KINDRED - Transmission 03
A momentous revelation precedes an ominous encounter.
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Nik snuck a glance at the time on his smartphone as he breezed past the ranks of desks and cubicles. He strode through the open door of the ‘Fyrepit’—Campfyre jargon for a meeting room—a full forty-three seconds early.
The project team members slouched in the flame-coloured beanbags parked around the meeting table. Empty spaces remained for a few of the usual latecomers. Nik scanned the room.
The habitual over-expensive attire. A refined, well-cultivated arrogance. Most team members exchanged banter. Or complained about being pulled into the office on a Friday.
Mike sat at the front of the room, laptop screen open in front of him—a presentation clicker on the desk.
Nik plonked himself into an empty beanbag. He folded his arms across his chest.
The clock in the corner of the room ticked over. Muttering, Mike noted a couple of names on the well-worn notepad to his left.
“They’re going to be sorry they missed this one.”
His eyes lifted from his computer, and stood up to his imposing height. Then he paused. A slight, but unmistakably self-satisfied grin.
“They’re going under.”
Mike let his words hang in the air. Silence reigned as the listeners exchanged quick glances.
Nik’s heart started thumping in his chest. So it was big—really big.
I better find a way to prove it wasn’t my fault.
“Robinson’s filed for bankruptcy, and the liquidators are being called in as we speak.”
Deadpan. Typical Mike Reynolds. Another three seconds of silence.
A latecomer had managed to slip quietly into the room, but they didn’t escape Mike’s gaze.
“Thanks for joining us—Tim…”
He glanced down and crossed one of the names off his list.
“We’ve got a new mission, and it’s going to be a thorny one.”
Nik saw black. His ears rang. He’d underestimated how much trouble a lie could get him into. But… there was little evidence of Mike’s existential dread from earlier. The project leader had regained his cool.
A tough-guy act—for the benefit of the other consultants?
If that’s it, it’s a good one.
Mike had implied his reputation was going through the wringer as well. But, on reflection, it probably wasn’t. Being a consultant was as much politics and power games as improving the client’s business. He’d spoken about holding all the cards; no doubt he had a few extra aces up his sleeve all along.
Mike’s voice lowered an octave and picked up tempo.
“As we know more than anyone about how this dumpster fire works, we’ve been asked to work closely with the liquidators to ensure that everything from the cutting-edge technology in the innovation centre to this cardboard-cutout table are fairly valued on behalf of the investors.”
Mike struck his palm down hard on the meeting table. The hollow thud startled the latecomer Tim Phelps, a corporate finance analyst and long-time team member.
“Uh, so—what exactly does that mean we’ll be doing?”
“Glad you asked, Tim.”
Mike winked. Someone groaned.
“It’s the job of the liquidators to look at every single thing Campfyre currently owns—both real, like this building, and virtual, like the social network itself, and all the tech behind it. Value it. Then do what they can to repay the hungry debtors and investors.”
Mike paused. Nik glanced around the room. Blank, guarded looks.
“Now I know this is a significant change of role for all of you, but I’m going to be putting each of you in charge of your own business sector, that which I believe fits best with both your experience—”
“What does this mean for our working from home arrangements?”
This from a junior team member. Mike scowled.
“Look, I’ve promised the powers that be that we’ll find a significant amount of extra value here—and we’ll have to—or we won’t be paid anything for this work. We’ve made a commitment to get meaningful results, and to limit the damage to our client—that’s going to demand a special effort from all of you.”
Mike let the last few words hang in the air a moment. Then he flashed a smile.
“In any case, I have full confidence in you all!”
Mike’s smile faded as he retook his seat—fiddling with his laptop.
Nik hadn’t moved a muscle through Mike’s whole speech. Now he shuddered.
All is most certainly not what it seems.
A muted whirring from above—the video projector warmed up. Mike stood again. Picked up the slide clicker.
“Right. I’ve been looking at our approach, and I’ve knocked together a couple of slides. This is by no means the finished product, but...”
Mike narrated as the slides flashed on the projector screen. Nik zoned out. The usual formulaic corporate hogwash. Then a slide listing roles and responsibilities. He found his name toward the bottom. To the right of it was ‘Business Sector – Innovation Centre.’ There was another name allocated to the Innovation Centre as well—Tim Phelps.
Nik breathed an inward sigh of relief—Good.
It could have been anyone else.
The rest of the slides were vague. Apparently they’d all be off the project within a month. And the Campfyre employees would be gone within a week.
That’s if it doesn’t all unravel quicker than that...
Mike wrapped up and stood silent in front of the room. Someone coughed. A moment later one of the consultants stood, and made towards the exit. Nik stood in tandem with the others and made his way out into the open-plan area. He was heading over to his desk when Mike came to the door of the meeting room.
“Tim, mate; can you come back for a second? I’ve got something you… might be able to help me with.”
Tim exchanged a quick glance with Nik, then turned and headed back to the meeting room; disappearing inside behind Mike.
Nik paused.
Would Mike ask Tim to check out the Campfyre ad yield figures? Of course, it made sense, given his colleague’s experience. If so, it was a spot of good luck. He got on well with Tim.
I’ll have a chat with him before we head off this afternoon.
Nik’s brow creased, and he shuffled forward again in the direction of his desk.
As he turned the corner of an office partition screen, he ran headlong into a tall, well-built, black-suited man. The man jumped back, his face taut. A mixture of anxiety—and guilt.
Nik didn’t recognise him. He looked out of place. Lost.
Nik narrowed his eyes and studied the man for a moment.
Security? For the liquidators?
Nik lifted his hands up as an awkward form of apology.
“Sorry, I was just...”
The man didn’t react—he didn’t seem to have heard. Instead, he bent down to pick something up that he had dropped when they collided. Something small and black—no, dark grey. The man straightened, his open palm was out in front of him. A small metallic cylinder, roughly the size of a thick marker pen. The orange and gold Campfyre flame logo. It looked expensive.
Nik stood in front of the man. Scrutinised his stiff, erratic movements.
A shiver ran up his spine.
The man ignored Nik, slipped the small device into a hip pocket. He examined a sheet of paper that he held in his other hand. After consulting the paper, the man looked back up and for the first time into Nik’s eyes. His mouth stretched out thin—not quite a smile.
Half a moment later, he skirted around Nik and slipped behind the partition screen.
Nik stood rigid for a moment or two. That man did not belong there.
But somehow I know I’ll be seeing him again.
Nik shook his head and made his way back towards his desk and, with any luck, the weekend.
* * *
The black-suited man rounded the corner and slid down a parting through the sea of desks. He was heading for a corner of the building that was far away from the team of consultants and the bewildered Campfyre employees. The sheet of paper in his hand gave him exact directions and he followed every instruction to the letter. His free hand fondled the small titanium cryptographic device in his pocket, the embossed flame logo glossy under his fingertips.
He reached a solid-looking door with an orange and gold sign:
Restricted zone - For executive use only.
He tapped a five-digit code from the printout in his hand into a keypad next to the handle. The door buzzed, he opened it and passed into a small walled-off office. The lights flickered on, but his hand darted to the switch next to the door, and the room stayed dark. He sat down on a high-backed leather office chair in front of a wide desk with a duo of computer monitors at its centre.
Taking the device out of his pocket, he moved the computer’s mouse to wake the terminal. The man paused a moment, then typed in a username and password—direct from his printout.
He inserted the device into a port on the front of the terminal box. An icon appeared on the desktop.
He clicked, and the screen displayed the contents of the flash drive—one single file: “Kindred automated deployment.bin”
The man paused for a moment, then double-clicked to open up the file. The screen displayed a message box:
Deployment only possible from secure Campfyre network.
KIN is powerful and potentially very dangerous. Only authorised members of project Kindred are to proceed.
Alan Maddox
[OK] [Cancel]
The man skimmed the notice before clicking “OK”. A faint whirring noise. A slow moving progress bar.
Then a new message.
Source KINv1.84 merged with core
Compiler report: 5 warnings, 0 errors
Package Verified Operational.
Cryptographic link established.
24-hour cryptographic key rotation activated—rotation time: 12:00 GMT.
Sysadmin access required for all changes to parameterisation.
Please enter command: _
His hands hovering over the keyboard, the man caught his reflection in the second of the two computer screens. His face was lit from below by the soft, blue glow of the first screen. His teeth showed. The corners of his mouth turned upwards.
He found himself smiling.
For the first time in years.
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