The Zoey Chronicles (Synopsis)

So, as I mentioned, I'm writing a creative work (total fiction). And I figure I probably should just start putting up where I take this right here. So, some background...

Synopsis

An espionage and academia-themed series of novels and screenplays, set in Boston, MA and surrounding area.

--

A CIA officer, Zoey Leung, experiences psychosis during a small unit operation in North Korea. She’s evacuated but due to bad optics when the story partially leaks and with peace talks being brokered (unsuccessfully) and the fact that she’s “damaged goods” and lost her security clearance, she’s sent back to the US, and discharged from the clandestine service, with a hefty bi-weekly severance benefit, plus free medical care for life.

In a state of directionless depression and with her psychosis waning, a friend encourages her to live with her in Boston and go back to school. They enroll in an MBA/Law program in Boston, just as global disorder and economic breakdown make it hard to survive, especially with the collapse of the Federal Student Loan program.

After the president wins reelection an era of global supply chain dysfunction, agro-sabotoge, as well as wars between nation-states, and between those states and independent terrorist, anarchist groups, and international organized crime begin.

Zoey, her old friend Margo, and her new classmate friends resort to building a business selling illicit pharmaceuticals, in particular extremely high potency marijuana and hallucinogenic vaping products, all sold via peer-to-peer encrypted marketplaces, delivered by a network of independent “black couriers.”

To get seed funding, a member of the team with connections to a drug cartel in Monterrey, Mexico, asks his family for support.

Unfortunately, when Zoey and her pals find quick success, the Cartel decides they want to own the business, and attempts to take over—forcibly. Knowing the Cartel now wants them dead, they do what they can to fight back, all while staying afloat learning to be mavens of law and business in their academic programs for practical application to their own fledgling enterprise.

--

The Characters

Zoey Leung

Who is she: A former CIA clandestine service technician (electronic and physical adversarial entry; persistent access operations) and later, for a short time, a former Special Activities Division Marine Branch operator.

Age: 33

Ethnicity: Korean American (2nd generation US citizen)

Role: “the leader”

Traits: At times quiet, withdrawn, serious thoughtful and inexpressive; at others dynamic, silly, and sarcastic

Academics: MBA/JD at Northeastern University

A seemingly boring, nerdy Korean-American, with a dry sardonic wit and a misanthropic view of the world. She doesn’t consider herself a mature adult by any standard while recognizing that she has better technical and strategic abilities than her peers. Her dark view of the world came after years working in her trade, specializing in infiltration of facilities and identifying and analyzing enemy safe houses in the Far East. She had to leave the service, after a health issue required a covert medical evacuation from a remote and heavily secured region in a joint effort of the Office of Medical Services and the Special Activities Division.

Her deprived adolescence and college life (she was a commuter at a shit college as an undergrad), lack of socialization while in the service, and disgust of the government for its bureaucracy, stupidity and inconsideration for human life (though never losing love for the country she served), and despair over never having a boyfriend, give her a gloomy outlook on the world.

She is only buoyed by her best friend Margo, whom she grew up with from nearly her birth and spent her college weekends and summers working with in her father's auto repair shop, hanging out with her uncle, a retired engineer with Johnson Controls, Inc., and out late working at night with her “tiger mom” at her cleaning business. Her mother worked as a homemaker, a part-time technician for Tyco Fire and Security, a part-time locksmith, and a bank cleaning person who slept only three hours a night.

Both Zoey and Margo grew up in New Hampshire, in a condominium complex, in a suburban offshoot of Boston, MA. Both went to public school and went on to college at UMass Lowell as commuters, Margo majoring in finance and Zoey majoring in English. Both are self-taught technical geniuses, who know the depths of the web, technical security, social engineering, access control, CCTV system design, internetworking, CATV and telecommunications, commercial electrical system design, and alarm systems. Zoey is an autodidact of philosophy, history, technology, business, politics and classical literature. One of her first technical influences were the books of Kevin Mitnick.

Margo Leung (no relation to Zoey)

Who is she: A former Assistant Vice President of Human Resources at Wells Fargo

Expertise: Finance and management, with dabbles in software engineering

Age: 32

Ethnicity: Korean American (2nd generation US citizen)

Role: “the analytic and strategic genius”

Traits: A judgmental know-it-all, trying to hide her own insecurities of feeling unintelligent; a brilliant and trusted advisor to Zoey

Academics: MBA/JD at Northeastern University

An optimist and a financial genius, who's an artist at heart, she quickly advanced through the ranks at Wells Fargo to be on the leadership track in their Human Resources program, only to be unfairly blamed for having a role in a scam in which the company opened millions of bogus accounts in their existing customer's names and wrongly sought foreclosure on homes that were being paid as agreed.

Realizing the mess she was going to be in, she turned into an informant for the FBI and her testimony was given in exchange for immunity by state and federal prosecutors in criminal proceedings and other civil enforcement actions.

She reconnects with Zoey for lunch at the Eastern Standard Restaurant in Kenmore Square, after moving back to Boston, from New York City and persuades her to join her in pursing joint MBA/Law Degrees. Margo somehow gets through the admissions process despite her serious ethical baggage, giving the duo five years to do what they do best without really trying: school work.

Lev Santana

Who is he: A son of a senior member of the Monterrey Cartel (it’s chief cousel); Former manger at El Carro, a network of street food vendors in Mexico (secure communications and criminal enterprise); also doubled as a button man on high value targets.

Expertise: Software engineering, professional hitman

Age: 26

Ethnicity: Mexican

Role: “the enforcer”

Traits: Overconfident at times (embarrassingly), but quiet, calm, deliberate, slow to anger, and mild mannered; he's a gentleman's gentleman. He is no stranger to violence and when necessary, and he spares no mercy.

Academics: JD at Northeastern University

After graduating valedictorian from Tecnológico de Monterrey, the #2 ranked university in Mexico, Lev digitized the supply chain and implemented electronic debit and mobile device transaction processing (a rapidly growing market among Mexicans) among what was a small and loose collection of food cart vendors, transforming it into the region’s largest corporate street food provider network. Behind the scenes however, he used his expertise to develop a modern, advanced communications encryption system for the Monterrey Drug Cartel. His father, an attorney, sends him to Boston to follow in his footsteps for a law degree.

Joseph (“Joe”) Mackey

Who is he: An ex-NYPD internal affairs detective

Age: 46

Ethnicity: Irish American; New Yorker from a long line of New Yorkers

Expertise: Police work, investigations, street-smarts, interviewing

Role: “The sleuth” and “the listener.”

Traits: Direct and to the point, stocky and physically imposing

Academics: MBA/JD at Northeastern University

Joe worked long years as a patrolman in Queens and then spent six years as a Patrol Supervisor followed by three years as a Detective, with his last year in the NYPD Internal Affairs Division.

Originally hoping to become an FBI agent after college (he has a degree in Criminal Justice from NYU), he gave up his dream after getting married. Then after a divorce, he lost custody of his children, and after a fit of rage, and a nervous breakdown, his life seemed headed for disaster and alcoholism.

A strong Catholic, after speaking to a priest he decided to start a life anew, go back to school, cut ties with friends and family, change cities, and then enroll in a graduate program in Boston for a joint MBA/Law Degree, albeit knowing he was quite late into life.

Steve Chance

Who is he: A former FedEx operations specialist, US Army Captain and Division LNO

Age: 43 (but looks way younger than his age)

Ethnicity: American (with Canadian roots)

Expertise: operations and logistics management, crisis management

Role: “the problem solver”

Traits: Direct and to the point, stocky and physically imposing

Academics: MBA/JD at Northeastern University

A veteran of the Afghan and Iraq wars, Steve specialized in the Army's most potent weapon against insurgents-- Concrete. As a Senior Liaison Officer, and part of a hastily thrown together Division-level working group to deal with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), Steve and his small team, which focused on physical countermeasures, devised a plan for construction, supply, and operation of a network of concrete production centers and helped design special armored, field-assembled, heavy-lift crane equipped trucks, and a process to retrofit the available commercial-grade extendable boom forklifts in theater, along with flatbed combat trailer trucks, for heavier loads.

Finding the massive rebar and concrete barriers not only tactically useful in protecting against damage from explosives, command saw the potential for strategic uses in movement restriction and control of entire cities and operational area containment. As its use expanded quickly, Steve developed a rapid personnel training program that gave the Army the ability to place miles of wall, of various sizes and thickness, in a single night, which he volunteered to supervise himself during initial trials, while under heavy enemy fire.

After coming state-side, he was hired by FedEx's Custom Critical division, which dealt with unusual transportation and logistics emergencies, such as the safe inconspicuous transit of a highly sensitive defense radar prototype by Raytheon Sea Power Systems in Portsmouth, RI to the Groom Lake Test Site in Nevada, or recovering from the biggest automated baggage system disaster in history on the opening day of Istanbul's New International Airport.

Steve is first and foremost an improviser, a man always in control. On top of that he seemingly enjoys breaking bad news to people.

Deciding to further his career and meet a love interest, he decided to apply to the MBA/Law Degree program at Northeastern University.