance that Enemir will track down Baldr from the data of the last 48 hours."
"So, in summary, Baldr is still at large and has not left any digital fingerprint since activation of Enemir. That leads to at least two possible scenario: Baldr is dead as per the statements of the parents. This is unlikely but there is a small chance. The other one is that Baldr has changed himself and started as a new person. The latter is more likely. Therefore, the Enemir likely starts scanning for any individual that have gained a new digital footprint. Enemir now likely looks for anyone that started a new life since we lost contact with Baldr.".
The handler paused for a minute to collect his thoughts.
"Please start pulling reports together of any changes to families that increased, adopted or are about to adopt a child. It could be any child but give priority to male children at the age of about 5 years old. We need to build a baseline since Baldr may likely get added to this list soon. Knowing about all ongoing paperwork makes it easier to find out about any changes. Please start with Tol and the surrounding areas and then widen the focus".
"What about the standard protocol for search-and-target operations?", one of the executives asks referring to the services handbook of required procedures for operations of this kind.
"Assume that Enemir has covered all standard protocol targets, such as airports, train stations, bus depots and any other mass communications links already. Mass surveillance is some better left to the computers. Humans should stick to their strength and be creative."
The handler takes a sip of water before continuing.
"For now operation steel net will continue for another 48 hours before termination", the handler informed his staff further.
With a "Dismissed", the handler sends his executives off.
The staff is leaving and the handler is alone in the room. He sighs in relief. This has gone as expected for a first contact. Suddenly he flinches after feeling that pressure again.
"WHAT TAKES SO LONG?", God 'A' challenges the handler.
"W..we are within expectations. The child has enough smarts to know our methods. We now have to wait for him to interact in some form with people under surveillance or institutions before he will show up on our surveillance.
The pressure vanishes as quick as it came. Then the handler receives a message on his phone. It simply states
">REPORT TO THE SENDER IMMEDIATELY ANY CHANGE IN STATUS. I AM NOT A PATIENT GOD!"
Despite being just a normal phone message it somehow feels violent and burns straight into his head before he even started reading it consciously. For a few seconds his breathing stopped inadvertently whilst the message rang through his mind. Then the pressure dulled and he started breathing again. Still shaking, the handler cautiously checks his trousers and is is glad he didn't pee himself again. Although he is pretty sure that he was just lucky since his bladder was empty already.
# # #