by thalasso

Two days later Harry went to the office for her report. Director Ferraday was pleased with the results so far.

"I most certainly do not expect you will find our mole that fast!"

Harry had found nothing special so far, just a couple of books. Some of them interesting, some boring, but none with content not belonging there.

"The trouble is, Sir, I can't just ask people what a want to know. Maybe somebody has already found one of these books by accident. But if I start asking I will blow my cover in no time."

Ferraday nodded. That was not necessarily a sign he really understood what it was all about.

"No problem, Harriet. Just keep still and keep going. Something will turn up sooner or later."

One thing had crossed her mind ever since she started. Now was the right time to asked. Cautiously Harry changed the subject.

"I found all the material I have been given very well prepared. Did you compile all that stuff, Sir?"

Ferraday looked surprised for a moment.

"No, of course not! Wouldn't even had the time to do that. Why do you ask?"

"Well, Sir. Obviously someone else did the job before I started. To narrow down the suspects, I should know who."

For the first time ever Harry saw Ferraday being not comfortable with his usual arrogance, but extremely uneasy.

"Hmm, I tried to keep that away from you and I'm still not sure it is a good idea to tell you at all. But anyway, you are right. The whole thing started before you joined us. That is the reason, why I choose you. You are the only person I can trust, because you can not possible be involved.

We knew of that mole for half a year, but he's been too clever so far. We could not nail him down. He is an insider, he knows all the procedures, he smells a trap even before we can set it up. He only slipped once, therefore we know about the 3D-world and the virtual books. But that was all we got. I assigned our best man to get him, Ray Lonnen."

Harry gasped. She had been to Ray's funeral a while ago. He had died in a car crash. She hardly knew him, just saw him at meetings or had a casual chats with him. Before she could say something, Director Ferraday went on.

"I know, what you are going to ask! Yes, we investigated that crash thoroughly. The car had not been tempered with, no drugs, no alcohol involved. We could not find a third party or any external influence. Ray was just driving too fast and lost control over his car. He was known for speeding, even had a couple of tickets. The investigation was done by outsiders, just to rule out any manipulation. We could not find any connection between his unfortunate death and the job he was doing."

"I see," Harry was confused. Her easy and entertaining job from home had just turned into a nightmare. "But you should have told me right from the start!"

"I needed your unbiased approach," Ferraday defended himself. "Maybe we were too narrow minded in that matter."

"Who is we? Who exactly knows about all this?" demanded Harry.

"With Ray gone, only me and the Board of Directors."

"If it is one of them, I'm as good as dead!"

"Harry! Please!" Ferraday was apparently shocked. "Get a grip on yourself! The directors are sending out people like you everyday on missions you might not come back from. That comes with the business. We all are professionals. If we can not trust them, we are lost anyway."

Ferraday calmed down a bit.

"Besides that, I don't know anyone from the board to pull this off. With computers they all are just as bad as me. I'm very happy to be able handling emails. If I want to do things with computers I'll have to ask my 10 year old nephew. We all are a different generation!"

"I'm older than you, Sir!"

"That is why you can handle this job, while I'll do mine!"

"Sorry, Sir. I didn't want to be pretentious."

"No problem, Harriet." Ferraday tried to smile. "You have my full confidence. You are the right man, er, woman to get the job done. I'll see you in two days then."

--

Harry felt very uneasy. She was not afraid to die. Through all here suspenseful life she had witnessed far more dangerous situations than this. She simply didn't know what to do. She persuaded herself that this job was no different as any other she had done before. This time she was only sharing cyberspace with the usual invisible enemy and not the real world. She reminded herself that she could not die in a 3D-community.

A bit more suspicious than before Harry took on here schedule again searching for secret places and books. She learned about the hidden tree house and decided to look it up right away.

She went to Ootay, a virtual tropical island and went to Maidenflight. The tallest building there was overshadowed by a giant tree growing right through it. Harry decided to hover up their and try to penetrate the tree, but she was not allowed to take out her hoverpack here. She walked a bit outside up a small hill where the no-dropping zone ended, hopped on here hoverpack and flew right over to these big trees over Maidenflight.

Harry carefully avoided to fly too low and went directly to the top of the tallest of the three trees. She lowered herself down until she disappeared inside the tree top and hopped off. There were three rooms inside connected aisles.

One of the aisles was blocked by a screen. She hovered over it right through the tree. In one of the rooms she found a book …

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