Rox Burkey & Charles V. Breakfield Interview - The Enigma Gamers ~ JeanBookNerd

Photo Content from Charles V. Breakfield and Rox Burkey

Charles V. Breakfield is a technology expert in security, networking, voice, and anything digital. He enjoys writing, studying World War II history, travel, and cultural exchanges. Charles is a fan of wine tastings, winemaking, Harley riding, cooking extravaganzas, and woodworking.

Rox Burkey is a echnology professional who excels at optimizing technology and business investments. She works with customers all over the world focusing on optimized customer experiences. Rox writes white papers and documentation, but found she has a marked preference for writing fiction.

These Texas authors create award-winning stories that resonate with males and females, as well as young and experienced adults. They bring a fresh new view to technology possibilities today in exciting stories.

Greatest thing you learned at school.
Charles connected with mathematics. The teacher, an ex-Marine, ground him up in Algebra in high school, and the result was Breakfield became enamored with higher math.

Rox connected with English literature and Home Economics. Reading took Burkey to worlds outside her purview, real or imagined, a continuing fascination behind her writing and book reviewing today. Home Economics was the cooking and sewing portions that struck a creative chord. Cooking provides a way to feed friends and families with favorites and new creations. The result was her first business at sixteen, sewing and later competing in style competitions.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
Breakfield and Burkey began their fictional writing journey with stories that pitted the good guys versus the cyber crooks from the Darknet. We decided the proper category for these stories was more than simply thrillers, as the underlying layer of accurate technology set up the focus for each book. We grabbed the hashtag for #TechnoThriller way before it was seen as a viable, non-SciFi category and before contests permitting this area. Then the OTHER type started appearing, and we added TechnoThriller. We completed the series and won first in the Technothriller category we had pitched for years. We also cannot disagree that the novels in our Enigma Series are Thrillers. We welcome feedback and opinions from readers on this great debate.

If you could have written one book in history, what book would that be?
Breakfield and Burkey delivered a historical fiction, Out of Poland Novella-2021. We produced this book in response to fans' requests on the back story and origin of the R-Group, the series' heroes. We wrote our series for today's modern digital times, but the story started with the heroes during World War II. We leveraged our extensive knowledge of World War II, referenced throughout the series as the morale high-ground that the R-Group uses to help individuals, businesses and governments combat cybercrime in our digital world.

What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?
Time-It took us ten years to have the confidence to create this story.

Why is storytelling so important for all of us?
Breakfield and Burkey believe that traditional storytelling shares the thoughts and times of individuals and their experiences. Myths and legends preserved with oral tradition kept people connected long before our digital devices. News and social gatherings depended upon bards that moved from settlement to settlement. The art form evolved over the years with innovations and technology, but regardless of the media, whether digital, paper or audiobook, the requirement is the same—to tell a great story. Storytelling is not only a way to entertain but also to teach.

Can you tell us when you started THE ENIGMA FACTOR, how that came about?
Breakfield & Burkey finished a technical manual for publication and a few weeks later were asked for the next update with the technology changes. Breakfield groused that writing technical manuals seemed like a hamster on an exercise wheel—keep running in circles as technology changes in what started as years to months and, these days, weeks. Ugh! Burkey let Breakfield sulk. Then she approached their writing as co-authors with a fresh perspective asking him to read the start of a fictional story with technical facts incorporated. The clincher for Breakfield came from Burkey’s point that they could kill people and not go to jail in fiction. We’ve whacked many characters over our Enigma Series and the accompanying short stories.

In your book; THE ENIGMA FACTOR, can you tell my Book Nerd community a little about it.
The Enigma Factor, book 1—2nd edition of the Enigma Series, combines relevant technology elements of programming, encryption, crypto-currency, and hacking to highlight the professional excellence of Jacob, who falls victim to identity theft. In this thriller, readers explore the horrific damage cyber criminals can inflict as these authors weave a complex tale of danger, intrigue, and international cyber combat.

Logline for The Enigma Factor: Through a series of random events, Jacob Michaels finds himself thrust into an international world of technology intrigue with blurred lines between good and evil. Jacob relearns the things he thought he knew cold when he finds himself on the precipice of the Darknet.

What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters?
Sometimes the characters surprise us by not doing what we expected. Instead, they direct the conversations, the direction, and the outcome as they evolve. We are the mouthpieces and fingers to tell their story in their own words, at a pace that excites readers to flip those pages.

Meet the Characters
JACOB MICHAELS — tall, fit, with dark hair, six feet, in his early thirties, was trained from birth in languages and computer sciences by his mother and grandmother. He works in New York as a highly sought-after programmer and network security geek specializing in supporting the financial district businesses. He has a limited social life as he hunts the Internet for hacker code to fix.

His mother, killed in a hit-and-run accident, kept secrets from her son. He feels like an orphan on his own, except for a crazy friend from college, Buzz, who he routinely bails out of trouble. Buzz is a little shorter than Jacob, attracts female company quickly, and is a good-time rich guy.

BUZZ works for his father’s bank and routinely asks Jacob to fix the code he writes. Jacob corrects the errors while grumbling about Buzz being lazy. He takes the code to Buzz’s house and meets his girlfriend, Patty. Patty is beautiful, blonde, flirty, and seems attuned to Buzz.

Jacob works on a challenging program from the Internet freeware and discovers a bug. He corrects the problem and posts detailed recommendations back to the website. The efforts garner him a free trip to Las Vegas for the DEFCON event.

In Las Vegas, he meets Petra, a renowned encryption expert. Petra has blondish brown hair, green eyes, lithe and petite at 5’5” striking, attractive, most intelligent feature is her mind. They talk for hours about programming, security, and encryption. He tells her about what he posted on the Internet and the luck of winning the trip to Las Vegas. Petra calls him a fool for being so naive! They argue bitterly, and she stomps away.

PETRA comes from a similar background, trained early by her family in Europe. Petra is 5’6”, with dark blond hair often gathered into a messy ponytail. She maintains her lithe build with her martial arts workouts and crazy travel schedule. Readers will find her bright eyes, never missing a thing, and smile like the girl next door. She focuses on thwarting evil rather than developing a serious relationship. Petra crosses paths with Jacob at the DEFCON event. The two discuss thoughts of technology as their common ground.

SCENE FROM THE ENIGMA FACTOR WHERE JACOB REALIZES SOMETHING IS DESPERATELY WRONG.

“Hey, can I help you, sir?” she asked. “We are not actually open to patients today.”
“Of course, you are. My appointment is at eight with Dr. Kent for my overdue annual checkup. I made the appointment some time ago, and this was the earliest I could get at the time.” Jacob smiled, trying to put her at ease.
She said, “Well, come on in, but I am positive that we have no appointments today. Dr. Mitchell has taken over for Dr. Kent. Dr. Kent had a great opportunity to do some teaching out of town which he accepted. Who are you again?”
“Jacob, Jacob Michaels is my name, and Dr. Kent has been seeing me for years. I’m sure it is a simple schedule error,” Jacob said with great certainty.
“I don’t recall seeing that name when I reviewed the pending patients for this month, but I’m sure we can get it sorted out,” she said without conviction as she booted up her computer.
It seemed to take forever, and Jacob was getting a prickle on the back of his neck like a small nag getting bigger. “I’m sure you will find your mistake, and we can set up a new appointment,” Jacob said, still extending her a smile.
She focused on her screen, and made several queries into her database. She was frowning but still staring at the screen.
“Okay, spell that again, please. It must be an odd name.”
“No, it is fairly traditional. J A C O B ….” He said with a bit of doubt creeping into his mind.
Typing as he spelled, she looked at him, saying, “Are you sure you are at the right dentist office? I have no record of anyone by the name of Jacob Michaels being a Dr. Kent or Mitchell patient ever. All these brownstone professional buildings in this area look the same, so I could understand your confusion.”
“I’m not certain if you are simply incompetent or what, but trust me. My Mom, Julianne Michaels, and I have been coming here since I was a toddler, so you better look again. Or I’ll be happy to come around there and show you how a computer works,” he said, with annoyance rising.
This was so not the way today was to start, not on top of all the other peculiar events he’d recently encountered. Maybe he should consider drinking a bit more with Buzz to get a better perspective on the alternate reality.

Best date you've ever had?
Breakfield's most memorable date was in high school, where he borrowed an open dune buggy to take his lady for a picnic lunch at a small park outside of Austin, Texas. To get there, he had to drive over a winding river, but instead of the water cascading outwards, the front wheels shot two hundred gallons of water into the cab, 20 gallons of which went down her open mouth because she was screaming stop you !@#$%. Breakfield admits it wasn't the best date but certainly the most memorable.

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning?
Burkey wakes up thinking of the next chapter or story to write. The first couple of hours most mornings for Burkey focuses on her writing. After this, she works virtually with the help of connected technology. Consider her professional career background if readers wonder why technology is a theme in her writing.

What is your most memorable travel experience?
Breakfield and Burkey worked for the same company. As subject matter experts, they delivered a workshop on the latest contact center applications the company offered to our subsidiary in São Paulo, Brazil. Following a successful training session, Burkey insisted on both of us going to see Iguazu Falls from both the Brazil side then the Argentina side before leaving the region. It was exciting to go to four countries with a crazy taxi driver as the tour guide. It was one of the trips where the angel was on her shoulder to keep her passport and find her way back to the driver.

Which incident in your life that totally changed the way you think today?
Breakfield ran a successful retail business. He decided to sell when the buyer made a fantastic offer. He believed the guy would finish all the required payments. When the buyer defaulted, after ruining the business, Breakfield started over. He reinvented himself by completing college and becoming a technology expert with a love of cyber security.

When you looked in the mirror first thing this morning, what was the first thing you thought?
Burkey enjoys her long hair. However, friends recently commented that it should be short and easy. First thing this morning, she worked several angles to see how short she could tolerate. The result will be a discussion with her hairdresser next week. Wendy knows all the secrets of her hair.

If you had to go back in time and change one thing, if you HAD to, even if you had “no regrets” what would it be?
Breakfield maintains even if he could go back in time to fix something, he wouldn’t. He believes his successes and failures created the person one sees today. Where he is located, his children, his family and more are treasures he doesn’t wish to forfeit. Changing a choice or path shifts the outcome. What are your thoughts?

Gone are the days of pixelated sprites and simple wired controllers. It's the twenty-first century, and video game playing has undergone a complete evolution. With high-def graphics and intuitive sensory controls, gamers are enjoying a level of realism and immersion never before experienced.

However, when the line between the real and cyber worlds becomes blurred, this digital landscape provides new social predators with opportunities to unleash terror and pain on unsuspecting victims.

Businesses, cities, and commonly used services might believe they are immune, but then their world goes sideways as a grotesque ransom demand is spilled across their data screen. The fledgling CATS-Cyber Assassins Technology Services-team is mobilized to find the root causes.

Led by Julie and Juan, the CATS team is committed to avenging and administering justice to evil doers in every corner of the real and virtual worlds. The CATS team is the next generation of hunters in the cat and mouse game of cyber warfare.

Within the Enigma series, the CATS team continues to evolve and uses front-line techniques, which stretches every resource at their disposal to face off against a sinister new world of high-tech crimes.

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