"Brick, I know you've got a lot of capacity but even for you that doesn't sound trivial. That's what, a couple hundred million devices to monitor?"
"Nine hundred and eight million, seven hundred and fifty-four thousand, two hundred and ten. Remember that it was all of the music streaming services, and most subscribers have multiple devices."
"I'm calling shit on you, Brick," Metra said.
"Calling bullshit, Metra," I corrected.
"Whatever. That's not possible with your hardware, Brick."
"You are correct. I am unable to do the initial three stages of data filtration in real time without outside help. For that, I compromised cloud service providers and used their excess capacity."
"Which ones?" I asked, curious.
"All of them. The processing demands were quite intense."
"Right, so basically we're looking at thousands of years of prison if anyone ever finds out. How about you stop with the suspense and tell us what you found, Brick?"
"Shortly. There were many promising recordings, but one in particular stood out. It is from a dedicated music device in a private office. That device was connected to a 4G Internet connection, in violation of the site's security policy. I believe it was due to the user requiring his 'tunes' at the office. I will play you the conversation now."
A bit of background noise could be heard as the recording started playing. I could just pick out the faintest hint of music, but after whatever filtering had been done it was almost completely gone.
"LT, can I ask you a question?" a deep male voice asked, the trace of a southern accent audible.
"You can ask, Sergeant, but I can't guarantee I'll answer," another voice replied, a light tenor with a more neutral and refined tone.
"All that crap in the hangar, is it really alien? It looks like a bunch of scrap metal and old garbage."
"Weren't you briefed on this? We don't talk about that stuff."
"Yeah, LT, sure. But that's just off base. Who else can I talk about this with if not you?"
"You shouldn't even be talking to me about it. I don't know much more than you do, anyway. The old man told me that back when the scientists were still interested in that junk, they couldn't ever do anything with it. They couldn't cut it, they couldn't bend it, they couldn't drill into it. Not with the fanciest, highest-tech crap they had."
"I heard that they pulled all that stuff out of an archeological site. Did you ever see that show Ancient Aliens?"
The recording stopped.
"After that, their conversation degenerated into discussing a television show about alien life visiting Earth thousands of years ago. While that scenario is certainly plausible, it is outside of my scope."
"Wait, hold on. How do we know that stuff they're talking about is what we need, Brick?"
"There is no way to be one hundred percent certain until one of you or a properly equipped drone can inspect the materials, but the description is promising. A material that US government scientists were unable to cut, bend, or drill into with all of their resources? That sounds very much like a tier 2 or 3 metal."
I had to agree, it did. The alternative was ancient aliens had left it behind in the pyramids or something.
"We'll be gambling that they have something we can use in that hangar, but maybe it's worth a look. Do you know where it is? You just have a device on 4G."
"After taking control of the surrounding mobile phone towers as well as several surveillance satellites, I was able to pinpoint the location of the device. It is here."
A window popped up with a map of North America on it, focused on the southwest. A pin appeared in Nevada.
"The Nevada desert? Area 51?" I asked. It would be pretty cool to see what was in there.
"Area 51 was one of the first places I investigated. I believe it is no longer housing anything of interest, if it ever did. This facility is less than one hundred miles away from Area 51, and as you can see, it is very well guarded."
More images popped up in rapid succession, both satellite pictures as well as other pictures taken quite low to the ground, near the roadway.
"What are these pics from?" I asked.
"Self-driving cars are connected to the Internet and have many useful sensors and cameras. Several of the base personnel own these cars."
I shook my head, awed at just how powerful Brick was once connected to the Internet.
What I was looking at in the many pictures was what was clearly a military base. Three rows of high fences topped with razorwire. Guards in uniform patrolling with dogs. Watchtowers with riflemen alert and on watch.
Where the cars parked was pretty far back from the fence, near a collection of single-story concrete buildings. Everything was dusty and brown. The whole base looked like it had been thrown up during the cold war and not renovated since. There was no sign of the hangar the two soldiers were talking about, but many of the buildings on the satellite photos were nowhere near the parking lots.
"That definitely looks promising. How are we going to get in there without having to kill a bunch of soldiers, though?" I asked.
"Did I hear Area 51?" Marty said, sitting up.
I managed to stop Brick from repeating his story. I gave Marty the very short version and showed him the same pics.
"I knew it!" Marty said. "I knew they were hiding alien artifacts. Maybe there are even some actual aliens in there."
"This place doesn't look like it's where you'd hide the aliens, Marty."
"You don't know, man. I've read that these bases are mostly underground. Hundreds of levels deep, sometimes. Look at Cheyenne Mountain. That's just a base we know about! How'd you get access to all those computers so easily,
