Tag: Eli Mallory

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Narrative

Time for a Little Talk

Confrontations were never pleasant, but Lou knew that there were times when they were necessary. Yeah, necessary the way lancing a boil is, which meant the sooner you got them over and done with, the better.

As he’d hoped, Eli had just arrived for work and checked in, but hadn’t opened any files. Which meant it would be much harder to come up with an excuse to brush him off.

“Eli, I need to talk to you.”

Eli looked up at Lou. “What’s it with you? This had better be important.”

Yes, Eli would pull rank, as a clone of one of the Mercury 7 being challenged by one of the third selection group. But Lou knew that he couldn’t let Eli bully him.

“Damned important. I’m sure you’re familiar with the importance of reliable sources of information.”

“Sure, who isn’t? Garbage in, garbage out, and all that.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll appreciate the importance of not deliberately spreading rumors.”

Eli was about to answer with yet another casual affirmative when he stopped and looked Lou over a little more closely. “Just what is this really about? Because no, I don’t believe that you’re just coming by to remind me of what everyone knows. You’ve got a bug up your butt about something, and I want to know what it is.”

“Very simple. You were telling some of the younger kids about something that happened over at Schirrasburg. Something that I know for a fact has not been generally released. If you thought it was funny to frighten the kids with it, I suggest you think again.”

Eli rolled those big blue Shepard eyes. “Really, man. I knew Chaffees were straight-arrows, but you’re taking it to ridiculous levels.”

“You might want to be careful about dismissing criticism too quickly.” Lou leaned forward a little, hoping to secure the advantage. “If this were to come to the attention of more senior personnel, they might not find it as amusing as you do. Especially considering that we are in a state of emergency right now, actions to the detriment of good order could become a very serious charge.”

Eli would try to bluster and dismiss the idea, but Lou was pretty sure that he’d hit the mark. Why else would he be so adamant in trying to blow Lou off, if he didn’t have at least a little of a guilty conscience?

Lou decided it was probably the point at which to leave Eli with his thoughts. Push too hard and you could actually end up diminishing the effectiveness of your words.

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Narrative

At the Highest Level

Reginald Waite read through the proposed news brief a second time, wondering why it was even on his desk at all. He’d pretty much let Shepardsport Pirate Radio operate on its own, and certainly had never attempted to exert any sort of censorship authority over it.

Yes, Autumn had submitted that initial news brief after the Kitty Hawk Massacre to him for review, but it had been as much a courtesy because at the time she was still his guest here, not a permanent part of the community. Once she’d come to him with the idea of establishing a pirate radio station to get the real news out, he’d trusted her judgment as news director and never tried to micromanage her.

On the other hand, most of what she had been covering fell into the category of partisan politics. After he’d run the helmet-cam videos of the Massacre on U-Tube for the world to see, the worst abuses had been reined in.

What Autumn’s news brief described was nothing short of gross malfeasance of duty, being systematically covered up. Unfortunately, it was not hugely surprising — with so many people falling severely ill, it was inevitable that children would be left with no parent at home, and no close relative nearby.

But why did government agencies in several states feel such an intense need to disrupt the informal care arrangements that a lot of these children had worked out with their friends’ families? Legally speaking, they would be on shaky ground, especially if the parents were incapacitated as Dr. Thuc’s sources were indicating, but as long as nothing happened, it made far more sense to leave well enough alone and save state resources for where they were needed most. Certainly a reasonably safe home was preferable to this business of herding all these kids into gymnasiums and classrooms filled with cots, more akin to an emergency hurricane shelter than a foster home.

And to think that it probably would’ve gone unnoticed if Betty Margrave’s niece hadn’t maintained contact with an old friend from Houston. Did someone force that girl to write that stiff, stilted message, or had they simply confiscated her phone and written it for her? However it had come into being, it was so off that it actually managed to be more suspicious than if they’d left well enough alone.

Having someone from IT hacking into state child welfare office computers was irregular. However, given that it was done under the direction of the head of Safety and Security, it wasn’t like the Mallory kid had taken a wild hair to do it on his own.

On the other hand, Eli was a Shep, Betty was married to another Shep, and Autumn was the daughter of a third Shep. This was getting pretty en famiglia here.

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Narrative

Fighting Like Brothers

Spruance Del Curtin didn’t like the feeling of being in over his head. He’d only come down here because Brenda Redmond had asked him to, and he had an obligation to her.

But right now he was feeling very much like a fifth wheel. It wasn’t like he was any great whiz in IT Sure, he’d recognized the signs that most everyone down there was on the wrong track and growing more obsessively persistent about it — but once he’d made the necessary connections with people who would actually listen, he had been pretty much peripheral to the actual process of detecting, identifying and eliminating the malware that had infested the servers that managed Shepardsport’s connections with the outside universe.

And when Brenda had called him, she’d been thinking in terms of sorting out that garbled text Kitty Margrave had received from her friend dirtside. That was a puzzle that might have benefited from his connections with Dr. Doorne, who was an expert in signals processing, among other things.

But now that it had been followed by a very disturbing text that looked as if someone were trying very hard to convince everyone that nothing sinister was going on, he was pretty much surplus. However, until it got time that he actually needed to go somewhere, it would be hard for him to leave without looking like he was abandoning everyone.

However, from what he could hear of Betty Margrave’s conversation with Steffi Roderick down in IT, he might be getting a reprieve really soon. Soon they’d have someone up here who was pretty clearly a specialist in getting into other people’s systems without leaving obvious tracks, getting the information they needed, and getting back out without raising alarms. Then he could quietly excuse himself and head off to something that would nominally be something he was more adept at.

And then the door opened. “Hey, Sprue, what did you do to get sent down here this time?”

Sprue had to look up to see which of his clone-brothers had just arrived and was ribbing him. It would be Eli Mallory.

“So you’re the only hacker Steffi was able to scrounge up?” Not his best comeback, but better than nothing.

Betty Margrave looked up. “That’s enough, guys. If the two of you can’t manage to work together peaceably, figure out which one of you will leave.”

Which was the excuse Sprue needed to finally get out of here. “As it just happens, I need to get going if I’m going to get lunch before my air shift.”

Not as sharp as he would’ve liked it, but at least it got him out of here. Let Eli play hacker today. Sprue had other things to do.