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overhaul.”
    “Overhaul?” Jamie asked.
    “That ‘new’ you. They don’t do that for everyone.”
    Jamie looked at his hands, which were thick and muscled. “They don’t?”
    “Nope. The rest of us have to get that old school. Boot camp, quarter-decking and all of the other fun, fun times that make Cyber Ops what it is today,” Rosen grumbled.
    “You don’t sound…happy.”
    “Me? I’m happy as a clam…who is expecting a future involving drawn butter,” Abe Rosen said. “When all of this was systems hacks, behind the line operations and hanging upside down in hangers for hours on end, I was having a great time. Now, I’ve got to take you out into a hotspot and clear it and bring you back alive.”
    “Not fun?” Jamie ventured.
    “Look, I don’t know you from Adam and you may be a really great guy. But I’ve got make sure you know rule number one.”
    “Don’t get Sergeant Rosen killed,” Jamie said.
    Rosen smiled. “There might be hope for you yet.”

CHAPTER 5
    KV CONTAINMENT DATE CLASSIFED
    “M om hasn’t come out since you left this morning,” Jane Kroger said to her father when he got home that afternoon.
    Mitch Kroger set down his case and closed his eyes. “Do you know if she’s showered yet?” he asked.
    “I told you, she hasn’t come out all morning. I think she decided to sleep the day away again,” his teenage daughter retorted.
    “I’m going to get her ready for her appointment. Please have yourself ready in ten minutes so that we can go,” Mitch ordered, and went to his bedroom door.
    The room was dark, as dark as it had been when he left it. In the darkness he saw the faint green glow of a panel that his wife Luisa was using. Her eyes were staring at it intently and her fingers danced over its surface quickly.
    “You have an appointment at the healthcare campus. Do you remember?” he asked, sitting at the edge of the bed.
    “Of course I remember,” she said, still working on the panel.
    “What are you doing?”
    “I’m letting several people know just how stupid and insignificant they are.”
    “Do they work for a living?” he asked.
    His wife didn’t look up. “They are idiots and someone needs to make them aware of that.”
    Mitch tried to reach out for the panel but his wife drew it away. “If you don’t go to your appointment they will send over a social data tech to do an in house evaluation. Which could result in –“ He didn’t get to finish the sentence as she was out of bed and off to the bathroom.
    Why the threat of a social interview bothered her he couldn’t understand. Appeal to her vanity, her pride, her malice or her greed and you couldn’t get a response from her anymore. Mention a home visit and you would think you had set her on fire. Mitch picked up her panel and was about to turn it off when he noticed a message. He read it. At first it appeared to be a nonsense message from someone named Chris. As he continued to read it he found his neck becoming tight, his temples were throbbing and his heart was racing. He tried to close his eyes and drop the panel. He couldn’t. His eyes were burning, his fingers clenched tightly, and his teeth locked. He could feel his whole head shake as his teeth threatened to break. Then there was the red, the red behind the eyes, the red veil that covered his brain. Finally there was silence and Mitch Kroger died in his bedroom waiting for his wife to get changed for her psychiatric appointment for rage issues. Fifteen minutes later his daughter Jane knocked on the bedroom door. “I’ve been waiting forever,” she complained.
    “We will be out in a few minutes,” Mitch assured her, adjusting his shirt collar and sending out a message to his co-workers.
    “We will be late,” Jane moaned.
    “Coming out now,” he said, not moving from the bed.
    Luisa came out of the bathroom to find Mitch on the panel. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
    “Telling Sam and Roger that they are assholes,” Mitch