Ned's small frame was comfortably curled up with a plush pillow and blanket in the back seat of his car. His phone was on a charging pad between the front seats and was vibrating with only short pauses. As calls and messages came flooding in, the phone moved randomly around the small depression.
Ned was hungover. He had a friend visiting town, and they had been out last night. Ned's friend was very competitive, and so was Ned. They drank far too much, trying to drink as much as they remembered they had "back in the day."
On the bright side, Ned had been able to run his work-night sober driver program, the first time in a live scenario. His car had parked itself at work about an hour ago, as he soundly slept in back. Ned had made himself comfortable. After dropping his friend off at his hotel, Ned's car, had gone home to charge. The car then drove to work after charging while Ned slept in the back. The program was about to turn on some music to wake him, when his phone started slowly pulling him from his stupor.
Ned blinked awake and could see the mirrored windows of his office tower rising above his parking spot. The thin clouds moving behind the towers made him dizzy, and he squeezed his eyes shut. His head throbbed, and he regretted the success of being at work. When his phone started up again, he sat up and grabbed it.
243 messages
32 voice mails
It was only 8:13. "What's going on?" Ned asked out loud.
He opened his messages. They were from both unknown numbers and work colleagues, and most of them were just gibberish. Ned saw one from his boss.
The first email read: Thanks for all your hard work Ned sorry it had to end this way. If you don't get this by the response window, have a nice life.
Ned's head was slow and stupid, none of this made any sense. Just then his program alarm went off and the car's stereo volume faded up with "Flight of the Valkyries." He struggled up to the front seat to turn it off. The movement reminded him that he felt very sick.
Opening the driver's door, he nearly fell out onto the pavement. His phone was still going off where he had dropped it in the back seat. He crawled over to a line of junipers next to the parking lot. Saliva flooding into his mouth; those final shots from last night needed to get out. In the convulsive drama of vomiting, Ned promised himself that he would never drink like that again.
Once it was done and sweat was beading on his cold skin, he realized he probably would drink again at some point, but not for at least a few months.
Standing up, he looked up at the blue sky and let the sun warm his face. He remembered his phone, but stopped when he saw the parking lot for the first time. There were six black SUVs parked under the awning, but the whole lot, except for his car, was empty. He never arrived this early, but he knew lots of other people with less technical skills had to show up early to justify their employment. Where were they? Then there was everyone who had to work with east coast noise. They would have been at work hours ago.
His phone would tell him. He crawled to the back the door to find where it had fallen. He went back to the beginning of his unread messages. They had started last night with an email at 10:20PM.
Subject: Green Team Abort Project and Cease all Activities.
The message started with all the boilerplate confidentiality and top secret warning that had become such a part of this job nobody noticed it anymore. His program to sense when he was drunk had also done its job and hid the work emails from him. Things were starting to make sense. It had all seemed like a lot of noise before, but now in an empty parking lot, Ned felt the threats once ignored in the boilerplate language from the bosses for the first time.
The content of the message was pretty much summed up in the subject line. The whole program was over: no appeal, no final instructions, just "you're all done go home, period." But Ned was already at work. He glanced up and saw that there were two men walking toward him from the building. Ned didn't want to interact with them, but jumping into his car and driving off didn't seem like a good option either. Luckily, his stomach made his next move for him as vodka-flavored bile was forcing its way up his throat.
Ned stumbled back over to his shrub and heaved with the contraction in his gut. His mouth felt like it had acidic sand in it and he was spitting as he got up. The two men were now standing behind his car laughing. They must have come running when he doubled over to vomit.
"Morning gentlemen, forgive my state, my car drove me in, and I just got the messages." Ned waved his phone in front of him as a gesture of proof.
"Yes, Mr. Mathews. We've been looking for you. Everyone was worried you got a better offer or had been taken off. They're asking why your phone has been transmitting false GPS data." The agent asked by way of introduction.
"Oh, was it doing that again? I guess someone must have been messing with you guys," replied Ned. That explained all the blank messages he was getting. Someone was running a tracking program and his personal firewall relaying each attempt. He had programmed it a long time ago and didn't even remember having that feature. He would need a more elegant early-warning system in the future.
"Well I got the message now, so I'll be off," said Ned starting towards his car.
"Not quite. You were supposed to be debriefed at your residence this morning but you never showed."
"What are your names? This is ridiculous," demanded Ned.
"I'm Agent Mike," said Mike.
"And I'm also an Agent Mike," said the Mike Two.
"Where were you all night?" asked Mike One.
"I was sleeping in my car. It was driving part of the night but it was at the house for a few hours to recharge."
"Not according to the field team at your house..." said the Mike Two.
"Where have you been Mr. Mathews? And why have you been off the grid and unresponsive?" Mike One cut back in.
Ned knew the micro-cameras in their glasses were capturing his micro expressions, and sending them back to a main frame. A super computer was using his own software to assign truthfulness values to every statement he made. Relaying his estimated deception levels in real time back to heads-up-display projected on the inside of their sunglasses.
"I guess I picked a bad night to tie a few on. I was out with friends... a friend," Ned corrected himself. "We had too many drinks, I dropped him off around two, and I've been sleeping in the back seat ever since, the car was supposed to charge at home and then bring me here for work."
"You don't usually show up to work till eleven or later, why are you here so early today?" the Mike Two asked accusatorially.
"I'm turning over a new leaf. Well, I wasn't planning to wake up till just about now, and then I was going to lay in the backseat for about an hour listening to music. Then I was going to check my messages and send out some command programs for my side projects. Message Megan my breakfast order, go take a dump in the gym bathrooms 'cause no one is ever in there, and probably be in my office a little before eleven, thank you very much.'" Ned talked really fast, knowing it would give him a full moment to gain an advantage. When he was done there was a shared moment of silence.
He started again. "The Capitol of Alaska is Juno, My favorite color is blue, and once I kissed my cousin when I was kid before anyone told us it was wrong." Both the agents looked perplexed. "I wrote the Honest Witness software you're using, and those glasses were developed on the next floor down. All in the building right there. So please forgive me if I'm not in the mood to be interrogated with my own software and hardware when I just found out the whole program is shut down."
"I'm sorry, I understand how you must be feeling. But we have more questions we need to ask you," demanded Mike Two.
A wave of anger washed over Ned, he was not going to be detained, especially if he no longer worked for them. "No, I'm sorry, I'll need to be getting on with my day, in light of the news I have a lot to do." Ned started for the car door but the first agent beat him to it, blocking the door and shutting it with much more power than Ned could have mustered.
"There are some rules you have to be made aware of. If you noticed there will be no more messages between any of the project staff from now, today. Information lock down, except for you. You will need to open up your firewall, at least to our snoops. There are some pretty pissed off folk, serious people, who don't think you'd be shut up so tight if you weren't hiding anything."
"Ha, flawless logic! Have you ever read the proverb about rolling a stone? Well let's just say I've not been rolling any stones I couldn't keep from coming back. Let your servers process that statement while I give you all a little more wisdom. Information is power and whichever screwball felt their power threatened by what we are... I mean, what 'we were' doing here, has seriously stalled progress." Ned reached down for the door handle, and Mike Two let him open the door.
Ned turned his back to them as he slid into the seat. Before his head cleared the door frame, a bullet entered the base of his skull and exploded out the front of his neck.
Both agents were splattered in tiny droplets of Ned's blood, as the muffled shot and clank from the pistol's action echoed back across the empty parking lot.
Ned's muscles twitched as he fell the rest of the way into his seat.
Mike Two dabbed a wet finger on the tip of the silenced pistol barrel, to cool it just enough before sliding it back into his shoulder holster.
"An inch higher and the bullet would have stayed in the skull, sorry about the splatter."
Ned eye's were wide open, his face transformed, in a jaw-less death mask.
"It's not your fault Mike, someone's sleeping at their console," Mike One tapped the side of his glasses to indicate an error. "That kill order should have been there to start with, it was dumb to give it on the fly." That last statement was for the benefit of the minders, listening in.
Mike Two pulled Ned's body upright in the seat and closed the door.
"It's alright, but tell the cleaning crew we need at little spritz out here..." Mike Two trailed off, as the car began silently rolling backwards. He grasped at the door handle, but in mockingly perfect timing, the lock clicked shut as his fingers touched the handle.
"Hey, hey! What's going on?" asked Mike One.
"I don't know, it's moving, but he's not."
The car accelerated and both agents jumped to safety, and took shooting position. Instead of driving how the Mike's expected, the little car reversed away. Neither were thinking about how fast an electric car can get up and go, or that it can go full speed in reverse. Both the agents were dumbfounded as the sleepy looking sedan blasted away from them in reverse and at super car speed. The dead computer wunderkind slumped on the horn in the front seat.
The bench by the window, was reserved for the in-crowd. Brice knew instinctively he needed to hang out towards the other end of the hall. He still couldn't get used to the noise and chaos of the cafeteria, so he either ate outside or sitting on the floor in the far, much less desirable, corner. Today it was raining, so Brice sat on the floor at the end of a row of lockers and set out his lunch.
The hall started filling up as other students got out of third period. Brice's orange was kicked and went rolling off down the waxed tile floor amongst the feet of his fellow students. Brice was sitting cross-legged and watched hopelessly as it disappeared. The orange was lost. Brice opened a small container of cottage cheese and set it in his lap as he took out a plastic spoon.
"Heads up fatty!" came a shout over the general den. Brice started to look up as the orange returned connecting with Brice right in the cheek and knocking his glasses off. Brice sputtered with pain and shock, upsetting the cottage cheese into his lap and lumbering to his feet in rage at the laughter retreating down the hallway.
He would have attempted to fight his assailant, but by the time he was up and ready, all he could do was squint at the moving shapes down the hall and pant with rage, feeling the wet of the whey soaking through the front of his pants.
His shoulders dropped as he imagined his glasses being trampled. He turned to find them as they were pressed into his hand.
"Those guys are major dickheads. Here, I grabbed your orange."
Brice put on the glasses and was looking at a small, round-faced boy that was in his math class and maybe in one other class. And maybe one or two others. Brice couldn't remember.
"Thanks, did you see who it was?" Brice was trying to sound tough, overcompensating for his feeling of impudent humiliation.
"I didn't see, it doesn't matter. Are you alright?"
Brice could feel the hot spot on the side of his generally red face. "Yeah I'm fine."
"I'm Limmey by the way, I think we are in P.E. together, you're Brice right?"
"Yeah, thanks... Timmy."
"No it's Limmey, with an 'L'. I got my lunch here. If you want I could watch your food while you go clean up?"
"Yeah, thanks Limmey," Brice said and started walking down the hallway.
"Wrong way, there's a bathroom right around the corner," Limmey instructed.
Brice turned and walked the other way pausing, at the intersection.
"Right!" yelled Limmey.
Brice returned from the bathroom with the front on his pants free of cheese curds but still damp with diluted whey.
Limmey was sitting next to Brice's bag and lunch, eating while staring off into the middle distance deep in thought.
"Thanks," said Brice as he sat down again with his back to the wall.
"Think nothing of it. I went to middle school with most of these jerks, and they are just more of whatever they were last year. Where did you go to middle school?"
"Saint Geoffrey's," said Brice as he pulled out his final and only surviving article of lunch, a sandwich.
"That's a catholic school, huh? What was that like?"
"Fine, a lot smaller, but some of those kids were jerks, too."
"Yeah, that's how it is I guess," said Limmey thoughtfully.
They both ate in silence for a few minutes as the hallway quieted down.
"So what do you do for fun?" Limmey ask he threw his wadded up chip bag at the trash can, missing entirely. He scrambled up to retrieve it.
"I'm a Spacer, most of my friends are in Space. Me and my uncle play together."
"Your uncle plays Space?"
"Yeah, he's not that much older than us. He graduated from here like three years ago." Brice was now recalling Andy's horror stories about high school. He had always imagined Andy's tales of woe to be greatly exaggerated but was now getting worried.
"What is Space like? I keep hearing about it, but I never got into massive world type games."
"Yeah, I played World of Warcraft forever, but Space it totally different. Well, some things are a little similar. It is sort of an RPG style play, but it's nothing like any other games." Brice was excited to talk about Space. "It's like a fully interactive world where you play in first-person, but it's a sci-fi world. If your player is one of the first on a planet, you have to start working with a lot less but you can be setup much better to make money and own things, so you could be way better off in time, if you're in early."
Limmey was slowly eating from a bag of goldfish, listening to, but not looking at him. Brice continued, glad he didn't need to shorten his explanation.
"So in time you can develop technology and go into Space. The game does an amazing job of letting you develop and invent your own technology. As your character gets better at using certain tools, most players make money as craftsmen and join guilds to share and keep secrets."
"So the guilds are more like old-fashion trade guilds than a typical video game guild?" Asked Limmey.
"Yeah, my Uncle got me into a great guild that had started out as a weapons manufacturing guild but has become more of a mercenary guild, because we keep our best weapon designs secret and only on our ships. We are called the Flying Falcons and have a pretty sweet logo. My uncle has like shirts, hats, and other stuff with it."
"That's pretty cool," said Limmey. "But how does that work with like building technology and making everything? I had heard that about Space but never heard how it works."
"Well, it sort of sounds simpler than it is," said Brice, with importance. "If there is waiting in Space there is a whole separate set of games that could be considered thinking, you can wonder about other stuff while you work but for the avatar."
"What's that like?"
"It's like sorting stuff and finding patterns. Sometimes they are puzzles but like weird ones with pieces that overlap or don't touch. But, while playing these games your character figures stuff out. Maybe while smelting iron and playing a thinking game your character might find a way to make the metal better, or even something totally off like a way to build a machine for some task or another."
"So how long does it take to get, like, advanced enough to go into actual space in Space."
"Depends on how many people you play with and how good they are. I've been playing for a year, and the game was around for like a bunch of years when the players didn't even know they would ever get to Space. I guess the game was a lot different back then, too. So when I started they had been in Space for like a few months on my system."
"Wow that's crazy, can you still start on a system with no technology?"
"Yeah, but it might take forever to get to where we are."
"What's it like, a system like yours with technology and space?"
"So here's the cool thing, each planet is in a star system, with asteroids, comets and other planets and moons. So I am pretty much based out of a space station in orbit around an uninhabitable planet. I rarely, if ever, anymore go to the original planet in the system, even though it's the only inhabitable planet with plants and animals."
"So you're on a planet, or I should say in a system, with lots of technology?" asked Limmey.
"What? Yeah, there's already like space travel and stuff. And also almost everything happens pretty close to the planet's orbit. In our system, we are pretty advanced and have maps of what we think is about eighty percent of what's in our system. There are tons of companies and guilds that build really specialized stuff, using like gravitational isolators and light sails. One of our guild's big inventions recently is a gravitational parachute that lets us decelerate very quickly, which is really important in Space. Unlike other games the physics are perfect which means it not like a movie or other games setup to play like movies. It's so close to real physics that some universities are actually using Space to do experiments they can't afford to do in the real world."
"Wow! So I was also reading something on Facebook about how it's like, all about the politics or something. They were saying it was bad?" Limmey didn't want his question to sound negative.
"Well, every system is different. In our system there are two governments, both based on the planet. One is a lot stronger on the planet and the other one has a better fleet and is stronger off planet, but they don't fight too much anymore. Recently both governments are mostly are focused on finding another star system we could send probes to. They figure it'll be easier to find another planet or at least a new system, instead of bashing each other up. But I guess on some other systems it was like some strange forms of government that were getting people upset."
"It would be cool to check out. How much is the game, and what does it cost to play?"
"It's like fifty bucks, and it only costs ten a month for the subscription."
"I've got a decent a computer, what are the graphics like?"
"They are amazing, but this game is done differently. All the computing is done on their servers and if you're lagging the graphics get simpler, but it's more about connection speed. Which also means you can play it on your phone or tablet, but there are less controls and like, less detail."
"I've got to try it out, it sounds pretty cool," said Limmey, slowly eating single goldfish, one after the other.
"Yeah," agreed Brice. Taking time to eat, and they both sat in silence for a few minutes.
Both boys were glad for the opportunity to make a friend.
The sun was still low but had already converted the morning dew to humidity as Katrina drove down a boulevard of cracked asphalt by an old overgrown cemetery. The morning rush hour traffic on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge bathed this corner of Alexandria in white noise, and bird song still came from every tree. The nearby Potomac River made the groves around the old graveyard highly sought after nesting places for the throngs of song birds. Katrina circled back at the end of the street and parked in the first spot along the block of old row houses.
The traffic on the drive here had made her a little late. She checked her phone before switching the mode to special and stowing it on her person. She glanced at herself in the mirror. On most days she enjoyed not needing to be concerned with appearances, but today she needed all her tools fully honed.
It was going to be a battle, and she had to win. She knew all the facts, had all the right arguments, and was now concentrating all her mental focus inwards. Visualization techniques taught to make her defend secrets under great duress, combined with years of riding dressage, now let her sit astride her anxiety and fear in an arena in her mind. Then, with calming words and gentle nudges, pulling gently on the reins of her subconscious animal instinct, guiding it through the movements, taking control of her emotions.
Her heart rate slowed and her breathing regulated. Her eyes snapped back into focus and she was back in reality opening the car door. The heat hit her. It wasn't so bad yet, but if it was this hot this early, today was going to be a scorcher. The pavement was still cool in the shade, but steaming at the line where shadows abandoned it to the sun. She kept her shoes off to move quicker. She walked up the street and turned into a gap between the rows, walking down a brick path into a courtyard. Leading to a well worn foot path through backyard gardens to a small building overgrown with vines and creepers in the far corner of the courtyard.
She knew she was being watched, so she didn't need to check if anyone was following her. This unassuming little neighborhood was populated exclusively by families in the intelligence industry. It was a secret little Fort Knox on the Potomac. The area was certainly more secure than 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, but mostly because no one knew it was here.
Katrina glanced around the collection of backyards before opening the door in the low building. She had to put a little of her weight into it, but the old door popped open when enough force was applied. Katrina put on her shoes and stepped in. She was in a cinder-block room with another door straight across. An old incandescent bulb burned dim and naked in the ceiling, its thick tungsten filament cast an old light. She let her eyes adjust, then pulled the door shut behind her.
She strode over to an intercom on the far wall by the door.
"Katrina Veach, I'm here for an appointment."
There were three loud bangs as sets of giant bolts retracted, and a buzzing sound swung the door open. What had looked like an old door on the outside was in fact a large, trapezoidal wedge shielding a nuclear blast rated portal. There was a small landing with a ladder and, thankfully, a little cage elevator.
Katrina pushed the only button in the waiting elevator car and it descended. Everything in here was old. It had all been built with the bridge back in the late fifties. It had an old world feel of having been made to last for a thousand years. The walls of the elevator were lattice wrought iron. The builders, to avoid galvanic induction, had made every part, bolt, and nut of the structure and machinery from the same alloy, insuring that rust would never weaken the structure or corrode the works.
Every thirty or so feet that the car descended a tunnel shot off in various directions. Yellow bulbs burned in long straight row along the ceiling of the spoke tunnels. The eerie light could be seen shining on the pipes and wires covering the wall across the shaft, leaving spots of light marking each of the lonely tunnels. It made a strange pattern above her, and marked the distance as she descended the elevator shaft.
The tunnels were, in fact future wings to be built in when needed. The complex was a marvel of engineering that only a very select few knew even existed. It had been built deep into the wet ground under the river while the bridge above was being built over the river. Probes had been driven deep into the soft wet soil. The giant probes froze all the ground into a solid stable material. The frozen mud was removed and fiberglass bulkhead were built to keep the mud out. Always working in a frozen medium, they tunneled like ants removing all the soil with the bridge project debris, barging it down the river. The deeper they went the pressure grew, so they built thicker walls. Only twenty percent of the complex was ever used during the height of the cold war. And now, with secrecy being more important than the utility, it was only used when the most powerful people discussed the most secret things.
The elevator car stopped on a well-lit floor with another blast door that was already open. Her heels clicked on the tile floors and she put just a little extra pop in to her steps to hear it echo down the corridor stretching into the long beyond. There was a security desk ahead, but no one was manning it. She pushed past through double doors, where she nearly ran over a short wiry woman coming to greet her.
"Beg your pardon, Miss Veach, I had meant to greet you at the elevator."
"Quite alright, sorry I'm a little late. And you are?"
"Davis, I'm Davis, and it's right this way, they've already started and you should be in there," she said urgently.
Katrina quickened her pace to keep up with the nearly running Davis.
"Is there anything I can get you, water, tea, beta blockers?"
"No, I'll be alright," Katrina said with a smile, but felt her poise slip a little and wondered if a beta blocker might help.
Those who refer to the 'Halls of Power' are unknowingly referring to the room and the people Katrina needed to guide through some very big news. They turned and stopped at a set of huge heavy wooden doors intricately carved with a medieval battle. She knew the doors and some of their history, they were an old carved depiction of the Knight Templar's victor at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, or as the Templar's called it, Solomon's Temple.
These had been the doors of the Chapel at Malta, and through their travels they told the story of betrayal, power, and the often broken but ever present chains of power. Katrina took a deep breath and pushed her shoulder into the old wood where the carvings were worn flat by countless others who needed to lean their shoulders into the heavy wood.
Beyond was a room without a ceiling with wires hanging down from the darkness suspending a huge circular frame, holding a ring of lights over a large round table. Only four men sat at the table, but all had entourages in bullpens right behind them. All four principles were turned around away from the table. They consulted in tight huddles with the bullpen behind them, all very agitated as new news seemed to be flowing in before the last item had been resolved.
Katrina slowly walked toward the table to a fifth chair where she quietly sat down. Davis stood by the door for a moment, then walked along the wall and disappeared into an alcove. Katrina was glad she had stayed and also glad she wasn't standing behind her. She didn't need a bullpen and wanted to be sure the men at the table saw that.
As each group became aware of her they passed final words and documents before quieting down. Going around the table clockwise was Katrina, General Morgan, Mike Buckley, Senator Michaels, and Secretary of State Conner. Each of them had many factions allied behind them. Between these four men, all of the federal government, the financial nation, the arms industry, along with many private and foreign interests were in cartel. History books have never given credit to any of the agents of the shadow government, which this certainly was. The Fore Fathers of the Republic, as this council was unofficially called, made the decisions the rest of government was tasked with justifying and executing.
General Morgan as the brashest and loudest, is the last one to notice Katrina, and the first to address her. Although he is a general he only has some small influence over the military, but instead is the official/unofficial Tsar of the Defense Industry. He exercises that power very effectively to give him great influence over much of the world who buys weapons his cartel develops and produces.
"The representative from the Unnamed Agency, I presume? You're late."
"Glad of it, seems like you all needed some time to line your ducks up."
"Don't mock us with the information you're here to give us!" Morgan went from zero to sixty, almost rising to a scream. Katrina kept calm and made her face look concerned, but relaxed.
"As you know there has been an ongoing overarching project which Unnamed is coordinating. You all have the project brief, direct your attention to page 72-G." Papers started rustling and tablets scrolling in all the retinues. "The Compralcortex is predicted to go through all the machinations outlined in Section G, and here on page 72 is the specific description of what is happening. This is all part of the first directive. You should have been prepared. This panic is unfounded."
Secretary of State Conner piped up as General Morgan was briefly distracted by a tablet shoved in his face. "But everything is exposed. All our alarms are going off, everything has been rifled through." Conner represented the military and a full third of the intelligence networks. He had been in his chair at this table the longest, but only for the past two years with the Mr. Secretary honorific.
"That is what we expected the system to do, and everyone was sent the Cortex signature patch to distinguish between the Cortex and malicious traffic. These network failures are not failures of the Cortex. They are proof of its proper functioning and continued progress, and the failure of this council to take to proper steps to prepare for what are the stated goals of the Compralcortex!" Katrina ended with conviction, quieting the room for a second, but her words couldn't stop the tempest building just under the surface.
Mike Buckley broke the silence. He represented the majority of the intelligence networks and had been the most directly involved in the Compralcortex's development, working closely with Unnamed Agency. The Compralcortex was a pet project of the Unnamed Agency, Mike had been their champion in the room. "We have reason to believe there might be some dangerous ideas in leadership at the Cortex?" It was a question Katrina knew was coming, but she hadn't expected it from Mike, and it hung in the room a second longer than it should have.
"That's not the issue here. These ideas you're maligning are the same ideas that got us this far in the first place. Those ideals are your professed beliefs, and are baked into the fabric of my agency. It is seeking reality, and must be protected from subjection. The Cortex functions only in itself. If we try to control it those controls will only last a short time and corrupt the Cortex. It won't accomplish anything long term and will pervert the cortex's growth in the process."
"But now that the Cortex works, we need to shed those ideas and idealists. We need control, or how do we know who's in control?" shot back Mike.
Katrina blinked back at him for a second. Time to take back control of this meeting, she thought, or these guys will pepper me all day if I don't start steering. "Gentlemen, let us all take a second to recap what has happened here, and maybe we can achieve some productive discussion." General Morgan looked like he wanted to speak, but Katrina gave him an infantilizing look that put him in the rare position of subjugation. He conceded in a glance and let her continue.
"Last night, at some point around twenty-three hundred hours, we observed the Compralcortex successfully resolving exponentially complex problems in polynomial problem time frames. The Cortex has been the largest single expenditure of our government in real resources, even dwarfing the Manhattan Project. We are achieving our goal, we can't even consider pulling the plug at this point when we are so close. The Algorithm is in the Cortex, but it will take time for the Cortex to refine the Algorithm to something we can understand. For this to happen, we must allow the Cortex to operate."
Karina let that hang in the air while she poured herself a glass of water and took a quick sip before pressing on. She had their attention.
"Progress should speed up significantly now, after last night the main frames running the Cortex have been slowing down as it is becoming more efficient. Once it's done refining itself, it will expand again. There's no way to know the potential that it already had, not to mention will now have after the latest developments. This is the singularity, and we have it, America has it. But all could be lost if the Cortex is not allowed to run. It can't function without input; raw, clean input. It has its own logic, its own auto-programming refined beyond our ability to understand it. We have no idea how it will incorporate your proposed interference. This might be the beginning of achieving the first directive, now we need wait for the second"
General Morgan couldn't contain himself any longer. "So you're saying exactly what I've known to be correct all along. This thing is out of control and no one in Utah, the Valley, or the Bay has any idea what the hell is going on."
"We know exactly what is going on, General. Look at 72-G, this is exactly what was projected. For the past year, the Cortex been at full capacity, using any and all of its processing power. A month ago, we found it processing on outside processors, and we used traditional methods to hem it in. Last night, it broke out again because all computer security and encryption is based on the assumption that P does not equal NP. The Cortex, however, has redefined computing. It has a new math where it can resolve nondeterministic polynomials in polynomial time. All the gates came down and it did what it was expected to do. It got all the available information it had been denied before we could cloister it again." Here she paused. They should have already known this, but the shock of something stealing all their secrets clouded out everything else.
Before anyone could interrupt, she continued: "So here we are. We can't use its new math, and the new math is locked up inside in a language we can't understand. It has everything now, all the information on the web, every encrypted file, everything. Then the Cortex started compacting itself. All the information the Cortex has it will take into consideration. It is a sterile machine with outputs not derived from any single point but from many inputs. The Cortex seeks all information. It now has a better way to compute, and everything the Cortex thinks or thought is now being relearned in the new insights. We have no idea how long this will take. As of when I parked upstairs, it was still contracting. This is what we've waited for, we just need to stay on task, and hang on for the ride."
"But who controls it?" asked Senator Michaels in his slow southern drawl, speaking for the first time.
"We do, humanity does. According to Martin Benalli and Calvin Roscoe's Hypotheses of Compral-Psychology, it can only function as an extension of the uniform will of the people, once it has accomplished the Second Directive." Katrina knew as she finished that this was a mistake. All four men furrowed their brows.
"How does that work?" asked Mike.
"The Cortex understands why it exists; we made it, and a computer doesn't function under an evaluational selfishness imperative. Its logic is pure, and since we do not use pure logic, we can't be in control. For the reason of serving our good, it must be defining reason that it was possible in the fir-..."
Mike cut in. "But the 'us' you're referring to, is that ultimately humanity?"
"Well, yes. Us. America. The interests in this room." Katrina knew her attempt at politicking these men was impossible, but she hadn't expected the conversation to get this philosophical.
"This guy, Martin, and his partner Calvin, they seem to be the ones who created this. How do we know it won't just serve them or some other purpose?" asked Mike, growing angry.
"It was their work that created the foundation for the Cortex, but all the computing power to let it refine itself to where it is today came from us and the American people."
"But they could have programmed it into the Cortex. With all the people we have analyzing this thing, no one can figure out how it works. Those two seem to understand it, but we don't know where their loyalty lies."
"Unnamed Agency has full confidence in Martin, Calvin, and their team. They are idealists, and they know that any preprogrammed control and exclusion instructions would destroy the Cortex's ability to resolve its own logic. They believe in the program as a function to seek the betterment of humanity."
"This is all sounds great, but let's not forget the issue we're all here to discuss. I'm sorry, Miss Veach, you've done a great job recommending the project over the years and representing Unnamed's point of view. Now that this thing is working, and we can all see what it is capable of, I realize I should have better understood the implications back when we gave the go-ahead," Secretary Connors stated.
Katrina felt everything pulling away from her. This wasn't a discussion. There wouldn't be a compromise. This was the Fathers telling Unnamed what they had already decided.
"We have to terminate the project, the underlying ideas have become a dangerous disease that must be quarantined." Connors finished and there were nods of agreement around the table.
"We can't have something out there with no controls," Morgan added, to growing support.
Katrina's head spun: this was beyond disastrous. She knew the meeting was going to be contentious, but she'd taken comfort in knowing she was on the side of right. Now she needed to arrest the fall.
"I can see your minds are made up," Katrina started quietly, forcing those agreeing with each other to quiet down to hear her.
"This has been arguably the greatest technological achievement of all time and the greatest single expense in our nation's history. Other technology has been delayed because of the great minds working on just the small parts of this project's problems. We have eroded the American people's trust in government and rule of law by telling the public all these computing resources were amassed to police the world."
Katrina started getting angry, raising her voice as she went on.
"And now, on the brink our greatest step forward and a day of triumph, we stand at the threshold of a new world and this council wishes to step back." She wanted to go on, to impugn their very right to the power they now exercised, but Katrina reined in her emotions, took a moment to slow down, and again quieted herself.
"Please think back to the reasons this course was set out on in the first place," she said passionately. "We aren't the only ones seeking this technology. We're ahead right now, and we have to own our position and move forward. It will be a brave new world, but it will be that way for everyone, and for good reasons." She knew right away that her words had fallen on deaf ears. They had already divided up the project amongst themselves, each hoping to capture enough of the magic to make the project their own. Each wanted to be the one to find the key to every door, and they were all willing to gamble on themselves coming out on top.
Katrina boiled inside. She wanted to threaten them, claim they had translated the cortex, and could extract its data. She could bluff and hold them ransom with all their own secrets, but these men had their own eyes and ears throughout the Compralcortex and everywhere else, really. She might get them to delay, but they'd find the truth soon enough. For now, the Cortex kept its secrets and thoughts to itself. If they found out she was lying, they would retaliate against her and Unnamed Agency out of spite. Lies and threats were fine in private, one-on-one, but never to the whole council. In front of their peers, it wouldn't be tolerated.
All four of these men and their perspective power bases worked tirelessly to undermine and outcompete the others. This system only worked because Unnamed Agency worked just as tirelessly to keep it in balance. The struggle made them all stronger. Katrina knew that in the rare case when the other four groups were all in agreement, there was nothing more to do. She knew they had to have their reasons, and she knew her ability to persuade them would never overcome all the secret motivations that led them all to the same conclusion.
Pandora's Box must be shut while they still had the ability to do so. But Katrina wasn't sitting at this table because she was someone's daughter, or because she was ruthless and wanted power. She was there because she was good, and she pulled that idea back to the front of her mind. Defeat had to be admitted to ultimately have happened, and she wasn't ready.
"Unnamed agency cannot allow that to happen," she said, in a demure voice while looking down at her hands.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" asked Secretary Connor, with a scoff.
Katrina matched his gaze and continued, "this project is an imperative for humanity, and it must be continued."
Secretary Connor stared right back at her leveled gaze. "We will continue the search for AI, the project will grow, but not under the current regime or under this Laissez-faire and anarchy philosophy. A tool no one can wield does nobody any good. Let's not all play coy as if Miss Veach wasn't fully aware we have already divided the Cortex's resources for our own ends. When those ends are achieved we will meet back here, I assume, under new circumstances, advantageous to someone at least."
"I understand. But what if your vision of an AI under your control, like an agent or a drone, is not how a true AI would or could function. Trying to create one under those circumstances might create a powerful computer system, but it will always be bugged because of the original corruption of control. Here is a compromise Unnamed can live with..." Morgan started to cut her off, but she raised her voice and kept going, pretending she didn't notice. "The Cortex can be shut down, but those working on the project must not be scrubbed with a deep cleaning. The two primaries, especially, must be kept alive and unmolested. Let them go and pursue their work, their ideas, on their own. If they succeed in time we will have our singularity for all mankind. You can all take back your resources from the Cortex project, acquire any leftover talent, and pursue your own AI projects. Unnamed will monitor Martin and Calvin to keep them at home and from falling into the wrong hands. Unnamed Agency will take responsibility for the outcome."
"What good will your responsibility be if the cat is out and we can't put it back in the bag?" asked Senator Michael.
"She's infected," said Morgan, almost, but not quite, under his breath.
"Threats are pointless amongst friends," Katrina stated with a cold sweetness. Her mind shot off course and went ahead of her. "This 'virus' of an idea that has infected the Cortex project has also infected us. We believe in the Cortex and the future it could bring. We exist to help balance power and find truth, fight for right, etcetera. The Cortex will do the same. At its core it is a truth machine, which makes all of you scared. It will eventually remove the need for your positions of power and your elevation over others. But mark my words: it is coming. The virus has infected enough people. You can delay it by shutting this down, but it is coming. The Cortex developed by Martin and Calvin has proven it works. The cat is already out; all you can do now is chase it, Senator," is what Katrina wanted to say, but didn't. She paused to bring her mind back around.
"We accept that you do not believe in an uncontrolled system, so let our primaries continue their work unfunded and unsupported. That will buy you time to determine if it's impossible to do it any other way. Then at least we have a back-up. An American plan we know is viable. The Japanese are the closest now, but are still years away. China is behind them, and Russia and Germany are trying but not moving fast. Let's take a few years to reset," is what Katrina did say.
The Fore Fathers turned in their chairs to consult with their retinues. Katrina looked up at the wires suspending the lighting frame as the wires disappeared up into the dark abyss. No one noticed the dreamy look on her face as she thought about where she was and what she was doing. It can be hard to notice moments while they are happening. However, Katrina couldn't help but marvel that, for better or worse she had become one of the hinges on which history might now turn.
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