Metafire

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"That'll be good," Steven was not happy in such small quarters.

Then it dawned on Jack. "Did you say Metafire Two is reporting hostages?"

"Yes," Jim looked over at Jack. It dawned on him too.

"Erisa! Can you message them? Send Metafire Two email. Ask if it's Erisa! Erisa McCabe!" Jack was excited. He may have found her.

On Metafire Two, Dave and Frank looked at the email from the FBI capsule together. Now they knew. The FBI was looking for Erisa. This was not just the Houston Police. Dave spoke first, in a whisper, "Frank, do you see this. The FBI wants to know if our hostage is Erisa McCabe. This isn't a Houston missing person. The FBI may be on to us."

Frank spoke in a whisper as well, "I think you're right. This makes Erisa, or Jack here, FBI or something, but not what they pretend. Dave, tell the others. When we have a chance, we need to get the message to O'Leary and George. Communications are still blocked."

Metafire Two remained silent. There was no response on the hostage question. Jim realized he should not have sent the message. But then a message came from FBI headquarters in Washington DC. It said, "Metafire Two is to be permitted to engage in its business activities, effective immediately. Indicate to them that only plain text, non-encrypted, Internet traffic will be permitted. All messages will be inspected for content in both directions. Also, Metafire One and Metafire home base are being similarly released for normal business activity. The Metafire groups can communicate with each other, but only in plain ASCII type, and in English. Any message between Metafire groups will be paraphrased by the FBI in order to prevent the use of secret messages."


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