Flagged and Forgotten [EWC]

Every morning, the list of new names was among the documents in the file. Agent Farmer's task force reviewed the names, conducted background checks on each individual, and ranked them according to potential threat.

Since the operation started, over 100,000 people had been analyzed. Each were young- some only toddlers. And each would be tracked indefinitely. They all fit the profile as potentially disruptive to the system and capable of creating change. They were highly intelligent, had some history of rebellion, and had not yet established a career path. In just over ten years, less than 1% had turned out to be criminals of any kind and more had been recruited into the intelligence agency than arrested. 60% of those being tracked were still under 18.

Today's list would be particularly interesting. His computer geniuses had been working on a new pattern analyzing algorithm that promised to deliver the most accurate information ever. Over a year in the making and at a cost of over 100 million in R&D, the new program could sniff out anomalous individuals and run a cursory background check on it's own. It would deliver fewer names and they would be of the highest level of interest.

Agent Farmer's task force was an off the books division of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a major government contractor. There were others in the country and world trying to weed out the next generation of revolutionary personalities, but Farmer's resources and connections made his the best.

After the people were investigated, they were more often than not cleared as a threat but nevertheless tracked indefinitely. The lists of names entering the work force were sold to major companies at top dollar every year so they could recruit the brightest and most thoroughly evaluated workers. In addition to molding these potential disruptive into proper American workers. Offer a wildcard 18 year old a 500K job out of high school, and he'll start buying into the system in record time.

Farmer opened the brief and looked at the list provided by the new analysis program. In the past, every day a dozen or so names would be flagged and almost all of them would be forgotten.

Today there was but one name.

---------------



Mrs. Chime looked at the friends and family gathered at her house in Troy, New York. She was sad. Very sad. Inconsolable. Near suicidal. Broken.

Her only son had been senselessly murdered last week. After the funeral she invited everyone back to her house to get together. But she didn't want to see anyone. Scew them. Screw everyone. First her husband, now her only son. Both freak accidents out of nowhere. Mr. Chime was hit by a drunk driver coming home from work five years ago, died on impact. And her baby boy, last week. Walking to a friends house in the city after a party, he was stabbed in the heart by a group of thugs.

Nine dollars. His best friend survived the attack, he was able to run away after the stabbing. The thugs killed her son because all he had on him was nine dollars. They were pissed, they wanted more.


-----------------


Deb Rykman didn't usually open packages like this. She got them every week, but for some reason she was drawn to it. As a literary agent with a top firm in New York City, she was constantly being solicited by young "writers" claiming to be the next Stephen King, or the modern Shakespeare.

Why she opened it, she didn't know. Maybe because it was full. Most of these delusional writers sent her the first chapter and asked for a contract and an advance. This envelope felt like it had an entire book in it.

"Flagged and Forgotten," by Noah Chime.

She flipped to the first page and couldn't stop reading until she went to lunch at 12:30.


--------------------

An hour into the gathering, Mrs. Chime got a call and recognized the number. It was Detective Acer with the Troy Police. He was investigation Noah's murder.

"Have you caught them?" She didn't even greet him.

"No, no. We're working on it. Um, hello, Mrs. Chime. Sorry to bother you." What an awkward start to the conversation. "I have a few questions I need to ask you, and I'd like to do it in person. Can I stop by later?"

Yes, an opportunity to get away from all of this pity. "No," she said, "I'll come over to the station right away."


--------------------


Kevin Van Ranch reported directly to Agent Farmer.

"It's quite extraordinary, boss. I can't believe the computer caught this. Okay, so this kid Noah Chime was a member of one of those conspiracy theory discussion boards..."

"Okay," Farmer replied. That wasn't unusual for the types he monitored.

"Well, he spent hours on the site according to his internet activity records. He's been a member for the past six years, since he was 13 years old. Has logged on every single day, spending hours. But here's the thing, he's only posted 45 times."

"This leading somewhere?"

"So, I don't know how the computer found this. It's incredible! since 2007 our partners around the world have conducted exactly 45 assassinations around the world of the highest class. These are ops that the President doesn't even know about, and I'm surprised the computer is allowed to hook into a record of them. As you know, these highest class assassinations are not killings of the enemy. We report those. These are assassinations of high ranking spies on our own side that are about to go public, expose something dire."

"Yeah, yeah. So what? 45 posts, 45 kills. So what?"

"The kid's 45 posts are each at the exact date and time of each of the killings."

"Holy Christ. That can't be coincidence, can it?"

"The computer doesn't think so."

"So tell me more about the kid. Is he in one of the families? He must know someone who is telling him about the kills." Farmer's mind was spinning, "We should bring him in."

"Nope, we can't bring him in."

"Why?"

"He's already dead."

-------------------------------

"Mrs. Chime, I just talked to the people who conducted the autopsy. The results, frankly, were staggering."

"What do you mean? He was killed by a knife to the heart," she squealed and sobbed.

"Right. The cause of death isn't what surprised us. I'm going to come straight out with it. Noah had a massive tumor in his brain, he's lucky he wasn't already dead. On top of that, his bones were riddled with smaller tumors. He was covered in cancer. The doctors said that if he had been checked out the day before he died, they would have told him he was on borrowed time and could die at any moment. No treatment, nothing. He was very sick, beyond repair."



"WHAT!?!?"



To be continued....

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17


That was good. I really enjoyed the read
-nat

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17


Pretty good. Wouldn't doubt that eventually they'll have a computer like that one day.