finger had been pricked like that.
"Yes, sir. If you have a seat over there, I'll have your ID and phone for you in just a moment." She pointed to a small couch and Laurence sat down. It didn't take long, however. She already had most of the paperwork completed before he arrived. She waved to him and he went back to the counter and retrieved his phone and badge. It was time to get to work.
Bill was waiting for him as he walked back into the cubicle area. "Here, you can use this workstation. Your phone has a VPN connection to this workstation too."
Laurence sat down and pulled up the latest records of the hacks and the evidentiary files and logs. "This will work fine."
"Good. We're a team so if you need anything, just let me know." Bill patted him on the shoulder, then went off to another meeting on yet another crisis. Laurence didn't envy him his job. He dug into the records they had of the hacks and started digging into history of each file and compiling a list of file types and locations.
At the end of the day, Laurence packed up what he was allowed to take with him and headed out. Bill waved at him as he walked by his cubicle. Laurence smiled and waved back. As he walked to his car, Laurence looked at his new badge and phone. The phone was fully encrypted and already had a direct link to his handler, but Laurence suspected it also was recording sound all the time too, keeping a close eye on anything he did. Not that it was unusual to him. He found the setting unobtrusively tucked away in the configuration application but left it as is. Before getting into his car he pulled out a small device and walked around the car while looking at it. No red light, which meant the car was not bugged. Laurence found that strange and he adjusted his scanner. Ah, there it is, he thought to himself, good. It was expected, a routine procedure he experienced when working for the three previous agencies he had inserted himself into on this mission. Once he got into his car, he looked at his GPS unit and turned it on. "Seattle, Washington." He waited for the GPS to display a route. "Downyville, California." The GPS reset its route. He smiled and turned on his car. The GPS combination he entered in was preplanned. It sent out an encrypted code to his real boss who was waiting for a status update. The message was short. He was in.
The years seemed to fly by as Steven continued his search and spent all of his free time in the meadow with Asherah. She was no slouch when it came to technical stuff and she even helped him refine his search for his parents greatly. While he was producing no results that were solidly conclusive yet, thanks to her he could more efficiently cull databases that have no value to him, making the search more focused.
In all that time Steven had never given much thought to the stability of the seasons in his meadow. It was consistently tropical year round. He would arrive bundled up for winter, only to have to strip down to shorts and a t-shirt when he got there. Asherah always wore her basic but ornately decorated tube top and climbing shorts. Much more than that would result in heat exhaustion in the heavy tropical air. The rains also came frequently, even from a Washington perspective. Often he would find himself scrambling to cover his books and drawings as a single cloud would drift overhead and dump buckets of rain on him. It rained every day there so he had gotten used to that. His godparents would often raise an eyebrow at some of the moist textbooks he'd bring back. His excuse was easy, however. It was Washington after all.
One thing he did find most disconcerting was that the days weren't synchronized. Steven expected noon in Washington to be noon in his meadow, but that often wasn't the case. They were close, but for a time he would be visiting in their afternoon when it was morning to him. He had long ago given up trying to figure that out, however, and now it was just par for the course. He was
"Yes, sir. If you have a seat over there, I'll have your ID and phone for you in just a moment." She pointed to a small couch and Laurence sat down. It didn't take long, however. She already had most of the paperwork completed before he arrived. She waved to him and he went back to the counter and retrieved his phone and badge. It was time to get to work.
Bill was waiting for him as he walked back into the cubicle area. "Here, you can use this workstation. Your phone has a VPN connection to this workstation too."
Laurence sat down and pulled up the latest records of the hacks and the evidentiary files and logs. "This will work fine."
"Good. We're a team so if you need anything, just let me know." Bill patted him on the shoulder, then went off to another meeting on yet another crisis. Laurence didn't envy him his job. He dug into the records they had of the hacks and started digging into history of each file and compiling a list of file types and locations.
At the end of the day, Laurence packed up what he was allowed to take with him and headed out. Bill waved at him as he walked by his cubicle. Laurence smiled and waved back. As he walked to his car, Laurence looked at his new badge and phone. The phone was fully encrypted and already had a direct link to his handler, but Laurence suspected it also was recording sound all the time too, keeping a close eye on anything he did. Not that it was unusual to him. He found the setting unobtrusively tucked away in the configuration application but left it as is. Before getting into his car he pulled out a small device and walked around the car while looking at it. No red light, which meant the car was not bugged. Laurence found that strange and he adjusted his scanner. Ah, there it is, he thought to himself, good. It was expected, a routine procedure he experienced when working for the three previous agencies he had inserted himself into on this mission. Once he got into his car, he looked at his GPS unit and turned it on. "Seattle, Washington." He waited for the GPS to display a route. "Downyville, California." The GPS reset its route. He smiled and turned on his car. The GPS combination he entered in was preplanned. It sent out an encrypted code to his real boss who was waiting for a status update. The message was short. He was in.
The years seemed to fly by as Steven continued his search and spent all of his free time in the meadow with Asherah. She was no slouch when it came to technical stuff and she even helped him refine his search for his parents greatly. While he was producing no results that were solidly conclusive yet, thanks to her he could more efficiently cull databases that have no value to him, making the search more focused.
In all that time Steven had never given much thought to the stability of the seasons in his meadow. It was consistently tropical year round. He would arrive bundled up for winter, only to have to strip down to shorts and a t-shirt when he got there. Asherah always wore her basic but ornately decorated tube top and climbing shorts. Much more than that would result in heat exhaustion in the heavy tropical air. The rains also came frequently, even from a Washington perspective. Often he would find himself scrambling to cover his books and drawings as a single cloud would drift overhead and dump buckets of rain on him. It rained every day there so he had gotten used to that. His godparents would often raise an eyebrow at some of the moist textbooks he'd bring back. His excuse was easy, however. It was Washington after all.
One thing he did find most disconcerting was that the days weren't synchronized. Steven expected noon in Washington to be noon in his meadow, but that often wasn't the case. They were close, but for a time he would be visiting in their afternoon when it was morning to him. He had long ago given up trying to figure that out, however, and now it was just par for the course. He was
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