Executive

…72

Louie liked testing software — testing the limits of software, understanding how a particular piece of software can interact with other pieces of software — leading to new results for him to discover.

He had started playing with the self-guidance software a while ago, forgetting about time, dinner, and his favorite TV show. He had validated several modules of the software, exploring the configuration settings, and the simulated functioning. So far, there was nothing out of the ordinary. He took another sip of cold coffee from his giant travel mug, and then moved on to the next module — target acquisition.

Based on image recognition, target acquisition was a simple module. If the drone captured an image that matched a preexisting, preloaded image from its library of targets, the drone would acquire the target and ask ground control for permission to fire. Curious to see who had most recently made Homeland Security's shit list, he started browsing through the images. A number of well-known terrorist figures paraded in sequence, some he recognized, some he didn't, but they all looked equally dangerous.

As he was quickly browsing through a relatively vast collection of images, comprising residences, hiding places, vehicles, helicopters, and wives of wanted terrorists and enemy leaders, his eye caught an image of the front view of a Toyota 4Runner with California plates.

"What the fuck?" All his weariness disappeared in a second. He clicked the mouse again, and the next image displayed. It was a close-up head shot of Alex Hoffmann, his boss.

He froze for a minute, thinking. No other target images involved any targets on American soil. Foreign soil only, in countries unfriendly to the United States, faces of known terrorists. He paced the room for a few times, nervously examining options. Who would want Hoffmann killed?

He tried to access the image upload details. The images of Alex and her car had been uploaded on July 8, at 6:57AM, by Dustin Sheppard.

"Uh-oh… That's strange, he's never here that early," he muttered. "Well, maybe he would be, if he was planning to do this…"

He felt a chill down his spine. The self-guiding software's library of images and general settings were common to all drones in operation. He suddenly realized that this image was on every drone, distributed by the central system. He tried to remove Alex's image. The screen prompted him to enter a username and password. Hesitating a split second, as he knew he was about to leave a trail of his actions, he entered his credentials, but the system rejected them. Insufficient authority level. Authority level needed: L1.

He started thinking who could help with this. There were only a few L1s in the company. Only Barnaby was above them, as L0, but grapevine had it that Barnaby was semi-retired already, not caring about much of the business anymore. HR? Definitely not. Cops? He thought of what his top secret clearance level meant, and how unlikely would it be to find a cop with a high enough security clearance to be allowed to see the software and its imagery. The Feds? Too slow to get them to listen.

A split second of hesitation, then he cracked his fingers and started his attempt to break the security codes of the self-guidance system.