Alien Singularity

Prologue

Terrorism

Time: Current

Jay Young was an average medium built guy, someone that would disappear in the crowd the moment he walked into a subway station. But appearance could be deceiving, as he was one of the best computer hackers in the world. A freelance programmer, Jay did not work for any corporations, and he only took contracting jobs. His clients included big corporations such as McAfee, Norton, and the Pentagon. Most of the time he worked alone in his apartment in DC. Besides his girlfriend Sandy and his parents, he had very little interaction with other people.

One day, Jay's phone rang. Jay was busy setting up his new coffee machine. At the time, the new coffee machine was the only thing Jay could think about. He sighed and shuffled over to his phone and picked it up.

On the other end, a man said, "Jay, this is Reuben Hunter, FBI director. We need your help in the case of last month's bus attack at the Crown Plaza Square of DC."

Jay was daydreaming about his coffee maker.

"Jay?"

He snapped out of his thoughts. "Oh what? Yes. Who is this?"

He heard Reuben sigh. "Jay, this is Reuben Hunter, the FBI director. You have heard about last month's bus attack at the Crown Plaza Square of DC, right?"

Jay shuddered at the mention of the terrorist attack. Last month, a terrorist named David Doey had stolen a DC municipal bus and driven to the Crown Plaza Square, where nearly a thousand people, including Jay, were gathered to watch the highlight of DC's annual festive parade. Doey had plowed into the densely packed crowd, killing more than a hundred people, marking it the most deadly vehicular terrorist attack in recent history. That was followed by a truck attack in LA Rose Parade that killed 98 and another bus attack in London a few months ago, with over 80 deaths. After tough laws were enacted to restrict gun ownership, vehicles seemed to be the weapon of choice by terrorists. "I remember that," he replied.

"Well, we need you to help investigate that case."

Jay scratched his forehead. "I thought you had already gotten the suspect and even his overseas terrorist leader."

Jay was thinking back to what had happened shortly after the terrorist attacks. The suspect had been arrested on the scene. FBI had later raided his house and seized all his computers. They had found out David Doey was radicalized by the ISIS, similar to the other two bus terrorists in LA and London a little earlier. He had email correspondence with someone in Afghanistan, and he had been watching some propaganda videos sent to him from the same source in Kabul. The FBI told the CIA's tech team to trace the source of the email and videos， and located the compound where the files were sent. With the help of Afghan military, US Navy Seal raided the house and captured the suspect operating the terminals, Mohamed Omar, who claimed to be the ISIS leader and vowed to kill as many Americans as possible.

"You are right, Jay. But after interrogating the so-called ISIS leader, I doubt this Omar is the real leader. I think he's just a low ranking officer who's been put there as a body double to protect his superiors."

"Okay..." Jay said slowly. "So you want me to find the real ISIS leaders? I'm a programmer, not a detective. Why don't you interrogate and torture this guy to find out where his boss is?"

"We did that already," Reuben answered, "but this guy knows nothing. However, we seized all his computers and brought them back from Kabul."

"Smart move. Now, tracing his boss would be a piece of cake. Your in-house tech team can't handle that?"

"I have to admit, ISIS leaders are more sophisticated tech wise than us. We can't figure out where this Omar got his instructions from. Omar claimed that he was the leader and all the radicalizing materials were his own work, but we see a clear intellectual deficiency between him and the materials he made. He claimed to have received guidance directly from Allah. He said Allah had been sending him messages from the cloud, but all the messages self-destructed just after he finished reading them. His "Allah" must be some sophisticated ISIS leader with rather advanced computer skills, but we just couldn't locate the source. That is why I am calling you for help."