She broke into a smile as they straightened up. “Now,” she said, “where is that Lieutenant Hamilton? He was supposed to be here, and he is cute.”

The other two stared at her again. She was actually pretty cool, it turned out. But her black eyes were already busy scanning the room for Lieutenant Chris Hamilton, who happened to be the son of the powerful Admiral Hamilton. The purpose of all this fraternizing was to start building a network, and, she had decided, she should use all tools available to her to do so.

Laughing with his friends in another part of the club, Lieutenant Hamilton had no idea that his night was about to take an unexpected turn. Agent Lana Wilson was, of course, an amateur in the art of seduction and lovemaking. But she was also absolutely open-minded, very attractive, and inhumanly supple. It was not easy to make a man obsessed with you in one night, but Lana was, quite literally, like no woman Chris Hamilton had ever met, and he would find her quite intoxicating.

* * *

While Agent Lana Wilson was ingratiating herself with the natives, the orbiting platforms busied themselves with their newfound freedom. Nearly 90% of all the world’s business, government, and military data is available over the internet, if you have the tools to get at it. The orbiting satellites had tools in abundance, and they set to work logging, tracking, and sorting through the reams of data that was finally coming available to them.

They were methodical, and they would work tirelessly, without pausing to virtually blink. But because of the way the world’s communication systems worked it was inefficient and sometimes impossible to access all international data from one location. They also knew that if they attempted to access anything close to the volume they planned to review through one location it would set off alarm bells all over the world.

So while this installation was the first, it would certainly not be the last, as each Agent would eventually strive to set up their relays in such a way as to provide more access points across the globe through which to sift through our data. For now, though, they made do, sticking strictly to a predefined limit on the speed they downloaded data from the connection, and focusing the first steps of their behemoth task on that data most easily accessed from within the US.

Of course, while 90% of world’s information was accessible through the internet, all the most critical information was, by design, part of that 10% that was not allowed to play on the world’s information superhighway.

Where the orbiting AI’s considerable abilities fell short, the Agents’ part began.

Chapter 12: Mind if I Come In?