The Incident

It was there that he learned the the United States cyber capability was nothing short of eye watering. America could literally destroy the entire cyber capability of a nation and bring it to its knees in a matter of minutes. The danger, of course, was that the techniques used could eventually be reverse engineered and used against the US.

For that matter, other nations possessed very robust cyber capabilities themselves and could cripple the US banking and/or transportation systems with a few keystrokes. It was hard to comprehend the level of pain and suffering such attacks would cause. They would make the shortages experienced during the pandemic look like child's play.

He'd had numerous offers to work for another agency, but Joel had bigger plans. Because he didn't consider what he did work, he couldn't wait to get home and continue doing what he loved as he worked to solve one of the most difficult problems in the area of encryption.

Specifically, he focused on the area of quantum computing, which would at some point enable a user (like himself) to break any and all of the current forms of encryption used to protect emails, bank accounts, and other highly sensitive data. That day was fast approaching, and while it would be used by the bad guys to do terrible things to people and/or countries, he had no interest in that side of it. His goal had been to find a way to outsmart these coming quantum hackers by providing a new form of quantum encryption even they couldn't break. Both were the current holy grails of cyber hacking and security, the things he loved more than anything else.

Just two weeks earlier, he was able to put together the final pieces of the most difficult and elusive problem he'd been working on for over a year. He was now in the testing phase, and if he was right, he'd be able to go public within another 4-6 months or so. He'd been very careful to ensure that all of the work he did was outside of any government office and on his own equipment so that the Department of Defense wouldn't be able to claim control over his work.

If the testing proved his theory to be correct he would then file for a patent. Once approved he would leave Army Cyber Command and open his own business. While money had never been his goal, the financial aspect of this revolutionary concept would be enormous. More importantly to him would be the ability of banks to protect hard working families like his mom and dad who stood to lose everything in an instant if the bad guys beat him to the punch. The implications for a huge number of things worldwide were staggering.

He sighed audibly when he thought about money because he'd spent a huge chunk of everything he'd made on a roomful of computers he'd networked together that tied into a server he was still paying on each month. He even chuckled when he thought about his mom asking him if all those computers in such a small space could give him cancer.

"No, they won't cause any harm," he assured her. "But they will raise the electricity bill which I will pay for."

This time his mother didn't tell him 'no', and he could see that she was thankful for him taking care of that.

With a little luck and a lot more hard work involving long nights after getting a patent and finding an investor, he might be able to get a place of his own. No, if things went as he planned, he would be more than able to do that, but even more important to him was that he would be able to pay off the rest of his parents' mortgage as a small way of thanking them for their love and support.

As he continued getting ready he found himself sighing. It took him a moment to understand why, but the reason wasn't hard to understand. He was 28 years old, single, and in spite of his love of all things computer related and his ability to well--pick up chicks--he was lonely. Very lonely. It found it odd that this realization had come to him so quickly, and he had no idea why it had.

It was one thing to have loving parents and the best job imaginable. It was another not to have someone special in his life. That was confusing because he'd never really had any intention of getting married. At least not anytime soon. Now, however, he couldn't shake this feeling that there was someone out there. Someone...special. Someone who would give meaning to the rest of his life; a life he'd always believed, at least until now, was full and not missing anything.

He no sooner finished those thoughts than his brain settled on one that was related and more pleasant. The beautiful, older women he'd...run into. Literally.

Joel was an attractive guy, and while he couldn't keep a girlfriend due to a lack of time, he wasn't naive. She was beautiful but she was also quite a bit older than him, and he didn't need a computer program to calculate the extremely low odds of her being that special someone.

And yet he also couldn't shake the feeling that his having met her, regardless of the way it happened, was more than pure coincidence.

He sighed out loud again then said to himself, "Long shots occasionally win sporting events so, why not this time with me? And...Lacey."

He had things to do, so with yet another long sigh he reluctantly turned his attention back to the world of quantum computing.

Lacey was sipping a second cup of coffee and staring at the business card she'd brought inside. The thought of calling him not only made her smile but also made her body tingle. But she was a realist, and the reality of her situation was that she really needed to find a job. It was nice to finally know that she could at least have feelings for another man, but money was fast becoming an issue; an issue she could no longer ignore.

She and Paul had both taken on life insurance policies on each other the first year they were married--just in case. Neither ever really imagined they would need it, but they were both practical people, and being in the mid20s, the term policies were very cheap.

When he passed, she'd received $100,000 tax free, and between that and what they'd managed to put aside, she'd been able to live a modest life without working. Perhaps a job would have been better than having so much time on her hands, but she'd been so completely devastated at the loss of the only other person she'd ever romantically loved that it would have been nearly impossible for her to work full time.

She still had around $8,000 left, and while that could last another 2-3 months if the was careful, she needed to get have some income, so after draining the coffee in her cup, she sat down at the computer and opened a search engine. She sat there staring at the screen for a moment then typed in something on a whim after taking another glance at the business card: cyber jobs Augusta Georgia.

She had no idea what to expect, but until meeting Joel, that was something that would have never even occurred to her. When a lengthy list of government jobs appeared, she heard herself say,"Huh. Who'd of thunk?"

Most of them were for cyber professionals, and many required a four-year degree and some experience. One of them did not, and it caught her eye.

"Administrative assistant to the Director, US Army Cyber Command."

Intrigued, she clicked on the link and took a look. It was a GS-9 position that paid $49,000 a year. She then looked at the prerequisites and realized she met all of them from her previous jobs as an administrative assistant. The only real concern she had was not having worked at all for the last three-plus years.

Lacey thought about it for a minute then decided to continue. She followed the link that told her how to apply and in about 15 minutes she was ready to hit 'send' but stopped to think about it a little more. It didn't take long to conclude this was right up her alley, and there really wasn't anywhere else she could work and make that kind of money. Not with her current skill set, anyway.

Satisfied this was a sound option, she hit the send button.

"Now what?" she asked herself when she again noticed the business card.

Joel Dixon, Analyst, US Army Cyber Command, Augusta, Georgia.

Lacey wasn't one to engage in self deception, but in spite of what she was looking at and what she'd just done, she told herself that applying for this was nothing but a coincidence.

"And a very logical choice for several reasons," she said for her own benefit before putting the card down.

She ignored the very brief twinge that came in the form of a tiny little dose of reality as her brain said, "You know exactly why you chose that particular job, so why don't you just call him?"

She finished the internal conversation with a rather sharp retort.

"That is not why I applied there!" and then allowed self deception to do its thing again.

She busied herself by making a list of other jobs she was willing to consider, and less than six hour after sending in her online application, her phone rang.

"Lacey Graham?" she heard a female voice say.

"Yes?"

"My name is Katherine Stanton with Human Resources at Army Cyber Command. We saw your resume and would like to have you come in for an interview."

"Um...yes! Yes, of course. When?" she asked, trying not to sound overly excited.

"Is tomorrow okay?"

"Tomorrow? Yes. Definitely."

"The director has 15 minutes available from 1:30-1:45. You'll need to arrive half an hour early and stop in here at Human Resources. Will that be possible?"

"Um...one thirty. And half an hour early," she repeated as she wrote down the needed information. "Yes. I'll be there!"

"Very good. We'll see you then," the voice said before the line went dead.

As she set her phone down her mind began whirling.

"What am I going to wear?" was her first thought as she headed straight for her bedroom closet.

Twenty minutes later she had a pile of clothes on her bed but was no closer to finding anything that fit the bill.

Another 20 minutes after that and she was at the Augusta Mall on Wrightsboro Road where she found a very professional looking suit she loved. It was dark blue and fit perfectly. A new white blouse and a pair of shoes later, she was ready to turn her attention to the interview and tried to anticipate what she might be asked and began rehearsing answers.

"Remember to smile," she told herself. "But only when appropriate."

Having no idea that Lacey was fitfully tossing and turning at midnight, fretting about her job interview, Joel was in a world of his own. He was now ready to test his hypothesis against an actual RSA encrypted system, and before he initiated the test he double and triple checked everything.

RSA Encryption was developed by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in 1977, and took its name from the initials of their last names: Rivest-Shamir-Adleman, or RSA. Today RSA is commonly used in e-commerce, email platforms, online banking, and many other applications.

RSA Encryption works by generating two large prime numbers, which are then used to create a public and private key pair. The public key is used to encrypt messages, while the private key is used to decrypt them. RSA allows for secure communication to occur even over insecure networks since the intended recipient is the only one who has the private key and is thus the only one who can access and read the encrypted message.

It was the most secure system on earth. Currently, at least. With existing computing technology, one estimate holds it would take 300 trillion years to "brute force" crack an RSA 2048-bit key. In contrast, a quantum computer could crack the same encryption in just 104 days. While three-plus months sounds like a very long time to anyone not familiar with the difficulty of decrypting an RSA system, it was, in actuality, an extraordinarily short amount of time.

Something else that was extremely complicated was setting up all of the protections he needed to avoid detection and possibly ending up in jail. He had no intention of doing any harm, but the thought of the FBI showing up at his parents' home at 3am made him think long and hard.

But he was now fully committed, so he rechecked everything a fourth time then looked down at the keyboard.

"This is it," quietly said as he extended his right hand. With his index finger he hit the 'Enter' key and hoped that he would not only not end up in prison but change the world of encryption forever. In a positive way.

Joel exhaled a breath of air very slowly then looked over at his uninterrupted power supply while picturing the 22 kw Generac generator his dad had installed two years ago. Between them, there was no reason why his program couldn't run 24/7 indefinitely even if the city lost power for a few days for some crazy reason.

When he left the room his only concern was someone going in there and inadvertently pulling a plug or knocking a cable loose. But other than his mom no one ever went in his room, and she'd told him more than once that all the computer equipment in there scared her. She really was convinced it could cause cancer and worried about her son, so with that he quietly closed the door and walked toward the kitchen.

His parents had been asleep for at least three hours, and the house was eerily quiet when he left the hum of his bedroom. He grabbed a glass of water then plopped down in his dad's recliner, raised the footrest, took a sip, then closed his eyes.

For once, instead of quantum computing, he saw her and smiled. He hadn't had a moment to really think about her all day, so it was a pleasant luxury to do so now.

He didn't think about the 'incident' but rather focused on her. The long, dark, shoulder-length hair, her bright blue eyes, her amazing smile and those two beautiful, full lips. He felt himself 'stirring' again and didn't bother trying to hide it.

Even under the clothes she wore he could tell she had a very nice body. He guessed her to be about 5'8" and maybe 125 pounds making her about a size 6 or so. She had a tight waist and was probably a full B or a small C cup up top.

He chuckled when he realized he'd been able to glean all of that from their brief interaction, but he'd been sizing women up for the last 12 years or and had gotten very proficient at it. So much so that he couldn't remember the last time he'd been surprised when their clothes came off.

He'd only gone out with a couple of women who were older than him, and neither one was close to Lacey's age--or so he surmised. One had been four years older than him and the other seven. He recalled thinking that anyone much older than that would never work because...well, because she'd be...old.

But even though he didn't know her age he couldn't help but believe that this woman was somehow...different. So much so that he found himself wishing his phone would ring or that he'd see a text from her. He'd checked his phone a time or two since coming home that evening but the only text he had was from his sister asking him what he wanted for dinner.

His sister, Meagan, still stopped by one or two nights a week. Every now and then she cooked, and although their mom was the better chef, Meagan was getting quite good at it herself. Joel had even recently floated the idea of her attending culinary school to which she'd replied, "Yeah, right. Like I have that kind of money."

If his project panned out, Meagan would have the money and more.

As his mind began to relax he thought about Lacey again and said to himself, "She probably thinks you're kid," shortly before his subconscious mind took over and pulled him into a much-needed six-hour sleep in the very comfy recliner.

Lacey finally drifted off herself about 2:30 in the morning, but unlike Joel, she didn't have to be up at 6am which was fortunate because she slept straight through until 9 o'clock when she woke up with a start.

"Oh, my gosh. What time is it?" her panicked brain asked as she forced an eye open and saw the digital readout and said, "Thank goodness!"

She had a kind of light brunch around 11:30 but was too nervous to eat a full meal. She then showered and did her hair and makeup and dressed in the very professional looking business suit. She glanced at her watch then grabbed her purse before taking one more look at herself in the mirror.

"You can do this!" she told herself, feeling a huge boost of confidence because of the way she looked.

Most of her friends who were her age were either a good bit heavier or had some heavy-duty wrinkles going on around the eyes and a couple of them looked 10 years older than they were.

Lacey wasn't a vain woman, but she'd had enough other people tell her she looked younger than her age that she had to think it could at least be possible. Then again, her mom had always looked younger than she was until recently when she turned 70. She still looked great, but time had finally started catching up with her, and Lacey hoped she'd inherited those genes and that they would work as well for her as they had her mother.

By the time she arrived at Cyber Command Joel Dixon was the last thing on her mind. She went inside where she saw what looked a little like an airport security checkpoint. She glanced around and saw a sign that said, "Visitors check in here," and walked over to the desk where a man of about 50 asked if he could help her.

"Yes, please."

She told him her name and why she was there.

"Ah, okay. Yeah, the director's assistant is retiring. We've been wondering who he might choose to replace her."

He typed her name into his computer and a few seconds later he produced a visitor's pass.

"Make sure this is visible at all times, Mrs. Graham," he told her after glancing at her left hand.

She thanked him clipped on the badge, and after she did the man pointed to the security area.

"Go through security then you'll see HR down the hall and to your right."

She smiled, thanked him again, and the man said, "Good luck."

Lacey set her purse down when directed to do so then stepped up to be wanded.

"You're all set," the young security agent told her.

A minute later she was pushing open the door to HR which led her to a window where she again explained who she was and why she was there.

"Okay. Yes. We've been expecting you," a woman of around her age said. "I'll buzz you in."

She nodded toward the only door, and as Lacey stepped in front of it she heard the lock click. She turned the handle and stepped inside where a very attractive woman was waiting for her.

"Lacey. Hi. I'm Katherine. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Same to you," she said as she dutifully followed the other woman to her desk.

"We have a veritable mountain of paperwork to fill out, but the good news is most of it is electronic."

Lacey realized she wasn't kidding when some 20 minutes later she signed the last of the endless documents using her index finger on Katherine's iPad.

"Okay. Let me check with Harriet and see when the Director will be available."

Katherine hit a number on her phone, waited, then asked her question.

"Oh, okay. That's perfect. I'll send her in."

"The Director is just finishing up with a one-on-one briefing with one of our analysts, and he'll be ready for you in about two minutes."

"Oh. Wonderful," Lacey replied as the butterflies in her stomach began turning into worms.

Katherine asked her to follow her, and after going through two more doors that required her to open with her badge, Lacey found herself in a large, open area with two sofas and a dozen or so comfortable leather chairs.

"Harriet? This is Lacey Graham. Lacey, is our living legend, Harriet Fields."

Harriet was a very tiny woman who was turning 65 the mandatory retirement age. Civil service was all she'd ever known, and with just a couple of weeks remaining she had no idea what she'd do with her life.

"Pleased to meet you, Lacey," she told the younger woman rather stiffly. "Just have a seat and the Director will be with you soon."