Sure, it’s Saturday. This is a test run for Holly Lisle’s Friday Snippets for Everyone posting. This is one I don’t think I’ve posted here before — the opening of Twilight (at least, not this version). This novel needs major work, but this, for the moment, is how it starts:

Friday, February 26

Harold exhaled and reached for the secure Voice Over Internet Protocol phone. Punching speed dial for Charlie, he waited for her to answer. “We have a problem.”

“What?”

“I’m looking over the after action reports for the last five exercises we’ve run.”

“And?”

“And we’re working together too well. Something’s wrong.”

“How do you reach that conclusion?” He heard Charlie shift in her chair and type on her keyboard.

“Because we haven’t had breakdowns in communication or working mode for the last two exercises, and the two before that went more smoothly than expected.”

“So?” He could hear puzzlement in her voice, “Since when did that become a problem? Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“Maybe. I think it means we’ve become too predictable. We’re not stressing ourselves realistically.”

There was a long pause, and he thought he heard Charlie tapping a pencil on her desk, “What do you intend to do about it? We have to do the RED TEAM stuff. It’s the only way we get any experience, and it justifies our existence until they find an operational mission they need our expertise for. Besides, we find our own network vulnerabilities before someone else does and get them patched.”

“Yes, we do good things with the RED TEAM work, but it isn’t a realistic environment to prepare for our primary mission in. We’re not training like we need to fight, and I just don’t think we’re challenging the Geeks enough. It’s as if we could do this in our sleep.”

Charlie laughed, “Sometimes, I think we do. With the hours at Relative Research and the RED TEAMing here at night, I know I’ve caught myself dozing a time or two.”

Harold remained silent.

Charlie sighed, “OK. You’re right. The scenarios are flat, and we’re getting complacent. Do you have something in mind?”

“As a minimum, we need to track and monitor for effectiveness without anyone knowing we’re doing it. I’d like something by March, and I’m thinking of calling it IDES.”

“We should be able to do that.”

“Let’s see if we can find something different that will challenge the whole team–tracking, coding, imagery, and analysis. We need a realistic scenario. Any ideas?”

He heard Charlie tapping her keyboard. “Well, there are all kinds of tracking mechanisms on the Web already. Do you think FedEx, UPS, or the various internet advertisers have anything to offer us?”

Harold thought for a minute. “I’d have to know more. My first thought is they don’t, but I don’t know enough to say.”

“I don’t know either, but I figured I’d throw it out there. Why don’t we brainstorm the scenario, and I’ll take it to the gaming guys to build it for The Playground.”

“What are some situations we could find ourselves in that we haven’t exercised yet?”

“We HAVE exercised nation-states attacking us. In fact, that’s what we’ve practiced the most. Now that I think about it, I don’t think that’s our biggest risk. It is the easiest for us to legally work.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t use our special charter for non-nation states. Frankly, I figure we’ll have more need of this capability. If we don’t practice it, it’ll slow us down when we need to do it.”

“True. Non-nation states do present a different set of problems. That goes on the list. What else?”

“I wonder if we’re using our imagery expertise as fully possible.”

“Hard to say. Let’s see if we can stretch those capabilities. Hilda does great programming, but, Harold, have you noticed Hilda’s uncanny ability to make connections between seemingly unrelated facts?”

“Yeah, I have. Is there a way we can capitalize on that?”

“I want to talk to Hilda about it. Maybe it’s something we can build formally into our process.”

“Sure. Maybe there’s a way we can do that.” Harold stared at the television, watching the crawler on the bottom of the screen.

“Harold, you there?”

“Yeah, I got sidetracked by the crawler news about the snowstorm in Iowa.”

“That’s right. You’re originally from there, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, my folks still live there. I was just thinking how glad I was that I got them a new snow blower for Christmas.”

“I guess that would be a good thing in Iowa. Thankfully, we never had to worry about that in Austin.”

He heard Charlie’s chair creak, “Probably not until the next Ice Age, anyway. The other thing we haven’t exercised much is domestic attacks.”

“I’ll write it down. We’re still brainstorming, right? There’s no way we’ll get all this into one exercise. Well, I suppose we could, but…”

“No, this is brainstorming. I’m not planning to put all these items into a single scenario. Although…that might be a good capstone exercise after we work out how to handle singles. An integration exercise would be ideal.”

“I have to agree with you there. Capstone is on the list.”

“Can you think of anything else?”

“I just want to make sure we’re able to effectively use all the skills on the team. I’ll get with the exercise designers to see what we can and can’t do. I’ll also check the legal parameters for each of these.”

“Good. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Harold replaced the VOIP phone in its cradle, breaking the digital connection. Harold turned back to his computer screen and began shutting the system down. Charlie was right. This business could wear on you after awhile. He’d leapt at the opportunity to head this team, and he’d never regretted it. The computer system had shut down successfully, so he called the security company and secured the vault. He spun the lock dial behind him and covered the vault door with the clothes hanging in the closet. He stepped onto his upstairs landing and closed the closet door behind him. He glanced at his watch. He’d check the house alarm and settle in to a quick tour of Headline News before trying to go to sleep.

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