Chapter 868: The Beginning of the Search

Chapter 868: Chapter 868: The Beginning of the Search

Sims Future Ventures didn’t actually have an office address, nor did it employ more than a handful of clerical staff. Ezekiel Sims had always run the entire operation by himself, using his home as the company’s headquarters.

The reason was simple: he didn’t trust other people.

There was another, more practical reason. His methods were rarely aboveboard, and sometimes even their legality was questionable.

Finding someone trustworthy who could work with him over the long term wasn’t easy. So he preferred not to hire anyone at all, sparing himself the trouble of worrying about employee loyalty.

To him, most assistants were disposable, like single-use utensils. Accountants, lawyers, and other professionals were hired only when needed, with payment determined by the specific job. The same applied to other types of workers.

Although the fee for an individual assignment was usually higher than the daily or hourly wage of a permanent employee, there was a significant difference when no work was available. The former cost nothing during idle periods, while the latter still had to be paid. Over the long run, permanent employees weren’t necessarily the more economical option.

The only compelling reason to hire someone permanently was that familiarity with the work could improve efficiency.

But if a job required no specialized experience or accumulated technical knowledge, and could be handled by anyone with a basic understanding of the subject—and if the workload wasn’t particularly heavy—then outsourcing on a per-job basis could be more advantageous for the employer than maintaining a permanent staff member.

That was why, in America’s deeply capitalist society, a one-man operation like Ezekiel Sims’s could thrive. There was even a specific term for it: a sole proprietorship.

After all, if technology companies that started in garages could succeed, what couldn’t be done?

This time, however, Ezekiel Sims had spent a substantial sum hiring a technical specialist: Amariah Mamed, a hacker active on the dark web and a member of the organization known as Rising Tide.

To ensure that the hacker could make full use of her abilities, Ezekiel had equipped his home with one of the most advanced personal computers available at the time. He had also assembled several cutting-edge, ultra-thin-bezel, large-screen LCD monitors into an enormous display wall.

Anyone who knew what commercially available LCD monitors looked like in 2003 would surely agree that the display wall alone was worth more than the computer itself.

During working hours, Ezekiel also covered the hacker’s food and accommodation. The only things missing were shackles around her ankles, an explicit declaration that she wasn’t allowed to leave until the job was finished, and a blunt threat that if anything happened to him, she would be going down with him.

Now, he was ready to verify the results of her first assignment.

Having received a generous fee, with an advance already safely in her pocket and a further payment awaiting her, Amariah Mamed wasn’t inclined to quibble over a few potentially unpleasant details.

"Mr. Sims, I scanned the three sketches you provided into the computer, then used the Department of Homeland Security’s software, together with access privileges for the public surveillance systems, to perform facial recognition searches.

"The first target, a white woman, produced nineteen possible matches. The second, a South American woman, produced eleven. The last, a Black woman, produced twenty-three.

"The candidates range in age from sixteen to forty-six. I’ve printed out all their records for you to review and confirm which individuals you want to investigate."

Looking at the thick stack of papers in his hands, Ezekiel Sims began going through them carefully.

"Is there any chance we’ve missed someone?"

Amariah Mamed replied, "I cross-referenced the FBI’s criminal records database. Among female criminals and suspects, there were no individuals matching the sketches. The same goes for the CIA’s intelligence personnel database.

"I even accessed the databases of other agencies that maintain personnel records, but I couldn’t find anyone who matched your criteria. The only exception was the newly established Department of Homeland Security, whose jurisdiction covers the entire population of North America.

"You can imagine how enormous the Department of Homeland Security’s database is. However, they haven’t created records for absolutely everyone. Aside from individuals specifically flagged for tracking, everyone else still remains outside the system.

"To make effective use of the public surveillance network being installed throughout the cities, I wrote my own program to flag individuals who had already been checked, preventing them from being searched repeatedly.

"Otherwise, the workload would be beyond your imagination, and the efficiency would be atrocious. Fortunately, my program has done its job. I’ve managed to screen the population of the New York area in a remarkably short time.

"I thought I’d present these results to you first. If none of the candidates are the people you’re looking for, I can expand the search to other areas. It’ll just take a little longer."

After explaining everything, Amariah Mamed, who had only recently joined the operation, couldn’t resist her curiosity.

"How did you get your hands on this software and the Department of Homeland Security’s account privileges? Those aren’t exactly things you can obtain whenever you feel like it."

Ezekiel lifted his eyes from the documents and gave her a cold stare.

"If you want to collect your final payment and live comfortably afterward, don’t ask questions about things you have no business knowing."

Amariah Mamed, who moved in dark-web circles and wasn’t exactly known for following the law, mimed zipping her lips shut and raised both hands to show that she would remain silent and ask no further questions.

Choosing between satisfying her curiosity and preserving her life wasn’t a difficult decision.

Ezekiel Sims went through the records again, eliminating the candidates who were obviously not the women he had seen in his dreams. This second round of screening discarded more than half the files.

The remaining candidates looked remarkably similar to the women he remembered, but he couldn’t determine with certainty whether any of them were the ones he sought.

He handed the remaining files back to the hacker he had hired.

"Do you have detailed information on these people?"

Returning to her computer, Amariah’s fingers flew across the keyboard, as though she were preparing to show off her skills.

"How detailed do you want it, boss?"

The sort of situation in which a client made unreasonable demands while the contractor could only roll her eyes was enough to drive Amariah to despair.

"Boss, even if I can access historical footage from the public surveillance systems, all I can find are images captured by those cameras. Where exactly do you expect me to find close-up photographs of these people?"

Ezekiel Sims wasn’t completely unfamiliar with computers or the internet.

"Can’t you look for personal or public websites, things like blogs?"

"Those are anonymous, too! And most people just post irrelevant landscape pictures or photos of objects. Who would publicly post their own picture along with information identifying themselves?"

This was very different from the social media frenzy that would emerge after 2004, when Facebook helped usher in a new era of online networking and everyone seemed eager to share every detail of their lives with the world.

The demand for online photo albums also depended on the widespread adoption of digital cameras. Although digital camera technology had made major advances in the early twenty-first century and prices were gradually becoming more affordable, widespread adoption was still a work in progress.

In 2003, internet users were still highly protective of their privacy. Even when sharing personal experiences, no matter how sensational the stories might be, they generally used pseudonyms and minimized the clues that could be used to track them down.

And in the internet culture of that era, when an online dispute spilled over into real life and the people involved came face-to-face, it often resulted in serious confrontations or other problems. Violent incidents of this kind could easily make the headlines in the local news.

That was precisely why people were so careful to protect their privacy.

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