by thalasso

"Oh, come in Harry! Have a seat, please!"

Harry didn't like Director Ferraday much, besides from being the boss anyway.

"For how long are you with us now?"

"Four month with the department and more than fifteen years with the agency, Sir."

"And before that?"

"I used to work for the NSA, FBI, CSI, CNN, ABC, TNT … "

"Very impressive, Harry. I've just been browsing through your file, very impressive!" Harry did not even like the way Director Ferraday talked, but remained calm.

"Thanks you, Sir."

"Especially when you had infiltrated the Vatican. You nearly became Pope. Not bad for a woman, Harriet!"

One thing Harry disliked even more than James Ferraday was here own name. She was a woman alright, but she never got the hang of being called Harriet. She told everybody Harry would be perfect, but Director Ferraday was as sensitive as the bare concrete walls in his office.

"You are pretty close to retirement now?"

"Two weeks, Sir."

Harry wasn't getting any younger. Of course she was still able to pull off assignments like the Vatican job, but for the real dangerous stuff she had become too slow. Most of the last years she had spent in meetings. Time for her to quit.

"I have a final job for you. Nothing complicated, just a little thing you can fix from your desk."

"What is it, Sir?" Harry was not too enthusiastic about it.

"We have a mole!"

"Sorry, Sir. I'm a special agent, not a gardener!" Harry knew that Ferraday wasn't exactly an expert in subtle irony.

"I meant a leak, a vulnerability, a weak spot, a betrayer, snitch, traitor, turncoat … "

"I'll get the picture, Sir!"

"Somebody from the agency, probably from this department, is selling classified documents using the internet. I want you to find him."

"Any hints, who it might be?"

"That is the problem, we have no idea. It could be anyone inside this building. The only clues we have are: he is good with computers and he doesn't leave any tracks."

"How do you know about the leak then?" Harry didn't get it.

"Occasionally we blend in some faked material. As soon as the counter espionage discovers it, we know we have a leak. But unfortunately our man is very clever and fell only once for it and is avoiding the bait ever since. For all we know he is using a 3D-community on the internet called There to exchange the information. Your job will be to go there and to blow his cover."

"When do I leave, Sir?"

"You don't have to. You can work from home! Or to be more precise, you will work from home. We don't want our man to know we are already breathing down his neck, do we? I have a fully installed laptop for you here and an envelope with all you need to know. All you have to do is going online, spend some time in the community and try to get know these people. All we need is the name our man is using in there. Then we can track him down. You will report directly to me every other day, no emails, no phone calls. Any questions?"

"How will I be able to recognize him? He won't display the fact, that he is a traitor!"

"No, of course not. We know that he copies the material in this 3D-community into so called virtual books and leave these in some secret rooms or hidden places where his contact can pick it up and leaves instructions. If somebody else finds the stuff accidentally it would read like some wild fantasies of some youngsters trying to get more attention online. You will talk to people, find out about these secret places and read all these books around. Once you found something, just note the name of the author, whatever name he is using. With that name, we can track down his computer. Then will catch him in the act."

"Wouldn't it be easier to ask for the cooperation of the people running the community and check their servers?"

"We have already tried that - under cover of course. But it turned out, there are thousands of these virtual books to check. That would just take too long. On the other hand we can't rule out, our mole knows somebody in that company. If we would ask officially for support, our man would probably know and back off."

"So, all I'll be doing is searching and reading virtual books?"

"Basically yes. Of course it would be interesting to know, who will turn up to read these books. But our main objective is to find the author. By the way, we have given you a false identity, a billing address and a credit card to use."

"Credit card, Sir?"

"You may have to buy some stuff like clothing or vehicles for transportation. Don't worry about expenses. Just buy what you will need to blend in. Anything else?"

"No, Sir. Not yet."

"Good luck then and don't disappoint me. Well, I haven't tried it myself, but I was told this virtual stuff is pretty entertaining. That will be all."

--

Harry was pleased with the assignment. She logged on to There, selected an avatar name and a virtual body. The most surprising thing for her was virtually being young again. One could make his or her avatar ugly, fat or even disgusting, but you could not make an avatar old. Even most of the other avatars looked like Ken and Barbie, she chose a young girl with brown hair, just to blend in. She lied about her age with pleasure, cause she never did before. In real life she did not wanted to be a day younger than she was. In virtual life she would never grow old.

For one thing, she had to lie about her age, cause it had to fit the false identity. On the other hand, she really enjoyed it. She bought some clothes, some normal stuff, some hot fashion. For transportation she took a buggy, a hoverpack and a hoverbike.

The first days online Harry was doing nothing else than looking around and talking to people in There. She was overwhelmed by the beauty of some of these virtual landscapes. On the other hand she was completely pissed off by some people, especially the young males. If they were about 15, they wanted to shoot her, about 20 years old always tried to compete with her in any kind of racing and above 30 they were actually able to talk. Obviously most of the females - whatever age – mostly wanted to chat. That was fine with her. That way she learned a lot about virtual books, hidden places, secret rooms and some things that were just fun.

The first clue was the chicken room. She heard it mentioned several times. A hidden room inside a temple. As nobody offered to take her there and she was too afraid to ask, Harry decided to find it on her own.

She drove all the way to the Grandis Tuma temple. Harry loved to drive, even it would take hours to get anywhere. Just like in real life - but no traffic at all, no need to refuel, no insurance, no nasty accidents - not even traffic jams. That may change in the years to come, she though when she arrived at the temple in the western part of an area called Monkey Crater on Caldera Island.

The temple was huge, like a Maya pyramid surrounded by several smaller buildings. Rumors said the secret room was inside the pyramid. After searching the temple in vain for some hidden or open entries, Harry decided to break in. During the last couple of days she had tested several methods to get inside of objects, buildings, houses - even a rock.

She drove the buggy up the first level of the temple. With full throttle she hit the wall of the pyramids acute-angled. She had heard it was possible to break through the wall, but it didn’t work. After many attempts, she left the buggy and tried a different approach.

Harry walked close to the wall and took out her hoverpack and hopped on. The pack rebounded from the wall and dragged her in - inside the temple. The building seemed to be empty. Most of the walls were translucent. High above her she could see something.

She retrieved the pack, walked to the middle of the temple, took out the hoverpack again and floated upwards. In the upper half she bursted through the floor and was inside a large hall, the chicken room. The hall was merely empty. In the middle was a barrier around an altar with a sign: "Demand chickens". It looked to Harry like a programmer's hoax, until she discovered this book in one corner …

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