1

Chess players think three moves ahead. Go players think in territories and influence. I'm building something else entirely - a game where the rules change based on who's psychologically compelled to break them.

Finished the Jakarta contract yesterday. Clean extraction, minimal noise. Client paid in crypto, as expected. The beauty of chess is its predictability - pieces move in patterns, consequences are calculable. Jakarta was chess. Senator's son had gambling debts to the wrong syndicate, needed leverage neutralized quietly. Three moves: compromise the handler, redirect the debt, eliminate the photographs. Elegant.

But this new political landscape isn't chess. It's not even Go, though the influence mechanics are closer. In Go, you surround territory through patience and positioning. Here, the territories keep shifting because one player can't help but flip the board when he's losing.

My prototype uses compulsion cards. The authoritarian player “must” play certain cards when triggered - just like real psychology. In Jakarta, I could predict every move because people are rational actors protecting their interests. Here in DC, rationality is a luxury we can't afford to assume.

The game needs a "Narcissistic Supply" mechanic. Every turn without validation triggers increasingly desperate moves. Every boundary crossed provides temporary power but permanent vulnerability.

The irony isn't lost on me - I'm designing a game about systematic institutional capture while operating in the spaces that capture creates. The contract calls are already shifting. Less corporate espionage, more... democracy maintenance.

Chess has an endgame. Go has patterns. What I'm building has chaos mechanics.

Time to test the psychological compulsion rules. Reality provides excellent playtesting data.

2

The call came Tuesday. Washington number, careful voice. They'd heard about my work. Not the recent work - the older reputation. Clean solutions to complicated problems.

"Domestic situation with international complications," she said. "Your particular skills."

Meeting Thursday. Kennedy Center, intermission.

Been thinking about games and power. Chess assumes rational actors. Go rewards patience. The game I'm building accepts that some players can't help themselves. They must attack when threatened, must escalate when cornered.

Perhaps that's what makes them useful to others. Predictable irrationality is still predictable.

The voice on the phone knew things. About the prototype. About the psychological mechanics.

Not sure if I'm designing the game or if it's designing me.

3

Kennedy Center, second act of Tosca. She was already in seat J-14 when I arrived. Mid-fifties, Georgetown polish, wedding ring but no tan line. Professional caution wrapped in diplomatic courtesy.

"Your game is elegant," she said during applause. "The way certain players can't help themselves."

I hadn't shown it to anyone but Emma.

"We have a situation developing. Multiple actors, conflicting interests. Someone needs to understand how they think." She handed me a program with an envelope tucked inside. "Details."

The envelope contained a single photograph - a familiar face at a Moscow restaurant, 2019. Someone who shouldn't have been there, with someone who definitely shouldn't have been there.

"The rules are changing faster than we can adapt," she said as the curtain fell. "We need someone who understands games."

Walking home, I realized what I'd missed in my prototype. What happens when you have multiple unstable players on the same board?

The game needs to account for that.

So does reality.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

4

Coffee at 6:47, same as every Tuesday. Emma already showered and checking emails - pediatric surgery waits for no one. The twins arguing over cereal brands like it matters. Jake wants Lucky Charms, Sophie insists on granola because her teacher said sugar is poison.

"Dad, tell Sophie she's not the cereal police," Jake says.

I pour two bowls of Cheerios. Diplomatic solution.

Emma kisses my cheek, stethoscope already around her neck. "Don't forget pickup is at 3:30 today. Early dismissal."

"Conference call might run long," I say. Always might. "Can you swing by if—"

"Already texted Janet. She'll grab them if needed."

The morning choreography of a family that works. Emma saves children's hearts. The neighbors think I do something with defense contracting - occasional travel, flexible schedule, vague explanations about export regulations when pressed. Close enough to truth to be comfortable lies.

Drop-off line at Riverside Elementary moves like clockwork. Soccer moms in Subarus, dads in pickup trucks heading to construction sites. Mrs. Henderson waves from her crossing guard post. I know her grandson's name, her husband's hip surgery recovery, her opinion on the new speed bumps.

Normal people living normal lives in a place designed for exactly that.

Back home, the silence settles. Emma's surgical playlist still echoing from the kitchen speaker. I clear breakfast dishes, start the dishwasher, fold yesterday's laundry. Domestic rhythms that ground me.

In my office, the prototype sits where I left it yesterday. Colored cards spread across felt, influence territories marked in different tokens. I've been testing the psychological compulsion mechanics. When certain players are cornered, they can't help but escalate. Not optional - mandatory moves triggered by perceived threats.

The game is becoming more accurate. Unfortunately.

Phone buzzes. Unknown number, DC area code.

"Morning brief at eleven. Usual place."

No name, no pleasantries. The line goes dead.

I look out the window at Mrs. Patterson watering her roses, at the mail carrier making his rounds, at the predictable suburban Tuesday unfolding exactly as suburban Tuesdays should.

In four hours, I'll be back for school pickup. Help with homework. Maybe grill burgers for dinner.

Between now and then, I'll learn what my country needs me to do.

5

My office overlooks the backyard where Emma planted tomatoes last spring. They're dead now, brown stalks she keeps meaning to pull up. I should do it myself, but somehow those withered vines help me think.

The brief was shorter than expected. Three photographs, two names, one question: What happens next?

I spread them across my desk. Senator from Idaho, shaking hands with a Russian energy executive in Dubai, 2022. Treasury official at a private dinner in Singapore, same week as the banking summit. Defense contractor's wife shopping in Geneva while her husband testified about Ukraine aid.

Twenty years ago, this would have been simple. Follow the money, document the meetings, determine the leverage. People acted in their self-interest. You could count on greed, fear, ambition. Build from there.

Now?

I pick up the Senator's photo. His eyes have that particular emptiness I've learned to recognize. Not the calculated emptiness of someone hiding something, but the desperate emptiness of someone who needs to be seen as important. Every handshake is a transaction. Every photo an investment in his own reflection.

That need makes him useful to others. Also makes him dangerous to himself.

The Treasury official is different. She's careful, deliberate. Her smile never reaches her eyes. Professional paranoia or guilty knowledge? Hard to tell from a photograph, but the dinner was three days before the banking regulations changed. Three days.

The contractor's wife bothers me most. She looks genuinely happy in Geneva, genuinely surprised by the luxury. Like someone discovering they matter more than they thought. That innocence can be weaponized faster than guilt.

I pull out my notebook. Not the game prototype - this is different work. I draw three columns: What they want, what they fear, what they can't control.

The Senator wants validation. Fears irrelevance. Can't control his need to be the smartest person in the room.

The Treasury official wants security. Fears exposure. Can't control her family's medical expenses - daughter's treatment costs more than government salary covers.

The contractor's wife wants to belong. Fears being ordinary. Can't control her husband's business decisions that put them in rooms they don't understand.

None of this is new. What's new is how these individual vulnerabilities connect to something larger. Someone is collecting these people like chess pieces, but not for chess. For something messier.

I look back at the withered tomatoes. Emma planted them with such optimism. Good soil, careful spacing, proper support stakes. Everything right except the weather turned brutal that summer. Drought followed by floods. The infrastructure was sound, but the environment became impossible.

That's what worries me. Not the individual players - I can read them well enough. It's the environment they're operating in. The rules keep changing. The audience keeps shifting. What used to be predictable has become liquid.

My phone buzzes. Text from Emma: *Surgery ran long. Can you grab the twins?*

I close the notebook and put the photographs back in their envelope. Time to return to the world where pickup lines and homework matter more than senators and foreign money.

But I'll be thinking about those tomatoes.

6

2:47 AM. House quiet except for the heating system cycling on, Emma's soft breathing from upstairs, Jake talking to himself in his sleep about dinosaurs.

I should be sleeping too, but my hands keep moving pieces across the felt board. The coffee went cold an hour ago.

Started simple tonight. Traditional setup - players, territories, clear objectives. But every test scenario breaks the same way. Someone gets cornered, panics, flips the table rather than lose gracefully. Then everyone else has to decide whether to keep playing by rules that no longer exist.

I try different starting positions. Doesn't matter. The breakdown happens somewhere between turn eight and twelve, always triggered by the same player type. The one who can't accept limitations.

Move a blue token here. Red responds predictably. Green tries to mediate. Then blue sweeps everything off the board because mediation feels like losing.

I reset. Try again.

This time I remove some of the constraint cards, give everyone more freedom to maneuver. Worse outcome. Without boundaries, the aggressive player just keeps taking until there's nothing left to govern.

The heating system clicks off. Silence except for the grandfather clock Emma inherited from her mother. Tick, tick, tick.

I gather the scattered pieces, sort them by color. The prototype has evolved beyond what I intended. Started as an academic exercise in game theory. Now it feels like I'm documenting something that's already happening.

The photographs from today's brief sit in my desk drawer. Three people whose vulnerabilities someone else is cataloging, just like I catalog the behavioral patterns in my game. But I'm not the only one studying these patterns.

I arrange the pieces in a new configuration. What if there were outside players? Not bound by the same rules, not invested in the system's survival? Just there to accelerate the breakdown, collect the pieces that matter, walk away when it collapses?

Test that scenario. Runs to completion every time. Clean, efficient, predictable.

Jake's voice drifts down the hallway, something about a T-Rex being hungry. Emma shifts in bed above me. Normal family sounds in a normal house on a normal suburban street.

I fold up the game board, put the pieces back in their compartments. Some problems don't have solutions, just outcomes you can see coming.

Time to try sleeping.

7

Emma made pancakes this morning. Special Sunday breakfast while the twins fought over who got the last piece of bacon. Normal family chaos, coffee brewing, dishwasher humming. I should have been present for it.

Instead I kept thinking about tanks rolling down Constitution Avenue.

Watched it live yesterday on three different networks. CNN calling it "unprecedented pageantry." Fox describing "patriotic celebration." BBC using words like "strongman spectacle." Same event, different planets.

The twins were fascinated by the aircraft flyover. Sophie counted fourteen fighter jets in formation. Jake wanted to know why the tanks had rubber padding. Emma caught the end of it while folding laundry, shook her head at the cost estimates, went back to domestic life.

I couldn't look away.

Not because of the military hardware - I've seen plenty of that in places where it actually mattered. What held my attention was the reviewing stand. The way certain people arranged themselves around power. Who stood close, who kept distance, who applauded at what moments.

Body language tells stories that speeches don't.

The foreign diplomats in attendance particularly interested me. Representatives from countries that normally wouldn't coordinate their lunch orders were clustered together, sharing private conversations during the flyover. That kind of convergence doesn't happen accidentally.

My phone buzzed twice during the broadcast. Same DC number as before. I let it go to voicemail, deleted the messages without listening.

Today I tried working on the game again. Set up the standard scenario, added the pieces representing outside influence, tested different configurations. Every simulation leads to the same outcome now - not victory or defeat, but transformation into something unrecognizable.

Emma found me in the study around noon, staring at scattered tokens.

"You've been quiet today," she said.

"Just thinking about work."

"The consulting thing?" She picked up one of the cards, studied it. "This is getting complex."

I nodded. Didn't mention that complexity was the problem. The game used to have logical endpoints. Now it just has cascading consequences.

"Kids want to go to the park," she said. "Fresh air might help."

We spent the afternoon at Riverside Park. Jake on the monkey bars, Sophie practicing cartwheels. Other families doing the same Sunday things - soccer games, picnics, dogs chasing tennis balls. The kind of ordinary life the parade was supposedly protecting.

But something felt different today. Maybe just my mood, or maybe the way other parents checked their phones more often, held their conversations more quietly. Hard to tell if the change was real or just in my head.

Walking home, Sophie asked why there were so many soldiers on TV yesterday.

"It was a celebration," Emma said. "Like a big birthday party."

"Whose birthday?"

I didn't have a good answer for that one.

Tonight the house is quiet again. Family asleep, heating system cycling. I should put the game away, focus on normal things. Emma's surgery schedule, Jake's school project about planets, Sophie's piano recital next Friday.

Instead I keep thinking about those diplomatic clusters. About phone calls I'm not returning. About birthday parties that require tanks.

Some celebrations mark beginnings. Others mark endings.

Still not sure which one I watched yesterday.

8

Tuesday morning call from Zurich. Familiar voice, Swiss precision.

"We have a situation in Vienna. Industrial espionage, fairly straightforward. Your specialty."

Marcus Kellner. We've worked together for six years. Pharmaceutical patents, energy sector intelligence, the occasional diplomatic marriage falling apart. Clean problems with clean solutions. Professional courtesy, reliable payment, no political complications.

"Timeline?" I asked.

"Three days maximum. In and out."

Almost said yes immediately. After the parade, after the unanswered DC calls, after watching my game prototype predict system collapse, the idea of simple corporate work felt like relief. Problems with solutions. People acting rationally for money.

Emma was already planning coverage for her surgical schedule when I told her about the Vienna trip. "How long since you've been to Austria?" she asked, helping pack my travel bag.

"Two years. Different client." I didn't mention it was the energy minister's son and his gambling debts. Some details don't improve with sharing.

Vienna International Airport, Thursday evening. Marcus waiting at arrivals, same careful smile. But something different in his posture. More weight on his shoulders than usual.

"Good flight?" he asked, steering me toward the exit.

"You look tired."

"Long week. Coffee first, then briefing."

Hotel Sacher, corner table where we always meet. Marcus ordered his usual espresso, hands steady but too deliberate. Twenty years in intelligence work teaches you to read stress signals.

"The pharmaceutical company," he said, sliding me a thin folder. "Someone's accessing their research data. Alzheimer's treatment protocols, stage three trials. Very valuable, very sensitive."

I opened the folder. Standard corporate layout - security reports, access logs, suspected timeline. But the employee photographs made me pause.

"These are all American," I said.

"Contract researchers. Visiting scholars. The company has extensive partnerships with U.S. universities."

I studied the faces. Three men, two women. Academic backgrounds, legitimate credentials. Nothing obviously suspicious except the data access patterns Marcus had highlighted.

"Any of them have financial pressures? Family situations?"

"That's what we need you to determine."

But Marcus wasn't meeting my eyes anymore. In six years of professional partnership, he'd never avoided eye contact.

"Who's the client, Marcus?"

"Same as always. Corporate security consultation."

"Which corporation?"

Silence. He reached for his espresso, hand less steady now.

"The situation is more complex than I initially described," he said finally.

I closed the folder and leaned back. Through the hotel windows, Vienna looked exactly as it always had - elegant, ancient, predictable. But the conversation had shifted into territory I didn't recognize.

"Complex how?"

"The data they're accessing... it's not just pharmaceutical research."

I waited.

"Some of it involves government health preparedness. Pandemic planning. Distribution networks." He paused. "The Americans accessing it have connections beyond academia."

"What kind of connections?"

"The kind that make this more than corporate espionage."

I looked at the folder again. Same photographs, same credentials. But now they felt different. Not researchers stealing drug formulas. Something larger.

"Marcus, who asked you to hire me for this?"

He finished his espresso, set the cup down with deliberate care.

"Someone who knows your recent work hasn't been entirely corporate."

The hotel lobby buzzed with normal tourist conversations. American families planning Schönbrunn visits, business travelers checking flight schedules. Ordinary people doing ordinary things while Marcus and I sat in the shadow of something I couldn't yet define.

"I think," I said, "we need to have a different conversation."

Marcus nodded slowly. "I think you're right."

But first, I needed to understand how Vienna had become another piece in a game whose rules I was still learning.

9

Marcus slides another file across the café table. "The researchers aren't just accessing pharmaceutical data."

I've been in Vienna for two days. What started as straightforward corporate espionage has become something I can't categorize. The American academics have legitimate credentials, legitimate access, but their data requests follow no logical pattern. Medical research mixed with supply chain logistics mixed with government procurement databases.

"What exactly are they looking for?" I ask.

"That's what we need you to determine."

"Marcus, you've never hired me to figure out motivation before. You've always known the target."

He doesn't answer immediately. Through the hotel windows, Vienna looks exactly as it should - elegant, predictable, European. But the conversation has drifted into territory neither of us understands.

"The situation is evolving," he says finally.

My phone buzzes with a news alert. I glance at it automatically, then stop. Read again. Government efficiency official. Daily medication box with twenty pills. Ketamine prescriptions, psychedelics at private parties. Billions in contracts flowing to his companies while he dismantles the agencies meant to oversee them. Officials describing him as appearing "high" during meetings about national security.

I show Marcus the screen. "Marcus, this guy is a mess."

He reads silently, then looks up. "Twenty pills daily and he's in charge of government spending?"

"It gets worse. Look at the contracts - space launches, satellite networks, rural broadband. All going to his companies while he's supposedly cutting costs."

Marcus sets the phone down carefully. "Is this connected?"

"Everything is connected now."

I lean back, trying to process. Pharmaceutical researchers with unclear motives. Government officials potentially impaired while managing billions in contracts. Vienna connecting to Washington connecting to... what?

Marcus opens the second file. More photographs, more access logs, more data that doesn't form recognizable shapes.

"Marcus, I need to stop."

"What?"

"This. All of this." I gesture at the files, the screens, the careful documentation of things I can't understand. "I'm good at reading people. Individual psychology, behavioral prediction, vulnerability assessment. But this..."

I look at the scattered intelligence again. Too many players, too many variables, too many systems intersecting in ways that defy analysis.

"I need to go home."

"We're close to understanding—"

"No, we're not. We're collecting data about something that's bigger than both of us can process. And I'm losing track of which side I'm supposed to be on."

Marcus studies me carefully. Twenty years of professional relationship, and I've never walked away from an assignment.

"The people who hired me," I continue, "the ones asking about government vulnerabilities - I still don't know who they are. The researchers you want me to assess - I don't know what they're really doing. That efficiency official who might be making decisions while chemically compromised - I don't know if that's the problem or the solution."

I close the files, slide them back across the table.

"I need to go home and think. Away from all this. Figure out what I'm actually being asked to do."

Marcus nods slowly. "How long?"

"I don't know. Maybe a few days. Maybe longer." I stand up, leaving cash for the coffee. "When I have clarity about what game we're playing, I'll let you know."

Walking back to the hotel, Vienna still looks beautiful and orderly. But I can't shake the feeling that the order is superficial, and underneath, something fundamental has shifted.

Time to go home. Time to figure out what I've gotten myself into.

11

Emma finds me in the kitchen at midnight, staring at cold coffee and scattered game pieces across the counter.

"You've been quiet since Vienna," she says, settling into the chair across from me.

I nod, moving a red token to a different position. Same result. System breakdown by turn twelve.

"The consulting project?"

"Something like that."

She watches me rearrange pieces for the fourth time tonight. In seventeen years of marriage, she's seen me work through difficult assignments. Corporate espionage, diplomatic marriages falling apart, energy ministers with gambling problems. I always found the thread, always understood the motivations.

This feels different.

"Talk to me," she says gently.

I look at the game board. Multiple players with unclear objectives. Government officials making decisions while potentially chemically impaired. Foreign researchers accessing data for unknown purposes. Handlers whose loyalties I can't determine.

"I can't see the edges," I tell her.

"What do you mean?"

"Every problem has boundaries. You identify the players, understand their motivations, predict their moves. But this..." I gesture at the scattered tokens. "I don't know who's working for whom. I don't know what they're really trying to accomplish. I can't even tell if what I'm seeing is incompetence or strategy."

Emma picks up one of the cards, studies it. "You've always been able to read people."

"Individual people, yes. But this involves systems I don't understand. Government agencies, pharmaceutical research, foreign intelligence, domestic politics." I lean back in the chair. "And the people making key decisions might not be... reliable."

"Reliable how?"

I think about how to explain without revealing too much. "Imagine trying to predict someone's behavior when their judgment is compromised. When they're making billion-dollar decisions while taking twenty different medications daily."

Emma sets the card down carefully. "That sounds dangerous."

"It is. But I don't know if it's dangerously incompetent or dangerously effective."

She's quiet for a moment, watching me struggle with pieces that won't form any recognizable pattern.

"What do you need?" she asks.

"More data. Better intelligence. Something that helps me understand what's actually happening versus what appears to be happening."

"Can you get it?"

That's the question. My normal sources give me individual psychological profiles. But this requires understanding institutional behavior, policy implications, systemic connections. Things outside my expertise.

"I don't know," I admit. "I've never been this lost before."

Emma reaches across the table, covers my hand with hers. "You'll figure it out. You always do."

But as I look at the game board again - tokens scattered, rules unclear, outcomes unpredictable - I'm not sure that's true anymore. Some problems don't have solutions you can see from where you're standing.

Maybe that's the point.

After Emma goes back to bed, I sit in the quiet kitchen, trying one more configuration. Adding variables for substance use, financial conflicts, foreign influence, institutional capture.

Every scenario leads to the same outcome: the system transforms into something unrecognizable.

The question isn't how to prevent it. The question is whether I'm supposed to be helping it happen.

12

Saturday morning. Emma takes the twins to soccer practice. I have three hours to assess what I'm working with.

In my study, I pull out the secure laptop and open the contact database. Twenty years of carefully cultivated relationships, sorted by region and specialty. Each entry represents someone who owes favors, needs services, or trades information.

Corporate executives who require discrete background checks on potential partners. Diplomatic families dealing with blackmail or personal scandals. Energy companies needing intelligence on regulatory changes or competitor activities. Pharmaceutical firms wanting to understand which government officials might influence drug approval processes.

My value isn't in gathering secrets - it's in understanding people. Why they make decisions. What pressures drive them. How their personal vulnerabilities intersect with their professional responsibilities. Clients pay me to predict human behavior in high-stakes situations.

The Jakarta contract was typical. Senator's son accumulated gambling debts to the wrong people. Client needed the leverage neutralized without exposure. I identified the handler's pressure points, redirected the debt through intermediaries, eliminated the photographic evidence. Clean psychology, predictable outcomes.

Most of my sources are financial analysts, corporate security consultants, foreign ministry staffers. People who track individual behavior patterns for different reasons. A banking executive in Singapore who notices unusual wire transfers. A diplomatic spouse in Geneva who observes personal tensions at embassy parties. A pharmaceutical research director in Basel who knows which scientists are under financial pressure.

I scroll through the list, looking for anyone with insight into domestic institutional behavior. The problem becomes immediately clear.

My network is designed for individual assessment, not systemic analysis. I can tell you why a Treasury official might be susceptible to foreign influence. I can't tell you how institutional capture works at scale or whether government dysfunction is accidental or orchestrated.

The Vienna researchers accessing pharmaceutical data - my contacts could tell me about their personal finances, family situations, academic pressures. But I need someone who understands what those data access patterns actually indicate about larger operations.

The efficiency official with his twenty daily medications and billions in contracts - I could profile his psychological dependencies, but I need sources who understand how government procurement actually works, how oversight mechanisms function, what happens when they fail.

I close the laptop and pull out my notebook. Start mapping what I know versus what I need to know.

What I know: Individual psychology, personal vulnerabilities, behavioral prediction in corporate and diplomatic contexts.

What I need: Institutional intelligence, policy analysis, systematic understanding of government operations, domestic intelligence capabilities.

The gap is significant. My expertise is tactical - individual people in specific situations. But this assignment requires strategic understanding of how institutions behave, how policies affect operations, how domestic and foreign influences interact at governmental scale.

I've built a career on reading people. Now I need to read systems.

The question is whether I should find new sources or whether someone is counting on exactly this limitation. Maybe my psychological expertise is precisely what's needed, and the institutional complexity is someone else's responsibility.

Or maybe I'm being used as a tactical asset in a strategic game I'm not supposed to understand.

Either way, I need different intelligence. The kind that comes from people who operate inside the systems I'm trying to analyze, not just the individuals within them.

Time to make some new contacts.

13

Monday morning. Kids at school, Emma at the hospital. House quiet except for my phone ringing with Marcus's third call in two days.

I let it go to voicemail. Delete it without listening.

Because I have nothing to tell him that he wants to hear.

I sit in my study, looking at the database I spent the weekend reviewing, the contact lists I've been cultivating for twenty years. None of it helps with the fundamental problem.

I have no idea what the assignment really is.

The woman at Kennedy Center who recruited me said "domestic situation with international complications." She showed me photographs of government officials and asked what happens next. I thought I was assessing individual vulnerabilities for threat mitigation or asset recruitment. Standard psychological profiling work.

But now I don't know if I'm supposed to be protecting these people or helping to exploit them.

Marcus hired me to assess American researchers accessing pharmaceutical data in Vienna. I thought it was corporate espionage. But he admits it connects to the domestic assignment, and the researchers' motivations remain completely opaque.

The efficiency official making policy decisions while potentially chemically impaired - is that a security threat I'm supposed to identify? Or is it a useful condition someone wants me to document? Or is it simply chaos that benefits whoever profits from institutional breakdown?

I pull out a legal pad, try to map the players.

Kennedy Center woman: Unknown affiliation, unknown objectives.

Marcus: Swiss intelligence? Corporate security? Working for whom?

Vienna researchers: Legitimate academics or intelligence assets?

Efficiency official: Compromised decision-maker or protected asset?

DC handlers: Government? Private contractors? Foreign intelligence?

Every question leads to more questions. I can't determine allegiances, objectives, or even which outcomes various parties want.

Twenty years of professional success based on understanding motivations. Now I'm operating completely blind.

My phone buzzes with a text from Marcus: “Need to discuss next steps.”

I text back: “Taking time to reassess.”

“How long?”

I stare at the screen. How long does it take to admit you've been hired for something you don't understand by people whose identities you can't verify to achieve objectives no one has clearly explained?

“Unclear. Will contact you.”

The cursor blinks while I consider what to say next.

“I need to understand the boundaries before proceeding.*

“Understood. But the situation is developing.”

“Then someone else will have to handle them.”

I set the phone aside, look back at my notes. Scattered observations about individual psychology in a context I can't decode. Like trying to analyze chess moves without knowing who's playing black versus white.

The game pieces scattered across my desk mock me. I've been arranging them into different configurations for days, but I don't know what victory conditions I'm supposed to be modeling.

Maybe that's the point. Maybe confusion is intentional. Keep the tactical assets focused on immediate tasks while strategy remains compartmentalized.

But I can't operate without understanding basic parameters. Who I'm working for. What they're trying to accomplish. Whether I'm supposed to be preventing something or enabling it.

Time to get answers. Real ones.

I open the laptop again, start composing encrypted messages to contacts I haven't used in years. People who operate in different spheres, who might have insight into institutional behavior rather than just individual assessment.

A former State Department analyst now working private intelligence. A Pentagon staffer who moved to corporate consulting. A pharmaceutical regulatory expert who tracks government oversight patterns.

Different perspective. Different expertise. Different access.

Marcus will have to be patient. I'm not moving forward until I understand what I'm actually supposed to be doing.

Even if that means admitting I've never been this lost in my professional life.