The Enthusiasts

18

"Forgive me, Gabby, but we must ask that you look away while we log in with our passwords," Emerson explained in a semi-kidding while semi-not kidding fashion.

"I'll show you mine, if you show me yours," came out of Gabby's mouth automatically without her really wanting it too. Her cheeks blushed a little and she immediately pretended to somehow become deeply engaged with the dead and forgotten Prictusial plant in the corner of the room. She squinted at the withered tri-pronged cactus/fig hybrid which stood next to their bay window. The window, clouded with the dust that was trapped in between the panes and gathered on the outside and inside, was able to withstand any amount of scrubbing to clear the particles away if one were ever bothered to try and clean either side of the glass. Her eyes were set to signal that she may have made some new much more important discovery about the dead plant which far outweighed any desire to learn their network passwords, or get into Emerson's pants for that matter.

"Okay, Ted, you try first. Remember what we talked about? Let's stick to the plan and be careful," Emerson stressed as he watched Teddy navigate the Spectra portal. Gabby was invited back to watch the proceedings. A feeling of wonder hit Emerson and Teddy somewhat as a surprise. They felt like astronauts suddenly setting foot on Mars after decades of dreaming and planning for the epic mission. Although Emerson was quite familiar with the inside of his former omnipresent employer, seven years in camp with nothing else to think about now made for some high-stress nerves that swashed around with the excitement butterflies fluttering about in his stomach. We're finally here, he thought. But where is here?

Teddy was greeted as a high-ranking officer by the system administrator. He navigated the scene carefully, noting the many entrances he may want to go through – so many, in fact, that he quickly lost track.

"We have to find something called Clean Sweep... They may be keeping it under some alternate heading, but when you see it you'll know," Emerson reminded Teddy.

Teddy entered a portal labeled "Projects." This was filled with files of data. He scanned list after list of extensions, most of which meant diddly. It looked like a lot of company-wide upgrading was planned. Spectra had locations on every continent from the looks of it. The Free Spirit Colonies of China were even listed as having several small but expanding locations.

"That's it... If China has been infected by this authoritarian thinking, then everywhere else is under the control of Spectra by now," Emerson thought out loud as his hope of some foreign military intervention faded away. He stood up and stretched, taking a deep breath to focus himself again. He tilted his head up, looking at the cobweb-strewn popcorn ceiling above. Gabby's eyes followed his, wanting to catch and hold them tight for an intimate second.

"Errph-" was the sound that came out of Teddy. A shock of panic soured through Emerson's body. Everything seemed to happen faster than possible as Teddy entered an extension that in a nanosecond of reasoning seemed too good to ignore, something labeled "Top-Secret."

"No, don't!" Emerson shouted with great concern. Teddy stopped, dead in his tracks; there was no point in turning around now. "Guaranteed, they're watching us," Emerson said as he imagined a team of armed guards wearing black infiltration suits knocking down the door, tossing the room, and then rounding the whole camp up and torturing them for information before slaughtering them and burning the place to the ground.

*** THE ADMINISTRATOR IS OVERSEEING YOUR ACTIVITY ***

The bold, written text was now fixed across the screen.

"Velp! They're tracking us!" Emerson pronounced angrily while leaping into action. Pushing Teddy aside, he took over the controls. Smashing out commands on the keyboard, he frantically threw up firewalls and terminated their shifting, supposedly untraceable IP addresses he had scrambled and pinged from one encrypted satellite to another floating up and around the globe. Shortly after his sudden outburst of rapid commands, he sat hunched over and speechless with his hands covering his face as the screen went dark and he contemplated what implications they may have just enacted. After a moment of long silence where the three of them shared a massive set of jitters in front of the unfeeling black screen, Emerson picked up the keyboard and cracked it on the desk, nearly breaking the priceless heirloom in two.