Mahanth S. Joishy is Editor of usindiamonitor

As some of you know, I entered the following draft first chapter (since lightly edited) of a much longer work into the Katha Fiction Contest 2017 run by India Currents with the Wellstone Center – and got second place.   The novel manuscript is inching forward. I have been working like heck to have the completed novel published… expected in early 2027.  Please stay tuned for order information!

***

Chapter 1: Subterfuge in The Septagon (BAY AREA)

The message appeared suddenly on my smartwatch in the coldly efficient time and space saving digital shorthand format developed by The Septagon’s in-house AI, which auto-generates certain internal comms and instantly pings them to the appropriate agency devices and weapons anywhere in the world.  This particular little string of characters customized just for me stated:

“[0837 Hours] 3/17/2030; B. JOSHI: STOP actvty + rprt {7FL.conf/rm}; NOW_NOW!”  

The weird language structure seems unnecessary or even silly at first, but people quickly get used to it because the AI generated comms are always short, sweet, and crystal clear without fail.  I easily understood the urgent command to drop whatever I was doing and head straight up to the top floor of The Septagon for dear life.  Everyone knew that receiving an unscheduled summons to the 7th floor only meant one thing: a major crisis was popping off somewhere on this earth or in outer space that required swift action to be personally directed by none other than United States Cyber Force (USCF) General Nirupama Sushila Patel, better known as General Nero, herself.  In other words: big trouble, get your ass up here. 

The directive shocked me momentarily and a chill crawled down my spine.. 

Never before had I received a call to join an emergency meeting, or any communication involving the big, big boss at all for that matter.  In fact nobody in my unit had seen the secretive 7th floor during my two years with USCF.  And I had no idea why my particular name was up this time; I hadn’t even really met our leader USCF General Nirupama “Nero” Patel yet, only seeing her speak a few times from a distance during addresses she made to large groups of staff in the USCF auditorium.  I was just a low-level USCF grunt with layers of military bureaucracy between me and her.  The 7th floor housed the legendary General Nero’s office suites, and was almost exclusively reserved for senior officers of the corps and visiting VIPs from the White House or other US military branches.

But today I was being told to join that exclusive club unexpectedly.  Some adrenaline kicked in to displace my initial disbelief.  There they were, the letters, numbers, punctuation and symbols of the abrupt message continuing to flash in bright red on my USCF-issue smartwatch programmed to vibrate and beep annoyingly at the same time for this emergency.  Until my device geolocated to the 7th floor conference room it would not be satiated.  All its applications completely frozen, my smartwatch was now just a pricey alarm clock that would do nothing else but flash, beep, and vibrate.  Time to move.  

I jumped up off my chair and swiveled my head around to conduct a quick scan beyond my cubicle walls of the larger bullpen I worked in, looking around at the other members of my unit.  I was part of a motley crew of three dozen cyber warriors scattered loosely around a cutting-edge lab full of large cubicles where we worked our magic, focusing our energies on Asia.  There was plenty of world-class talent of many stripes present.  Would stand to reason that the crisis in question was unfolding on that continent.  Apparently nobody else in my unit except me got the call though, which felt odd.  The lab had gone quiet except for my watch, which continued shrieking and sucked the oxygen out of the room.  My teammates silently peered back at me with a mix of curiosity and concern as they double-checked their own wrists and got nothing back.

So why me?  For a split second I wondered whether the message was sent to my inbox in error when it appeared, but the AI algorithms never made mistakes at this level and my career prospects depended on my obeying the order dutifully instead of pausing to ponder it.  Still I felt fear and anxiety as I ran down the hall to the elevator bank that would get me to the top floor of the building from my usual perch on the second floor.  Buckle up, big boy, I told myself while peering at my reflection in the mirror inside the elevator and smoothing out my medium-length silky black hair with my fingers during the quick ride up.  Whatever hellscape awaited upstairs, I lied to myself that I could handle it.

“Top floor” sounds oddly misleading when you work in a fortified bunker somewhere deep underground beneath Silicon Valley. Even those of us who work down there have no idea exactly where the subterranean bunker is.  America’s youngest military branch quietly toils away beneath the feet of Northern Californians and visitors, largely unbeknownst to them and unobtrusive to the physical surroundings at ground level. Not only are The Septagon’s coordinates classified, it takes a high-speed, 30 second hyperloop ride through a twisting tunnel that goes down, but not straight down in a line, to reach the gargantuan structure- the largest underground construct ever built by man in the world.  Very much by design every one of us select few authorized riders are utterly disoriented every time we journey up and down that winding, zig-zagging tunnel.  Someone unofficially dubbed this bizarre tunnel “The Wormhole” and this insider nickname stuck.  My best guess is that the roof of The Septagon is around one entire mile below ground level.  To this day it’s proven futile for humans or AI algorithms, ranging from innocently curious USCF SubReddit fanboys to various enemies of the state both domestic and foreign, to even attempt to guess where one could happen upon The Septagon without authorized access into The Wormhole.  The thick steel-reinforced concrete outer walls are practically impregnable to bad actors and earthquakes alike, and beyond those walls the bunker is protected by a network of highly sensitive digital seismic signal scramblers rammed deep into the surrounding dirt that persistently ensure nobody can use any form of geologic survey tools or surveillance technology known to mankind from ground level, underground, on or under the Pacific Ocean, in airspace or outer space to precisely locate my workplace.  In the unlikely event the coordinates were ever found, no weapons in existence could damage The Septagon unless someone managed to haul munitions through the layers of security before, after, and through The Wormhole, and that just ain’t happening.  That’s what hundreds of explosive, chemical, biological, and fissile material sensors are for.  Plus no earthling or AI entity was capable of getting the drop on us at the cyber level.

 The only way into USCF global headquarters, aka, The Septagon is through one of seven heavily guarded ground level hyperloop entrances that are the only portals into The Wormhole. Each entrance is embedded within secret USCF satellite bases widely scattered around the Bay Area, outwardly masked as workaday corporate office parks and equipped with the most cutting-edge facial and body recognition scanners.  The entire $79 billion subterranean system encompassing the bunker and the tunnels constantly feeding America’s lead cyber warriors in and out of it was designed and built by a team of free-thinking autonomous construction robots and 3D printers that were meticulously wiped of all data, every ounce of hardware then decommissioned for scrap recycling before The Septagon’s small ribbon cutting ceremony in early 2028.  I monitor several credible Russian spy-hunter social media feeds and blogs that somehow conjecture that the base lies directly beneath the Shoreline Golf Links in San Francisco.  I don’t know, Comrades, your guess is as good as mine; just you try digging around those putting greens and if you find someone or something blows your head off, there’s a good chance you’re right. 

It bordered on the obsessive how Uncle Sam seemed to be into the number seven those days.  The USCF was designed in 2027 before being inaugurated in 2028.  Christened The Septagon was the massive bunker so named for its seven walls and a clever play on the motherboard in Northern Virginia, the Pentagon.  So far only seven living people ringed by substantial security layers, including the sitting US President, Secretary of Defense, and USCF General know exactly where the United States Cyber Force Headquarters is; the executive suites are on the seventh floor as I mentioned. An obvious theory is that the number 7 was used purposely and repeatedly because Uncle Sam’s luck had been running real, real low in the years leading up to The Septagon being opened for business, and a bit of superstition or maybe humor was in order according to the powers that be in Washington, DC. 

*** 

When my smartwatch squawked I had been knee deep in diligently probing North Korean air force base and missile defense system software in close coordination with the Mossad’s Cyber Cell for several months.  This type of work was not only important, but also fun, and I was damn good at what I did.  I was having a great time plugging away as me and my Israeli counterparts in Tel Aviv, who I only ever met online, were making serious hay. The prospect of that project remaining on my plate was now unclear depending on what waited upstairs.

The elevator door opened, and I collected myself for the most important meeting of my career.  For the first time I walked past the dozen heavily armed black carbon fiber humanoid robot sentries lined up along a wall of the 7th floor lobby, the elite killer droids standing guard 24/7 on behalf of the most valuable floor space, the main servers, and most critical personnel in The Septagon.  The imposing lethal machines dutifully scanned and validated my face and body, and the 8 foot tall droids calculated that I was authorized to enter, so I could walk by without having to stop, or get pulverized into a red stain on the floor by their laser guns.  That was a relief, however irrational.  These things made no mistakes.  My safe passage was the final signal that I really belonged where I was going. 

I entered the fancy oak-paneled main executive conference room with massive floor to ceiling digital screens on one side and large hanging hologram projectors pointing down from overhead, with genuinely no inkling what was in store.  Until that moment I had strictly worked behind the scenes: deep underground in my 2nd floor laboratory, hacking my way into spying on, stealing, or breaking digital stuff around the world from a safe and anonymous perch.  I really liked my life that way, buried in The Septagon by day quietly racking up wins for America at minimal risk to my physical person inside the safe and comforting confines among other grunts inside the USCF headquarters.  But nobody outside USCF was allowed to know what I specifically did at work all day, which was highly classified.  Till that morning I wasn’t sure if the USCF brass even knew I existed, as literally hundreds of important cyberwarfare operations were underway from within The Septagon at any given moment, conducted by over 3,500 souls who reported to this single facility and another 2,500 USCF personnel on active duty across the country and abroad, deployed on assignments that involved physical access in the field. 

Again this was my first “NOW_NOW!” and we were about to find out why it made its way to me.

Here I was, an Indian-American, a fresh-faced USCF geek, 27 years old, just two years removed from USCF basic training, attending my first seventh floor meeting with seemingly the entire USCF senior staff assembled. I didn’t even know what the 7th floor looked like until I was up in it IRL.  My commanding officer had never been up here, and he wasn’t invited. Weird. 

I noticed a beautiful, exotic stranger that seemed out of place as I found the space where my name shone in caps on a digital placard toward the middle of the giant executive conference room table.  The sight of her threw me off my game another notch, if that were possible as I sat in my assigned chair.  Two seats away from me sat a strikingly beautiful and unusually tall Indian woman with sharp features, jet black hair tied into a tight ponytail, a form-fitting light gray business suit, and that caramel tone I tend to like on both my candy and on my women. A bright and shiny tricolor Indian flag lapel pin on her jacket identified her as a foreign government agent hailing from the land of my ancestors.  The seat between us sat empty so I took a gander.  At first glance she looked to be about six feet tall and physically fit.  That’s a height almost unheard of in the ranks of full-blooded Indian-origin females as you might know from your own experience. And a bit above my 5’5.”  Already being nervous, this stranger I instantly calculated to be way out of my league when it came to the realm of mating games, unsettled me further.  I chose to mind my own business, stare at the ceiling, try and slow my breathing, keep my heart rate down, and pretend not to notice her as the group settled in around the table and we all waited for General Nero to arrive and start the meeting. 

She broke the ice first, and there went my meticulous plan to sit silently till the meeting commenced.  “Hi, I’m Manisha,” she said with a sultry Indian accent.  Her voice was outlandishly sexy.  I looked over out of polite necessity to make sure who she was speaking to.  She was looking right at me with her hand extended in my direction.  There was nobody else within several feet around us.  No choice but to engage.

Stay calm, dude. COMPUTE?

“How you doing, I’m B-Bart,” I replied with a dopey grin, accepting her right hand that was noticeably larger than mine. And stronger.  Instantly her hand enveloped mine with an unexpected show of force.  Man, that was a strong grip. In fact this almost wasn’t a handshake, her hand just easily swallowed mine in a vice.  I did my best to convey firm and manly pressure back in return, but her hand dominated mine.  I was still trying to process her presence in this exclusive place when she let go, thankfully.  What was this gorgeous tall foreign national thing with that huge robust hand doing with us deep underground in The Septagon today?  That too in the most VIP conference room in the entire tightly secured enterprise during an unfolding global crisis?  There was no doubt from the next few moments onward all information we were about to learn would be top secret, and I had been under the impression foreigners were never even allowed through The Wormhole.  It was certainly the first time I ran into one down there in my time.

“You’re… Indian, no?” Manisha asked after a pause, doing that Indian head shake thing where you can’t tell if it’s a yes or a no, approving or disapproving. A no head shake or at the end of a sentence with Indians can be a yes, as in, she was probably saying and gesturing at me, “You’re Indian, right?” 

“Well, yes, I’m actually Indian-American, born in C-California. Real name my p-parents gave me is Bh-Bharat,” I stammered involuntarily and to my chagrin, guessing correctly that the name Bart from a Hindu-looking guy threw her off.  Either that or she was wondering if I was named after Bay Area Rapid Transit, and would stammer that out next because talking to attractive women reduced me to pathetic mush?   

“Oh- I get it!  Bharat is such a nice name.  Why don’t you use it, man? You’re named after the brother of Lord Ram, and the great nation of India itself, where I’m guessing your family is originally from.”

I lowered my voice so only Manisha could hear, my confidence rising back after sensing her seeming interest in brownskin bonding with me some more as we waited for business to start. 

“Yeah, I know, I know.  My family and relatives always call me Bharat, but Bart is easier for all these gringos around here to pronounce and remember.” I raised my eyebrows and bobbed my head around at my mostly corn fed USCF superiors assembled patiently, occupied in their own light banter.

“I get it.  Very nice to meet you Bharat. Sorry, I can’t help calling you that way.  I’m here representing India on the new inter-agency task force,” she informed me.

Wait, what?  There’s a new task force between the United States and India?  And this Indian chick knows about it before I do? 

This was a very big deal and obviously tied into whatever crisis brought us to the room.  Before I could ask her for details the conversation had to be cut short.

General Nero hurriedly walked in through the door from her office, and everybody shut up and stood at attention in unison as she approached her spot at the head of the table, her normally stoic looking face betraying deep concern.  She waved us to sit back down.  There were now twenty-four people in the room, including the general, her three lieutenant generals, and all the rest of the top brass, along with Manisha and I.  There were absolutely no other low-level or even mid-level drones like me I could discern from quick scans around the table. I had no idea about Manisha’s rank or government branch back in India and didn’t get the chance to ask.  No doubt this was an important figure who had just glad-handed me.  But I figured General Nero would clarify things, including what the heck I was doing up there myself.

The general began to speak immediately in her infamous rapid-fire, no-nonsense tone. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, I know you’re dying to know why we’re here.  We’ve got absolutely zero time to waste this morning so I’ll get right to the damn point.  The world just changed.  Quite possibly there’s no turning back.  But before diving into that, first please join me in warmly welcoming Agent Manisha Gayatri from India here today, an ally in our time of need,” she began, now looking toward Manisha, whose presence in our midst most of the others must have been wondering about like me.  “Agent Gayatri is on urgent special assignment with us from the India Cyber Army for a new detail we are going to form.  She is in town on extremely short notice because she is one of India’s top agents, and was sent to us personally by my counterpart and old friend, India Cyber Army Director Sri Senthil Ramakrishnan himself.  Agent Gayatri graduated first in her class at the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, and was ranked #1 in the inaugural India Cyber Army recruitment class as well.” 

Whoa. Highly impressive resume. IIT and the ICA are both considered top-notch by reputation globally these days. I ranked nowhere near the top of my own USCF class (insert sheepish face emoticon here) or my Georgetown University undergraduate School of Foreign Service class either. I’ll admit I was too busy socializing with other students or recruits, while playing and designing video games with most of my spare time instead of studying hard enough to earn top honors. Please don’t judge.  Yes, video games are a major hobby of mine. I managed to get by despite low effort with my brute intelligence and comprehension of new concepts in lessons about science and technology.  At least that’s what I like to think.  Somehow though, here I was at this eventful juncture, about to get into the thick of it just the same as an all-star achiever like Manisha.

General Nero quickly explained the purpose for the sudden meeting for an eager audience dying with curiosity and anxiety. “Now every one of you, listen to me very closely.  The news is extremely bad, I’m afraid. Real bad.  At approximately 0200 hours this morning Indian Standard Time, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army mysteriously and successfully hacked into and powered down every damn system of the entire US Navy Indo-Pacific Fleet carrier group on routine patrol in the Indian Ocean…the USS Barack Obama carrier group.”  

I gasped, and I wasn’t alone.  

“Categorically, every last Navy vessel’s power, comms, GPS satellite feeds, computing, weapons systems, radar, sonar, lasers, lights, ability to deploy jets and drones, navigation, HVAC, everything went down, including all of the backup and backups to the backup.  Every single offensive and defensive system went completely dark. The vessels could not even steer for a while.”   

Jaws dropped, including mine.  Wait, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot did she just say? 

The General continued after dramatically pounding the table with a fist, no doubt to keep our attention and focus in the face of this devastating new information and a bunch of people suddenly murmuring in alarm.  “We’re highly grateful to the Indian Navy for rapidly deploying to the sector at that odd hour with nearby assets and helping secure our US Navy colleagues during this episode while American sailors worked hard to get back up and running- which regrettably took almost ninety whole minutes.  Thankfully there were no casualties, damage, or further incidents reported.  Except for wounded pride, everyone onboard is OK.  The Pentagon assessment is that the Chinese seemed to conduct this as a probe of US Navy defenses rather than an attempt to consummate a kill chain against any part of their flotilla.  The PLA asset or assets were gone from the vicinity before the ship commanders even knew what hit them.  The maneuver was like a passing ghost, probably underwater, somehow undetected by the carrier group’s escort submarine.  I don’t have to tell you, this was unbelievably ballsy.” 

Some excited muttering and a few muffled snickers emerged around the room with that latest nugget of information.  This was really not good, definitely not cool, and it was a deadly serious incident that represented a recklessly dangerous international escalation by China in an already tense neighborhood.  But we also found it a bit amusing once she informed us nobody got physically hurt, no US hulls were damaged- and importantly to us, it was the Navy’s stuff that got penetrated, not any of ours. 

However, regardless of which US military branch was breached, the event marked an unprecedented show of strength and escalation at a scale nobody had been able to manage against the US military before- and none of us, even the USCF pros who track China’s hacking capabilities for a living, saw this coming.  What China had just pulled off was a very big deal.  It had their fingerprints all over it, and we all knew no other country or entity was remotely capable of such an elaborate hack except them.

There were no shots fired.  This was a different sort of attack, more like a probe, but highly dangerous nonetheless.  Not sinking US Navy warships in a live-fire real world game of Battleship but instead hacking into them to render them useless for precious minutes and hours.  Executing this brazen operation and getting away safely must have taken years of planning and preparation.  Wow.  Even USCF had never tried to do that to a rival country’s carrier group and I for one wasn’t sure we even could.  And if we could, that we’d want to.  It was a dangerous game to play, if counting the odds of exiting the scene without the outbreak of hostilities and loss of life.  General Nero confirmed that in the entire annals of cyberwarfare this had never been done to any known American naval asset by any adversary before.  I began musing on the historic nature of this day.  It wasn’t too soon to imagine the amused chatter that would inevitably ensue around the USCF water coolers and cafeterias throughout the day as the news coursed like wildfire around the building about our friendly rival military branch’s foibles. “Ah, the fucking Navy! Damn seamen let an entire carrier group from its most prized fleet in the world go dark over basic sixth-grade malicious code. That’s some serious technical incompetence.  Damn seamen should have had a few of us Cyber Force boys and girls on board over there, and China woulda had their asses bleeding all over the Indian Ocean just for trying!” 

It got worse.  As per General Nero various parts of the U.S. national security establishment were right then, as we sat there, scrambling for dear life to come up with a coherent, credible narrative for journalists and the public before the flood of leaks began to pour into the open source domain.  She typed several commands into her smartwatch as she spoke, and the giant floor to ceiling HD flat screens on the wall of the conference room flickered to life.  

Unfortunately, in a truly bizarre comedy of errors, several US sailors discovered that some excitable Sri Lankan civilian fishermen happened to sail into that very specific area of the massive Indian Ocean right during the random 90-minute window when the US Navy systems were shut off.  The Sri Lankans quickly recognized the unusual nature of what they had stumbled across and started a giant global Tweetstorm replete with videos and commentary in Tamil…depicting six powerful US warships and a giant Ohio-class nuclear submarine floating listlessly on the water like sitting ducks without even their lights working before dawn local time. So the cheapest boats in the world had managed to train an unwanted cell phone spotlight on the most expensive boats in the world purely by catastrophic luck and timing.  We all knew there was no way for the United States to stanch the gusher of information suddenly racing around the globe in real time.  All that was left to do was spin, deny, repeat, and pray for another news cycle from the White House on down.  We watched the screens in despair as the horrifying scene suddenly unfolded before our eyes on social media channels and global 24/7 network news stations in various languages, in real time.  The footage had gone viral at blazing speeds.  Upon seeing these visuals it instantly dawned on me that I would momentarily be sucked directly into the spiraling vortex of this disaster born on an ocean halfway across the world, somehow, someway.

General Nero continued after a long pause to let us soak in the extremely bad news playing on our screens.  “This trash has only been up for a few minutes now, but we knew it was only going to be a matter of time.  The Sri Lankan fishermen being poor and sailing on ramshackle vessels must not have had decent device connectivity while out at sea to post on social media or message others immediately after they filmed.  That’s why I’m the one telling you what happened.  They probably hooked back up again after docking on land some hours after filming the USS Barack Obama carrier group.  What you are seeing on the screens is unfurling in real time, right now.”   

In the next moment General Nero noticeably switched tones from stressed, to defiant, brow duly furrowed.  “Fine.  It’s no doubt party time for our rivals in Beijing and elsewhere.  Well, dammit, not for long!  I repeat, not for long, people!  I just got off an emergency video conference with President Hubble in the White House situation room, Indian Prime Minister Raj who has convened his security council in New Delhi, and my boss, the Secretary of Defense, who is about to land in New Delhi for talks with counterparts at the Ministry of Defense as we speak. As of five minutes ago President Hubble signed a clandestine national security declaration calling this an act of official cyberwar by a foreign nation-state against the United States of America, and has ordered us to retaliate ASAP. 

“As per strict protocols in place exactly for this sort of scenario, there will be zero public hint of retaliation or recognition of a cyber attack.  The US government shall not acknowledge on the record who was behind the hack, nor confirm that it even happened.  That includes all of us.  The incident is officially being dubbed a pre-planned US Navy training drill, the nature of which will remain classified as the story goes.  The Indian government will publicly remain silent, but their leadership indicated in no uncertain terms on the videocon they are beyond enraged that China just took a giant piss in their own backyard swimming pool, against a treaty ally, and for the first time ever, invoked Article 108 to provide substantial mutual defense resources to the United States effective immediately.  We informed Taiwan but will need to keep them quiet too because- get this-  we have fresh raw intel pouring in that the probe of our forces by China was actually the final prelude to a Taiwan invasion!”

Gulp!  The long-anticipated and feared Taiwan invasion by China? The big one the world has been on hair-trigger alert over for more than a decade now?  The collective stress level in the room just skyrocketed and any sense of mirth had vanished.  This was not funny in the least anymore.

“Now you all know why ICA Agent Gayatri dropped everything and was rushed here from New Delhi this morning.  We thank you for that.  This is not a drill!  Our number is up today, boys and girls.  This is what we are here for, and what we all trained so hard for.  The United States Cyber Force is unambiguously set up by law as the lead military branch to retaliate against foreign hackers, big or small, with overwhelming and disproportionate force.  So that’s what we are going to do.  Now it’s time for a counteroffensive operation they will never, ever forget.  The mother of all hacks on those motherfuckers is what I am asking for right now!  And stopping their possible invasion in its tracks!  Who’s with me?!”

Everyone in the room stood up and clapped enthusiastically- although we barely understood what it was we were cheering for exactly.  

CHAPTER 2: Operation EaglePeacock

General Nero continued briefing the rapt audience assembled in the underground bunker known as The Septagon for the most important meeting ever convened in the short history of America’s youngest military branch, the United States Cyber Force.  Our biggest test. 

“Now you know, this is not a drill.  I am here to brief you all on the urgent mission, personally approved by POTUS minutes ago, which will entail a clandestine joint US-India offensive operation led by USCF and the India Cyber Army (ICA) to hack deep into Chinese military base activities, right on their turf, all the way on their heavily-fortified artificial islands in the South China Sea.  We must specifically search for and find, at all costs, a top-secret PLA artificial intelligence robotics program in the heart of their most advanced facilities, which our latest intel indicates was likely behind their successful hack of the USS Obama carrier group in the Indian Ocean last night.  For years I had to sit through meetings where our US Navy counterparts declared the Indo-Pacific Command fleet was impenetrable- a floating and flying cyber fortress they called it- and refused my friendly offer to help by conducting red team tests led by my Septagon hackers.  We estimate a small group of prototype robots are based on one of these artificial islands run by the PLA, and are being prepared to lead an amphibious assault on Taiwan. If that seal is broken, maybe even to push into sovereign territory beyond that.  Details including timeline are at this moment impossible to know given US and allied state satellites cannot detect if the robots are staging for attack because they are probably far underground.  Our intelligence is sketchy but the best estimate is that day may arrive just weeks from today.  What China showed us without firing a shot is the ability to neutralize the very type of US Navy assets that would be deployed on the front lines to support a potential Taiwanese and allied counter-offensive. 

“So the clock is ticking, ladies and gentlemen.  It is our solemn duty to prevent China from starting this war in the first place, at all costs.  Taiwan has already been warned to be prepared for the worst, while hiding the threat from the public, including an embargo on all related media and social media for as long as possible.”  

My heart rate jumped, and I was sure my ticker wasn’t the only one in the room acting funny.  We were on the brink of war- maybe World War.  

General Nero continued, incredibly calmly I felt considering the circumstances she had just been thrown into.  “We are finally fast approaching the day China has been patiently planning for, for decades, and we are the ones that must disrupt their attack plans before they can get started.  With everything we have, everything we need, I’ll make sure we’re gonna have the full might of the goddam United States behind us, and I won’t rest until it’s done.  We are the chosen ones.  The USCF is being called on above all others to prevent war from breaking out with a mission that belongs to us and nobody else.  Everyone else is either back up or getting the Hell out of our way.”

The room seemed to let out a collective gasp. I nearly choked on my sip of cold latte. It wasn’t the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, CIA, or anyone else leading the charge on this potentially deadly foray into foreign hostile territory this time.  It was us.  My very own little outfit in a vast federal government national security bureaucracy employing millions of people. 

I looked to my right.  Throughout it all Manisha sat there, perfectly still.  This attractive Indian agent already knew all of this. Before a lot of us. Including me. 

“So let’s get right to the heart of it.  Agent Manisha Gayatri will run point for the Indian side of this task force aimed at the South China Sea,” General Nero continued amongst the murmurs, “and Officer Bart Joshi will run point for the US side of the task force.”  For the first time the general looked squarely at me- and till that moment here I had been sitting, wondering if she even knew my existence or noticed me sitting there, out of my depth.  

At that point, latte struck trachea for real and I had to slam a fist into my chest. Did I hear General Nero correctly?  Everyone present, all of whom outranked me, some who’d never even heard of me, turned their heads to look straight at my nervous Indian-American mug with curiosity.  This young little grunt?

Manisha reached over and slapped me on the back patronizingly while I coughed loudly and my eyes watered. “Time to put your big-boy pyjamas on,” she whispered to me sweetly.  Most of the collection of power amassed in the room looked incredulous and confused, only outdone by my own incredulous confusion.  Like, they chose this guy at this important moment?

It was a lot to process.  Leave it to the Indians to screw up how to say pajamas like “pie-jaahmas.” Oh, and how in the world was I chosen to co-captain the most important mission that the entire USCF had ever taken on in its brief yet important history among thousands of the most elite white hat hackers USCF could have picked from? 

CHAPTER 3- A Tall Order (BAY AREA)

All of just two years old in the year 2030, here’s a quick primer on my military branch, which I’d classify as more like somewhere in a murky space between the armed forces and a militant quasi-spy agency due to the unique nature of the very wide range of cyber operations under our portfolio. All of these different things are entirely layered in dark spaces below the physical world of material objects and the Internet the public experiences.  The United States Cyber Force (USCF) was formed after several crippling cyberspace debacles for the United States due to scattered accountability and unclear lead responsibilities in a dangerous IoT world, where the alphabet soup of US government military and national security agencies pointed fingers at each other instead of running point.  In an environment of high-tech innovations at breakneck speed, and sprawling bureaucracy in every direction, America was jammed by an open Internet, open borders, a free press, a private sector that was only partly cooperative, poor defense mechanisms, inadequate coordination, and a glaring lack of offensive retaliatory protocols.  Rules and ethics were constantly being debated instead of codified and acted upon.  All of this helped level the global playing field of asymmetrical warfare for foreign adversaries, and this type of conflict was rapidly overtaking conventional warfare in importance at the speed of Wright’s Law.  On steroids.  This preventable situation cost Uncle Sam very, very dearly although Uncle Sam was the one that invented the Internet just several decades earlier.

Servers, semiconductors, smartwatches and surveillance were fast becoming more critical to national security than bullets, tanks, subs, boats, and jets.  Even the dumbest politicians, bureaucrats, defense lobbyists, and other swamp creatures in Washington were beginning to understand this.  

Where to begin on the online parade of embarrassment?

We could start with Russia’s successful hacks of various players in both major parties throughout the compromised 2016 US presidential election campaign, or China’s cyber theft of virtually every advanced U.S. conventional weapons system design and specs by 2020, including the multi-trillion dollar F-35 program’s fifth-generation jet variants operated by our friends in other military branches. Then there was the time Al Qaeda partnered with the Houthis to bring down the vast majority of the entire public Internet for two long, agonizing days in 2028. That was the very last straw for us Americans. The lumbering giant US military-industrial complex finally woke up to the urgent need to go back to the drawing board for a newer, bigger, more unified, more accountable, more aggressive, more high-tech, and more sophisticated cyberspace military and intelligence arm in order to keep Americans safe and remain a superpower in the age of converging AI, blockchain and quantum computing.

That terrifying Internet attack of 2028, dubbed TakeDown26, of course wrought more havoc on the United States than any single day since 9/11. Not to mention the rest of the online world.  I was in college in the nation’s capital at the time. It was terrifying to be amongst eight thousand entitled college students at Georgetown University with every last smartphone, VR eyewear, smartwatch, laptop, tablet, gaming console, home appliance, and every other IoT device kicked completely off the grid for an agonizingly extended period.  Most college kids from my generation had no idea how to function in real life without Internet connectivity, stumbling around in panicked confusion and terror as their dopamine production levels dropped dangerously low and seemingly nothing could get done, from schoolwork to entertainment, from socializing to ordering dinner. I can only imagine how bad it got in the world outside of campus, the borders of which I didn’t dare to leave for two harrowing days as most nations declared martial law for over forty-eight chaotic hours till the web came back online.  

Industry and economy and governance were predictably wrecked beyond measure.

Armed campus security backed up by the District of Columbia National Guard were immediately deployed with orders to lock down and stand guard at the hilltop’s campus gates- one of the perks of having clusters of Georgetown Hoya classmates who were the spawn of the most powerful men and women and families in America and all other major nations.  Including the only daughter of POTUS himself, who was my year.  Without connectivity it was impossible to find accurate information till the aftermath about what apocalyptic horrors were going down globally, but on the level of local we all heard the high-pitched sirens of law enforcement and ambulances wailing nonstop for 48 straight hours in the chaos of the DC swamp beyond Georgetown’s hilltop without letting up as we stayed huddled and shaking in our dorms, in the cafeterias, on the internal fields, or inside Dahlgren Chapel.  I spent a lot of time playing basketball at Yates Fieldhouse as a gamely low-tech attempt at distraction.

Those were two very dark days indeed, of which few prefer to even dare speak of years later, as the loss of signal predictably led to widespread violence and mayhem and commercial devastation around the world.

The good news for the good guys was that it was finally a major turning point after the dust settled. America at long last woke up.  There was hope that something would get done.  But we are a messy democracy.  Naturally it took an entire year of bureaucratic and political nut flexing in Washington: investigations, think tank commissions, media debates, and Congressional subcommittee hearings with Generals and intel agency honchos.  Votes, procedures, editorials, and talking heads in newsrooms and on YouTube.  Those who figured out that the United States needed a new military branch made common cause, and an outline of a plan began to form.  Continued survival of the republic demanded something new and different, a dedicated US Cyber Force on equal par with the Army, Air Force, Space Force, Navy, and Coast Guard with powerful capabilities, extensive resources, moral authority, high standards, and constitutional mandate to defend from and retaliate against folks in the increasingly complex and murky global cyber arena threat matrix. Existing US cyber commands had until then operated valiantly, but these had all been rolled into a hodgepodge of little stepchild subsidiaries of military branches, law enforcement and intelligence agencies coordinating with Silicon Valley companies and one another too loosely.  Chronically under-resourced and underfunded as the parade of successful external attacks against America proved.  The results were far-reaching and the failures arrived from unexpected angles.  For example every Freshman IT major could have told you that pandemics originating overseas such as COVID-19 in the early 2020s would have been more competently controlled if we had better vector surveillance capability, and millions of lives could have been saved globally and Stateside.  

It took a chunk of that year full of revelations to decide to construct the distinct headquarters not on the Atlantic Seaboard, but somewhere in the vicinity of Silicon Valley, which to me was always a no-brainer as I followed along the debates in the news with an interest bordering on the obsessive. And that’s not just because I grew up in Sunnyvale and was biased, though I certainly was.  Why in Hell would you put it anywhere else? 

The economies of scale, private sector contractors, and hacker talent coursing through the Bay Area like microclimates were simply unmatched in providing a rich soil for USCF to grow in for decades to come.  Even Washington heads reluctantly admitted that The Septagon belonged clear on the other side of the continent, for this was Manifest Destiny 2.0.

The NSA was drastically restructured from its former role to focus exclusively on intelligence gathering, aka SIGINT, as a giant cell within USCF.  Meanwhile USCF as a military branch was given lead responsibility for all active cyber measures both defensive and offensive, internal and external whenever national security was at stake- which had become always.  So we were busy from the very start as priorities shifted.  There were more enemies with keyboards than enemies with guns to worry about.  Interagency and public-private coordination would be ongoing as federal turf was fought over, capital budget funneled, and the real estate allotted.  By agreement of all three branches of government, the majority of this work would forever remain highly clandestine, and everything I did at The Septagon fell within this category as codified by updated US law.

And so a slumbering giant was about to awaken.  The USCF slowly stood up and got put to work under the Commander-in-Chief.  In a predictable sequence of events and affairs, the USCF continued gaining in stature to the point where it became considered the most elite of all of the branches of the mighty US military machine.  From the jump USCF was also the most secretive and least understood by an American population that mostly still thinks JAVAscript might be an iOS app for coffee shops. Its rising importance could only be fathomed by techies at first, which was why I decided to make a drastic career change and apply right away.  I was itching to get into the arena instead of voraciously studying it, so I enlisted following an intensely competitive screening process along with thousands of other tech-savvy patriots, rogues, and madmen once USCF finally launched in 2028.  The corps sorted through candidates for boot camp.  It’s why our founding USCF commander General Nirupama Sushila Patel, previously the CTO of the CIA and first Indian-American US military branch commander in history, became recognized throughout Washington as the most important military official of our time within months after being sworn in. 

Only a select few know the precise moment that happened.

In late 2028 during a heated argument in an Oval Office budget meeting, USCF General Nero Patel was being dressed down simultaneously by the Defense Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of the Army, in obvious passive-aggressive old white male chauvinist fashion.  Even worse, she was being ganged up on in POTUS’ presence in an obvious coordinated plot to embarrass her to the highest degree at the highest level.  The disagreement was apparently over the size of her ambitious annual budget requests at a crucial time when USCF was trying to scale up rapidly to effectively enter the fray around the world with knife-fights against worthy and dangerous state and non-state rivals.  

The rest of that day is the stuff of legend. I only learned of this meeting secondhand, while rumors and conflicting accounts abound surrounding this piece of organizational lore that galvanized the entire force through a low-tech game of telephone, which never stopped buzzing.  The facts are therefore hazy and likely embellished.  What we do know for sure is that it all started with a simple disagreement about slashing USCF funding to allocate more to boondoggles the other military branches were infamous for since time immemorial.  Very soon General Nero, never a woman to be trifled with, had had just about enough from these men whom she courageously accused of throwing away billions of dollars on rampant inefficiency, corruption, and waste while short-changing her smaller and newer force.  

Everyone at The Septagon knew that General Nero was a bulldog for good government, efficiency, and effectiveness at all times, and her tolerance for bullshit whether internal or external, domestic or international was below zero.

Her counterparts thought highly of themselves and held plenty of seniority over her, which typically meant something in Washington.  So they categorically refused to back down, which was not surprising.  Their mistake was not fully appreciating exactly who it was they were dealing with across the table.  Within minutes after the yelling started, irate as hell, General Nero quietly orchestrated the instant power-down of every single US Army tank stationed in every corner of the globe simply by typing short strings of orders into her USCF smartwatch.  Her commands from the tip of her fingers unleashed USCF’s terrifying and glorious crown jewel weapon, designed for enemy forces, from our fresh cyber arsenal. General Nero then stubbornly refused to order her people to stand down, rendering every tank completely useless for over fifteen agonizing Army minutes, until she received a satisfactorily profuse apology from the Chairman, Secretary of the Army, and even the President himself.  They had just witnessed the debacle play out in horror, from Fort Bragg to Okinawa, thousands of moving tanks stopped in their tracks, and stationary tanks unable to start.  This must have drained the blood from their faces especially upon recognizing how easy it was to accomplish, and how vulnerable supposedly secure American conventional weapons systems all were to foreign interference without a more robust cyber defense that only The Septagon housed the expertise and knowledge to proffer.  Those guys were completely helpless without us manning the virtual turrets of Fortress America facing an evolving, invisible battlefield.   I can neither confirm nor deny that I and other members of my proud new kick-ass hacker unit took part in that friendly little US Army tail-pulling exercise- or that we had been drilling for it quietly from Day One at the command of our strategically thinking genius of a leader.

It dawned on me as I thought about it during my first-ever meeting inside the 7th floor conference room at The Septagon that performing well the minor role I played in that legendary drill fucking with US Army tanks may have helped get me to the 7th floor conference room in this moment of all too real crisis involving the Taiwan Strait.

***

Back to my insane mandate to help cobble together an overseas mission, which up front I could still hardly believe I was very specifically, extremely unexpectedly chosen to co-lead with a mysterious and attractive counterpart from India.  Talk about a tall order!  Or a waking nightmare?  Take your pick.  While I considered myself a dutiful soldier and supremely talented hacker, my trepidation emerged before the 7th floor conference room meeting was even adjourned into a mess of loud conversations and running around.  Nothing in my life to that point could prepare me for such high stakes, nor would I have chosen this if I was involved in the decision making process.  I didn’t feel… ready.

Curiously this geographic area and this adversary in China had never been part of my work.  But I could start with what everyone already knows.  A group of artificial and real islands in the churning South China Sea were being methodically transformed into a beastly network of real and virtual fortresses erected by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) brick by brick from the earliest days of the 21st century.  Shoals were jammed into existence and expanded by ramming sand and earth along the islands’ seashores.  As many servers and chips as the PLA could get their hands on from any corner of the globe were being gobbled up, no doubt to build massive military grade infrastructure just as we did at The Septagon in a frantic race for compute power.  An estimated 400,000 Chinese troops and an unknown quantity of drones and droids were stationed on the island chain in an aggressively constructed series of land, naval, air force, and outer space bases above and below ground, on and under water. These islands were under constant construction since even before I was born in 2002, in order to blunt China’s neighbors who possessed navies such as Taiwan, India, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, or the Philippines–or further afield, the United States–from making competing claims on the wildly rich natural and strategic resources of the South China Sea that China claimed for itself despite persistent rulings by the United Nations over decades affirming the entire body of water was neutral under maritime law beyond standard distances from each country’s shore.  

China continuously ignored the UN and its rulings, and to be fair just about every power player more or less does just like America, and the CCP bet big on Might is Right and nobody would dare stop them.  More relevant for me, all that island real estate was deliberately wrapped in a very tight cybersecurity net manned by several thousand bad hombres 24/7 possessing cyberwarfare technology that by March 2030 arguably rivaled if not exceeded our own pound for pound. While neither China nor Russia was officially labeled an enemy state, their 2028 formal military alliance had been seen as an act of hostility by the United States, Japan, India, and others- and ultimately set the stage for the US-India military alliance of 2028.  The USCF was formed the same year as a seminal mutual defense treaty was signed by both democracies. 

Behind all of these radical moves on the chessboard in the latter half of the 2020s loomed the difficult question about Taiwan’s future.  China’s openly stated goal of one day reuniting the tiny democratic island with the mainland, by force if necessary, was unwavering for decades.  The US government’s official policy of “strategic ambiguity” meanwhile had also never changed, while Taiwan’s government vowed to remain democratic without declaring full independence.  This delicate international dance is how we found ourselves in the Thucydides Trap, and a date with destiny hurtling toward the day when the two superpowers USA and China might upshift from Cold War 2.0 to World War 3.0 in the 2020s.

Just like that, ready or not, we were knee-deep into a new official bipolar world order between the two axes of great power.  Maybe the runup had been building unstoppably for years, especially since the 2022 Ukraine War began. The US-India alliance quickly overtook NATO, AUKUS, and the Five Eyes in importance, as Europe was a laggard in the 2020s military and high-tech arms race. The combined efforts of Europe and an expanded NATO failed to prevent or manage a quick end to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine that resulted in a ridiculous amount of prolonged carnage on both sides- and a proving ground for drone warfare.  This war also forced India reluctantly to disengage over time from its deep reliance on Russian arms and energy.  All while China was so far ahead of India on military prowess right across the border that India finally looked Westward after 8 decades of strict non-alignment with any nation or bloc.  This delicate new balance of powers after the blood-soaked proxy war in Eastern Europe had been relatively peaceful for a while, with guns eerily quiet for all of us who actively served and thought about war every day.

Until the moment the USS Obama carrier group was hacked thoroughly to the point of blackout in the Indian Ocean. The calm had been pierced with a bang, although a figurative one for those US Navy sailors dutifully sitting alert on graveyard shift watch command.  They would never hear or see a thing before it hit them and escaped as stealthily as it came.  Some unknown version of submarine, robot, or drone that must have been underwater.  I instantly knew that everything had changed in the entire world order that morning, and would surely come to be known as a turning point in world history.

This US Navy carrier group debacle was an uncharacteristically brazen play by the Chinese, though we would of course never bother asking them officially, nor would they own up to the attack in a million years.  Got to give credit where it’s due, those guys had giant balls and took a big swing at us- and got a solid hit.  They hit us harder than we had ever hit them, and that’s going all the way back to the very dawn of cyber war in the latter part of the 20th century.

Which wasn’t exactly helpful for my new reality.

Despite the stubborn lack of communication between Washington and Beijing on the subject, we knew full well it was the Chinese behind the Indian Ocean disaster.  It marked the first major tangible escalation against the United States since 9/11- as soon as a rapid-response USCF digital forensics team powered by AI tools confirmed the evidence of Chinese fingerprints within minutes of the incident.  It was also well-known at USCF and beyond that China was the only state actor capable of doing this incredibly complex operation, and at the time I had no idea if even the USCF itself could have managed such a feat.  They had struck at the heart of our forces, pounding the war drums.  They had officially evolved from rival to enemy to America…and everyone knew our forces were the last best hope for preventing China’s long desired takeover of Taiwan.

***

The ICA and USCF had active and ongoing personnel exchange programs and minor joint exercises and operations as part of the overall US-India alliance, as did all military branches of both countries including army-to-army and navy-to-navy going on joint patrols.  But I hadn’t yet had a chance to work with one of my subcontinental cousins from India on anything. Manisha was the first ICA agent I ever met- and was about to be far from the last.  I was getting curious about what this new wrinkle at my job would be like.  Complications were possible, like, who was really in charge with a task force involving two countries?  Clearly the United States was the more senior partner in the alliance, but India had far more expertise and access in dealing with China as a neighbor going back more than 5,000 years.

Then I considered another type of complication which is somewhat personal to me.  Right off the bat I’ll freely admit I can be a bit shallow.  For as long as I could remember I always had a thing for the female Indian accent.  I mean, I was always really into it.  It reminded me of Bollywood movies and my four loving grandparents who immigrated to America from the coastal town of Manipal in Karnataka and were an essential part of my childhood upbringing and adulthood.  The accent always conjured awesome Indian foods like dosas for breakfast or biryani for dinner.  In fact the Indian accent probably even evoked conscious and subconscious memories of a really good day from my childhood, during which I watched Bollywood on TV at home with my grandparents while also eating dosas and biryani as a kid in Sunnyvale, California.  Totally unfair to use that accent on me, right?  This predilection also led me to enter several semi-serious to serious relationships with women who grew up in India during my past dating life, none of which ended well.

On the other hand, I needed to play it cool. I had to man up, and prove to Manisha that Indian-Americans were cool.  I would be representing an entire ethnic diaspora’s honor not only in the work but also personally, under heavy pressure, and it was my intention to avoid getting wrapped around one of her big, strong little fingers.

To end the briefing, General Nero attempted to satiate the palpable curiosity in relation to my selection to the new US-India joint task force among thousands of qualified personnel within USCF.  Nobody was more curious than I.  She revealed to all present that I had been chosen for this mission-critical leadership role based on a highly sophisticated analysis of my keystrokes on the job that ran millions of simulations utilizing the proprietary and secretive algorithm developed by a small handful of USCF’s very best PhD data scientists under tight control of the General’s office itself.  Their brainchild became an advanced and mysterious UCSF software program called Keystroke Analysis & Integrated Fusion (KAIF) that recorded and analyzed every single thing I had ever done on any device I touched at work over my entire two years of service- same as every person in USCF’s employ from the second they joined all the way till discharge or death do us part.  Some unfortunate Geeks with Guns periodically get terminated out in the field while on active duty.  

KAIF never stopped running in the background on every device, weapon, sensor, or security camera touching any USCF human meatbag. We knew precious little about KAIF except that it would stick to us like a hiding piece of gum in our hair without a clue what it was doing  Most of us, including me, deeply suspected the program also probed into everyone’s personal lives and probably recorded and analyzed everything we all did on “off the job” personal devices as well, if office gossip were true, and ran it against our work product for additional data about the way we operated in the world.  Not that we would ever find out due to the extreme disinformation, subterfuge and deliberate silence around anything related to KAIF.  Once you sign up for USCF, nothing is off limits even in your home or elsewhere near or far away from The Septagon confines, despite what most American civilians might consider to be a gross and creepy invasion of privacy.  

Despite very clear laws against it most of my unit always assumed this extrajudicial embedding into personal devices to be likely, necessary, and even just a tad bit comforting deep down inside, despite never getting confirmation or denial from the bosses.  USCF had to compete against other nations without such laws protecting either their own citizens or foreigners like us.  I figured if KAIF targeted personal devices it would be those of everyone in the organization from top to bottom, not just mine.  I’d confidently guarantee USCF brass wants to be equitable in identifying the optimum allocation of every single human resource based on merit, even if they’re being ethically dubious in other ways.  My generation is probably the first to give up on the idea that there was even such a thing as real privacy anyway, and if we gave it up to our own government to make it harder for overseas actors to steal our data or use it against us, well at least these assholes were our assholes.  

There was a plausible case to stand up the USCF with the right kind of soldier, one willing to sign his or her life away, open up his online activities and maybe (probably) personal device commands to persistent real time tracking by the US government, and thereby prove trustworthiness and loyalty to the cause.  Gleefully harvesting the rich data sets from personal device use would be too juicy an opportunity to pass up for the world’s premier hacking organizations, despite the confusing maze of US privacy laws.  We of all people understood there were a million different ways to easily get the information anyway.  In either scenario on the world of devices being analyzed, from what little I had been able to glean, KAIF worked by capturing extremely granular data every single second of every day, including the speed and accuracy at which I wrote code or drafted situation reports, hacked into and through hostile target systems overseas, moved around The Septagon, scrolled through online reading materials, operated in virtual worlds and gaming using my USCF goggles and any other devices.  Add to that every time I called, videoconferenced, messaged or emailed other people, the specific games I played and my performance in them, websites I visited and how I interacted with them, shopping habits, every song and movie and social media post and YouTube video I streamed, content I created, it was all loaded in there.  I heard KAIF details even went down to the length of the pauses between activities, all of which was constantly being collated and analyzed to determine in real time my current aptitude to lead and to take on a cyberwar mission under heavy pressure versus every single other USCF cyber warrior.  In a military branch that had grown to over 6,000 strong, with 80% of troop strength being focused at least partly on hacking projects like what I did for a living.  I suspected I was better than most of my peers, and also worked well collaborating with others on group projects.  I mastered new hardware and software with ease in a constantly evolving world.  Still, that’s a ton of competition for the highest KAIF score, and I didn’t expect that it would be me taking that entire field of nerd talent roaming The Septagon and the outside world. 

Creepy, right? Sure, I worked incredibly efficiently and accurately on every device I ever touched, so I was glad to be recognized for my skills and have a career advancement opportunity open up because of it, but I had trouble getting over how creepy KAIF was as a selection process.  On the 7th floor was the first time I ever even heard a peep about my KAIF score, which nobody finds out much of anything about, including the score itself.  It’s disturbing.  I almost might have felt better knowing that I was just being chosen as a convenient patsy for an impossible mission that needed an eventual fall guy due to the high odds of failure.  Plus, it wasn’t exactly comforting to know that my employers and more broadly the US government probably had a readily available index of every single porn video hologram or steamy cybersex session I’d enjoyed in the supposed privacy of my own bedroom on my personal devices and networks.  I was sure all of my own security precautions at home could be penetrated given enough compute power and approval from the top. 

Sophisticated and intrusive as it was, KAIF was only one of multiple metrics streams they had on me.  We were still military, and weren’t just all geeks all the time.  In USCF basic training we had to do the physical stuff too, like pushups, running, swimming, obstacle courses, wilderness treks, making beds, close quarter combat, and firearms training just like the other branches of the military. The difference being, we had by ridiculously far the lowest physical requirements, the shortest boot camps, and the most difficult IT skills testing and training that weeded out a majority of applicants from the pool. We elite USCF hackers thus somehow came to be known throughout the military and spy services as the “Geeks with Guns,” a condescending nickname we wore with pride.  Geeks first and foremost.  More badly needed.

Interestingly and uniquely among US national security outfits, by law the USCF does not conduct initial or random drug testing, probably in recognition of how a cornucopia of illegal drugs did not necessarily hamper the work product of people in our field.  In fact certain psychedelic drugs dosed correctly are widely known to help techies do their jobs better.  No comment.

General Nero’s briefing finally ended without any further specific mission details, which were classified, under development, and to be shared later in compartmentalized packets of digital information to involved individuals like me based strictly on person by person ‘need to know.’ This information was not completely ready yet as personnel and machines were still working on all the moving parts.  So there would be a short wait to find out what the Hell I was about to get into just as I was dying to know more.  Time to hurry up and wait- something hackers are used to.

As we got up to leave the conference room, Manisha asked to join me for lunch, a get to know you sort of thing, and I obliged.  Might as well know the person I would be coordinating with in the immediate future.  And so the long dance began.

***

The Septagon cafeteria isn’t half bad, featuring a crack team of skilled Indian chefs banging out authentic South Asian chow daily using real tandoor ovens for the some 20 percent of USCF headquarters staff of Indian origin, and any others who are adventurous enough. These chefs hand-picked and imported by USCF directly from various parts of India literally spent their days openly pounding shots of Johnnie Walker Black Label and managing to make killer food in the well-appointed cafeteria kitchens. Don’t ask me how any of them got their security clearances to work there, or more importantly avoid burning the naan.  Or themselves.

“This is not bad.  So you grew up in Sunnyvale, California?” Manisha asked me as we munched on some crispy spicy bhel puri at our cafe table as an appetizer.

“Right. Sunnyvale. Bay Area.  Not too far from here.  Pretty standard Indian-American upbringing. Gamer. Hacker. Tennis player.”
“And then you head to the great East Coast of America for university studies.”

“Exactly.  Went to Georgetown University in Washington, DC due to my interest in US politics. Majored in IT policy in foreign affairs.  During job interviews senior year of college, got a good offer for my interests and worked at a gaming company in San Francisco.   Next I enlisted in USCF from there soon after it was launched after visiting a local recruiter and taking the test.  That was two years ago.”

“I have noticed a lot of gaming industry people move into this line of work in India and here,” quipped Manisha.

“It’s been a natural progression for me for sure.  Hacking against hostile forces is like a game, kind of.”

 “My story is a bit different.  My background is in law enforcement.  ICA recruited me out of the New Delhi Police Force with a few of my friends,” she said. “I won’t tell you my age, but I’m a bit older than you are.” 

Nice. I hoped so, and that confirmed it. I liked older women, which layered nicely on top of the accent thing.  And the grip. 

“We know why they supposedly picked me.  KAIF.  So how’d they pick you for this mission?”

“I had a prior reputation with USCF and ICA brass, being the lead commander of the ICA Operations division for more than a year. The Director knocked on my apartment door in Delhi, woke me up and threw me on a jet to the United States in the middle of the night with no notice, no time to pack a toothbrush, and said we’d be briefed when we got here to work on a major new mission.  The purpose of my career, like yours, seemed to change completely after the Chinese suddenly hacked into the USS Barack Obama in the wee hours.  So now I just happen to be here in The Septagon, jetlagged and trying to find my bearings. Upon landing at SFO I was hurriedly escorted by five armed and masked USCF men into this underground fortress for the first time, blindfolded, and straight to the 7th floor, where I met you. Some other members of my team are in India and preparing to join us over here soon when we have more information.” 

“Nice.  Look forward to meeting the rest of your team and working with you guys to kick some ass.”

“So, related to all this.  I wanted to talk to you about something personal.  Is that OK?”

“Sure, t-try me,” I stammered, that question triggering some unwelcome unease.

“I wanted us to meet separately from the rest of the group and alone today because for this to work we’re going to have to start bonding as quickly as possible,” Manisha started. “I’d like to know what you’re thinking, what you’re doing, what you’re about as a person.”

“Um, okay.  Wh-what do you w-want to know?”

Manisha seemed to light up and her tone suddenly changed to one of excitement and she began to talk more rapidly.  “Bharat, I’ll just come right to the point!  Right as this task force formed and the two of us were picked to lead it, we were cleared by both your government and mine through deep vetting and analysis to engage in sexual relations during the course of this mission.  I couldn’t believe it when I heard it but the ICA Director confirmed the official approval to me personally in New Delhi before I left.  Considering the unique circumstances and pressure we’ll be in and the chemistry it could help us build.  What do you think Bharat, shall we do it tonight before the deadly action begins?” 

Lord!  What in the name of Hell—-? That got weird, fast!  Yet nothing should come as a complete surprise in this wack-a-doodle world of cyber warfare and espionage I had signed up for.  Plus, just at that moment my hormones surged a notch before I had a chance to think clearly.

“Really? That sounds great, let’s do it!” I blurted, unable to mask my instant enthusiasm for the idea.  “I’d take that offer- for the alliance.” 

Of course, the sky then fell in the most embarrassing fashion possible. “Bharat!  Come on man, I’m joking!” Manisha sat back in her chair, lifted her head, and giggled mightily at my expense between sips on her mango lassi. The people seated at the cafeteria tables around us glanced over at this supremely attractive and unusually tall foreign woman, now belly-laughing at my expense.  Great, now we had an audience made up of my American colleagues who no doubt by now were hearing about who I was if they didn’t before, because of the swirling buzz coursing through The Septagon. The butt of the joke being laughed at by a hottie from my own tribe.

Chin up, kid. “I knew that,” I lied. “Of course I was joking too! What kind of stupid and unprofessional national security directive would that be? I’ve never heard of such a thing.  I was j-joking too!” I weakly attempted a chuckle like I knew what I was doing.

“Oh of course you were… you…horny little dog,” she said sarcastically, mid-laugh. 

“Whatever. That was not cool! Or funny!  What are you, a snake?  We’re supposed to be on the same team here, we only just met during a crisis, and now it’s just about making fun of me for a laugh!”  I hate to report, my pride was sharply wounded.

“Look, Bharat. Bart.  Let’s be real for a second.  I experienced great trauma at a very young age, and that has driven me all my life. I go out and get what I want. Today what I wanted was to mess with you for a little fun before everything gets serious.  This was all in good fun.  That’s all.  Lighten up, dude!” 

I had only one thought at that moment.  This person was incredibly manipulative.  Convincingly so.  I didn’t like how this new working relationship, strained by my attraction, started off at all.  My state of anxiety being heightened made me suddenly wonder if she was some kind of a mole or double agent?  She lied to and manipulated a supposedly new ally with such ease… too much ease.

She interrupted me from being in my own head. “C’mon.  Wasn’t that funny?”

“I should really get back to work,” I said weakly, my cheeks blushing in embarrassment.

“C’mon Bart, we both know that you have always liked strong, dominant women, older women. You also have an attraction to the Indian accent.  Your people know it. My people know it.  Aw, don’t feel bad, it’s all understandable.  You’re alright.  You’re a good-looking guy living in the big city who’s had no romantic relationship for a while now–going on what, eight months, if I’m not mistaken? Wasn’t that the last time you saw your ex, Shaq?” 

Great, so she already knew way too much about me and my most recent ex-girlfriend, Shakuntala, who everyone called Shaq.  This kept getting better.  It became obvious Manisha had seen a pretty damn invasive dossier on me prepared by some ICA hound, probably on the plane ride, which was an unfair advantage as I knew next to nothing about her except what General Nero had said in the emergency meeting.  And what Manisha told me.  So this ICA agent used my background against me in a way that I did not like, whether it was for fun or not.  A supposedly friendly lunch meeting hit rock bottom fast.  

Shaq by the way was a fellow Indian-American Septagon cyber warrior born in India, who had dumped me abruptly for some other hotshot USCF hacker in her Africa unit on the 4th floor.  A tall, real good looking LatinX guy.  She may or may not have been cheating on me toward the end, and I don’t want to even know any more.  It was a damn painful breakup on my end, a topic of gossip and mirth around the bunker, and we had never spoken a word to each other again. I was still trying to get over her, which is harder when you know she’s lurking around the same building and has some of the same friends.  But Shaq is one I care to talk about no further.  And here I now found myself, on a reviled path towards becoming a Gen-Z incel like so many other hackers and gamers, a cliche within a cliche, with what I thought for a second could be a potential way out of the trap turning out only to be a wretched opportunity to be toyed with by this cruel and tall female ICA snake for laughs. This was how my most important work detail started, of all the ways.

I reflected on what was unfolding.  Before we even began working together as supposed equals, she was asserting her control over me quite successfully, and I had taken enough for the moment.  I no longer wanted to play this wretched game.  “I’ll see you later,” I told her as I got up to leave and get back to my desk to wrap up and hand off my North Korea project- and lick my wounded pride at home safe in my own cubicle, where I wielded unlimited power.  

Chapter 4- The Mission Critical (Bay Area)

I arrived alone at one of my favorite bars after work that evening in the Mission District, Codebreakers, and commandeered a small table to have a drink, solo. On what was probably to be my last night of freedom before the new operation began in earnest, which everyone estimated would be a round the clock commitment involving overseas travel. As of the end of the business day I had received no further information about this mysterious new black operation, despite waiting for it anxiously as the clock ticked.  At this point I knew my patience would probably need to extend to the following morning, and waiting in the dark was agonizing.  I already knew a sleepless night of tossing and turning awaited me.  At least there’s always a drink. 

Unhappy hour.

I had a lot on my mind and badly needed to decompress with a cold beverage or two by myself.  First, there was Manisha, a slightly older woman with a hot Indian accent, caramel skin tone and a banging body who apparently had a deep background working in secretive and violent ways back in South Asia. She intimidated me, pissed me off, and attracted me all at the same time.  On one hand I was glad that this blunt foreign instrument was to be on my team, for her ways could prove useful for the work itself. But I decided to stay alert and keep up my guards after the way she surprisingly clowned me in the cafeteria.  I’d never felt so paranoid before, and we’re talking about a continuously paranoid world I had already been living in for two years.  Second, none of the familiar faces from my unit were in on the mission, and as yet I didn’t know who would be.  I was already missing that camaraderie.  I couldn’t discuss developments with any of them.  Meanwhile of course, discussing these matters with any soul outside of USCF was absolutely forbidden.  So I was entering this new journey completely alone as of that evening.

So I kept my guard up at the bar as well.  I was sure the USCF was now discretely surveilling me more than usual wherever I went as an identified indispensable asset tapped for a critical national security mission preparing for launch.  Let’s throw in the added possibility that foreign powers were also spying on me at the same time if they came to know my new status.  I mentally flagged some Pakistani-looking people, Chinese-looking people, and what looked to be a half-Chinese, half-Indian man who kept looking over at me from his perch at the bar.  I was in a fit of discomfort at even hanging out at one of my regular bars.  Not cool.  Maybe the Chindian guy was just gay and liked my type?  Not like any of these tribes of human beings were unheard of in the happily diverse Bay Area, after all.  On the other hand bribes, assassinations, doxxing, false flags, honey pots, stag hunts and various other varieties of subterfuge were all around us, with an unhealthy dose of hardened foreign spooks and hackers running roughshod around Silicon Valley, outside the law, only rivaled in America by Washington’s embassy row and the Midtown neighborhoods around New York City’s United Nations headquarters.  In fact my area had infamously become the latest global nest of spies.  Multiple Septagon personnel had been compromised in recent months, caught, and thrown in jail for being moles on behalf of China and other countries.

Then again, odds were that everyone else at this bar were nobodies just out to mind their own business, have a drink and a good time at happy hour, regardless of my blossoming insecurity.  

I was experiencing a sort of cabin fever even while attempting to enjoy my last few hours of freedom to wander around the city until the real shit began and I would have to travel away from the Bay to work my tradecraft on foreign shores for the first time in my career. I was under strict orders to quietly await further instructions from USCF brass, confiding in no one.  In the meanwhile all I was authorized to do was pack my things, and get my affairs in order. Disobeying these orders was very illegal.  Refusal to deploy was not an option for a warrior.  I didn’t even know where I was going yet, only that I was going.  Top secret work could be a lot less glamorous than it sounds when you’re ensconced inside of it with nobody to confide in except the beautifully patterned snake Manisha, and no idea what was going to happen next. 

Plus Manisha quite obviously knew how to manipulate me as she did in the seventh floor meeting and at lunch, as if she knew me already. Manisha played me like a freaking drum within minutes.  On my familiar home turf, in my own workplace, in my own home country and most comfortable surroundings, a world which she had just that day literally set foot in for the first time in her life without notice.  Smooth operator that snake, I begrudgingly admitted to myself.

Then there was the mission itself, which despite my adequate self-esteem in the quality of my work, seemed way above my pay grade and experience. I mean, running point on a cyber raid into the deepest, most technologically advanced unfriendly military properties on the planet in order to prevent the Chinese from invading Taiwan? We were at such a historic moment.  Among the legion of talented Septagon hackers they could have chosen from, they knocked on my door?  I was about to foray behind enemy lines digitally speaking. And though it had not been spoken aloud by anyone involved, I knew all too well this mission could easily fail, or even worse, devolve into the start of a hot war, or even a world war initiated by the world’s two leading superpowers and their allies, over a tiny island, except we weren’t even publicly calling this a war footing.  All this could go down before we knew it, with no public debate in America, and somehow I could end up being smack in the middle of it.

I’m an extreme introvert who’d never run a team, never managed anything bigger than drunken squads of dudes playing first-person shooter video games online on Saturday night, where the danger was literally fictional as we toyed with joysticks and VR headsets in our own bedrooms or basements.  My entire USCF career so far consisted of tightly controlled hacking projects from the exquisitely safe and overprotected confines of The Septagon’s bowels. Then we’d all go home at night and nobody on the outside ever found out what I was really working on for a living to protect my country.

So why me? In my paranoid state at the bar I began to worry again if Keystroke Analysis & Integrated Fusion (KAIF) could be a total bullshit cover story, and I was just a convenient patsy.  A patsy would be convenient.  On the other hand, why else would I have been tapped with a proverbial sword on my shoulder, by The Septagon, Pentagon, and even the White House itself, chosen to help lead one of the most important covert missions in the world, with the highest stakes and a real shot at lasting honor and glory?  General Nero and USCF played to win.  National security, Taiwanese sovereignty, the US-India alliance, and yes, the entire New Cold War world order hung in the balance. Wasn’t that motivation enough for me to get pumped?  And stop being cynical?

But I couldn’t help it as chilling thoughts entered in and out of my psyche while sitting there in the bar, which was starting to get more crowded. Did USCF scan and catalog my online porn history when they hand-picked Manisha to work with the hand-picked me? Did they know I liked to be dominated by older women? That being around tall women made me feel secure? Who was hand-picked first? Did they scan her own porn history to match her to me?

Then I had a couple thoughts that lightened up my mood ever so slightly. Does that snake even have a porn history? What kind of porn does she like?
On the other hand there were things to be grateful for if I allowed myself the pleasure.  General Nero Patel herself, one of my personal heroes and the highest ranking Indian-American and female military official in US history, had specifically approved me for this mission and she made clear her confidence in my abilities, and she was counting on me. C’mon, Bart, most red-blooded American soldiers in this position would kill for the unexpected opportunity that fell in your lap to do something great for your country, however unsung or dangerous or the odds of failure.

“Cyber-warrior special, double,” I said to the Chinese-American waitress who came to take my cocktail order. Was the waitress looking at me funny? Was she there to spy on me?  Keep it together man… you’ve seen her working there dozens of times before.  Just a nice, cheerful waitress.

The cyber-warrior special is a vodka-Red Bull with a splash of Five Hour Energy, lime juice, and a sprig of muddled fresh mint.  AKA in these parts, the alcoholic beverage of choice for us Geeks with Guns and members of the private sector tech-industrial complex in Silicon Valley, who spent long days and nights hacking and playing video games, sometimes one life virtually blurring into the other in our brains, screens, holograms and VR glasses. Hacking was a lot like gaming, which is why one skill set travels well to the other.

As I sipped my drink, I decided it was time to take control of my new circumstances starting first thing the next morning.  Time to take charge of my life including the new characters and plot twists in it.  If life was a lot like a video game, it was better to play it no matter how hard, than to quit playing the game or to whine about the challenges.  As the alcohol slowly kicked in, I began to feel some confidence coming back.  And I felt the anxiety slowly ease up with my renewed plan of action.  Knowledge is power.  And I resolved to find and imbibe all the data I needed to make this work, instead of just reacting to circumstances.  Manisha had read a file on me and used it to gain an edge.  Two can play that game.