Jaggard stood up as the doors to the control room slid smoothly open. A pudgy, grey-haired man in a dark blue suit entered, escorted by security. The face did not match the hair. He looked no older than thirty-five, and was either prematurely grey, or very young-faced for his actual age.
Jaggard crossed to the door and shook the man’s hand, before addressing the room.
“Listen up. This is Bill Gasgoine, the new Oversight Committee representative,” Jaggard said.
Most of the shift stopped work, and a few stood up, as a way of greeting the man.
As the replacement for Swamp Witch, it wouldn’t be long before he had a nickname of his own, Jaggard thought. And with a surname like Gasgoine, he rather suspected it would be something like Swamp Gas.
“Situation report?” Gasgoine asked.
Jaggard turned to Socks, as he was the ranking officer with both Dodge and Vienna offline.
Offline. Why had he chosen that word, Jaggard half-wondered as Socks began to speak.
“The attack occurred seven days ago and lasted for twenty-four hours,” Socks said. “The virus simply reversed itself. It was a crypto-virus and–”
“I got the etymology report,” Gasgoine interrupted. “That’s not why I’m here. The committee wants to know about the social effects.”
“Yes, sir,” Socks said. “Please sit down and connect, I’ll feed you some images.”
Jaggard found Gasgoine a chair and a neuro-set, and one for himself, then shut his eyes to receive the images.
“It began with the CNN bulletin,” Socks said, relaying a clip from the bulletin. “The traitors hacked into the teleprompter system and inserted a fake story about a neuro-virus.”
“Why would they do that?” Gasgoine asked.
“Our best guess is that they wanted to panic people,” Jaggard said. “At this stage it is not clear why.”
Socks continued, “Whatever their reasons, it worked. When systems came back online a lot of neuro-users refused to reconnect.”
“Paranoia is a powerful thing,” Jaggard said.
“A lot of people were just being cautious,” Socks said. “But since then neuro-usage has been climbing steadily. Currently, we’re sitting around one seventy per cent. Or nearly double the number of users prior to the attack.”
Gasgoine was quiet for a moment, making some mental notes, Jaggard thought, which would be immediately filed back to the Oversight Committee.
“So what is this talk about ‘resistance’?” Gasgoine asked.
Jaggard hesitated. “There is a segment of the population who still believe that there is a neuro-virus,” he said. “That the people who are connected are infected. There are a number of groups forming all over the country to protest against neuro-technology.”
“How do we convince them that it’s safe?” Gasgoine asked.
“The only way to prove there is no danger is to neuro-connect them,” Socks said.
“Of course they will think we are just trying to infect them,” Jaggard said.
Gasgoine managed a tight-lipped smile.
“The biggest problem is in the Midwest,” Socks said, feeding a map of the USA into the neuro-sets, “where the take-up of neuro-technology was slow in the first place. A lot of neuro-phobic people have been heading there. Neuro-connections are banned outright in Colorado, Kansas and Iowa.”
“There have already been a number of clashes between the neuro-phobes and neuro-users,” Jaggard said. “We’ve kept that out of the news to avoid instigating more of it. But some of the clashes have turned violent. We’ve mobilised the National Guard in seven states now to keep a lid on things.”
“And your three missing agents? The traitors?”
“Nothing yet,” Socks said. “But this is America. There are cameras everywhere. There is twenty-four-hour satellite coverage of the entire country. There are cell phone cameras and webcams. If any of them use a telephone, we’ll get an alert off the voice print.”
“What if they’re not in America?” Gasgoine asked.
“They didn’t have time to get out of the country,” Jaggard said. “They’re here somewhere.”
“It’s just a game of hide-and-seek,” Socks said. “But we’ll find them. Sooner or later.”