“Humboldt.” Never one for following FBI rules, it was surprising he was allowed a phone in his lab. The micro-drone needles he was debugging was leading in only one direction. A small start-up subsidiary company. He’d let the paper trail be followed by the luddites that preferred working in person rather than waste his precious resources and time.
The call was simple. Royce had given his card to a potential informant inside of one of the suspect data centers that confirmed they may be going in the right direction. He sent a strange message to Royce, who he thought should be a code monkey he could order around but knowing her martial arts record he’d be dead before the first order was given. [Want to play a game of Mousetrap? You bought the game yesterday at a ViP auction yesterday.] How lame a code did Royce come up with to prevent Virtual from decoding it. ‘How aren’t they going to translate “ViP” into Virtual Pandemic?’
Mack’s distrust of humanity was so pervasive all incoming communication is traced from the first ping on whatever device. It was traced to the VE site that a contact named “Jose” worked at, and this contact’s resume was impeccable prior to the 2020s. Once the first signs of Covid-19 were seen, the company he was working for was bought for pennies on the dollar and positions froze while the government and the health industry fought over the best way to turn the war on disease. Even when things got back up and running, the man was locked into the same job he had previously. It wasn’t like he couldn’t quit and change companies, but that it was now too expensive for the average worker. Dozens of medical certificates, which most employers wouldn’t release and insurance wouldn’t cover fully, and non-reimbursed virtual classes, certifications, and strict status requirements meant that for someone to job search they had to have around 15 grand of free money just to get everything ready for that first day in the job market.
His deep dive on the man proved that between family and bills, he’d never be able to change jobs again. If he did get fired or “furloughed due to legal investigations,” Jose and his family would be placed in indigent care facilities where 30% become infected or outright die with whatever the disease of the month is. Mack and Lee had a side investigation going on with those facilities since it is almost certainly legal euthanasia and providing the medical community millions of willing guinea pigs who see this as the only way to afford re-entry into working society and higher education. Many prospective students never made it to college for the same reason as they never changed jobs.
That was three points of verification, however, to prove the contact was who he said he was. But does that mean the letter was from the company and not a rival? Since it wasn’t tech, he chose to let Lee play with it first and send it to the analytical and forensic labs. Soon, Humboldt quickly forgot about the call and went back to the net tracking and hacking of the needles.
