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Kathryn opened the door to her quarters. She had, as all Babylon operatives of her level had, quarters within the Institute complex. It gave a whole new meaning to the phrase 'taking your work home with you', but it did afford her a level of security that just wouldn't have been possible elsewhere.
In her hand she held a thick plastic folder, sealed shut and containing the details of her next assignment, although she wouldn't have really called it an assignment. Rockington had met her in his office as promised, and given her the folder, along with the information that she was to be overseeing a training mission for a group of new operatives. What kind of mission was that for a class A operative? It was a joke. Nostalgia value aside, she had no desire whatsoever to be watching over a group of new recruits who would probably have had enough trouble trying to point their Multipoints in the right direction, never mind infiltrating and uncovering some of the most dangerous organisations in the modern world.
Kathryn flicked on the lights and slumped into a comfortable chair, sparing a moment to put the international news on the holovision. The newsreader began to chatter away about some industrial accident in New Tokyo while Kathryn finally decided to open the folder.
With a thud a small leather-bound book slipped out of the plastic wallet into her lap, along with a plain paper envelope. Butterstone's diary! Things started to fit together. Carefully, Kathryn placed the diary to one side and picked up the envelope. She opened it and found a small card inside. There was an illustration of a snowman on the front. Inside there was a short rhyme, written in black ink.
Kathryn,
I hope this card brings you Christmas cheer,
For this season comes but once a year,
A gift I offer of secrets unknown,
Of things which you could not be shown,
The internal network holds the key,
Search for reference delta-seven-four-three
- A.Friend
Kathryn smiled; it seemed Rockington was not a natural poet. But this was intriguing. Quickly, she moved to the internal access terminal set into the desk on the far side of the room. She keyed in her password for the network and entered the search reference contained within the card. To use such a strange security method simply to access a file on the internal network, not connected to any external ports, so it could not be externally hacked, was very unorthodox. Something very strange must have been going on. After a moment the file came up, and Kathryn began reading.
Kathryn,
I apologise for the rather extreme security methods, but these are extreme times, I assure you. As of this moment, you are officially on operation Albatross, an undercover training mission at location alpha-12. Now, I know you're going to say that there's no such location, and I realise that. It should keep the GSSA chasing their own tails for a little while at least.
Unofficially, you are now part of operation Aurora. This is a very secret operation, details of which are restricted to only myself, our head technician, you and Agent Fortune, who is also assigned to the same training program as you are. These secretive measures have to be taken in order to ensure that the GSSA don't find out about operation Aurora. They have already done extensive background checking on you since you infiltrated Dalyn-Steward. They don't know it, but we've monitored them hacking into our external systems on several occasions in the recent past, checking both your own and Agent Fortune's personnel files. So far I think we've managed to feed them enough false information to keep them at bay, but I know they have their suspicions, and we must not let them get any further than that.
As I'm sure you'll have already guessed, operation Aurora is a mission related to the microwave signal coming from Virgo. We already have some information on this, and I'll try to detail most of it here. For security, this file will delete and write over itself once read, but I've added a few pages at the back of Butterstone's diary, so you'll always have the information to hand.
The Virgo signal is most definitely coming from some sort of spacecraft. The craft is travelling so quickly towards us that the original radio transmission is reaching us blue shifted to microwave wavelengths. Even given its speed, we estimate that it will still take over a hundred years to reach Earth. Yes, Kathryn, it's coming straight for us.
We thought at first that the data in Butterstone's diary was indicating readings taken of that craft by our radio telescopes. However, there was a coded message in the front of the diary, saying that the timebase for the readings had been encoded. When decoded, the data shows something much more alarming. It is the course of another, much smaller object, a lot closer to Earth. In fact, this particular object intersected with Earth's orbit over a year ago.
We're not entirely sure of the origin of this object, but no Earth-made object could have travelled out as far as the object we are currently seeing headed towards Earth. As such, we must assume that this object is not of Earth construction. Whatever it was, its trajectory places its landing site somewhere in the Egyptian Sahara Desert. Site recovery was performed by the GSSA, but that's as much as we know.
It may be a fair assumption that the radio signal from Virgo was originally a telemetry beam for the smaller object, but its continuation is a puzzle. I believe your first objective should be to find the object that was recovered and discover what it was sent here for. However, your overall objective is to find out what threat the inbound craft may pose and what its intentions are. I have had a ticket booked for you on the first flight to Cairo tomorrow under the alias 'Julia Fairbridge', details are in the back of the diary. You can pick the ticket up from Heathrow, Terminal Five. The flight is scheduled for 8am.
I will be away for a few days on another matter, following your receipt of this message. You will be able to contact me on priority channels if need be, but I recommend that we keep all contact to a minimum. If the GSSA are hunting through our personnel files, they're probably going to be monitoring our transmissions. I don't trust them in any of this, and I believe their motives are less than sound. Be careful, Kathryn, and, above all, don't let the GSSA find out who you are or where you're from. They've wanted to close down the Babylon Institute almost since its creation, and this would give them the perfect excuse.
Good luck and Godspeed,
Director Rockington
Kathryn closed the file, knowing that it would be instantly and irretrievably deleted. Her mind raced back and forth over the information she had just been given. Then, without another thought, she began to pack for Cairo.
Chris Smith, 28/11/01
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