Satellite Transmission Jammer

Daria Morgendorffer leaned back against the ventilation stack on the school roof, and set her book down, enjoying the warmth of the spring sun on her face, and the smell of new growth from the budding trees across the street in High Hills Park mixed with the sharp tang of asphalt from the sun-warmed roof. Spring was her favorite time of year: warm enough to relax outside, but not so warm that she had to abandon her green jacket.

Distantly she heard the bell signaling the end of the study hall she was skipping. In five minutes she needed to be in O'Neill's English class. She considered moving, but the warmth of the sun was too relaxing, and she was already three chapters ahead of the rest of the class anyway. O'Neill could go hang; she was going to stay here and read, or just soak up warmth. Either was preferable to listening to him butcher a fine work of literature.

A quiet hum interrupted her reverie, and she opened her eyes to watch the satellite dish on the edge of the roof swivel clockwise ninety degrees west, and elevate steeply. That was odd, she hadn't known it could move. It was supposed to be a downlink for the educational channel. Television stations came from a geostationary communications satellite, which was always in the same location relative to the ground, directly above the equator. Where it was pointed now was nowhere near the equator, and it seemed to be continuing to move slowly. She looked past it, at the branches of a distant tree: yes, it was still moving, slowly dropping and tilting to the south. She timed it for five minutes by her watch, and estimated it moved between fifteen and twenty degrees. Given the direction it was moving, that was about right for a low polar orbit. But nothing used polar orbits except satellites used by the military and hand-held satellite phones. Maybe Ms. Li had rented out rooftop space to one of the phone companies; she was always looking for new revenue sources.

As the antenna came close to pointing at the distant hills, the dish suddenly swiveled back to its usual location. Intrigued, Daria stood up and walked over to it. Looking closely, she could see the mechanism that moved the dish. It was compact, and disguised within the bracket that attached the dish to the post. From a distance, it would look like a solid mounting bracket. Looking closely, she saw a box of electronics on the back of the dish, with cables leading to the antenna, and the control mechanism. A flexible metal tube led from the box to a metal pipe on the base holding the dish. The pipe ran across the roof, and disappeared down a ventilator shaft.

Looking back at the box, she saw a small plate with writing engraved on it: "Atlas Electronics, Model: SCM-721, Serial: 801." She returned to her seat, and pulled a notebook out of her backpack, writing down the words and numbers. Later she'd see if she could find out what kind of equipment Atlas Electronics made. She wondered if it was for telephones or television. Of course, they might make both, but maybe the model number would mean something.

An earnest young man knocked on Ms. Li's door and entered at her call. She looked up from the budget she was updating on her laptop, surprised.

"Yes, Mr. Perkins, is there a problem?"

"Someone in the computer lab just did a search on Atlas Electronics."

Ms. Li's eyes widened. "Damn! Who?"

"The logon ID is Daria Morgendorffer, and the closed-circuit TV matches her file photo."

"Oh, Christ, that's all we need. Did she get anything?"

"Several pages off the public web site downloaded before we could 'simulate' a server failure. It looks like she was searching for information on satellite electronics."

"Send me copies of those pages. I want to know what she was looking for. And make sure the firewall blocks students from accessing any of our other suppliers."

"Right. Uh, should we do anything about her?"

Ms. Li's eyes narrowed. "Mr. Perkins, this is one of my students you're talking about. You will not DO anything to any of them, is that crystal clear? You are here to deal with external threats, and only external threats."

"What if she's a plant?"

"If so, she's a damn good one, she's been here two-and-a-half years acting exactly like a high school student. You know the kind of surveillance we have on them. She couldn't sneeze without us knowing. I don't think anyone could keep up an act twenty-four-seven for thirty months. Somebody let something slip, and she got curious. I'll deal with it."

"You're the boss, Colonel."

"Yes, I am. While you're at it, I want to know where she's been since she left her house this morning, and anything of ours that was in her visual range at any time, no matter how well covered."

"Yes, Ma'am. I'll get right on it."

Perkins sketched a brief salute, turned sharply on his heel, and exited, leaving Ms. Li to stare at the door.

"They keep sending me idiots who can't even remember not to salute; it's no wonder someone saw something. But why did it have to be her? She's got more curiosity than a kitten, and a lawyer for a mother. Oh, hell." She rubbed her temples. "Why now, damn it all, why now?" Reluctantly, she turned her attention back to the budget spreadsheet.

Daria sat on her bed, looking at the pages she'd printed before Atlas's server had died. The SCM series was described as a "Satellite Dish Controller", and the 700 series was, indeed, for polar orbital systems, but there were only twelve models, numbered 701 through 712. There was no 721 model. She'd check the server again tomorrow, but it looked like she'd found everything there. There weren't any links to other pages, and the list appeared complete. Maybe they used separate numbers for low-volume custom equipment. A satellite phone system probably didn't have too many ground stations.

She picked up the phone and dialed Jane's number. After a dozen rings, it was picked up, and she heard Trent's sleepy voice.

"I'll move the car, officer, just give me a moment."

"Trent, it's Daria, is Jane home?"

"Huh? Oh, hi Daria. I don't know, I've been sleeping. What time is it, anyway?"

"It's around eight-thirty."

"Guess I missed practice then. I can go back to sleep."

"Before you do, could you check to see if Jane's home?"

"Yeah, sure. Just a sec."

Distantly she could her him shouting Jane's name. It sounded like he'd muffled the phone in his pillow. After a while, Jane picked up an extension.

"Hey, Daria."

"Hey, Jane, why didn't you pick up when I called?"

"I didn't hear it. I was playing with Mom's kiln down in the basement. What's up?"

"What would you say if I told you Ms. Li was renting out part of the school roof to a telephone company for a satellite uplink station?"

"I'd say you'd probably been out in the sun too long, but so what if she is?"

"Well, don't you think it's a little odd?"

"Daria, 'odd' is Ms. Barch's collection of pickled pigs. If Li's making some cash off a phone company, who cares? It's not like it's hurting anyone."

"I suppose. There's just something strange about it."

"My friend, you need to get out more. Wanna catch a movie tomorrow? The new Bond flick just came out."

"Jane, you know I don't like adventure movies. They're all flash, and no substance."

"Don't give me that, you write Melody Powers stories that have less plot than the average Bond film."

"Those are parodies."

"Why bother to parody something if you don't like it? C'mon, you can't fool me. I've watched too much late night TV with you."

Daria smiled. There was something refreshing about having a friend she couldn't keep a secret from, even if she'd wanted to.

"Okay, so I do watch the Bond ones, sometimes."

"You liked the one with Arnold as a computer geek who moonlighted as a secret agent, too, as I recall."

"True Lies. Yes, that was fun."

"Hey, I'd love to talk about your secret vices some more, but I need to get back to the kiln. It has this annoying tendency to explode if not watched."

"Well, we wouldn't want that to happen. Walk to school tomorrow?"

"Yep, see you then." Jane hung up, and Daria followed suit.

"I suppose she's right, it's not doing anyone any harm, but I wonder what that antenna is connected to, and why they needed to be so secretive about it."

Daria walked cautiously down the deserted first-floor hallway. During classes there was nobody out here, but there was also no place to hide if someone came out of an office unexpectedly. If she was right, the cable from the antenna led down into the janitor's closet on this hall. She'd never seen it open, but the master key she'd borrowed from the janitor buffing the floors in the other building ought to open it, and if she was quick she could get the key back to him before he'd even realized it was missing.

She opened the door, seeing a small room lined with shelves holding cleaning supplies. Flicking on the light, she entered and closed the door behind her. Looking around, she realized the room was only about ten feet deep, and the outer wall of the building was at least twenty feet from the hallway. She'd been in both neighboring classrooms at one time or another, and neither had closets that would account for the missing space. She moved to the back wall, and looked carefully.

After several minutes of close examination, she realized that the steel shelving unit leaning against the wall was actually attached to it, and the legs weren't resting on the floor. Looking at the wall, there appeared to be a seam outlining the shelves, like a concealed doorway. She eventually found what appeared to be a latch. Taking a deep breath, she pulled on the latch, and the shelves and wall pivoted open. Behind it, a stairway led down into the basement, and she could see the metal pipe enter overhead, and run down alongside the stairs. Cautiously, she descended the stairs.

Down at the base of the stairs the hallway doubled back, and another flight of stairs led down. She continued down. Now, below the school basement, a hallway stretched ahead. Several doors opened off it, but as she tried each, all were locked, and the janitor's master key did not fit them. The metal pipe she'd followed ran down the hall, vanishing into the wall above a door at the end. She walked down, and tried the door.

It wasn't locked, and she pulled it open. Several people sat around a large room, looking at banks of video monitors. Nobody looked up as she stood there. Her gaze traveled over the monitors. Many showed world or regional maps. A few showed computer screens, and one in the back had CNN on with the volume turned down.

She walked into the room, closing the door behind her, and walked up behind a young man looking at a street map of some city. The outline seemed familiar, and then something clicked.

"London?" She asked.

"Yeah, they've been sitting in the same restaurant for two hours. How long can dinner take?" The young man said, without taking his eyes off the screen.

"Is it a good restaurant?"

"Well, it's not gourmet, but I wouldn't mind eating there."

"Then two hours isn't unreasonable. They could easily go twice that if they have something to talk about."

"Yeah, that makes sense." He looked up as he spoke, smiling, but when he saw her looking back, he froze, with a look of comic horror.

"Is there something on my face?" She asked.

"Wh... Wh... Who are you?"

"Daria. And you?"

"C... C... C..."

"Carl? Corey? Ken?"

"C... CODE ONE!" He yelled. All over the room people jerked erect, and suddenly Daria was looking down the barrels of a dozen handguns.

"Um, you don't need to tell me your name if you don't want to."

Daria sat at a table in what appeared to be a breakroom off of the room with the monitors. A young man with a gun stood by the door, watching her intently. The door opened, and Ms. Li walked in, took one look at Daria, and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"Hello, Ms. Morgendorffer. I apologize for the behavior of my people. Their social skills sometimes leave something to be desired." She turned to the man with the gun.

"Perkins, put that damn thing away, and tell me how she got down here."

"But Colonel..."

"Colonel?" Daria asked.

"Perkins, you idiot, can you possibly make this any worse? I'm going to have you cleaning toilets in Antarctica if you make one more mistake."

"Yes Ma'am!" Perkins braced to attention.

"Well? I asked you a question. How did she get in?"

"I don't know ma'am. Brian looked up and she was standing behind him, asking questions."

Ms. Li turned to Daria. "Could you tell me how you came to be down here?"

"I could. Could you tell me what 'here' is?"

"Ms. Morgendorffer, the less you know, the better off you are. This is already one hell of a mess, please don't make it any worse."

"Am I under arrest? If so, on what charge?"

"I can hold you for seventy-two hours without charging you with anything. I won't, because your mother would be down on me like a ton of bricks if you disappeared for that long, but I could. Now, can you please answer my question?"

"Okay. I followed the line from the satellite dish down, used a janitor's master key to open the closet, and walked in."

"What made you curious about the satellite dish?"

"Well, it has a polar orbit tracking mount, and that's not normal for a TV dish. I thought you were renting out space to a satellite phone company. But that's not what this is, is it?"

"If I said it was, would you believe me?"

"No."

"Didn't think so. What this is, is a government agency..."

"Ma'am! She doesn't have the clearance to know that!" Perkins, still standing at attention, blurted out.

Ms. Li turned a cold eye on him. "Perkins, as you were so kind as to mention earlier, I'm the Colonel. Since you aren't, I suggest you button your lip. If I hear one more word out of you, I'll find something worse than Antarctic toilets for you to play with."

"But, ma'am..."

"Perkins, be glad you're a civilian now. If you were still in the army, I'd have you up on insubordination charges. Now, get out of here and make sure the doors are locked, and change the closet lock so it's not on the main building master key. If I see you again before tomorrow, you'll regret it."

Ms. Li walked over, and sat at the table, as Perkins hurried out of the room. Daria watched her rub her temples.

"They send me such puppies." She looked up at Daria. "You've got more sense, and you're a high school senior. God."

"I'm not your average high-school senior."

"No. If you were, I wouldn't have this problem. Anyway, as I was saying, we're a government agency responsible for counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism activities around the world."

"In a high school basement? Why would any sane government put an installation like this in a place where it's overrun with people who could find out about it?"

Ms. Li chuckled. "That's exactly what I asked when I was first posted here, fifteen years ago. The answer is simple: we need to be close to Washington, and everything within driving distance of there is under incredible scrutiny. It's impossible to hide a building of the size we need, and businesses have too many outside visitors. A school doesn't have to let any strangers past the main office, and every student and parent of a student here has had a more through background check than most people with security clearances.

"Perkins was actually wrong: you do have the necessary security clearance. What you don't have is need-to-know, or the paperwork to make the clearance official."

She looked up at Daria. "I have two options. I can make the security clearance official, if you promise to abide by the regulations controlling classified information and tell nobody about this. If you're willing to do that, then you're free to go."

"And the other option?"

"We lock you up somewhere for violating National Security until we can shut down this facility and remove every trace it ever existed. You'd probably be let go sometime around August."

"Why go to all that bother? Why not just make me disappear?"

"Because, Ms. Morgendorffer, whatever you may think of me or the government, we don't operate that way. I took an oath to defend this country and it's citizens. I don't intend to fulfill it by abusing the constitutional rights of those citizens."

"Locking me up for six months isn't a violation of my rights?"

"Not if it's because you can't keep a secret." She looked Daria in the eyes. "I don't particularly like it, but I'm not going to apologize: you have a choice."

Daria looked at her for a long moment, as Ms. Li continued to rub the bridge of her nose.

"Headache?"

"Oh, yes. I've had migraines you would not believe since I took command here. Being principal is a full time job, as is playing nursemaid to these idiots. I don't get anywhere near enough sleep, and I drink way too much coffee."

Daria continued to study Ms. Li. She seemed far from the crisp, energetic principal whose continual struggles for budget at the expense of the students Daria had chafed against for years. Which was the real Angela Li, or were they both roles? This one seemed more human, vulnerable, which made it more likely to be an act. But her decision was obvious in any case.

"Okay. I'll sign your papers, and I won't tell anyone."

Ms. Li looked up. "You're certain? You can't even tell your parents."

"I don't tell my parents much, anyway. But I won't even tell Jane. I can't prove you're one of the good guys, but if you weren't, I think you'd have been more willing to make threats."

Ms. Li smiled, a tired, but honest look of approval. "If I had a half-dozen analysts as sharp as you, I don't think I'd have headaches. Have you ever considered a job in Intelligence? The pay sucks, but you get to visit quite a few interesting places."

Daria stared at her. "You're not serious?"

Ms. Li looked back, thoughtful. "Actually, I believe I am. I'm going to need a replacement after I send Perkins to Antarctica. How would you like to be my aide?"

Title - True Cynicism is a play on True Lies; but I presume you caught that. Like most use of such titles in real Daria episodes, the actual story has no close relation to the other work; it's just an indication of the general idea (in this instance: spies, masquerading as something else, and trying to keep even their friends and family from knowing).

Why? - Several reasons. First, I wanted to try my hand at a really short story, second, I wanted to look at Daria from a different perspective than either Canon or the typical crossover, finally I like the idea of putting someone who writes about a suave, violent secret agent (Melody Powers) into a more real world of espionage and seeing how they react. Also, after Ms. Li's comment to Mr. O'Neill in Fizz Ed about the cost of a "satellite transmission jammer", I just had to answer the question of why a school would need such a thing.

What is this? - Well, it's a stand-alone story in it's own right, but I'm planning to do several more "chapters" with cliffhanger endings if my imagination is up to the task. Think old-time movie serials: short episodes, with a hook to draw the audience back next time.

Daria's Character - Okay, I know I've diverged a bit from her "real" character (it's not like this is the first time, either). The Daria of the TV show would be suspicious of Ms. Li, but not proactive enough to steal a master key and go looking for the other end of the cable. On the other hand, I'm tired of having supporting characters whose sole role is to kick Daria into taking actions she wants to take anyway. To make this work without such hoops to jump through, I'm presuming she's matured (by late senior year) enough to realize that she needs to act if she wants to accomplish things. That, coupled with her intellectual curiosity, gave me the "curious as a kitten" Daria presented here. I am going to hew close to her observed character otherwise. This isn't "the birth of Melody Powers" and no communists will be harmed in the making of this serial. Well, some may be annoyed, but bloody deaths will be notably absent.