Page 14 of Winterveil

CIA EMPLOYEE SLAIN IN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

December 14, 2028

LANGLEY, VA.—A brutal and shocking murder in Langley has left two dead, including Alexander Karam, a CIA employee.

After a concerned call by a neighbor, police were dispatched to the Karam home on the night of Saturday, December 12. There, they found forced entry and Karam, 39, and his wife, Sophia, 37, both dead from gunshot wounds.

Dr. Karam, originally from Paterson, New Jersey, was an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley. Though CIA representatives did not respond to a request for comment, Karam’s employee profile, which is still active, states that he has been a part of the Science and Technology division since 2019. The profile does not state his position.

The Langley police have declined to comment on what they have called an “ongoing investigation,” and the immediate presence of the FBI on the scene has raised further questions. Friends, neighbors, and family members of the Karams were all contacted for this article, and all refused to comment as well.

A service will be held for the Karams at Saint Ann’s Melkite Catholic Church in Woodland Park, NJ. They are survived by their daughter, 9, who was found in the home when police arrived.

Five

Spring 2037

Rural Virginia

In the sleek corridor of the shooting range, when the lights dimmed to complete darkness, Nadiya’s body flooded with adrenaline. Translucent specters shuddered into reality from nothingness, silver quivers through the otherwise impenetrable black. They moved in ghostly blurs, the technology too limited to make them look entirely convincingly human.

Nadiya raised her rifle and peered through the scope, night vision casting the holograms in a sickly shade of green. They were featureless, anonymous, occasionally blurred with blips of static. Nothing that could be mistaken for real, and yet the memory rose anyway, a hazy ripple behind her eyes. The close, copper scent of blood in the air. The hand, outstretched.

I promise, you’ll never have to be afraid again.

One of the holograms—flickering, faceless—charged her. Nadiya whirled and fired. There was no blood. The false opponent merely shuddered out of existence, as ephemeral as it had been when it emerged. The bullet buried into the far wall. Reality reasserted itself. The lights came back up.

Under the bright fluorescents, the incomplete nature of the technology became even more obvious. A projector machine lowered its belly from the ceiling, whirring and humming like an insect. Other lenses were fitted into various spots on the walls and the floors, all in the service of creating a more compelling illusion.

Secretly, Nadiya thought the best part of the simulations was that they could never be mistaken as real. That meant she never had to be afraid. Not that she would ever admit that aloud.

And certainly not to Matteo, who was tapping insistently on the glass. Nadiya slipped the rifle back into its holster and walked toward the viewing gallery. As she approached, he flashed his best smug-but-inscrutable editorial smile and wolf-whistled.

“Show-off,” he said, voice muffled through the glass.

She tapped back hard enough to make Matteo flinch. “Very self-important to think that I have any interest in showing off for you.”

Matteo raised a hand in mock surrender. “Sorry. Just used to it, I guess.”

Nadiya scoffed. Matteo wasn’t really so vain and arrogant—not that he didn’t have good reason to be. It wasn’t because of his ranking, to which he was utterly indifferent, but because, in his two years at Valeran, he had accumulated an arguably more impressive form of social capital: an ever-rotating cast of admirers, crowding his lunch table, falling over themselves to help him with assignments, and making soppy faces at him from behind their tablets.

Nadiya considered it her solemn duty to keep his ego in check. It certainly seemed that no one else was up for the task. So, after she returned her rifle to the clerk at the armory, scanning her cuff (KARAM, NADIYA / 12.27.2018), she intentionally tuned Matteo out during their walk to the dining hall. He was chattering idly about a new girl in his cryptography class.

Hallett-Carr Dining Hall, with its sumptuously arched ceilings and stained glass windows, was arguably the nicest building on campus, save for the headmaster’s residence—which seemed a shame given how little time the students spent there. Even now, at 9:00 a.m., when breakfast was being served, the dining hall was only a quarter full.

As much as Dr. Iver liked to believe otherwise, Valeran students were still teenagers, and still inclined to the same adolescent pettiness. Cliques of students, usually divided by discipline, sat at the same tables day by day. Strategists, most esteemed in status, sat together in the center, while the hackers, distrusted and maligned, kept to the corners. The tradecraft and tactical combat students were looser in their associations, spreading around more freely among their classmates.

But, unlike a typical high school, meals were poorly attended. Why would Valeran’s students, ruthlessly chasing their number-one ranking or a top appointment in the defense sector, waste their time chatting with friends over lunch when they could be writing code, studying Clausewitz, or aim training?

That was why, in addition to Matteo’s obvious physical attractiveness, his carefree arrogance was so appealing. The students were desperate for anything that allowed them to have a moment’s reprieve from worrying about their ranking, their status, their future. Their families at home, if they had them.

Nadiya and Matteo took their usual table, which always went uncontested, but Matteo’s usual crowd of admirers hung back. If Matteo put the other students at ease, Nadiya knew her presence often spooked them. And she couldn’t deny that it gave her a faint flicker of pleasure. There was a satisfaction to being intimidating.

She placed her tray on the table and sat, watching a duo of strategy students scatter out of the corner of her eye.

But before Nadiya could even pick up her fork, Matteo nudged her shoulder. “That’s her.”

Nadiya turned. Matteo was pointing at one of the far tables. Usually that table remained empty, but now it was occupied—by a single student. Her head was bowed, red-gold hair spilling over her shoulders in loose, slightly unkempt waves. She was staring pointedly at her tablet, though with a glazed and distant look in her eyes, as if she were not really seeing anything at all. Even from a distance, Nadiya noticed her biting down on her lower lip.