Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here.
Frank was puffing his way up the dirt road leading away from the canyon rim, focusing on his breathing. He’d actually lost five pounds in the first week of his new regime, and had also progressed from walking fast to alternating walking with short bursts of labored jogging. The near-term goal he was now focusing on was to reach the point where his jogging interludes were longer than his walking ones.
He hadn’t been as successful on the technical front. Despite the revelation that whatever had been interfering with data on his server hadn’t affected the same data on his laptop, he was still struggling to figure out why. Worse, when he had tried the same exercise a second time, the data on his laptop did flip. But what had changed? Had he done something different the first time without realizing it, or was there a vital clue that he was missing?
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here.
Frank was sitting inside his camper, a bowl of diet popcorn at one elbow and a small dumbbell at the other. The elbow next to the popcorn was getting most of the exercise. On the opposite side of the camper hung a large flat screen TV, and on that set the latest, pre-primary season Republican debate was about to begin.
Like many other Americans, and indeed like a surprising number of satellite viewers around the world, Frank was curious to see how Lamar Wellhead, the latest entrant to the Republican field, would fare in his first performance under the scrutiny of the public and the national media. As usual, he had rocketed to the top of the polls within days of announcing his candidacy, but few besides Frank knew that this was almost certainly a manufactured illusion.
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here.
Frank was only a couple hundred yards from his camper, but already he was gasping for breath. He wanted to blame the 8,000 foot elevation of the North Rim, but suspected he couldn’t pin all of his distress on the thin air. After all, he hadn’t engaged in anything more strenuous than a fast walk since high school. And he hadn’t been in great shape then, either.
He lurched to a halt and leaned forward, hands on his knees, gulping in the cold, clear air of the morning. Surely this was hopeless. What had he been thinking?
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here.
Frank gazed out over the immeasurably vast canyon that stretched for miles before him, bedazzled by the silent, bright sunlight of an early autumn morning. The enormity of the view was so overwhelming that the infinitely crenellated details of mesa and river, cliff and spire seemed dimensionless and unreal.
It was unusual for him to sit so placidly for so long. Usually he would notice an internal flaw of logic in some random thought passing through his mind, setting his brain in motion until the underlying, disharmonious concept had been identified, the random thought properly rephrased, and the result mentally stamped as ‘resolved.’ Or perhaps some inscrutable object or action would catch his eye, presenting a puzzle that needed solving before his mind would permit his eye to move on.
But not today.
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here.
It was early afternoon when Frank and Josette rolled slowly into Gerlach, following a 1960’s era VW minibus. Behind them was something that resembled a cross between a Viking long ship and a Mississippi river boat. (“Ah! An Art Car!” Josette exclaimed.)
They hadn’t expected to find much in Gerlach, since Josette had already looked the hamlet up on the Internet. A typical description read:
Welcome to Gerlach, Nevada (pop. 450). In this thriving metropolis you will find one elementary school, one high school, one post office, one propane distributor, one gas station, one motel, 3 bars and that's it.
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here
The sun was once again shining the next morning as Frank drove west on Route 50. The harsh glare made it as hard to see as he was finding it difficult to think. Just the day before, he had been sitting in his clearing swearing at his laptop, and now he was off on what could prove to be two wild goose chases – the first, to find someone a government agency that didn’t exist was convinced was hacking into the pollsters’ computer systems, and the second to chauffeur a young French woman to a countercultural festival for reasons he was trying hard to pretend he did not understand.
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here.
It was only an hour after the helicopter’s departure, but Frank was on the move, driving carefully down the jeep track through the wind-whipped, driving rain, periodically blinded by vivid flashes of lightning. This wasn’t the usual afternoon thunderstorm, where few raindrops survived the long descent through dry desert air without evaporating before reaching the ground. This was the product of a full monsoon front sweeping up from the Gulf, the kind the ranchers relied on to refill their stockponds and green up the grass again for their cattle.
Now that he had signed on with whoever it was that he would be reporting to, Frank was anxious to get started, and he wanted a change of scenery to go along with the new objective. It hadn’t taken long to pack up. But by then the storm was breaking over him.
Welcome to the sequel to The Alexandria Project, a cybersecurity thriller. If you'd like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here.
A wide, Nevada valley stretched before Frank Adversego - stretched as far as he could see. Something about this particular vista, though, pricked at his memory. Something about the way the mountains converged in the hazy perspective of the distance.
Ah - that was it. This was the road he’d traveled in ghostly moonlight a year ago, wrestling with various demons, both past and present. Happily, they had now all been laid to rest. And who knew what might lie ahead?