Free Freedom Club by Saul Garnell Page A

Budget problems most likely. But that was the way he liked it, Shinzou reminded himself. Sitting down in the guest web chair, he took a long unsatisfied sip of his coffee and did his best to break the ice.
    “Happy holidays,” he said between sips. “It’s nice to see you again.”
    Hugo kept typing for a moment and then retracted the screens in unison. Support arms folded like spider arms, raising the monitors up toward the ceiling, and allowing both men to see each other directly.
    Without smiling, Hugo drummed his fingers for a few moments, then spoke tersely. “Right. Happy holidays. You didn’t have to come here, you know. We could have just talked virtually.”
    Shinzou didn’t reply. Smiling back wryly, he took another sip of his drink and waited. The air hummed with the sound of air-conditioning and microelectronics as a brief silence engulfed them. They weren’t exactly friends, but Shinzou knew it was best to let Hugo go first. Let him think he’s in control. That’s how things worked in the past. Would the future be any different?
    Hugo said, “I couldn’t tell where you’ve been these days. I assume you stay in the American Sector most of the time?”
    Shinzou nodded politely, aware that Hugo was displeased about his off-the-map way of living.
    “I’ve been here and there, but decided to take time off out west toward year’s end. It’s been a while since the last assignment, so.... Well, I thought it would be nice to drop by in person.”
    “Interesting,” Hugo said. “Few people care to meet face to face anymore. I suppose you’re getting to be old fashioned.”
    “Or just old.”
    The mood improved slightly as both laughed, but it quickly subsided, leaving an awkward silence once again. Hugo in his typical fashion wasn’t one for chit chat and waved a pen to indicate that there was something of interest to explain. Swinging around toward the wall he started his briefing.
    “A rudimentary target profile has been created for the outage two days ago at the Cactus Quad.”
    Hugo then pointed at the wall where various images and maps faded into view, much of it taken on Christmas Eve. A few moments of the chaotic footage splashed within a checkerboard montage of smaller screens. Shinzou looked on with interest and then nodded.
    “The central payment consolidator went down during peak hours,” Hugo continued. “That escalated into level seven retail-rage. DPS took care of the rioters, but a hardware failure was discovered and seems to have been the cause.”
    With a few keystrokes, schematics of the non-stop board grew over the wall in detail. Shinzou recognized it immediately. Scrolling markup text in various colors outlined components and detailed copious amounts of technical data, all of it pertaining to functional specifications and the identity of outsourced manufacturers for every subcomponent.
    Hugo glanced over to see if the data had any impact. “Tests show its biological components were hacked and the status for the incident is now set to first degree LS.”
    “I see,” Shinzou said, looking on with interest. Squinting at the data momentarily, he gazed back at Hugo. “Do we have any analysis on the hack? Any signatures or trace methodologies?”
    “The Sentients haven’t found any yet,” Hugo said. “But they’re going further into our Union network for assistance. This is one area where you can help fill in our target profile, because they’re having difficulty. It’s going to be a technical effort to figure out how the LSers operate because the central board was designed and manufactured years ago by a broad group outside the Union.”
    Shinzou pointed up at the large list of manufacturers. “Yes, and there is no primary. It’s a hodgepodge of companies across—” Shinzou stared again and then approached the wall to see fine details. “India, Cebu, China, Japan, Lagos.... Wow, don’t you just love the global economy?” he said, shaking his head in dismay.
    “One