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legislated was closely watched.
     
    Most national Grid oversight committees simply ensured that no criminal activities were committed. There were some governments, however, who used theirs to spy on their own citizens; the United States of America among them. The House Grid Securities Commission had empowered the Homeland Security Agency to do just that. The work was outsourced to the Defence Intelligence Agency. The Laguna dig had been attracting attention ever since it started. But when the Doppler seismology tests revealed the possibility of a massive artificial construct buried beneath the New Mexico desert and that that object would have been there for millions of years, very keen interest was paid to the dig. When the Concord 3 space station began its survey of the area the DIA was already tapped into their systems through a back channel, recording everything. Already General Roy Harrod, head of the DIA, was aware of the ongoing operation and was supervising it closely under the direct orders of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
     
    Within an hour of the deep scan’s beginning, the data being compiled by Concord 3 was already being compiled and extrapolated by the DIA’s own supercomputers. And the results of that extrapolation were so shocking to Harrod that immediately after he had read the report he contacted the Cee-Jay-Cee on a Grid channel that was only to be used in the most urgent situations. Harrod’s desk was devoid of any furnishing other than three computer consoles connected to the same keypad. The information from Concord 3 was on the console to his right. On the middle console he was linxing through to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs.
     
    “General,” The Chairman said, “What is it?”
     
    “Sir, this is in regards to the Type Seven in New Mexico,” Harrod replied.
     
    “Go ahead.”
     
    “I’m linxing the information to you now, sir,” Harrod said as he entered a sequence of keys on his keypad, “I would suggest deploying personnel to New Mexico and securing control of the site.” At his own workstation, the Chairman was reading over the report Harrod had just sent him.
     
    “I concur, General. Use standard protocols and keep me fully informed. This is your operation, General Harrod.”
     
    “Yes, Mister Chairman.” In his office at the Pentagon, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sighed heavily. The Chairman terminated the link and then removed his earpiece. He couldn’t get the knack for hitting the buttons without seeing them. He tapped in the correct sequence and replaced the earpiece. His console turned black except for a single red dot in the center of the screen.
     
    “Yes?” a voice issued into the Chairman’s earpiece.
     
    “Put them on call,” The Chairman said, “We may need to meet.” There was a long pause on the other end. An emergency meeting was rare.
     
    “Understood.” The voice said, at last. The signal was cut. The Chairman sat back in his chair.
    ♦♦♦
    Two hours after the downlink from Concord 3 began James was nearly done a preliminary compilation of the data.
     
    “A lot of this is going to be conjectural,” He warned, “We’ll know the basic size and shape of the object but we won’t be able to tell its composition or any fine details.”
     
    “That’s alright James,” Echohawk said, “Let’s see what you have.” A large display screen had been set up to the left of the main console workstation. It unrolled much like an old projection screen and liquid crystal within compiled the image. They had set up the screen to accommodate the small audience of onlookers who had gathered, including the entire Laguna Band Council.
     
    “We’re only going to be able to see from the top down,” James explained, “We can do a side view, but only of the upper half of the object. Whatever it looks like from below will remain a mystery, unfortunately.” Those were the last words spoken by anyone for a very long time. Onscreen,