《Human Resources》 Chapter 1 - Homework Scott Henderson was struggling. He couldn¡¯t understand why his villainous teacher Dr. Chu would expect students to have working software finished and debugged in only 2 weeks. I mean he was at school to learn Computer Science - if he was already an expert why would he need to go to class? Also, this project could not be any more boring! ¡°Build a simple Human Resources database for organizing applicants resumes. Allow searching by keywords¡±. This simple description had him nearly falling asleep. In elementary school, where they first tricked him into wanting to do this, they had cool programs where you could drag around blocks and make games. Now, it seemed like 10 times the work to make something that wasn¡¯t even a little bit interesting! Scott wasn¡¯t a terrible student - when he first got this awful assignment, he spent several hours coding a user interface and designing a database. He figured it was about 80% done but then it got unbelievably boring running it over and over again trying to fix bugs. Where was the fun and excitement? He made one of the classic blunders and started to daydream about what he could add to the program that would impress his teacher. He could just picture it¡­ ¡°Scott Henderson, please explain to the class how you were able to take this assignment and build something that any company would pay millions to have! I¡¯ve forwarded your project to some of my contacts in the industry and they are really excited to meet you!¡± Dr. Chu would say. Then all the girls in class would ask him out on a date and¡­ OK, why did his imagination always end up going in that direction? He needed to focus and get this done! So, he made a perfectly reasonable decision to avoid massive scope creep and put the project aside for a bit. He would think of one small, easy to implement feature he could add to make sure he got a good grade. One week later he realized he had forgotten about the project, and it was time to panic. This was the weekend before his assignment was due. Not only had he failed to come up a great idea to add to the project, now he barely had enough time to finish the original lame requirements! Besides, he was planning to go out to a party with his friends this evening. He would probably want to sleep the next morning, so where was he going to find the time? That sinister Dr. Chu was probably cackling maniacally in his evil lair imagining the suffering of his students as they ruined their weekends finishing up a project due on a Monday! What kind of wretched monster would assign a major project due on a Monday? It¡¯s not like going to parties was all that great. Usually, he would set out with high hopes of meeting his future girlfriend. Then he would end up talking with his friends about games or television and elaborate schemes for talking to girls which were too ridiculous or embarrassing to actually try. Then the next morning he would wake up suffering and having spent all his admittedly limited supply of money. Maybe he should just use the homework assignment as an excuse to skip out. ¡°Hey Scott! Are you ready to go?¡± his friend Matthew called from across the hall. They both lived in assigned Engineering housing - the school claimed this was to help like-minded people share ideas and study together. But the drab, undecorated rooms were probably just designed to keep these socially awkward freshmen and sophomores from interfering with all the fun other students were having. Matthew was one of the few people on his floor who made an effort to escape - most of the other students seemed to be perfectly content staring at computers or textbooks all hours of the night. ¡°Sorry Matt... that project from Chu¡¯s class is due Monday. I need to knock this out tonight. If I finish, I¡¯ll catch you guys tomorrow and I will be ready to celebrate!¡± Always looking on the bright side - that was Scott! Matthew looked skeptical. ¡°OK, see you later!¡± As Matthew left, Scott felt all his hopes for the weekend die. Naturally, he opened up his homework project then got distracted surfing the web until he fell asleep. In the middle of the night, he woke up with a start. He had dreamed about dozens of amazing features he could add to his project, and they would be so easy to program! He sprang out of bed and started typing. But as he woke up more, the ideas slipped away even faster. He realized most of what he was coding made no sense. The central idea was to write a program that skimmed code sharing web sites and combined functions pulled from thousands of samples into a finished program. This of course was nonsense - random code combined would not make anything useful and even if it did how could it actually be anything related to his assignment? This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Scott knew this was just one of those dreams where you woke up feeling like everything was figured out, but it was an illusion. The idea was impossible, but he couldn¡¯t fall asleep again, so he decided to keep playing around with it. He even got some code together that would pull out various functions, rename variables to various random Human Resources related words like ¡°Benchmarking¡±, ¡°Due_Dilligance¡±, ¡°Onboarding¡± and other terms. He had a crazy idea that even if his program didn¡¯t work, if it was really long and had the right vocabulary so the teacher might give him some partial credit. Of course, putting a hundred thousand lines of garbage together did not really make a program. For the next four hours, he modified his code to break the vast bulk into smaller modules and keep substituting lines of code until it would compile. Three hours later he had written a test program that would make sure these modules would actually execute. Then he looked at the clock and realized it was already Sunday evening. Matthew had seen him working hard and left him alone. The assignment was due tomorrow and all he had was a program that generated nonsense code. Even a casual glance could tell it was garbage. He was in full panic mode now. The code generating program was still running - spitting out nonsense modules that had names indicating they might have something to do with Human Resources functions. Scott tried to kill the program, but his computer froze up. Realizing that he hadn¡¯t saved his work in the past seven hours he had a tough decision. Power off the computer and lose hours of work - it was probably worthless, but it was hard to throw away something you have worked on for hours. Instead, Scott went to the computer lab and got to work on a version of his homework he had saved after the first day. To his surprise, he was able to debug and finish the bare minimum for his assignment within two hours. Scott saved his work and went home to bed. His alarm woke Scott up to some old music from about 20 years earlier. It was Monday - he sat for a few moments puzzled. Had he finished his project or was that just a dream? Had he really spent most of the weekend trying to write a program to do his homework for him? He walked over to his computer and saw a prompt saying, ¡°Project Complete¡±. That was odd. First things first, he checked and made sure his assignment was complete - fortunately that had not been a dream. He opened it up and clicked around - minimal UI, no extra features, no bugs. This was a solid B. What a relief! Out of curiosity he clicked on the ¡°Project Complete¡± prompt. What looked like a very long invoice appeared. It was over 800 pages. Most of the items were labeled variations of H.R. terms like ¡°Company Synergy Module¡± or ¡°Skill Assessment Sub-Module 41¡±. They all had an item name and some number followed by what looked like a currency code - USD, INR, CNH, RUB and about a dozen others. Scott was starting to get a little worried - it just went on and on. Then he skipped down to the totals and his eyes crossed a bit. Some of the numbers were pretty large - even the dollars part was over $3 million. Did he just get a bill for millions of dollars? In growing horror, Scott kept reading. The bill was marked paid¡­ OK that made no sense. Why was he getting a copy of someone¡¯s huge software bill? He closed the invoice and for the third time that morning almost had a panic attack. His computer was flashing a warning that a virus had infected HRHomework.exe. That was the name of the nonsense program he was generating while trying to avoid doing his homework. He set the antivirus software to clean the issue - at least his computer was still functioning. Scott took a deep breath, shut down his desktop PC and went to class. This was way too much stress for a Monday morning. Dr. Chu¡¯s class was filled with the usual assortment of tired, hung-over college students you would find on a Monday morning. Scott turned his assignment in early and was having trouble staying awake as the professor lectured about crowdsourcing and offshoring. As an example, he showed the class that he had posted the homework assignment that Scott had agonized over for 2 weeks. A programmer in Algeria finished the program in one day for about $50. The teacher said it wasn¡¯t great work, but he would have given it a B+. Unbelievable! All his hard work was probably worth less than what he would have spent going out for dinner with his friends. That Algerian job stealer probably even wrote a better program than Scott. There were more than a few groans around the class as students realized their hard work was not particularly valuable. However, while cruel Dr. Chu was making them question their life choices, Scott noticed the company name that Chu used to find programmers. It matched the logo he had seen on the scary invoice from this morning. Did his random junk program somehow connect to an offshoring programming firm? Did the virus he picked up pulling random code from the internet have anything to do with that? Despite the depression he was feeling about his current career path, Scott¡¯s curiosity was growing. He opened his laptop and looked through the output folder of his generator program. Ignoring Dr. Chu¡¯s soul crushing lecture, he skimmed through the log files. At some point in the middle of the night while running his testing program on some generated code, files started getting uploaded to a Russian IP address. A few hours later a different version of the code started downloading a large number of files from IP addresses all over the world. Finally, a couple hours before he woke up, the program stopped with the log stating that testing was complete. And there, sitting in the output folder was a large file called Glitch_HR.exe. Chapter 2 - Glitch HR After a brief hesitation, Scott clicked on the strange file ¡°Glitch_HR.exe¡±. An interface appeared on his screen that somewhat resembled his homework project but was a bit more cluttered. The design was a bit of a mess, like someone had tried to cram too many features onto one screen. Also, some buttons were labeled with different languages. While professor Chu continued to crush the dreams of his students, Scott decided to press a button labeled ¡°Org Chart¡±. A screen popped up indicating that no company was selected, followed by some weird message in arabic. Pulling up Gurgle translate, Scott learned that he was supposed to return to the main screen and set up corporate information. Curious he followed the instructions and received a screen with several prompts:
Name ?
Core Business ?
Clicking on the first ¡°?¡± he typed in ¡°Gurgle¡±. After a brief pause, the core business filled in Advertising. That¡¯s odd. It recognized the company and populated some data. Out of curiosity, Scott returned to the Org chart and found it was populated with a massive chart that allowed drilling down several levels. His eyes widened - how was it possible this application could have the org chart of a major company loaded in? Was it even legal to have this information? He quickly exited and went back to the company screen. Scott typed in ¡°Horace Mango University¡± and returned to the org chart. This chart was much less complicated and after a little searching he found ¡°Senior Professor of Computer Sciences - Dai Puddles Chu¡±. WAIT! Professor Chu¡¯s middle name was Puddles? Ok, now he knew this wasn¡¯t real. Scott raised his hand. ¡°Yes?¡± Dr. Chu asked. ¡°Is your middle name Puddles?¡± The professor looked at him in shock. ¡°WHO TOLD YOU THIS?!!! Everyone! Class is dismissed!¡± Well, that was a surprise. Scott made a quick exit from class and headed back to the imposing building where they housed engineering students and other unfortunates. He wondered if the building design was inspired by communist aesthetics, or if they simply thought stark concrete blocks with small prison style windows made the other students feel safe from the dangerous Freshman. Entering his rooms Scott¡¯s first priority was to see if any of his other teachers had unusual or embarrassing names. Disappointed, he got back to thinking how unlikely it was that his computer had somehow cobbled together a program that could pull information like this. If this was illegal, he probably shouldn¡¯t go showing his friends for now in case someone turned him in to the authorities. He wasn¡¯t sure if there was even any reward money for turning in Computer Science majors with what was probably illegal spying software. If it was enough to buy a few beers he could think of a few people who wouldn¡¯t hesitate to ¡°do the right thing¡±. After a little experimentation, Scott confirmed that he could get an org chart for companies big and small and even branches of the government. He was a little alarmed when he saw a list of deep cover agents for the FBI - Scott seriously wished he hadn¡¯t clicked on that. No doubt black helicopters were heading his way already. After panicking for about 15 minutes, Scott noticed a meaningful lack of armed government agents bashing down his door. While it¡¯s possible the dorm security stopped them, it seemed much more likely they hadn¡¯t tracked this severe breach of security back to him. Anyway, he promised to never do that again! He should probably delete this program, but on the other hand this was way more interesting than going to his Statistics class! Going back to the corporate screen Scott wondered if he could set up a new company. After entering about 20 names and learning they were already companies. He found an option to generate an unused name. That sounded good. He was prompted to first select the core business. After only a little thought he picked technology. Obviously, he did not want to start a new fast-food chain or accounting firm - he was a software genius¡­ ok, sort of a B student who seemed to have accidentally downloaded a bunch of viruses that somehow built some weirdly powerful software and billed millions of dollars to ¡­ someone in Russia. OK, that was a troubling thought - they were not likely happy right now. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Anyway, the program came up with some suggestions. Mostly a weird combination of unrelated words, often with letters replaced randomly. He picked ¡°Genysis¡±. It seemed to speak of creating worlds and the beginning of something amazing. He didn¡¯t think switching out a letter was going to fool the big guy upstairs about how he was totally copying the name of a bible chapter. Hopefully he wasn¡¯t going to get sued by a half dozen other companies that were already stealing the name with various spellings. Going back to the org chart he was pleased to see it was empty. He found an option to add an employee. He was totally going to make himself CEO, Chairman of the Board and Dictator for life if that was an option. There were choices to find a candidate by position, or to find a position suitable for a candidate. This software was so much better than what he turned in for his class assignment! OK first he picked CEO (Dictator wasn¡¯t an option - stupid program!). A list of names appeared, along with various rankings in job experience, skill potential, cost to recruit, expected salary. There were some other metrics too, but they all combined into an overall ranking. He didn¡¯t recognize any of the names on the first page and most were not even located in his city. Naturally, he used the search function to find himself. ¡°Scott Henderson, Age 19¡±. There were a few people with the same name and age, but he found himself and admired his rankings. OK, actually he was a little disappointed. The stupid program rated about 1 billion people better qualified for CEO than him. Drilling into the various rankings he scored #1 in cost to recruit, but much lower in everything else. For ¡°Expected salary¡± he was actually on the low end, because yeah, he expected to get paid if he was going to be CEO. Experience he was close to the bottom - ok not a huge surprise there, but it stung a bit that this stupid program rated him low on skill potential. Ouch! Out of curiosity, he backed out and chose the option to find the position most suitable for the candidate. Selecting his name again he got a list. The stupid program decided he was most suitable for unpaid intern, followed by cafeteria worker, mail room delivery, and finally junior programmer. Stupid software. Looking at ¡°Junior Programmer¡± he saw his ranking for potential skill skyrocketing to 320 million. How were there so many programmers with better potential skills? He wasn¡¯t sure there were even that many people in the country. How could he have low experience and low potential? He was still rocking #1 on cost to recruit, but his overall ranking was embarrassing. How was a lazy kid like him supposed to compete?!! Oh yeah - he was the one who controlled the software. Hah! Back to the CEO job ¡­ click ¡°Hire¡±! An annoying prompt popped up saying ¡°This candidate is not qualified for this position. We recommend the role of Unpaid Intern or Cafeteria Worker¡±. Arghh! Stupid program! Scott went back to the main screen and clicked on some of the other buttons. They were written in non-English languages, but he could translate them. One said ¡°Job Training¡± clicking on it, he got a prompt ¡°You are not an employee of Genysis. This feature is unavailable.¡± What the heck! This was his program, and he couldn¡¯t even use it. Hah - Scott had the source code and he was a programmer. This wasn¡¯t going to stop him. Fifteen minutes later after looking at the most confusing and complex program he¡¯d ever seen, he was ready to give up. He¡¯d found where some of the buttons were labeled, but the security code was obfuscated and unreadable. That was a seriously advanced technique - who even did something like that? With a sigh, Scott went back and tried adding himself as a Junior Programmer. To his surprise it worked! And there he was, at the top of the Org chart! Hah! Who needs a CEO when you have a Junior Programmer running things like a boss! Going back to the main screen, Scott clicked ¡°Job Training¡±. He didn¡¯t actually want to do some boring training but was curious to see if he could access another section of the program. He was pleased to see a new screen. There was a list of web links along with various scores and yet another ranking. Among the components were ease of understanding, value to company, cost of training. Everything on the top page was free. Did the software somehow know his budget was basically zero? Backing out a screen he returned to the "Corporate" data screen. There was now a lot more information than the initial name & core business. Now it looked like this:
Name Genysis
Core Business Technology
Employees 1
Training Budget 43.50
Recruiting Budget 0
Monthly Salary Budget 0
CEO ?
That training budget was pretty sad and oddly specific. Out of curiosity, Scott checked his bank account. $43.50! Ok, it was embarrassing that he was broke but he was also kind of outraged that this software was somehow poking around in his banking information. That was definitely illegal and more importantly, could he hack this code to get into some billionaire¡¯s account and borrow a few million that he wouldn¡¯t even miss??? A search of the code only gave him a headache. Then he searched through the job training list to see if there was anything for reverse engineering software when you had the code but couldn¡¯t really understand it. Not surprisingly, nothing really matched that. All right, he didn¡¯t want to do any training anyway. It was time to look at getting a CEO! Hah, good luck finding someone with a zero dollar salary and recruiting budget. Chapter 3 - CEO search and basic training Searching for a CEO that would expect zero salary and cost nothing to recruit, Scott was surprised to find there were actually thousands of candidates. Of course most scored very low on skill potential and experience. In overall ranking a few were actually kind of interesting. Trinidad Franco was ranked 50,047 in experience, and not much lower in skill potential. Basically he looked like someone who actually knew how to run a company and might consider this a good opportunity despite that lack of any resources. But he lived in the Congo and spoke Kituba and a little bit of French. Melinda White was rated at #956 in skill potential but way down the list for experience - nearly as low as Scott in this category. But, she lived in Spring Vale which was about an hour''s drive from the University! This was interesting, Scott wondered if this incredibly intrusive software had more information on this candidate - like a resum¨¦ or contact information. Glitch provided an address - apparently Melinda ran a shelter for homeless people. It listed her aptitudes as multitasking and genius level intelligence. Wow! Scott wondered how he was supposed to convince someone like that to join a new company which really didn¡¯t have any kind of business plan or funding. His only advantage seemed to be a Human Resources program that was likely breaking a lot of privacy and security laws. Yeah, this whole idea was stupid. He couldn¡¯t imagine going up to some genius stranger and asking her to run his imaginary company. Scott decided that was enough daydreaming. He went to a couple other classes that day but still kept thinking about this incredible program that had mysteriously appeared on his cloud drive. Did someone put it there accidentally? Were they going to come looking for him? If this was as powerful as it seemed, what kind of company could someone really smart build with it? After class he had an early dinner and managed to distract himself for about 10 minutes playing a video game before he felt compelled to look at Glitch_HR again. OK - Scott didn¡¯t want to be reminded that he was too scared to approach real people about joining his company (Especially scary genius ladies!). Instead he opened up the Employee Training section. Rudely, his Skill Potential showed up at the top of the screen and he had dropped to about 322 million. How had 2 million people gotten better at being a Junior programmer than him in one day?!! Still, he was curious if his ranking would go up if he finished one of the recommended training sessions. First in the list was something called ¡°Adaptive UI Localization for Dummies¡±. That was kind of rude, although he appreciated all the training resources listed were free. Looking at the first 2, then 10 pages, almost all indicated these were classes for Dummies, or Basic level, for Non-Programmers, or even one described as ¡°For People who can¡¯t even find the Power Button¡±!. Realizing it was pointless to get mad at the heartless and probably evil AI running this software, Scott clicked on the first link. Huh, it was surprisingly straightforward to add code that would scan your program for UI text and send it to a free API which would identify your computer¡¯s default language and culture and then provide a suggested translation. They also provided some examples for getting it to automatically replace various labels, drop downs, button text with the translated text before showing the screen to the user. This was all described in less than 3 pages and Scott could clearly see a use for this if it worked on Glitch_HR. Well, it was worth a try. About 15 minutes later he added and compiled the code and saw that all the mixed language buttons and labels were now in English. That was surprisingly helpful, and it should also work if he ever shared this with someone from another country. Marking the course as complete, Scott did not notice a significant change in his skills ranking but he was pretty sure it went up a few hundred. This time he wrote down the number. The list was updated and now at the top was something called ¡°Cognitive Tricks for Improved Memory Recall - Beginner Level (by Nadia Kucharska)¡±. Not sure what this had to do with programming, but at least this wasn¡¯t calling him a Dummy. This training was quite a bit longer. It went into a lot of theory about how the brain worked and compared it to algorithms in computer code. The premise was that most people just dumped facts into their brain comparable to a Heap in computer terms. The author claimed that getting data out of a Heap was slow as you had to scan through every item in a random order even though the brain could search from several locations in parallel. In a computer you could do things like binary searches if you organized or indexed the data when you inserted it. The author then gave some examples of how to ¡°index¡± items in your brain by making associations in a spatial or sequential way. There were some training exercises to go through, but by this time Scott was getting tired so he set this aside and went to sleep. The next morning, Scott felt refreshed and seemed to remember some weird dreams where he was pulling out parts of his brain and pinning them on one of those evidence boards they always use in detective shows. Shaking off the disturbing image, he decided to try a few of the exercises in that article. He wasn¡¯t sure if it was helping, but maybe he would try it during his History class instead of his usual tactic of trying to sleep without the professor noticing. He could possibly attribute it to staying awake and focused the whole class, but Scott found he could remember everything the professor covered including years the events happened. Normally he could never remember those unless he stared at them for a long time while studying for the test. During a quick break between classes Scott pulled up the training screen. His ranking was now 318 million. It had gone up. That was actually kind of creepy. Even assuming this mind exercise made him a better programmer, how would the software know this? Did it just guess based on how long he was looking at the training. Was it reading his mind? OK, that was just dumb. His score probably went down just having such a stupid thought. He checked - well his score did go down a bit but that was probably just other people learning things. Which actually was maybe even more worrying. Was this program monitoring several billion computers and judging what people were learning or doing? If it could do that it seemed like a huge waste to just use this for Human Resources. It could be solving crimes or helping people find true love or something. Wait a minute¡­ Scott typed ¡°Scott¡¯s Girlfriend¡± into the job screen. A message popped up that this was not a valid career choice. Also it referred him to a section called policies and procedures. Yeah, totally not going to look at that. As the only employee of the company he did not have to worry about how inappropriate it would be trying to hire someone to be his girlfriend. He sure hoped there wasn¡¯t a log of his search activity. OK, there would totally be a log somewhere. Scott spent the next hour during his Data Structures class trying to find where this sneaky program was logging all his bad behavior so he could delete it. The code was way too complex for him to understand. He noticed something else that was odd ¨C some of the code had been changed today. He had made some changes to translate the UI text yesterday, but some of the other code had been modified this morning. He eventually found a screen which allowed viewing the search logs. There was even a ¡°Purge¡± feature, but it was disabled. Embarrassed, Scott decided if anyone ever went through these logs he would just say he was testing to make sure the program wouldn¡¯t allow inappropriate searches. Yeah, that sounded believable! If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. For the next few days, Scott worked through some more training exercises. The next couple recommendations were too basic and not particularly helpful. Then there was another useful article on data structures which explained some things very well that he hadn¡¯t really understood. This was followed by another useless link that seemed to be some description of someone¡¯s day including what they ate for breakfast. Hrmm - this training program certainly had a few bugs in its algorithm, although it also found some really interesting stuff. Scott figured it was about 50% useful and the rest was junk. Still, he felt like he could usually identify the junk articles and what was left was kind of amazing. Some of the resources it pulled up were even off dark web sites - just an IP address and not any friendly DNS names. That was kind of scary, but also pretty exciting that this tool could find stuff like this. In his school classes he usually felt like the teachers were spending a long time going over things he already knew. Other times, they would start on a subject assuming he had all this background knowledge and he just sat with a puzzled look on his face before tuning them out and daydreaming. Obviously there were some classes where the teacher actually covered something that he was interested in and ready to understand, but it was probably only about one class in 20. In elementary school and probably middle school he felt like it was much more common to go into a class and learn something useful. He hadn¡¯t really worried about it - just assumed he knew so much there wasn¡¯t a lot left to learn or that he could actually understand. But the skill training on Glitch was different. Despite a fair amount of junk, Glitch seemed to come up with a large number of recommendations that were bite sized lessons that he could understand and actually caught his interest. He hadn¡¯t really felt this engaged learning in many years. He also kept working on the brain/memory training exercises and was shocked to learn that he could still remember names, dates and events the teacher covered in his History class several days earlier. The next weekend, Scott once again told his friend Matt he didn¡¯t want to go to hang out claiming he needed to study for a test. He worked through a few more training suggestions and noticed that most of them were no longer labeled for beginners or dummies. Huh. He hadn¡¯t even checked his ranking in several days. Glancing at it, he felt a bit of pride that he was now ranked 208 million worldwide for junior programmer skills. Sure, it wasn¡¯t that great but he had passed up over 100 million wannabe geeks trying to steal his job! Out of curiosity, Scott looked at the top spot and found some guy named Theofanis Zervou, apparently from Algeria. Wait¡­ was this the guy Professor Chu hired to make their class feel bad about themselves? AKA the Algerian job stealer! Also that guy¡¯s name sounded kind of familiar. Scott obviously hadn¡¯t mastered his memory exercises because it didn¡¯t come to him until he went back to the skills training page. There it was¡­ #5 on his current list of training suggestions was an article about using small scale AI components to replace certain types of tedious coding tasks. It sounded kind of interesting. A quick search through his completed training tasks he found this guy had written one of the other useful articles he had already read. OK, that guy was pretty amazing, but Scott was also pretty proud of himself for remembering. His memory was getting better. Skimming through the first couple pages of training suggestions Scott found another brain training article by the author who explained the memory exercises which he also somehow remembered - Nadia Kucharska. OK, he actually remembered her name because she sounded hot with that Russian sounding name. Ugh stupid hormones, what was wrong with him?! Anyway, the article was #26 on his recommended list titled ¡°Simple tricks for speed reading retention and comprehension - Beginner level¡±. Ok, he was totally going to skip ahead to read this since his future girlfriend Nadia wrote it. When he met her someday he was going to be super rich and famous and he could just go up to her and say ¡°I really owe so much of my success to those articles you wrote¡±. Of course he would list some of her more advanced articles. Obviously he wouldn¡¯t admit he found her beginner articles so useful. He would be like ¡°Your expert level articles were really helpful, because there were 2 or 3 things in them I didn¡¯t already know¡±. OK, great way to start a relationship on a foundation of lies. Scott stopped his guilty daydreaming and started reading the article. It was like 40 pages, but a lot of this was samples of literature or technical writing interspersed with some short exercises to try while reading them. The thought of working his way through this ¡°Beginner Level¡± exercise was kind of intimidating, but Scott gave it a try and about 3 hours later was surprised that he had started to get the hang of it. There were a lot of tricks from moving your eyes in an order that didn¡¯t actually match the flow of text, and methods to quickly categorize sections of text in your brain without actually trying to understand it all on the first pass. You would kind of digest the information after you scanned it in. With practice you could locate sections of the text that related to questions someone might ask or if something related jogged your memory. It kind of gave him a headache because he had been reading since Kindergarten and this was basically teaching him to do everything in a completely different way. This was going to take quite a bit more practice and effort than the memory exercises (which he hadn¡¯t actually mastered yet). Also, he was kind of terrified about what this Nadia person was up to. She had to be working for some kind of Russian government think tank and honestly compared to the intelligence of government people we had in the U.S., things were not looking good! Scott decided not to go out of order again for a little while. He instead struggled to apply his speed reading exercises to the training items. He usually found he had to go over everything several times before understanding and it was slower than just doing it the way he was used to. But he kept at it and after a few days he felt like he was slowly getting the hang of it. It actually is pretty scary unlearning a skill you have had most of your life and trying to do something in a different way. One night Scott even had a nightmare where he was in a library with hundreds of stacks of books and a sexy Russian voice was telling him they couldn¡¯t go on a date until he read them all. Then he turned to look at the speaker and she was some old crone with lots of warts and he woke up with a start. Was his subconscious telling him that Speed Reading was evil? Maybe it wasn¡¯t worth the effort. He decided to keep working on it for one more week - if he didn¡¯t see any improvement he would just go back to normal reading. Over the next week, Scott found himself skipping a lot of his classes and only showing up for the tests. He used speed reading the night before to skim through 4 chapters of really dull 19th century American history. Going to bed he felt like he didn¡¯t really remember much of it, but it was way too boring to read it again. During his class the next day he felt like the answers were just popping into his head. Even the essay seemed easier than usual. Although he was sure to lose some points on his rambling, pointless interpretation of the significance of the Missouri Compromise, he believed he at least had the events and dates right. A test in Dr. Chu¡¯s class was also shockingly easy. He was almost certain that the evil Doctor had not covered even a fraction of what was needed to solve his diabolical computer science riddles in class. He pitied the other students. However, most of the questions were fairly easy to solve using material he had learned during his skills training. Possibly his answers were not mainstream, but he was sure they would work. The weekend was approaching again and Scott decided it was time to give his brain a rest and hang out with his friend Matthew. Chapter 4 - Socializing It was Friday evening and Scott sent Matthew a text. ¡°Hey finished up with my tests, I¡¯m ready to get out of here!¡± ¡°Sounds good! We haven¡¯t seen you outside of class for a while.¡± They agreed to meet at Matt¡¯s room. He was closer to another friend of theirs, Alvaro Ignacio. Alvaro was a nice guy, but a little bit too obsessed with video games. He was really into some multiplayer Mecha simulator and would often blow off classes or hanging out if he had a big online battle his guild was participating in. Not surprisingly Alvaro was on his computer and yelled out that he was staying in tonight. Another friend Barry Yong was already over at Matt¡¯s room. He was more reliable and wouldn¡¯t miss going out on Friday and Saturday nights no matter what. Unlike Scott, Matt and Barry would sometimes go out other nights (Wednesday - Sunday). Their grades were decent - probably because they were really smart compared to Scott, but they were more interested in trying to escape the restrictive engineering social circles. They had a few other friends who were not engineers, but they were more acquaintances to Scott who usually left the social planning up to his two friends. Today¡¯s plan was not the most exciting. Matt and Barry had not been able to find any parties going on with their older acquaintances, so they were going to the default hangout - a place called Wedge Pizza which had a cheap but low quality pizza buffet and which catered to poor college kids near campus. For under $20 dollars they could eat all the pizza they wanted which usually wasn¡¯t much, and drink all the caffeine they could handle from the fountain drink (usually a lot). This was one of the more popular hangouts for underage kids who couldn¡¯t get a decent fake ID - in other words the low end of the social spectrum. After paying and grabbing a slice of greasy, unappetizing pizza and large fountain drinks - they all preferred a highly caffeinated bright green beverage, but the dispensers were often out of syrup so today they settled for variations of cola. ¡°So Scott, I¡¯ve barely seen you around. I find it hard to believe you were actually studying all that time. Did you find a new game or book? And if so, how come you haven¡¯t shared the info with your best friend?¡± Matt asked. Scott had briefly considered keeping Glitch_HR a secret. It was kind of amazing, and very likely illegal and dangerous. However, he was actually kind of excited about sharing it with his friends. So he went ahead and risked it. ¡°So, I¡¯m going to warn you. I kind of stumbled onto something that might be kind of illegal and possibly dangerous. If you don¡¯t want to know about it I will keep my mouth shut.¡± As if! Leading with that, there was no way they were going to let him drop it! ¡°Yeah, I don¡¯t want to get involved in anything like that.¡± Barry said. WHAT?? ¡°Hah! Kidding! You really think we wouldn¡¯t want to hear all about it with a big lead up like that!¡± Barry laughed. ¡°Hah! You got me.¡± Scott chuckled, ¡°So I was trying to finish that project for Dr. Chu¡¯s class...¡± ¡°Ugh, that guy is sadistic. Who assigns a major project and has it due on Monday?!¡± Matt complained. ¡°Right! Anyway I tried to be a good student and get it done early, but was struggling because of the sheer boredom of it all. Anyway, I had this crazy idea the weekend before it was due and tried to code some AI program to write my code for me.¡± ¡°Oh, so you accidentally created some AI and now it has started building robots to kill us all?¡±, Barry added. ¡°Well it hasn¡¯t started trying to kill us just yet. Anyway, I think my program got infected with about 100 viruses, so I gave up on trying to invent an AI and just stayed up all night and finished it normally.¡± Scott continued. ¡°Anyway I got this weird message indicating my software project was complete. I got an invoice for several million dollars. If that wasn¡¯t scary enough, it had already been paid by some Russian company. Weird right?¡± ¡°OK I see why you warned us. I think once the Russians realize your buggy software somehow convinced them to spend millions writing your homework project they are definitely going to ¡®disappear¡¯ you.¡± Barry added helpfully. ¡°So, is that why you¡¯ve been avoiding us? Were you trying to make sure we weren¡¯t targets too?¡± Matt asked. ¡°Um¡­ that probably should have been a reason, but I was more worried about getting in trouble with our government than the Russians. Now I will definitely not be able to get to sleep for about a month.¡± ¡°Why would you be worried about our government?¡± Barry asked, curious. ¡°That¡¯s just it. Along with this giant invoice, there was a copy of some software called Glitch_HR. It¡¯s sort of like our homework assignment except a million times better. It has some features which I¡¯m pretty sure could not be implemented without breaking a ton of privacy and espionage laws.¡± Scott explained. ¡°OK. I¡¯m kind of confused now. Our assignment was for Human Resource software. How can something like that be breaking a bunch of laws?¡± ¡°Well among other things, it knows way too much about various companies, people and government agencies. I accidently pulled up a list of deep cover FBI agents!¡± ¡°Well, it was obviously fake! Otherwise you would have seen that I¡¯m actually a super secret agent!¡± said Barry, obviously not taking this seriously. ¡°Also that¡¯s how I knew Dr. Chu¡¯s middle name was Puddles.¡± Scott said. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Oh yeah! That was hilarious when you asked him that! He looked like his head was about to explode and he sent everyone home.¡± ¡°No way! Your teacher¡¯s middle name is Puddles and you asked him about it in class?!! Respect!¡± Barry was suddenly looking very impressed. ¡°That¡¯s not even the best part. There is this skill training module that has some really cool stuff. I¡¯ve actually been working on some of it and I feel like I¡¯ve learned more in a couple weeks than I did my entire Freshman year.¡± ¡°OK, I don¡¯t totally believe you, but this is a pretty good prank if you are making this up. When are you going to show us this magic program? Maybe aliens wrote it and are making you prepare for their invasion? Every Computer Science major makes a lame attempt at building a true AI. But maybe you actually pulled it off and it is sitting out in the cloud somewhere building up its strength so it can take over!¡± Barry seemed pretty excited about the possibility of aliens or computers taking over the world. ¡°Well I don¡¯t think you are making this up, but you need to show us this!¡± Matt demanded. After agreeing, the boys went back to Scotts room and opened Glitch_HR. Scott showed them the org chart sceen - staying away from government agencies, but picking some well known companies. The detail was pretty impressive and some of the positions were easily confirmed with web searches. ¡°Can we get a copy of this?¡± Matt asked. ¡°I mean, I don¡¯t really want the Russians coming after me, but this is really amazing¡±. ¡°Sure, if you want to risk it. Don¡¯t share it with anyone else unless we all agree, OK?¡± When Matt tried to open the software later, he received a message indicating he was not authorized to access the program. After talking with Scott on the phone they determined that he did not have any default access privileges and could only gain access if he joined a licensed company. A further search through some of the screens and they only found one company ¡°licensed¡± to use the software. Genysis - the company Scott created when he first started playing around with the software. ¡°So can you add me as an ¡®employee¡¯ of your fake company?¡± Matt asked. Scott went through the process and pulled up a list of positions Matt was qualified for. Like Scott, the top two were also ¡°Unpaid Intern¡± or ¡°Cafeteria Worker¡±. Junior programmer was also on the list, but there were some other options which had not been available for Scott. ¡°Junior Robotics Engineer. Yeah, I want that one!¡± Matt said, excited. He had always loved programming robots - he was a bit disappointed their college did not offer a Robot Fighting League elective. ¡°OK¡± Scott selected this option. ¡°Barry is going to have a field day with this. Clearly you were offered this to start building that robot army for the evil AI.¡± ¡°Sure, sounds awesome! I¡¯ll make sure to add some code to make sure the robots don¡¯t attack any of us.¡± Matt laughed. Matt confirmed he could now access the program and could see the skill training section. He wasn¡¯t able to see all the corporation and org chart screens. Scott must have some kind of higher level of default access as the first user of the software, but they couldn¡¯t figure out how to change permissions. They decided to add Barry too, even though he was still not taking this very seriously. Again the program did not think highly of his skills, but had some other low level options available. ¡°Barry, would you rather be a ¡®Junior Lab Assistant - Material Sciences¡¯ or ¡®Junior Manufacturing Technician¡¯ ?¡± ¡°Dude, I obviously want the Mad Scientist track. Go with ¡°Lab Assistant¡±. This is kind of stupid though - your fake company doesn¡¯t have a lab or a factory so I¡¯m going to be surfing the web all day. Hah! I guess that¡¯s only fair since you aren¡¯t paying me anything!¡± After adding Barry, Matt asked. ¡°So, some of these training classes are pretty interesting. Barry, did you look at your list?¡± ¡°Yeah, I skimmed it. This stuff seems kind of far fetched. There is a fair amount about experiments you can do in a home kitchen. Ooh.. there is one on bomb-making, and it looks like it is on the dark web!¡± ¡°OK, if you blow us all up I am going to fire you!¡± Scott said. ¡°Hah! You don¡¯t have the power. You aren¡¯t even CEO. I¡¯m curious if you can fire me though, why don¡¯t you try it?¡± Scott tried to remove Barry from the company. He received a message that he didn¡¯t have the authority to remove employees. ¡°We need to get some employees with management authority. I can¡¯t even fire Barry.¡± Scott complained. All three sat in silence for about an hour going through the skill training. ¡°Here we are, three guys on a Friday night studying nerd stuff! We¡¯re as bad as the other guys in the dorm!¡± Matt said. ¡°Yeah, but there is some pretty interesting stuff here. I kind of wish I had a kitchen or a lab to try some of these experiments.¡± Barry said. ¡°I didn¡¯t actually look at the bomb stuff, but some other guy is explaining how to make carbon nano-tubes with some pretty basic equipment. It would probably cost less than $100 bucks to get the equipment and supplies. There are also several other authors with articles that seem to be related, but I don¡¯t think they know about each other. This one guy is claiming he could induce a fusion reaction if he could assemble a network of carbon nanotubes with the right structure. Another guy claims he can dope nanotubes with various ions and then organize them in 3D using a computer and some magnets. But he says it is not practical yet because the supplies cost thousands of dollars for each test. Hah! If these guys knew about the work the others were doing they could probably build a tiny fusion reactor.¡± Both Matt and Scott stared at him. ¡°You are not allowed to build a fusion bomb!¡± ¡°Hey, no it would be a much more controlled reaction. I mean, it would just melt itself, maybe explode a little but it definitely wouldn¡¯t blow up the city. OK, probably not. I guess I should read some more before trying something like this.¡± Matt was puzzled. ¡°So the stuff I¡¯m reading is not as exciting as building a fusion bomb, but I¡¯m wondering why they don¡¯t teach some of this in school. It seems way more useful than what I¡¯m learning in my robotics class.¡± ¡°Yes, and this is why you guys haven¡¯t seen me much for the past two weeks. Not everything it recommends is interesting or useful, but it still manages to find some really amazing stuff. There are all these geniuses who write about their work and no one really appreciates it because they aren¡¯t well known or going through the University system to publish their work. Also, a lot of it doesn¡¯t do much until you combine it with other ideas.¡± The boys agreed they all wanted to browse through their training some more over the weekend, but they promised to meet up over lunch on Sunday. Later that evening, when Scott was getting ready for bed. He thought, So I hope the Russians or the US government don¡¯t shut us down or throw us in jail. I kind of think we might be able to build a pretty cool company. I mean, we don¡¯t actually have any products or services and none of us know how to manage or run a business. Still, maybe he should go talk to that potential CEO. The program had come up with some pretty amazing recommendations on training, but you would think that if a Human Resources program could do anything it would be finding good employees. Right? Tomorrow, Scott was going to be brave and go meet his future boss. Chapter 5 - Meeting the CEO Scott was really nervous driving to the Spring Vale City homeless shelter. First of all, the East side of Spring Vale was close to the port and kind of scary. There was a lot of low income housing and some people wandering around did not look like they had what he would consider a normal job. Fortunately, his car was really old and in poor condition so it blended right in. To be honest his clothes were also not very stylish so he kind of fit in. Why didn¡¯t he dress up better to meet his future CEO? He almost turned around, but realized if he didn¡¯t go through with this he would find an excuse to keep putting this off until someone else hired this genius (and probably for a big salary). Besides, if she ran a homeless shelter she was used to grubby looking people. Sure, it would be embarrassing if they offered him a free meal, but he was kind of broke so maybe he shouldn¡¯t turn it down. OK¡­ Scott needed to focus! What was he going to say to this person? He had thought about it quite a bit over the past week and he had some ideas, but it all sounded stupid now that he was here. Arghh, worst case was he¡¯d screw this up and then he would just have to learn to speak Kituba so he could talk to that Franco guy from the Congo. Yeah, that was not happening. He wondered who #3 on the list was. Scott parked his car. The parking lot was mostly empty except for some crazy looking guy sitting inside a large cardboard box. Dude, you are right next to a homeless shelter and you are in the parking lot living in a box! Scott avoided staring at the guy and walked into the shelter. The main room looked kind of like a school cafeteria. There was a door to the kitchen, a door that looked like it went to an office and some stairs going up. At the lunch counter a heavyset woman looked at him and yelled ¡°Next meal is in 2 hours. You don¡¯t look like you live on the streets. Are you some college kid looking to volunteer?¡± ¡°I¡¯m looking for your boss, Melinda White. Can I talk to her?¡± ¡°Hah, my boss is a guy named Mr Gill. He¡¯s hardly ever here, but you can probably leave him a message in his office.¡± ¡°Maybe Melinda is his boss?¡± ¡°Are you talking about crazy Linda? She¡¯s upstairs, not sure what her last name is and she is definitely not in charge of anything.¡± Scott has been nervous before, but now he was starting to panic. Had his super advanced Human Resources program sent him to recruit a crazy homeless person? It had been wrong about quite a few training recommendations. He felt stupid for thinking it would somehow magically find a CEO level talent nearby willing to work for free. ¡°Um, I think I made a mistake, thanks for your help¡± Scott started backing up to leave. ¡°Poor Carl is really¡­ Why are you¡­ little effort not crazy I think¡­ lazy bureaucrat.¡± A voice said from upstairs. Scott considered running. It really seemed like the best plan. He watched in horror as a woman came down the stairs. Her gray streaked hair was kind of sticking out and poorly cut. Her face had that wrinkled aged look of someone who spent too much time in the sun without moisturizer. She could be anywhere from 40 to 70 years old and seemed to twitch, looking in different directions every few words while she talked. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m.. poorly run¡­ put a ¡­ talking about. I could even.. looking.. any effort¡±. Melinda ¡°Crazy Lindy¡± White babbled. She looked like she was getting frustrated. Obviously there was something wrong with her! Her words didn¡¯t seem to match whatever she was trying to communicate. Scott was horrified, but also fascinated. She started speaking faster as she got more frustrated. ¡°Melinda White¡­ a typical dressing better ¡­ I just.. brain tumor. for me¡­ Ed Gill He¡¯s not.. I¡¯m having¡­ do the surgery. Sorry for.. if he put ¡­ a bad looking trouble focusing if I broke again.¡± She was talking faster and faster¡­ Scott tried to get her to settle down. ¡°Hey don¡¯t worry about it. I think I made a mistake. I¡¯ll just get out of here now!¡± ¡°my appearance..is into¡­ really guy¡­she¡¯s.on had proper¡­ my hairbrush¡­ half of them¡­ lack self confidence. the shower ¡­helps the ..but he¡­ one thing at a time¡­ obviously has and ..Stacy stole ¡­ people could find ¡­ seems to¡­¡± Scott had almost made it out the door, but something made him pause. Obviously this lady''s brain seemed completely scrambled, but it seemed to have a pattern to it. It reminded him of some of the encryption examples he had read about a couple days ago. ¡°This place.. guy should know what... living in a box.. Tara doesn¡¯t.. this useful ...tools to operate¡­ he ¡­ employment¡± Scott paused. OK this was going to be a complete waste of time, but he was curious if Melinda White was just babbling crazy nonsense or if there was just something in her brain scrambling up her words. It was beyond him to figure it out, but cracking encryption was kind of something he was supposed to be good at. He was an aspiring computer scientist. Could he do this? This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°Um, please stop talking for a bit - it¡¯s too confusing. Would you mind if I recorded some of what you are saying for a school project?¡± Melinda nodded her head. That was interesting. She still had that weird twitching of the head looking in different directions, but she had looked right at him when she nodded. They grabbed a table. Melinda looked at him expectantly, while also looking at four imaginary people who weren¡¯t actually at the table with them. OK, this was probably his dumbest idea ever. Still, he had come all this way and the lady wasn¡¯t physically attacking him. Scott pulled out his phone and hit record. ¡°OK, this might sound a bit strange, but I¡¯m trying to start a technology company. There are three of us - my name is Scott and I¡¯m a junior programmer. My friend Matt can also program but he really loves robotics. My friend Barry is a chemical engineer, but he seems interested in something called Material Sciences. None of us are particularly skilled, but we have access to an incredibly advanced software tool that is helping us learn much faster than what we can get from our classes at school. So, my questions are:
  1. Should we be trying to sell this software? We have some concerns about ownership - it may be the property of Russian gangsters and seems to be violating a lot of US privacy laws.
  2. We need cash flow. Do you have any ideas how we could get funding?
  3. Why do you think my software recommended you as the CEO of the company?
  4. What¡¯s the deal with that guy in the parking lot living in a box?¡±
Scott felt like this might be the dumbest thing he had ever done, but he let his phone record while Melinda started babbling a bunch of nonsense for about 3 minutes. ¡°Thank you for your time. If I can make any sense of what you just said I¡¯ll let you know.¡± Scott left, but he could have sworn he saw a smile on Melinda¡¯s face as he glanced back.
Later that afternoon Melinda White sat in the poorly maintained, but clean room she shared with 3 others. She was lost in her thoughts. Her mother had been an addict and the doctors said she used drugs during the entire pregnancy. This explained why Melinda¡¯s brain developed in a very unusual way. Her mother had abandoned her early on, but she had heard doctors talking in various institutions the social workers had sent her to. Her brain had a deformed structure and they thought it was a miracle she was able to function at all. Indeed, she had learned to walk only about 4 months later than normal children. She had even started speaking at 12 months. That was perfectly within the normal range. She was potty trained earlier than most and was not lacking in physical coordination. Still, it was clear there was something seriously wrong. As other children started to form simple sentences she would babble on and on, but it never made any sense. Her childhood memories went back to about age five when she realized that most other children did not have multiple minds sharing one body. She would have conversations with herself inside her head and it was all perfectly clear. But when she tried to speak to others, three, four or five different people would all try to talk at once and it never made any sense. She was sent to various homes and facilities, but the doctors could never figure out why she had so much trouble communicating. She learned to read, but when she tried to write or draw it was the same problem as when she was speaking. She could handle simple yes/no questions and even found she could score well on multiple choice tests. Her struggles with communication had continued to frustrate teachers and occupational therapists assigned to help her. Eventually she was not a child anymore and the efforts to help her dried up. She was clever enough to avoid getting hurt too badly on the streets and had lived in various homeless shelters for years. Today was a very interesting day. That boy Scott had obviously been a bit scared by her, but for some reason he really wanted to give her a chance. More than that, she felt a very unfamiliar feeling of hope. He hadn¡¯t just run out the door, and the questions he asked her were unusual to say the least. She answered all his questions at the same time in a hopeless jumble of words. Still, after sitting in her room for a couple hours her mind was racing. She had about a hundred things to add to what she had said. Obviously, he wouldn¡¯t understand any of it. It was silly to get her hopes up. He would fail to understand her like everyone else. Still, it was a pretty exciting day and her mind raced with ideas until late into the night. It was certainly better than talking to crazy Carl who lived in a box in the parking lot. That poor man obviously had a brain tumor. She had even considered trying to operate on it herself, but realized the police probably would take kindly to a certified crazy person stabbing Carl in the head with a scalpel. Mr. Gill who ran this shelter was hopeless. About half the people here could find employment pretty easily with a little help - either some basic coaching or some fairly simple medical help. Naturally, there were no easy answers for her or Carl. Melinda was pretty sure one of her personalities would have made a great doctor. She was always reading medical journals whenever she could get internet access. She never found any other examples of people who had multiple personalities sharing a consciousness at the same time. Probably the reason part of her was fascinated with brain surgery - her malformed brain obviously was the cause of her condition. One doctor had suggested lobotomizing several of the excess lobes of her brain. It might have worked, but Melinda couldn¡¯t bear the thought of killing fully functional personalities. She had made a rather daring escape out of that mental facility when she was a teenager. Each of her personalities had their own quirks and talents and they were closer than family since they were all stuck inside the same head. After much internal debate, Melinda agreed with herself that she would find a working shower and steal her hairbrush back from that thieving Stacy. She probably had hidden it in her shopping cart out back. In the unlikely event Scott ever came back, she could at least make sure she didn¡¯t smell and have her hair sticking up. She had a mission - if he came back she was going to at least try to look presentable. Melinda plotted contingencies for a few more minutes then fell asleep. Chapter 6 - Scrambled Thoughts As Scott drove back to the dorm, thoughts were swirling in his head. Melinda White was a huge disappointment - not only did she look like a crazy homeless lady, but she babbled a stream of words that made no sense. Why had the stupid program decided she had potential as a CEO? It was silly to expect bug free code from something called Glitch_HR, but he had really built up the expectation in his head. She was supposed to be some up and coming, charitable powerhouse. Weirdly, he wasn¡¯t as disappointed as he expected. Instead, he just felt like there was a puzzle he needed to solve. After he asked his questions, she babbled non-stop for several minutes. Some of the words seemed related to what he had asked her. Was it possible she was answering his questions, but just jumbled up the words? At first when he hit record, he had this idea of decoding her scrambled words and uncovering treasure. But now, driving home, he had a sinking feeling this was a big waste of time. It¡¯s not like he was going to type in everything she said and somehow decode it. It would take hours, maybe days of work. He thought it would be easier just to find someone else, or maybe just do some training and get a cool job somewhere with his new skills. Returning to his room, Scott had all but given up on trying to decode Ms. White¡¯s ramblings. He was supposed to meet with his friends in a few hours. They had been playing with Glitch for a week now and he figured they would get a good laugh about his adventure with crazy homeless people. To kill some time, he pulled up the Skill Trainer just to see if there was anything interesting. The list changed frequently - there must be some process running that adjusted the rankings. Was it possible the algorithm was somehow self-improving? He had seen the code for that module get a new timestamp without him personally changing anything. First on the list was a tutorial on adding speech to text functionality to any program. He had only planned on browsing, but that sounded like a really cool feature to add to programs. No chance it would be easy though. Regardless, he was curious, so he opened the article. It was surprisingly easy. There was another free API he could use that did all the hard work. It took a bit of configuration, but he was able to get a test program running in less than 15 minutes after he read the article. To test this, he played back his recording from the morning, and it produced a text file with a transcript of their conversation. He had talked himself out of trying to unscramble her rambling. A reason he wanted to give up was that he didn¡¯t want to type in everything. He checked the training list - would there be some article explaining how to decode babbling crazy people? Unfortunately, the answer was no, though he bookmarked a few interesting topics to check out later. OK, looked like he was going to have to earn his prestigious title of Junior Programmer. He remembered another article he had read about using AI neural networks to automate certain coding tasks. It wasn¡¯t that much different from the original effort that built Glitch. His improved memory recalled that this was based on an article posted by Theofanis Zervou - the Algerian job stealer. This guy didn¡¯t get to be the top Junior programmer in the world for nothing, so Scott shamelessly stole his ideas. He patched together a program to try sorting words and attempting to match logical sentence structure. It was a shaky assumption that unscrambling the words would make any sense. Still, if it worked this was a lot easier than just some brute force attempt to decode all combinations. If this didn¡¯t work, his whole morning was a waste of time, but at least he got some practice coding something more advanced than what he tried in class. Tinkering with the program for an hour, it was running through a large number of permutations looking for possible valid sentences. He made a quick adjustment to discard options manually so he could direct training the neural networks. A half hour later and the list of potential solutions went from millions down to a few hundred. He had to meet with his friends soon, but he felt like he was almost at the finish line. Clicking through and discarding a few dozen more options, he paused the program and re-trained the networks. This time the list only had 23 choices. Skimming through he quickly identified one that was coherent, and he used his speed reading tricks to commit it to his short-term memory. It was very interesting, but he needed to go meet with his friends. Now, he was excited to discuss the results of ¡°Operation: Find the CEO¡±. The three friends met at Wedge Pizza. They had all loaded up on pizza and drinks. Their green soda fountain was working again so all three were getting re-charged on caffeine. They would likely have trouble sleeping tonight - even without any additional excitement. All three looked like they were bursting to share details about their week. This was a change from usual. Typically, they sat chewing on their food and watching television before starting conversation. ¡°OK, I need to start!¡± Matt said. ¡°Your program is amazing! I read a bunch of articles about designing robots. I even found a free tool that NASA shared with the public which lets you design robots in a CAD program. They claimed they used it to make one of the Mars rovers! I don¡¯t have a budget to fabricate parts like NASA does, but there are a group of engineers who are modifying it to convert your basic design into something using off the shelf parts. I started designing a battle robot! Still working on it, but the parts will only cost a few thousand dollars to build.¡± ¡°You idiot!¡± Barry laughed. ¡°We already talked about the Glitch AI building robots to take over the world and now you gave it a design to get started!¡± ¡°Well, you are helping it figure out how to build a cheap hydrogen bomb - so you hardly have room to talk!¡± Matt replied. He laughed, but then stopped and looked a bit worried. ¡°Um, when I say it out loud it doesn¡¯t seem as funny.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I put my fusion research on hold for a while so we should be safe for a few weeks.¡± Barry was not capable of worrying about consequences. ¡°Anyway, I was learning some really cool stuff about extruding advanced composite materials. You can build beams or plates of stuff with really advanced and customized properties. The equipment is still way out of my price range. There are some German and Brazilian scientists working on this, but it seems pretty far from commercialization. Somehow, their internal research was shared on the darknet! I have no idea how your software is getting this stuff. Both teams are struggling but they have each solved the other team¡¯s problem. Except they obviously don¡¯t know it! I¡¯m guessing they are trying to keep their progress to themselves, so they are years away from a solution unless they work together!¡± ¡°Hah, that is pretty tragic! Also, amazing that Glitch was able to find this stuff and put it close enough together for you to work this out!¡± Scott added. ¡°I feel like when we are a real company, we should make an effort to hire or license tech from people like this who have solved part of a puzzle but aren¡¯t able to finish. There has got to be serious value in bringing things together like this.¡± The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°We could also just steal it and beat them all¡­ just kidding!¡± Barry said. ¡°I agree, there is plenty of money to be made just getting the right people together without abusing our power and becoming super villains.¡± ¡°So, Scott¡­¡± Matt said, ¡°you also look like you had something to say. Did you get up the nerve to meet our future CEO? Was she smokin¡¯ hot?¡± Scott couldn¡¯t help chuckling, picturing the crazy old lady with hair sticking up. ¡°I¡¯d be happy to set you up on a date with her.¡± He went on to describe his adventure this morning. ¡°Anyway, as crazy as all that was, the best part is that I was able to unscramble what she said. She actually answered my questions.¡± ¡°No way¡­¡± Barry said. ¡°OK, spill it! Tell us what she said!¡± ¡°I thought my memory was enough, but I need to pull this up on my phone.¡± Scott said. He had saved the decoded text on his cloud drive, and after a minute was able to pull it up. ¡°OK, got it. I¡¯ll read to you the questions I asked and what her answer was.¡± But first I¡¯m going to play the original recording because it is kind of funny. His friends groaned but laughed to hear Melinda¡¯s excited babbling. ¡°Woah! She talks pretty fast¡±. Barry said. ¡°Yeah, and her head is twitching around looking in different directions the whole time. Anyway, here is the Crazy to English translation¡± Scott said, with quite a bit of pride.
  1. ¡°Should we be trying to sell this software? We have some concerns about ownership - it may be the property of Russian gangsters and seems to be violating a lot of US privacy laws.¡±
¡°You should absolutely not sell this software or any part of it. You have clearly found a rare competitive and strategic advantage. While you and your friends have some skills, there are millions with similar abilities who likely have better connections and funding. If they had the same tool, others could leverage it more effectively. You would be painting a target on yourselves for corporate espionage, even leaving aside concerns with Russians who may feel they have a better claim of ownership. Also, anything that violates privacy laws should be kept as secret as possible - both for your benefit and to protect others who you might accidentally expose to malicious actors.¡±
  1. ¡°We need cash flow. Do you have any ideas on how we could get funding?¡±
Cash flow is not relevant initially. It would be a waste of effort trying to establish a marginally profitable sub-business to fund more ambitious opportunities. A better idea would be to come up with a business plan with a 3-5 year execution window that leverages your skills and advantages. Find an investor and get them to finance your initial operations rather than draining time and effort building early cash flow. It¡¯s also important that you protect certain facets of the business so that if your growth exceeds the initial plan, we could gain control of a larger share of operations.
  1. ¡°Why do you think my software recommended you as the CEO of the company?¡±
I¡¯m assuming you are eventually able to understand what I am saying. I would conclude that your software has a genius level ability to match assets and opportunities. Dozens of doctors and therapists have failed to understand me, so if you succeed it would indicate you (or your software) are extremely talented at spotting undervalued opportunities. I have a diverse range of interests which could take a technology company forward in many directions. My brain operates like 5 people crowded in one person. We have trouble communicating with others, but I believe we have advantages that would be difficult to match. Assuming we could solve the primary issue. I have excellent attention to detail and believe I can help spot potential in undervalued assets. I also feel that my ability to engage fully with multiple ongoing projects would be a strong skill for a CEO. I am aware of the difficulty my appearance, communication and lack of resources presents. Clearly, if your software picked me, it was devaluing my deficiencies due to my willingness to work without salary for the first year. I am willing to accept compensation in equity and assistance working around my difficulties. It is likely your software found very few candidates willing to put in the quality of work I can provide in exchange for equity in an unknown company given you have no revenue or business plan.
  1. What¡¯s the deal with that guy in the parking lot living in a box?¡±
¡°Carl obviously has a brain tumor. He does not have family or friends who can help him gain access to a brain surgeon capable of the rather dangerous operation needed to help him. Not to mention the resources to help him with rehabilitation and recovery. Social services are just not equipped to handle something like this. I am not a doctor, but I have studied brain anatomy extensively to try to understand my own condition. Unlike me, I think Carl can be fixed and I had briefly considered performing the surgery myself. I felt like the risk of imprisonment for performing an illegal brain surgery made it likely I would not be around to help him with the recovery process. I did acquire the tools needed in case the opportunity presented itself.¡± ¡°Whoa - I was liking Melinda until she admitted she wants to carve up Carl if she gets the chance¡± Matt said. ¡°Anyway, I feel like she answered my questions pretty well. In addition to those answers, she also added the following:¡± I¡¯m hopeful you somehow decode this, so I¡¯m going to add a bit of free advice. Inferring a few things based on what you told me: You have a significant advantage in finding information and undervalued people, so you should aim for something big. First you should be willing to give up controlling interest in something that sounds exciting if it is just a stepping stone to more ambitious projects that you would control. Based on what you told me of your friends'' skills, a good fit for the initial business plan would be undersea mining. This touches on robotics, material science and AI programming. There are vast, untapped resources which would be appealing to an investor. This leaves a much larger path forward opening up other opportunities like undersea real estate, and technologies developed in international waters that would be outside of governmental control. Not to mention a host of supporting technologies that could corner the emerging market. Success in this arena could easily translate to operations in other hostile environments like Antarctica or locations outside of Earth in the local solar system. ¡°Whoa!¡± said Barry. ¡°Exactly. So, who votes we hire Melinda White as our CEO?¡± Scott asked. The others nodded, looking a bit shocked. The next day, Scott returned to the Spring Vale homeless shelter. This time he said hi to Carl in the parking lot and handed him a bottle of water and a sandwich. Carl poured the water on his head and sat on the sandwich. Oh well. Inside, Scott asked the woman who worked here if he could speak again with Melinda. She looked surprised. ¡°Well, the old girl looked happy after your last visit, so why not?¡± Tara, the lady who worked here replied. She yelled up to Melinda upstairs. Melinda came down. Today her hair was neatly brushed and tied back so you couldn¡¯t see her chopped up haircut. She looked a lot cleaner and didn¡¯t smell. Even her clothes were clean, and it looked like the holes had been patched or sewn. She had a hopeful smile that seemed to take about 10 years off her weathered face. ¡°So¡­¡± Scott said. He started his phone recording and placed it on one of the lunch tables. ¡°I was able to unscramble what you said yesterday. My friends and I were impressed.¡± Melinda nodded expectantly. ¡°We want you to be the CEO of our company. Communication is going to be a bit difficult at first, but I¡¯m hoping I can improve the code to help understand what you are saying. It sounded like you were interested and had some great ideas. We like the idea of a business plan and getting an investor. We also agree with your strategic vision. If there is anything you would like to tell us, I¡¯ll let you talk and then I¡¯ll try to figure it out. I guess that¡¯s it for now, so go ahead and tell me anything you think we need to know or should be working on this week.¡± Melinda looked excited and started babbling a bunch of nonsense. Scott had no clue what she was saying but heard some interesting bits that he couldn¡¯t wait to understand better. She continued talking for about 15 minutes then sat still with a smile. She even seemed to be crying a bit. Scott couldn¡¯t begin to understand, but he went over and gave her a hug. Even if their company didn¡¯t succeed it felt really good to give this poor, sweet woman something to be happy about. Chapter 7 - Ruthless Shark Even with some improvements, it took several hours for Scott to decode what Melinda had been talking about. He had a feeling he was missing something important to make decoding easier. After reading through what she had said he realized that poor sweet woman was actually a ruthless shark. He should have known better given her plans to perform nonconsensual brain surgery on her neighbor! First of all, she said she would not accept the CEO position until he came up with a way to split her conversation into intelligible streams in ¡°near real time¡±. Sure, that would be great but he had spent hours on this already and didn¡¯t have a clue how to deliver this impossible request. Then she proceeded to spell out how she would receive 10,000 shares as compensation for her first year''s efforts. She then listed a proposed compensation in shares for other levels of employees going down to Junior level talents at a whopping 10 shares per year. That greedy hag! Furthermore she demanded an allowance for housing, clothing and food at $3000 per month, to be paid starting next month even if they had not yet secured any investors. There were some other demands she made, primarily related to transporting her around to meetings. All of this was the focus of one of her dialog streams. He had started labeling her parallel personalities. There was one he thought of as a mad doctor - this was the one who was still planning to sneak up on Carl in the parking lot and do a quick brain surgery before the cops arrived. This other personality he called the Shark. Maybe she had business sense, but she was definitely not a sweet old lady. Another stream decoded from her babbling described ideas for putting together their initial business plan proposal. She said having a big idea with a lot of upside potential was a key component of landing an early investor. With a little snark, she mentioned that pie in the sky ideas had convinced some promising young talents with world beating technology to take a risk hiring a crazy old lady. Why that little¡­ She explained that big ideas might be enough to convince young talent to take a risk, but you needed something more substantial to land someone who actually had money to lose. It boiled down to a few requirements. Primarily, you had to have a believable short and mid term plan of action. Believable meant you needed details like how much things would cost and how much time each step would take. Everyone understood things didn¡¯t always go to plan, but demonstrating a solid, detailed plan could convince someone the expected overruns were a manageable risk. Contingency plans in case of overruns were also appreciated. In short, you make the case that you were only missing the money needed to execute the plan. Second, you need to understand your market. How much would you expect to sell if you plan executed on time or a little late. What were comparable goods or services worth? Would you impact the supply stack or were there other factors likely to change the demand? Who are your competitors and how might they react to your entry into the market? Finally, what kind of equity would the investor receive in return for supplying capital. Your initial analysis of supply and demand could establish a value for the company. You can also assign a value related to expected growth. A typical investor would want slightly less than 50% of a company that did not have any provable revenue if they wanted to just sign a check and not spend effort guiding the company... Investors who expect more than 50% ownership expect to more actively manage the company. Both had their advantages - if an investor wanted controlling interest, they typically had time and experience to contribute in addition to their money. There was a risk that they had money but an overinflated opinion of their contributions. In either case, they could waste significant time and energy if they were hands on. It was important to find someone who could either help build the business or would leave them alone. Melinda went on to say that initial equity would likely be based on how much capital needed, profit and growth expected. She then explained that she felt a pool of 1 million shares should be split between the 3 original partners and the initial investor, while the dollar amount could be determined once had the other details better defined. Oh¡­ so maybe she wasn¡¯t totally greedy. Scott, Matt and Barry would split ownership with the investor so they would presumably have a lot more than Melinda¡¯s 10,000 shares per year. What a sweet old lady! He thought this personality was like a kindly professor who had a little sass. Then the next stream of thought started. This one just started listing tasks the boys needed to get started on. She allowed she didn¡¯t know how productive they were so expected an update after a week to get a better idea of time scheduling. Scott was supposed to focus on training and refining his crazy lady translator (OK, his term for it, not hers!). Matt was supposed to research strip mining and shaft mining and see if he had any ideas for robotics that could assist with this in undersea conditions. Sort of a research and general brainstorm without going into any technical design. Barry was supposed to research cost effective materials for building corrosion and pressure resistant equipment. She expected a list of materials for different purposes, costs to acquire or produce and how readily available they were. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. This personality was a bossy manager. She seemed to imply she was taking it easy on them despite the fact that they were all full-time students and had little to no experience doing any of this! Would he call this one the Tyrant? Dictator? ¡°The Doctor¡± personality did not seem too engaged in their business planning. She commented that she had seen him giving Carl the water and sandwich and found it amusing what he did with it. She mentioned that it would be really great if you boys would build her an underwater laboratory where she could study medicinal benefits of deep-sea animals and plankton. She also expressed delight in the idea that international waters would not be subject to various medical laws or the Geneva convention. She had a whole bunch of ideas she wanted to try with genetic engineering and medical implants that would be frowned on in industrialized countries. She considered this short-sighted political pandering. Yeah, ¡°The Doctor¡± was a little scary. He resolved that if they ever helped built her underwater lab, he would make sure to never be in there alone with her! Finally, a final stream of conversation seemed to involve a lady who was insisting that Scott drive her around shopping so she could look like a proper CEO. She went into great detail on what cosmetics, hair styles, clothes she thought would look good on her. She also debated what look to go with for Scott - were they going for a young, eccentric genius partner or unobtrusive assistant? Scott wondered why he should look like an eccentric genius. If anyone was eccentric it was Miss Five Brains. Also, what world was she living in where she thought it was a good idea for her to meet a rich potential investor in person? Exhausted from reading this strange mix of insanity and possibly genius, Scott sighed and opened up Glitch_HR. He added Melinda White as the CEO. Even though her ¡°Shark¡± personality hadn¡¯t agreed to the position, he really couldn¡¯t picture anyone else running this clown show. He opened the training section and skimmed through the first few pages looking for anything that would catch his interest. On page 3 of the results there was a paper on tracking faces in digital video. That sounded interesting. He knew they used this in facial recognition to handle people looking in different directions. Also, there were some apps that would put cat ears, mustaches or silly hats on people. Yeah, he would never waste any time playing with that feature! Reading through it gave some similar examples and explained how to train code to compensate for different orientations of a human face. Interesting stuff, but he didn¡¯t see how this would help build an undersea mining operation. Working through a few other training recommendations, Scott ignored his regular class homework and went to bed. In the middle of the night, he woke up with a start. Melinda kept suddenly looking in different directions while she talked. Was there any correlation between this and which personality was talking? He couldn¡¯t sleep and spent four hours implementing the code that tracked human face orientation from video. It would then spit it out as a timestamped data stream. Now he just needed to record video as well as audio when talking to his mean, crazy boss.
The next day Scott tried to go to some classes. They seemed even more boring than usual, but he was pleased to see he had gotten a solid A on his history class. He only lost a few points on his essay. His teacher¡¯s comment was that he got the facts and dates right, but he didn¡¯t seem to understand how important it all was. Well, that seemed like a fair criticism - he honestly had no idea why anyone would think that stuff was important! In Dr. Chu¡¯s class, everyone got their tests back and there was a lot of grumbling. A few people looked like they were about to start crying. He heard a couple guys behind him wondering what the curve would be. Apparently, Dr. ¡°Puddles¡± Chu had been forced to grade on a curve ¨C legend said his first year he failed every single student. The Dean had to make him adjust the grades so half the kids would pass. Scott still hadn¡¯t received his test when Chu waved it around in front of the class. ¡°Scott Henderson scored a 100 on this test. He is the reason there will not be a curve on this test.¡± Chu handed Scott his test with an evil little cackle. Seriously! This was obviously revenge for the Puddles incident. Blaming him for failing most of the class seemed like it was straight out of the prison warden intimidation handbook. Scott¡¯s first thought was to panic - surely the other inmates would teach him a lesson for being so uppity. Then he remembered this was a Sophomore level Computer Sciences - these guys would probably just take the battery out of his wireless mouse when he wasn¡¯t around and consider the score settled. Fortunately, his friend Matt had gotten an 85 on the test. He always seemed smarter than Scott. The guy hardly ever did any studying and usually got the best grades in class. They had taken the test before Matt had the chance to improve his skills with Glitch_HR skill training, so he would probably resume beating Scott at everything soon enough. ¡°Ouch Scott, Chu is really trying to get everyone to hate you!¡± Matt commiserated. A little quieter ¡°Did you do that well because of Glitch?¡± ¡°Yeah, I learned so much more than I got from the actual class. Also, there were some brain training exercises from some Russian chick Nadia Kucharska. If you see any of her articles in the recommended list, you should give them a try.¡± ¡°Nice, she sounds hot. Did you google her?¡± ¡°Um, yeah. No pictures online. Apparently, she used to work for something called the Institute of Strategic Planning in Poland. About 20 years ago, then nothing. If I had to guess, she''s probably older than 40.¡± ¡°Eww! Nevermind.¡± ¡°Anyway, all the articles she published were on dark web sites. I bet she is totally sharing government secrets or something. I guess we now have to worry about the Polish government coming after us in addition to the US government and the Russians.¡± ¡°Not to mention Dr. Chu¡¯s class. I bet half the people in there hate you too.¡± Chapter 8 - Matt and the Russians As the week started, Matt realized he had gone two weekends in a row without going to a party or drinking anything. Was he missing out on the college experience? Most of his classes were really boring and he was not looking forward to spending two and a half more years sitting through boring lectures so he could get an entry level job. He realized a lot of his friends were probably drinking to avoid thinking about how much they hated school and their future as low paid adults in a few years. Scott, Barry and Alvaro were kind of different from his usual friends. He could geek out around them without being embarrassed. Aside from Barry, they were kind of socially awkward and clearly didn¡¯t enjoy the parties he dragged them to. When Scott showed him Glitch_HR he originally thought it was some elaborate prank. Scott was clever like that, and he wouldn¡¯t put it past him to spend a couple weeks setting up a big trick. After a couple hours he knew this wasn¡¯t a joke. Engineering and Computer Science classes were boring, but he still got excited thinking about science fiction and new technology. The training on here was serving up cutting edge stuff but at a level he could understand. After finding a few treasures in between the occasional garbage, Matt was hooked. The first night he stayed up late. He only got to bed around 4 AM and slept through his Statics and Dynamics class. He dragged himself to the cafeteria at lunch time and tried to make it through Differential Equations in the afternoon but ended up sleeping. The professor made a sharp comment about his snoring, but the dude should try to make his class less boring! Matt was hardly the only person who couldn¡¯t stay awake. It wasn¡¯t that the class was too easy - it was actually that he didn¡¯t understand anything the professor was talking about. Plus, his voice just droned on while showing a bunch of symbols Matt didn¡¯t recognize. He was definitely going to fail this class unless he figured a lot of it out on his own and could catch up to what the professor was teaching. Going back to his room, he decided to try and be a good student and stared at his math textbook for about 15 minutes. The book was written by the professor - obviously this was his side hustle to make students spend $200 on this boring and heavy manual. Matt contrasted this class to what he had been reading on Glitch_HR skill training. Hrmm¡­ he opened up the screen. Instead of picking the top ranked training exercises he tried out the search feature and looked for Differential Equations. It pulled up a fairly long list starting with Primer for DiffEq - an article supposedly for students who showed up in class and felt completely unprepared to learn even the basics of this class. He laughed - yeah that described him! The article skimmed over some stuff he knew and gave some hints on how it would tie into the class. It described some new symbols he could expect to see and spelled out what they meant and why they had to invent new math symbols. Kind of helpful. He spent half an hour but felt like he got way more out of this than any of his professor¡¯s lectures so far this year. A couple more of these articles was all he could handle. He went to the gym - it was always good to take a break from studying to do something physically active. Barry went with him. They talked about the usual stuff - neither of them knew of any parties during the week. Barry asked him if he had played with Glitch_HR. ¡°So, Scott said I¡¯m supposed to be designing some undersea mining robots. I would have totally laughed this off a couple weeks ago. Now, I actually have a few ideas and I¡¯ve played with that CAD tool. I can¡¯t believe this might actually work.¡± ¡°No kidding. I know I¡¯m supposed to come up with some corrosion and pressure resistant materials, but that¡¯s actually kind of easy. I had already figured some of that out after reading about those poor German and Brazilian research teams. They only needed what the other team had already solved!¡± ¡°Yeah, we¡¯ll have to ask Melinda about how we can license what they have without admitting we probably accessed their research illegally.¡± ¡°No kidding. I¡¯m still not sure how I feel about working for a crazy homeless lady, but it probably takes someone unusual to deal with all the weirdness we are likely to come up with!¡± Matt did a set of Lat pulldowns while waiting for Barry to continue. ¡°So anyway, I kind of went back to the whole fusion reactor idea. I read a few other articles on what seemed like unrelated things, but it seems like the pieces fit together into something worth looking at. I think I need about $10k in equipment and a few hundred dollars in materials, but there are a few experiments I really want to try.¡± ¡°Another thing we need to discuss. We talked about getting this business started, then using it to launch other businesses. How can we fund these if we want to work on it while still building the initial business? Let¡¯s make a list of questions and send them to Scott. He can pass it on - hopefully Melinda has some ideas how we can fund side projects. Maybe we could borrow money from our main business or get a salary?¡± ¡°Doesn¡¯t hurt to ask.¡± Matt sent a couple questions to Scott. ¡°Does Melinda even have a phone?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so. We probably need to get that in the budget too.¡± After finishing their workout, Matt returned to the dorm. Barry is going to invent some super profitable fusion reactor and Scott has already built this genius HR tool. I need to start pulling my weight. Matt thought. He started working on a design for a mining robot. Once again, he stayed up well past midnight. This time he got up in time for breakfast, decided to skip his ¡°Mechanical Engineering Introduction to Design¡±. It used to be his favorite class but compared to what he was doing now it just felt basic. He worked all day. He even shared his design with a NASA engineering group without giving a detailed description of what it was for. There were some snarky comments about how a lunar mining robot didn¡¯t need such heavy environmental plating. Another more helpful person named Zaliha Min complimented him on the design and asked offline what project this was for. He/she? said it looked like it must be for a high pressure, high corrosive environment and didn¡¯t know of any plans for sending something to an environment like that. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Matt replied that he was a student, and it was for a class assignment. Zahlia was impressed - she said she hoped he applied at NASA when he finished his PhD. Hah! He was just a sophomore in undergrad, but he didn¡¯t admit that. He had googled her and found out she was a fairly attractive girl who looked to be late 20s, although the picture was not very flattering. It looked like the typical mugshot they would put on a worker ID badge. Zahlia asked about what the expected gravity and pressure were. Matt said he couldn¡¯t share that because it was confidential. She accepted this - it was not unusual for advanced students to work on projects funded by corporations or government agencies. She pointed out that if it was in a high gravity or high-pressure environment it would likely consume the power in lithium batteries too quickly to keep it charged for long. She mentioned that the solar output on Mars or further out would have trouble keeping something like this running for more than an hour a day. They talked back and forth - Matt realized this was a significant concern. He had underestimated the drain on power moving around underwater with heavy pressure, and power supply was likely the biggest problem for underwater operations. If Barry came up with a fusion reactor, it would really help keep the robots charged. So, they probably needed this to make it all work, but how would they account for it in their business proposal? They could propose using a ship floating on the surface with cables running down to a charging hub. The ship could run big diesel generators to provide power. If they proposed this, they could provide a budget number but without committing to using this method. Then Barry could use some of this budget to do his research. If his idea worked, the power hub would be much cheaper. We could let the mining company keep the designs for the robots but exclude intellectual property for the charging hub. It would be fair to expect that no one would care too much about rights to a ship with a big diesel generator and really long power cables. Matt was pleased. He felt like he had solved a problem. Also, he had met a cute girl from NASA. She was probably about 2 hours away, but he would keep in touch.
Alexey Lukina was having a bad month. The trouble had started a few weeks ago when one of his programmers had lifted some code that he was quite excited about. The code came from an American University called Horace Mango. Alexey was well aware that this university did work for the United States military and the NSA with both agencies heavily recruiting from the graduate students. Alexey ran a criminal organization with close ties to the FSB. They generated a lot of revenue from various internet scams and identity theft which was funneled into funding more heavy-handed activities. His organization would learn of illicit deals or embarrassing personal scandals and use it to gain access to the more secure corporate and government systems. They were known to hire thugs to intimidate low level workers and their families to get the access they needed. Threats, bribes or scams - whatever was cheapest. Usually, all he needed was someone to open an email or click a link in a text message and his team could get what they wanted. He had stolen information about drones, targeting systems, sonar and radar systems from graduate students at Horace Mango. It was almost laughably easy to get college students to download free games or apps that had viruses. Sometimes, students on more sensitive projects required an agent to get them drunk and clone a keycard or encryption device. It had been a goldmine for stealing military technology. Rarely, his team identified extremely high value projects that used a more advanced concept of operational security. Multiple locations would work on isolated parts of the whole. They used code obfuscation and only assembled the final project in very secure sites, often in remote locations that even Alexey was unable to get to. Typically, the code was assembled by automated processes so that there was no human weakness in the security. The organization was authorized to try to reverse engineer missing modules if they found something that looked like one of these high value operations. They would farm out parts of the work to various independents who would only see a fraction of the finished project - this allowed them to get results quickly without keeping a large staff on hand. These opportunities were rare: no more than once or twice a year. They were considered high risk, high reward. High risk in that it was likely their reverse engineering would fail, but if they could pull it off it might be the highlight of his career. A project had appeared that had a lot of red flags. It was linked to Horace Mango University. It had code identified as self-assembling from various sources. It included code similar to many viruses and worms that Alexey was very familiar with. Also, there were signs that it was pulling code from other branch locations that their organization had flagged. The name of the project was ¡°Human Resources Project¡± which seemed like a strong indicator that it was going to be used for espionage. Alexey had approved farming out missing sections and reverse engineering them. It had been very late, so he had left the office while his employees were scrambling to make sense of code. It was clearly using advanced techniques to confuse anyone trying to reverse engineer it. To an unsophisticated observer, you could mistake it for a childish attempt at a homework-writing AI. The next day, his team was extremely nervous. They had spent most of his discretionary budget filling in gaps in the code, but the NSA had caught wind of their efforts. They had activated a worm buried in the code. The worm had encrypted all the code and attempted to return the contents of their project folder to several of their offices. Alexey¡¯s network security shut this down quickly preventing the worm returning data to the NSA¡¯s external sites. Unfortunately, his link was still open to the target computer at Horace Mango. Before his technician could shut it down, the contents of the project folder had been copied back to the target. This was a disaster! The code was still running on his server farm, but the source was encrypted so strongly he didn¡¯t expect to crack it in the next few years. It was even mining data from his network of covert projects on their server farm. So far, he was unable to determine what the software was doing. After meeting with some very scary people in the FSB, he was ordered to leave the code running and perform analytics on what it was doing. The program was tied into some of his most successful data gathering operations, but he had not shared this embarrassing detail with his superiors. He valued his life and was determined to fix this before they found out. Day by day, Alexey monitored what the program was accessing. He watched as this program uncovered some of his more successful hacks - top American companies, the FBI. Even though his assets were burned, he couldn¡¯t find any confirmation from his sources. Whoever was running this operation on the American side seemed to be toying with him. He would never know which of his sources was compromised or when the Americans were feeding him bad intel. Alexey could no longer sleep. He dreaded the day the extent of this nightmare was revealed to his bosses. No doubt he would be given the early retirement package. The worst part was not knowing who his enemy was. He did have one lead. Somewhere at Horace Mango was a student or professor who would have information about this project. It was a slim hope, but Alexey was desperate. He made a few calls. After talking to some agents, he allowed himself the smallest hope that he could get out of this mess. Chapter 9 - Boss Translator One of the many advantages of having a crazy homeless lady as a boss was that you could show up any time of the day and she was available for a meeting. She didn¡¯t even have a phone so there was no need to call ahead. Scott noticed Crazy Carl wasn¡¯t there today. His box was still there so hopefully the guy was all right. Scott walked in and greeted Tara who was sitting behind the lunch counter as usual. Seriously, she was there every time he had visited. Did she live here too? ¡°Hello Tara, is Melinda here today?¡± ¡°Sure she is. Are you related or is this some kind of school project?¡± Tara asked, then yelled up the stairs for Ms. White. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s kind of a project. I¡¯m hoping I can help her communicate better so she can move out of here.¡± Tara laughed. ¡°Oh yeah, you could teach her sign language like a chimp¡±. That was rude! ¡°That¡¯s not very nice. Umm do you work here or live here?¡± ¡°Both! I get to eat as much as I want if I help serve the food. So, I¡¯m like the boss here when Mr. Gill isn¡¯t around.¡± He had yet to meet Mr. Gill. Apparently, he was collecting a paycheck to ¡°manage¡± this place, but he never showed up and just let the inmates run it however they wanted. It was kind of surprising the shelter was mostly clean and there weren¡¯t any corpses lying around. Probably Melinda kept things going. Hrmm¡­ now that he was stealing her, would this place collapse into anarchy? Melinda came downstairs and sat at the table across from him. She looked like she was waiting for him to start recording. ¡°Hi Ms. White! I had an idea that I could split up your conversation streams easier if I recorded you on video too.¡± Melinda nodded. Scott pulled out his phone and started recording. ¡°So, we agreed to your terms although we don¡¯t yet know how to come up with the money. Hopefully we can find an investor willing to let us spend some of the startup capital on living expenses. We have enough savings to pay for your first month so if you are willing to take a risk we can start now. Hopefully we can get funding in place before your second month¡¯s rent is due. I¡¯m going to try some facial recognition software that can capture the angle your head is looking at while you talk. I think this will give a clue as to which personality is speaking.¡± Scott continued, ¡°Matt had an idea for including a ship with diesel generators and long cables for power as an option. We could actually fund Barry¡¯s research on a small fusion reactor and if it worked, the ship generator would not be needed. It¡¯s kind of a big risk, but if we pull it off it will make everything else so much easier. Barry says he wants to start another company for energy research where we would keep more equity. He needs some advice on how to structure it. We don¡¯t want to completely exclude our mining investor, but it doesn¡¯t seem fair that his initial investment should automatically give equity in every other idea we come up with. So, I will let you talk and then we can go shopping for clothes. I think we probably need to wait on finding a place for you to live until I translate your responses more quickly.¡± Melinda talked quickly for a few minutes while Scott recorded. Later they went to the mall. Melinda picked out some business attire and a new set of pajamas along with various underwear. Fortunately, Scott was able to avoid terminal embarrassment by just waiting near the checkout counter until she was ready. He paid up on a credit card. Scott did not actually have the money for this, so he was kind of freaking out. His parents had made a big deal about always paying credit card bills on time and it looked like he was going to be short this month. He had spent less by not going out with his friends much, but he was going to be about five hundred dollars short - not even counting what they would have to come up with to get Ms. White a down payment for her apartment, food and a phone. After dropping Melinda off at the shelter, Scott went back to the dorm to eat. He skipped another class and got to work on the facial recognition code to include the head angle data. He spent a frustrating six hours trying to get the code working. After dinner, he got back to work and trained a neural net to what he labeled as five different facial angles. Syncing it to the voice to text program took another 5 hours. He was very tired, and the program still wasn¡¯t working so he finally gave up and went to bed. The next morning, he slept through his Data Structures class. Dragging himself out of bed he decided to work on his crazy lady translator for no more than one hour. It was a couple hours until his Computer Science Logic class. He thought he had a test for that class - it probably wasn¡¯t going to go well, but maybe he could speed read the course work for an hour before the test. Fortunately, there were only about ten bugs left in his code which he fixed easily. He was working faster after getting a bit of sleep. He shouldn¡¯t have worked on this so late - half the bugs were things he broke trying to work on this after 3AM. Anyway, success! He listened to what Melinda had to say and sent a copy to his friends. Then he speed-read about 50 pages for his Logic class and actually made it on time. He felt like he knew a little over half the material but thought he could guess the rest. The class was about logic so it kind of made sense once you had learned the terminology. After class he met up with Barry and Matt to discuss what Melinda had said. He had labeled her personalities ¡°Shark¡±, ¡°Professor¡±, ¡°Tyrant¡±, ¡°Doctor¡±, ¡°Socialite¡± Shark: ¡°I¡¯m glad we have a deal. Hopefully next time you show up we can have a proper conversation. Also, you will need to take me to a computer lab so we can type up our initial business plan and do a little market research. Hopefully your friends will deliver their part of the proposal. Matt¡¯s idea for powering his robots with current technology in the business plan is good. We don¡¯t want to promise anything outside the plan. Matt needs to come up with itemized costs of his initial plan - we will leave some contingency money in place to handle overruns or to test lower cost alternatives. We will include salary as part of the initial costs - you can use your salary as startup money for the Genysis Energy company, but if we need to get money from the mining company, we¡¯ll need to be transparent with our investors.¡± This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Professor: ¡°I will file patents on your robot designs on behalf of the Genysis Mining as soon as you provide some details and I get computer access. I would also like to start a third company specializing in underwater facilities and vehicles and apply for a patent on your corrosion resistant materials under this entity - let¡¯s call it Genysis Construction. We need to start adding a lot more junior level employees. See if any more of your friends are interested, but don¡¯t be afraid to find low-cost talent in other countries. There is a large talent pool of people willing to be part of something exciting without getting paid much to start. The trick is finding them. You seem to have a big advantage here. We should recruit almost anyone who has a computer and is willing to work part time for a year at low pay. ¡° Tyrant: Scott, the next thing you need to do is get an IT security expert to make sure your Human Resources software asset is protected. Right now, this is your primary strategic resource and I¡¯m guessing you have left it on a computer sitting in your dorm room. You are probably using the college Wi-Fi network where about 1000 people have the password. You better get this done as soon as possible. ¡°Ouch!¡± Scott said. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ll look into getting a security guy. Then I¡¯ll just try to recruit 100 other people around the world who will work for nearly free.¡± Doctor: I don¡¯t have much to add to this. When you find someone who is interested in medical sciences, I have a long list of ideas for products and services. You should also ask any of your new employees that don¡¯t have useful skills if they are willing to be medical test subjects. Most people are not willing to do that without getting paid, but I bet you can find a few weirdos. ¡°Nope! We are not doing that!¡± Matt exclaimed. Socialite: I can¡¯t wait to buy some new clothes! I¡¯m so excited to try and sell this concept to some investors. I¡¯m also looking forward to meeting Matt and Barry. I really hope you are able to get your program finished so I can talk to other employees. I know you can do it because you are such a genius! I¡¯m so excited to start working with all of you! Also, you should hire some more women because it will be so fun if there is some workplace romantic drama to gossip about. Can¡¯t wait to meet you all! ¡°Hah, you should report her for some kind of HR violation. I can¡¯t believe she told us to hire girls so we can have romantic drama!¡± Barry chortled. ¡°Looks like we have a lot to do. Let¡¯s meet back up Thursday evening¡±, Scott said and headed back to his room. Scott pulled up Glitch_HR and searched for ¡°Head of IT Security¡±, filtering by people willing to work for free. The list was much smaller than what he found for the CEO position. Apparently, people expected to get paid for a high level IT job. Top of the list of English speakers was Solomon Rhodes. Willing to work for no salary. Skill potential was high ¨C he was rated in the top 100,000 candidates. There was a phone number and notes indicated he lived in the Big Spring prison in West Texas. Scott sighed - he wasn¡¯t even that surprised.
Matt was pretty excited about his mining robot design. He had loaded the program mods that helped substitute custom parts for off-the-shelf. He had a bill of materials, but wasn¡¯t too eager to get prices on everything. A quick check of skills training did not have any magical solutions for this problem although there were a few articles that he bookmarked for reading later. He decided to call Scott. ¡°Hey Scott, I have an initial design and a list of parts but I''m not sure how to get prices without looking them up. I don''t want to call all the suppliers and try to negotiate bulk pricing. Do you think you could find someone to purchase the parts?¡± ¡°Sure. You won¡¯t believe who this program recommended for IT security - some hacker guy in prison.¡± ¡°You get what you pay for! Maybe he knows a robber or a fence we can recruit for purchasing parts at a steep discount.¡± Matt laughed. ¡°Not funny. OK, I¡¯ll look. I¡¯d love an excuse to work on something other than talking to the prison system about getting computer access for a convicted hacker.¡± Scott replied with a groan. ¡°Huh¡­ There are apparently a lot of people willing to work as a purchasing agent on commission with no salary.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s send the top five people my list of parts x20. Tell them they are competing with four others. They can request their commission rate and come back with prices including delivery. They need to include the total cost and expected delivery date for the final part if we order next week. Give them until Thursday morning and we can just go with whoever is best.¡± Matt said. He thought it would be great to hand this off to someone else, and it sounded like it would be fun to see if anyone was willing to compete for the job. ¡°I don¡¯t think that will work. We can¡¯t actually order anything with no money.¡± ¡°True, but we can go to a potential investor and show him our pricing expectation - we can give him one of the middle bids. Then when we have money, we can ask the winner to execute the contract and give them the difference between their price and the middle bid as extra commission, so they aren¡¯t mad at us.¡± ¡°Not bad.¡± ¡°We still need some custom fabrication. Barry is working on that, but I¡¯ll pass on your idea of finding competitive buyers to get pricing for us. We can use a different set of people to compete on his list.¡± ¡°Sounds good.¡± ¡°What else do we need to finish this business plan?¡± ¡°Well, I don¡¯t know much about finding or processing minerals. I just designed robots that dig through rock and dump it in a collection bin.¡± ¡°This is so much more work than I can handle. We need Melinda to come up with some of this stuff.¡± ¡°Yeah, hurry up and finish her translator program.¡± Matt demanded. ¡°The program works great. The problem is it really needs an app to work on a phone, or some kind of meeting software to let people talk to one of her personalities remotely. I can¡¯t easily create either of those.¡± Scott complained. ¡°OK, first things first. Find someone who goes to school here at Mango who is good at writing phone apps.¡± ¡°Sure. That is about 60 people. Filtering those willing to be an unpaid part time intern¡­ List is down to three. I know that guy ¨C he has major body odor¡­ Nope! That guy is in Chu¡¯s class, and he hates me for getting a 100. Ok this girl Adriana Foster - do you know her?¡± Scott asked. ¡°No, it says she¡¯s a freshman. Great, now you have to cold call a girl and see if she will meet up with you about a programming project. That is super creepy!¡± Matt laughed. ¡°Ugh no fair! Maybe I could just send her my source code and a video of Melinda. I¡¯ll tell Melinda we are trying to recruit someone to finish her app. She can give a sob story about how she is homeless because no one will help her. Hopefully, she doesn¡¯t scare Adriana off by asking if she can use her as a medical test subject or promising her romantic drama!¡± Scott said. ¡°Not a terrible idea, but I don¡¯t think this girl will open a program sent in an email from some rando. All right, tell you what¡­ You get the program ready and the video from Melinda. I¡¯ll find a way to meet this girl and tell her about our sob story trying to help out a poor crazy homeless lady.¡± Matt said. ¡°Deal! Hey, can I borrow your laptop so I can have a conversation with Melinda while I¡¯m there?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Sounds good. Take Barry with you. You need to see if you can get Melinda to pick some more key people. Maybe Barry can help you talk to them if they are female.¡± Matt laughed. ¡°Oh! Maybe Barry will talk to the prisoner guy. He¡¯s totally going to end up in prison someday, so he¡¯d probably get along great with that guy.¡± Scott said hopefully. ¡°Worth a try. I can¡¯t believe a social cripple like you is our Human Resources person!¡± Matt teased. Chapter 10 - Reaching Out Matt had agreed to make contact with Adriana. His first attempt was obviously to check social media. Unfortunately, like many of the engineering kids she was not posting updates of all the cool parties she was attending. Her posts were infrequent and reserved. He got a picture of someone a bit shy and careful. He guessed her parents had managed to convince her that anything she posted would prevent her from getting a job in the future. It occurred to Matt that beyond basic social skills, he wasn¡¯t really good at this detective/espionage stuff. Still, he had a rather powerful resource in Glitch_HR. He searched for ¡°Private Investigator¡± with the usual filters of someone cheap and local. There were a few people who matched the criteria. A guy named Tony Zimmerman seemed to have a skill rating in the top 5 million people worldwide. Even more impressive was his experience level in the top 2 million. How did a college student get ranked so high? Did this guy solve mysteries when he was in high school like those cheesy television shows that Matt enjoyed? Matt called him up. ¡°Hello, Tony? Sorry to bother you and this might sound a bit strange¡­I¡¯m wondering if I can hire you for a bit of investigative work.¡± ¡°My caller ID says this is Matthew Stanton. I¡¯m not sure how you got my name, but I might be able to help you. Why don¡¯t you tell me what you are trying to find out.¡± ¡°Oh great! This is kind of embarrassing, but I¡¯m trying to meet up with a girl named Adriana Foster. Ideally, I would not have to follow her around like a creepy stalker, but I want to invite her to a party some of my friends are having so I would have an excuse to talk to her. I have her number and address, but I don¡¯t think she wants a random guy she doesn¡¯t know calling her.¡± Another stalker, Tony Zimmerman thought to himself. His real name was Vasek Golovko, and he was currently under a lot of pressure to find the identity of an American hacker who was causing his organization a lot of trouble. He didn¡¯t know the details, but he had been given an IP address and told that whoever initiated the hack was very skilled and likely extremely dangerous. He had tracked the IP to a large prison-like dormitory but had not been able to narrow it down further due to a surprising secure military grade firewall. Regardless, he was stuck right now and he had standing orders to take these stalker jobs. Often they would end badly with trespassing, assault or even just highly embarrassing behavior. They were excellent sources of blackmail. His organization had a large network of assets like this who they could manipulate. They could get these people to take jobs in sensitive companies and run programs to get their spying software past many defenses. ¡°Ah, young love! A job like this is pretty easy for me. I would be happy to help you. Let me get the information you have, and I¡¯ll do an initial investigation for $50. This is usually sufficient to get you her class schedule and typical places she eats or hangs out after class. If you need more help than this, we can discuss after I get the initial information.¡± Matt was impressed. He had a bit more money than his friend Scott due to some scholarships and his parents chipped in a bit of spending money. That seemed pretty cheap for all the time it would save him.
Barry had been busy the past couple weeks. The information he had found in the Glitch_HR training was world changing. He couldn¡¯t believe how many futuristic technologies were out there that were just missing a few pieces. The problem was information and communication - due to secrecy or simply the anti-social nature of scientists and engineers, they were just not able to share the work needed. Instead, they stumbled along trying to solve everything themselves. Now if Barry was a Saint, he would anonymously introduce some of these people to each other and stand back while the world was transformed by these brilliant scientists. Instead, Barry was scheming how he could make himself wildly rich and famous. He would happily share some crumbs with the people responsible. Likely it was more than they would get struggling in anonymity with unfinished projects. They would likely even be grateful if he handled it correctly. Barry realized that waiting on Scott and Matt to start up a company was going to be too slow. What he needed was a lab and some materials to run some tests. The University had labs and materials like this. Usually this stuff was used by professors and graduate students, but he wasn¡¯t going to let that stop him. So Barry approached one of his professors during office hours. He usually didn¡¯t do this because his grades were pretty good. He never needed special tutoring or begging to get his grades up. Dr. Springer had taught one of his Freshman classes. Barry liked him because his class was more interesting than most. ¡°Hi Professor - I noticed you had office hours today. Do you mind if we talk for a bit?¡± ¡°Hello Barry. I remember you were one of my best students last year, but I didn¡¯t think you were in any of my classes now. How can I help you?¡± Dr. Springer asked, kindly. ¡°Oh thanks. This might sound a bit weird, but I have some experiments I want to run and need a bit of help finding a lab and materials to use. I mean, this is a school, so I figured there might be a way students could test out ideas they have.¡± Barry said, somewhat awkwardly. ¡°Huh¡­ that is interesting. You would be surprised how rare it is that students have any interest in learning more than the bare minimum needed to pass their courses. We encourage students to do projects their Junior and Senior year, but I can¡¯t remember someone wanting to try something like that in their free time. I¡¯m not sure we really have anything set up, but I can look into it.¡± Dr. Springer replied. Barry handed over a 4 page document he had been working on. ¡°So, I wrote up the experiment I wanted to try including the materials and how much they would cost. I linked a couple articles explaining some related experiments that looked promising, but I think it is important that I can duplicate some of their work to make sure the project is feasible. I¡¯d really appreciate it if you looked it over. I think I can probably come up with the money for some of these initial experiments, but I can¡¯t afford a place to work or some of the lab equipment. If you could take a look, that would be great!¡± Barry blurted this out, speaking a little too fast. Dr. Springer chuckled. ¡°I see this is pretty important to you. Would you mind hanging out for a few minutes while I read through this?¡± ¡°Thank you professor! I would be happy to wait around.¡± While Dr. Springer started reading through the notes, Barry decided he might as well read another article on Glitch_HR. He had found a promising lead on how he might be able to store the energy from his fusion cells in ultra-capacitors so that they could handle more variable power demand. This would add a few hundred dollars to the cost, but he thought it was worth it for robotics applications. Dr Springer was looking at his computer and mumbling to himself. About 15 minutes later he seemed to be getting excited. ¡°Barry, I haven¡¯t finished reading through your proposal but this seems very exciting! I have no idea how you found this research and put it all together, but the potential applications are staggering¡­¡± ¡°I was pretty excited about it too, but I¡¯m glad to hear you don¡¯t think it¡¯s complete garbage. My friends and I are hoping we might someday start a company based on this if it works.¡± Barry said with a grin. ¡°Well I don¡¯t know much about starting a company, but I can see how this research would be incredibly valuable. I appreciate you trusting me enough to share this Barry. I think the potential value and your plan to start a company indicates we shouldn¡¯t try to go through the typical grant program to get funding for further research.¡± Dr. Springer was starting to talk as fast as Barry had earlier. He continued. ¡°Simply amazing¡­ I don¡¯t even think we would need a huge budget to test some of the foundational work and build a proof of concept. Maybe 20-30 thousand dollars not counting lab time. Would you be willing to partner with me if I could provide the funding and lab access?¡± Barry smiled. ¡°I think that is a possibility. Do you mind if I speak with my partners about how much equity they are willing to share? My friends contributed to getting this going, so I need to ask them. I don¡¯t think they will be willing to give up a controlling interest in this.¡± The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dream of trying to take this over from you.¡± Dr. Springer declared, looking a little offended. ¡°You are obviously the driving force behind this. I just hope my contributions can help you succeed. I was thinking of a 10% stake for my contribution. How exciting to get in at the start of something like this!¡± ¡°We¡¯ll let you know soon.¡± Barry was practically skipping with glee after leaving the professor''s office. 10% seemed pretty fair - he would have accepted a higher percent, but this would get him up and running fast. Also he respected Dr. Springer and it would be amazing to have someone like that working with him. Barry called Scott and conferenced in Matt. ¡°So, I talked to my professor about getting some lab time. I probably should have asked you guys first but it worked out really well. He wants to help and will provide funding, lab time and his help for 10%. We might even talk him down to a lower stake, but I think he was more than fair. It would be great to have someone like that working with us.¡± ¡°That¡¯s awesome!¡± Scott said. ¡°I¡¯ll ask Melinda today, but I think you should go for it. Since this is your company, you don¡¯t really need to ask us but I appreciate it.¡± ¡°Dude, none of this happens without your software. I think the three of us should have a stake in the companies, but maybe the main person gets a bigger share so they are motivated to focus on that. Also we can compete to see who makes the most billions!¡± ¡°I like it!¡± said Matt. ¡°How about we split 50/25/25 whatever is left after we give a share to whoever funds it. Melinda is CEO until she appoints someone else so she can get her 10,000 shares per year. I¡¯m OK with her plan to grant shares to anyone who contributes over time. That way, ownership eventually will be shared with the people who help build the company.¡± ¡°Nice, Barry has taken an early lead. I guess the rest of us need to try to catch up.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not going to happen.¡± Barry laughed. ¡°I¡¯m just getting started.¡±
Feeling the excitement of Barry¡¯s success, Scott motivated himself to send an email to Solomon Rhodes, an inmate at the Big Spring prison who was supposed to be his IT security director. Scott¡¯s first attempt: Greetings! My name is Scott Henderson and I learned about you through a job search database. I understand you are currently incarcerated, but I am willing to overlook this if you are interested in talking about a job. This is completely legitimate and not any kind of criminal activity. Ugh, that sounded really sketchy. He was already going to get put on some government watch list by contacting this guy. That email sounded like he was recruiting him for a heist! How was he supposed to recruit a guy in prison without it looking like he was planning criminal activity? Second attempt: Greetings! My name is Scott Henderson, and I am a student at Horace Mango university. I am doing a project and thought I could get extra credit for getting a famous hacker to give me some insight. If you are available, I would love to talk to you. Hah! That was much better. Making it sound like he was doing a school project sounded plausible and the FBI could confirm he really was a student and taking a Security class. They might still keep an eye on him, but it was a legitimate excuse to talk to Solomon. Plus, he had added some flattery to hopefully convince Solomon to reply. He went back to some more training exercises. A few minutes later he received a reply. Hello Scott Henderson, I¡¯m mildly impressed you found my contact information. Maybe I should expect to see you as a future resident of Big Spring in the near future! Just kidding - I like to mess with the government agents reading my emails. Anyway, I¡¯d love to talk to you. This is hardly even a real prison - I have internet access and a cell phone! Anyway, give me a call - anything we talk about will be recorded, but if we need privacy, we¡¯ll have to arrange time with a lawyer. Regards, Solomon Rhodes Well, that was kind of easy. Scott thought about what he could share assuming government agents were listening. He knew he couldn¡¯t share too many details about Glitch_HR, but he could at least have a non-specific conversation with Solomon. He seemed nice enough and maybe he could provide some general advice. He called the number Solomon had shared. ¡°Hi Solomon, this is Scott Henderson.¡± ¡°Hey, nice to hear from someone on the outside. A lot of my old friends ghosted me once the guys in the black van dragged me away.¡± Solomon said with a sigh. ¡°So, before we get to work¡­ I was kind of curious about why you are in prison. I understand it¡¯s something hacking related, but it seems really weird they would let you keep internet access.¡± ¡°It¡¯s kind of a funny story. I am kind of a hacker. I used to work on corporate security - protecting them from espionage or malware, but to be good at that job you need to understand how people will try to attack your systems. Anyway, some of the best organizations at this are government sponsored. They understand the biggest vulnerability in any system is the people who use it.¡± Solomon explained. ¡°So, did you expose some kind of government operation or something?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Fortunately not. I think they would have responded much more harshly for something like that. Anyway, I had this idea that I was never going to have the resources or flexible morality required to truly be effective at hacking. So instead, I decided to hack a Russian operation that is quite successful at this sort of thing.¡± Solomon said, sounding pleased with himself. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t something like that have good security?¡± Scott asked. ¡°You would think. Actually, they steal so much content from so many sources it is relatively easy to hide a worm or virus in something they are stealing. It took a few tries, but I eventually got access to their systems.¡± Solomon continued. ¡°Once I was in, it was a treasure trove of corporate secrets and blackmail information. You would hardly believe all the illegal stuff our politicians and business leaders are up to.¡± ¡°I have a pretty negative view of politicians, so I might not be too surprised¡±. Scott replied. ¡°Yeah, that makes sense. Anway, I had no interest in using any of that information. My mistake was I made a comment on a social media site that made a politician nervous that I knew too much. They locked me up for lying to the FBI. A totally bogus charge. They use it to keep people in jail who they want to discredit or to pressure them into giving information. It¡¯s better than the alternative of getting killed which they might do in other countries. In case my handlers are listening, the politicians here NEVER would do that..¡± ¡°Right¡­ so I was going to ask you about internet security for my project. Can you give me some advice?¡± Scott gave Solomon a general description. He had a high value program that performed extensive searches of the internet and aggregated the data. He asked how to secure something like that. ¡°That is a challenge for sure. Anything that pulls data from a wide range of sources will be exposed to a lot of malicious content. You also mentioned it was running on the cloud. I¡¯m curious if you are using a virtual private network and what kind of virus scanning you are using on the search results. What quarantine/isolation procedures are you using on the incoming data? How are you protecting your personal computer which presumably has security keys for accessing this system?¡± Solomon rattled off a few questions. Scott was getting seriously worried. ¡°Um, I may have to get back to you on that. Let¡¯s just say I probably need to do a lot more work before I am ready to call my system secured.¡± Scott said nervously. ¡°Hrmm, it¡¯s too bad you can¡¯t visit in person with a laptop. I could probably show you how to set up most of that pretty quickly if the Warden gave you permission to visit me for a couple hours.¡± Solomon said. ¡°I guess it wouldn¡¯t hurt to ask. I¡¯m pretty scared I¡¯m going to fail my class if I don¡¯t get some expert help.¡± Scott replied. ¡°Well, thanks for your time and offer to help. I¡¯ll let you know if I am able to arrange a visit.¡± Scott settled his nerves and contacted the Warden of Big Spring. After introducing himself he asked if it was possible to visit prisoners and what rules he would need to follow. He mentioned he wanted to visit Solomon and get some help on a school project. ¡°Hah, I¡¯d be careful letting that guy access your computer, ¡° Warden Davis laughed. ¡°I¡¯m aware of the risk, but I don¡¯t really have any money to steal and if I fail my class, I¡¯m in big trouble.¡± Scott didn¡¯t have to try hard to sound pathetic. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m just kidding. He¡¯s a nice guy. He¡¯s helped me fix some issues on my computer before. If you ask me, I think they should be locking up some of those politicians instead of people like Solomon.¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m surprised to hear you are so sympathetic.¡± ¡°Heh, I¡¯m not going to let him free or anything. Still, there is no reason to assume all prisoners are scum. Sure some of them are, but there are a few here who I would have no trouble with letting them babysit my kids.¡± ¡°So does that mean you would let me visit Solomon and bring a laptop?¡± Scott asked, shocked it would be this easy. ¡°Yeah, lots of lawyers bring in laptops. It¡¯s not against the rules except for certain prisoners flagged for denied computer access. Obviously, you can¡¯t bring in any weapons or drugs and we are required to hold onto your wallet when you go inside. You can¡¯t bring in cash, food or cigarettes. I¡¯ll send you a list of other things you are not allowed to bring.¡± Scott would make the long drive that weekend. He once again wondered if the recommendations from Glitch_HR were worth all this trouble. Chapter 11 - The Party Thursday Matt got a call from Tony Zimmerman, the guy he had hired to track down Adriana Foster. ¡°Hello, Matthew Stanton? This is Tony Zimmerman¡± ¡°Hey, did you get any information about Adriana?¡± Matt asked. ¡°I made a list of her class schedule. She usually eats at her dorm cafeteria and hangs out in the dorm with her friends on weekends. I¡¯ll send you the schedule information.¡± ¡°OK¡± Matt said, a little disappointed. It was not going to be easy to run into someone who mostly just went to class and stayed in her dorm. ¡°Oh, I hope you don¡¯t mind. I took a little initiative and invited her to that party you were going to. I figured it would help your chances if she had already heard about it from someone else. To my surprise she said she would go if she could bring a couple friends.¡± Tony said. He was pleased with himself - this would speed things along if there was going to be any inappropriate activity. ¡°Awesome!¡± Matt said, sounding relieved. ¡°Umm, could you tell me what she looks like so I know who to talk to?¡± Tony hid his surprise at this. A stalker would know what the girl looked like! He had misread the situation and it piqued his interest. ¡°Oh, I assumed you had seen her before. She has straight blond hair, she is skinny. Attractive in an understated way.¡± Tony replied. He was going to have to do some background research on Matthew Stanton - there must be something else going on here. ¡°Hey, do you think I could go to the party too? I¡¯ll bring some vodka.¡± ¡°My hero! That would be great. Hey¡­ if you hook up with Adriana, I expect you to give me my money back.¡± ¡°Hah, no problem. See you on Friday¡± Tony laughed. It was not like he was going to seduce some random college girl unless it was for a mission. Of course, he could care less about the $50 - he just picked that number because it sounded like a plausible amount a college student could afford. Matt was pleased with his success. He called up Scott. ¡°Hey Scott, good news. Adriana is going to be at that party Friday. You need to take a break and go with us!¡± ¡°Um, I was planning to just study and go to bed early. I have to drive to the prison this weekend and leave pretty early. It¡¯s an eight-hour drive to get there!¡± ¡°That sucks! I bet this time next year you can just fly in your private jet if you need to go visit some random prison.¡± ¡°That is so ridiculous, but the way things are going¡­ who knows?¡± Scott replied with a laugh. ¡°I know you hate parties but suck it up buttercup!¡± Matt teased. ¡°I never know what to talk about when I¡¯m at a party.¡± Scott complained. ¡°Dude, the last party you HAD nothing to talk about. Not many girls will be interested in what level you got to in Wizard Quest or some Xianxia book you were reading on Royal Road¡±, Matt said. ¡°Now, things are very different.¡± ¡°I guess¡­ ¡± admitted Scott. ¡°Hey, some girls might be interested in that stuff.¡± ¡°Yeah, those are the girls you marry, not someone you are just trying to hook up with at a party.¡± Matt joked. He continued, ¡°You are starting a tech company. You wrote a program to help a mentally challenged homeless lady communicate so she can function in society. You are driving to a prison to interview a computer hacker.¡± ¡°You¡¯re practically nerd royalty now, dude!¡± Barry agreed, excited. ¡°OK, when you put it that way, I might have something interesting to talk about.¡± ¡°It¡¯s settled. I¡¯ll see you tomorrow night at nine!¡±
Friday night the boys headed out. The party was at someone¡¯s apartment, so Barry drove. Scott planned to drive home since he wasn¡¯t going to be drinking, but nobody wanted to show up in his crappy car. Walking in around the same time, a blond guy carrying a vodka bottle waved to them. ¡°Hey, are you Matthew Stanton?¡± the guy asked. ¡°Hey!¡± Matt said. ¡°You must be Tony Zimmerman¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. Do you mind if I walk in with you? I don¡¯t know anyone here.¡± Tony said, pretending to be a bit shy. ¡°Yeah. They are going to be happy to meet you since you brought booze!¡± Barry said. ¡°Hi, I¡¯m Barry!¡± ¡°Scott¡± ¡°Nice to meet you.¡± The four boys walked in. The party had already started so they didn¡¯t bother waiting at the door to be let in. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. After a quick scan of the room, Tony said. ¡°Those three girls behind me¡­ the blond is Adriana. Do you want me to introduce you?¡± ¡°Awesome!¡± said Matt. $50 well spent he thought. The girl was cute. He was certain Scott was going to get tongue-tied and make a fool of himself. ¡°Hi Adrianna! In case you forgot, I¡¯m Tony. These are my friends Matt, Scott and Barry. I¡¯ll come chat a bit, but I need to go find a place to put the booze¡±. Tony made a retreat to the kitchen. At this point some pieces weren¡¯t adding up. Matt was a decent looking guy with some social skills. He did not give off a stalker vibe. He and his friends clearly didn¡¯t know the girl he had been paid to track down - so why pay money to find her? Tony knew that agents moving into a new territory would sometimes hire locals to help make contacts, but how had Matt decided to approach him? Tony was getting a little nervous. Was this a counter-intelligence operation? If so, it was quite sophisticated - they had drawn him out without giving him any leverage to work with. This Matt character was probably a cut-out and likely did not even realize why he was supposed to draw out Tony. His awkward looking friends were either incredible actors or completely ignorant as well. Alexey had warned him about how sophisticated the operation was that they were up against. He mentioned his opponent had clearly burned many of their assets. They were just sitting on the information and leaving his boss to puzzle when they would strike. This was above his paygrade. Tony would wait until his boss told him the next move. Until then, he would just play along like he was a regular college guy trying to make new friends. Meanwhile, the boys were trying to have a conversation with Adriana and her friends. ¡°Ummm¡­ I¡¯m Scott¡­ urrr¡­ ¡°, Scott was freaking out and his mind was completely blank about what he was supposed to say. Adriana was gorgeous - straight blond hair, blue eyes and a cute, freckled nose. She eyed him with a pitying look. ¡°Sure¡­ your friend already said that,'''' said one of the girls. ¡°I¡¯m Elsa and this is Marta.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t mind our friend, he knows how to speak English, but he gets really nervous talking to people for the first time. It¡¯s kind of hilarious considering it¡¯s kind of his job to talk to a bunch of strangers.¡± Barry laughed. ¡°Ouch,¡± Adriana sympathized. ¡°Where do you work?¡± ¡°It¡¯s kind of a start-up tech company.¡± Matt interrupted. ¡°Barry is just being mean. Scott is actually a genius computer programmer. He¡¯s actually working on a pretty cool project in his spare time to help some homeless lady.¡± ¡°That¡¯s kind of nice,¡± said Elsa. ¡°How can a computer program help a homeless lady?¡± ¡°So, she can talk¡­¡± Scott said awkwardly. ¡°Uh, yeah.¡± Matt interjected again. ¡°So, he was helping out at the homeless shelter and met this lady who couldn¡¯t communicate. Her words just come out all jumbled. Scott here thinks that maybe she¡¯s not completely nuts. Maybe she just has her brain wired wrong, so her words come out mixed up. He writes a program and figures out his theory was right. She¡¯s actually really smart but her life is ruined because no one can understand her!¡± ¡°That¡¯s pretty cool.¡± Elsa said, smiling at Scott. ¡°So, is she able to work now?¡± Scott finally got control of his tongue. Talking about helping Melinda was much easier than trying to make small talk with girls! ¡°Umm, so I can record what she says with my phone. Then I can feed it into my computer and unscramble it. Matt wasn¡¯t kidding that this lady is smart - she is like a genius, but she has multiple personalities that all try to talk at once. Anyway, it was probably the most rewarding thing I¡¯ve ever done when I first figured out what she was trying to say!¡± ¡°Oh, so you can understand her but it¡¯s not really easy for her to talk to others. Do you think you could run that program directly on her phone? It would probably really help her function in normal life.¡± Adriana added. ¡°Exactly! The problem is I¡¯m no good at programming for phones. I¡¯ll probably try to learn, but I feel bad giving this lady hope for the first time in her life then telling her it will be months before I can really help her.¡± ¡°Adriana is really good at programming apps, maybe she could help you.¡± Elsa volunteered. ¡°Elsa!¡± Adrianna only looked a bit upset. ¡°Um yeah, I don¡¯t have that much time, but maybe if you sent me the code, I could take a look at it.¡± ¡°That would be amazing! ¡° Scott looked so excited, Adrianna actually thought she would give it a try. He wasn¡¯t her type but seemed to be a really nice guy. Matt and Tony were more attractive, but neither had seemed that interested. Tony had overheard a little. He had brought some drinks for the group but hung back because he was trying to understand. Why were they talking about helping a homeless lady? Was that code for something? For the next half hour or so the group chatted. Tony decided Barry was lying to impress Elsa and she seemed interested. He was claiming to be partnered with one of the professors working on an advanced fusion reactor. Ridiculous! Tony knew for a fact the government labs weren¡¯t working on any fusion related projects at Horace Mango. Matt seemed to be happy playing the role of wingman, complimenting his friends and supporting their lies. After a bit he wandered off and talked to a few other people he knew. Soon after this, some of the group exchanged contact information and the boys said they had to leave. They mentioned Scott had to drive to a town in West Texas that was eight hours away early in the morning. There was something odd going on. Tony¡¯s instincts were sure of it, but he couldn¡¯t figure it out. He left shortly after the boys and sent a report to his handler. He requested they increase surveillance. His request was approved along with receiving some further instructions. The boss was really interested in this for some reason and was having several contractors moved into the area. After Tony left, the girls stayed a bit. ¡°So, I think that Barry must have been making all that up.¡± Marta said. ¡°I like him. He was fun, but I agree he might have been trying too hard to make himself sound smart.¡± Elsa said. ¡°It¡¯s pretty easy to check his story.¡± Adrianna said. ¡°Just go to office hours for that Professor Springer and ask him what he thinks of Barry.¡± ¡°No way I¡¯d be brave enough to do that!¡± Elsa complained. ¡°I¡¯m not even an engineering student so I don¡¯t want to be wandering around in that building.¡± ¡°Oh please, it¡¯s not that hard. I¡¯ll ask his professor. Just promise me if he is lying, do not go out with him!¡± Adrianna said. ¡°You¡¯re right, I¡¯ll stay away if you find out he was lying. But promise me you¡¯ll check on Monday in case he calls me before next weekend.¡± Elsa said. ¡°You¡¯re hopeless!¡± Marta said. ¡°So, Adrianna¡­ Scott seemed nice. Somehow more believable than Barry too. I don¡¯t think he would have made up such an odd story just to impress you.¡± ¡°Yeah, I think you¡¯re right. Anyway, he said he¡¯s sending me a video and his code, so I¡¯ll know pretty soon. But I¡¯m not interested in him.¡± ¡°Well, I think you could at least be friends with him. It¡¯s nice to get invited to a party once in a while - we¡¯ve been staying in the dorm too much.¡± Marta said. The girls hung out and met a few other people before going home well after midnight. Chapter 12 - Going to Prison Scott had set his alarm for 5AM. After dragging himself out of bed, he grabbed a change of clothes and his laptop then headed out to his car. Walking out, he saw several students stumbling back home from a late night out. ¡°Hey guy, do you know where the After-After-Party is?¡± Some drunk guy asked him. Seriously? ¡°Nope, I¡¯m just going to prison and wanted to get an early start.¡± Scott replied with a smirk. ¡°Ha! Fine, don''t tell me. It¡¯s probably lame anyway.¡± The guy slurred at him. He kept walking. Scott really didn¡¯t see the appeal of drinking that much. He¡¯d tried it a few times, but apparently, he was kind of a mean drunk. Barry thought it was funny, but Matt agreed it was probably best to let Scott be the driver most nights. The roads were pretty empty, so he made good progress for the first 3 hours. Around 8:30 he got a call from Barry. ¡°Hey man! Can you believe we were hanging out with those girls, and you just got up and left. Hah!¡± ¡°Do you think that was rude?¡± Scott asked, worried. ¡°No way! Normally you would have stayed until the end of the night until the girls had to find an excuse to get away. Now they are left wanting a little more.¡± Barry said with glee. ¡°Well, I did send Adrianna my code and that video after I got home. I¡¯m sure she still thinks I¡¯m desperate.¡± Scott said, a little sadly. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. You said you were going to send it and you did. Nothing wrong with that. Just promise me you won¡¯t call her today asking if she made any progress.¡± ¡°OK. I was totally going to call her in the afternoon. You¡¯re probably right. She may not even look at it. She doesn¡¯t need me pestering her.¡± Scott agreed. ¡°Right. So normally I would play it cool and not call Elsa until at least Tuesday. I really want to add the girls to Glitch_HR. It would be so great if I could talk to her about it, but I wanted to ask you first.¡± ¡°Sounds good. You probably need me to do it since you don¡¯t have permission to add employees.¡± ¡°Oh actually, I had a thought on that.¡± Said Barry. ¡°Professor Springer wired me a pretty large amount of money to start the energy company. I have 15k sitting in my bank right now and he said he''ll add more once we finish testing our prototype.¡± ¡°Whoa, wait¡­ I know we agreed on that, but he¡¯s already sent you money?!¡± ¡°I just saw it in my account this morning.¡± Barry said. ¡°Anyway, I wanted to spend a bit getting Melinda a laptop. She¡¯s CEO of the energy company too until she gets someone else to do it. She can add people, and probably access to other features we can¡¯t use yet. I¡¯d also like to add Dr. Springer. I wasn¡¯t going to give him a copy of the software, but it would be cool if I could get his training recommendations and forward him some links.¡± ¡°Sure,¡± agreed Scott. ¡°He can understand stuff that is way beyond me. It could really help us work out some of our issues.¡± ¡°That sounds great. I¡¯m excited to see what you guys come up with!¡± Barry continued, ¡°Also, I know you are short on cash right now. You¡¯ll have to buy about 3 tanks of gas and a motel room for your trip right now. I was going to send you $500 for expenses. Matt and I were going to go help Melinda find an apartment this weekend and we can split the first month¡¯s rent.¡± ¡°Wow, thanks Barry. I was pretty stressed about money and getting Melinda set up. Now I only have to worry about asking an imprisoned hacker to help me add security to our highly illegal software.¡± ¡°No problem. Let us know how it goes.¡± The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. Around two in the afternoon he arrived at the Big Spring Correctional Facility. What the heck? This place looks nicer than my dorm. There was no razor wire, just an office in front of some buildings surrounded by a simple chain link fence. Some buildings inside looked like they could be apartments. Come to think of it, he had seen some apartments in the city that looked more secure. In the office there was a woman at a computer and a guy in uniform sitting in a separate room. He was dark skinned with gray sideburns, and a bit overweight. When Scott entered, he stood up and walked over with a friendly smile. ¡°Hi there! Are you Scott Henderson? I¡¯m Warden Davis!¡± Seriously, this guy was way too nice to be running a prison. ¡°Um hi. Nice to meet you. This place is nicer than my dormitory.¡± ¡°Hah, yeah I think some of the guys here are a bit sad when it¡¯s time to leave.¡± Davis laughed. ¡°Anyway, Anna will help you with the paperwork and check in any items that you are not allowed to bring in.¡± While the people here were nice, the paperwork was brutal. It took Scott nearly an hour to get through it. Finally, he was brought inside the main compound to a room they had for meeting with prisoners. ¡°So, since you aren¡¯t a lawyer, we will be recording your conversation with the prisoner.¡± ¡°OK¡± Scott agreed nervously. A bald middle-aged man in a polo shirt and jeans was brought in. No prison jumpsuit here, apparently. He had a forgettable face, but there was definitely a look of excitement in his eyes. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. ¡°So, I¡¯m Solomon Rhodes and you must be Scott Henderson. Pleased to meet you.¡± ¡°Hi,¡± Scott said. ¡°I brought my laptop - it¡¯s not very good but the program I want to secure is installed and the code is in this folder.¡± ¡°OK, I¡¯ll get to work.¡± Solomon clicked around a bit, then started typing rather quickly. Scott sat there uncomfortably. ¡°Oh, this is interesting!¡± Mr. Rhodes muttered. Scott was curious, but decided it was better off if he didn¡¯t ask since they were getting recorded. Anything illegal could get him in big trouble. ¡°So,¡± Solomon explained while still typing. ¡°This is an amazing project you have here. Most of the code is hosted offshore and it is linked into some very interesting programs.¡± He eyed the camera to indicate he wasn¡¯t going to explain right now. ¡°So can you help me?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Yes, I have created a virtual private network and added my prison computer in so I can access what I need from here. I¡¯m allowed to do IT work for you, and it will give me more computer time. You will need to pay me at least minimum wage for my time.¡± ¡°OK,¡± Scott agreed. It sounded fair, and he was pretty sure Melinda would agree. ¡°I¡¯ll ask Warden Davis and try to get an employment offer set up.¡± He actually had no idea how to do that, but hopefully he could get help or look it up. ¡°This is going to take a fair amount of work. I¡¯m going to need to transfer some assets to another location - the current hosting is unsafe for reasons I¡¯ll try to explain later.¡± Solomon continued. ¡°I have a plan, but it will take a few days to set up. I should be able to send you messages now for follow up discussions. Please get that employment contract finished as soon as possible. I kind of want to emphasize that there is some danger here related to your current hosting arrangement, so try not to wait too long.¡± That sounded a bit ominous. ¡°I guess that''s everything,¡± Scott said. ¡°Nice to meet you Mr. Rhodes.¡± ¡°Sure, it was fun.¡± A little puzzled about what had just happened, Scott returned to the main office. He asked the Warden if there were any forms available for work contracts. ¡°There is one thing we don¡¯t have a shortage of; that is forms!¡± the Warden laughed. The secretary, Anna, started printing out another stack of papers. While he was waiting, Scott pulled out his phone to call Matt and Barry. Before dialing the number, he received a text from an Unknown number. ¡°Hello, this is SR.¡± Solomon Rhodes? ¡°I used your computer to get around a few of the limitations on the firewall here so it will be easier for me to communicate in the future.¡± Scott replied. ¡°That¡¯s good.¡± He wasn¡¯t sure what to say, or how Solomon was sending him messages without showing his phone number. ¡°Yes, so what I couldn¡¯t talk about in there is that your software is hosted at a location I am pretty familiar with. The Russian organization I hacked is the same place your code is running. I think you are pulling from a lot of their data collection services.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not good. Do they know I¡¯m using their servers?¡± Scott did not like the sound of that at all. ¡°So, there is no way they don¡¯t know about your code, but it looks like your encryption is preventing them from understanding what your code is doing. It is probably only a matter of time before they either break in or come visit you personally. That¡¯s why I indicated you should hurry.¡± ¡°Should I be running to a different city and changing my name?¡± ¡°I think until they crack the encryption you are mostly safe - the dorm you live in has better than usual security. I think the government has sensitive projects on campus and they invested in protecting the students who work there. Likely the Russians know you are from the University, and probably what dorm you are in. Doubtful they know who you are, or you¡¯d be dead already.¡± ¡°That is not comforting.¡± Scott said. ¡°Right! I have a plan for pulling all your code and their code that you are tapping into. We can move it to some cloud servers. They have huge bandwidth, so I think I can program a distraction and dump everything in about 10 minutes. They have people on site, but some of the night shift employees don¡¯t have as much experience and authority. Hopefully, we can get it done before they realize what is going on.¡± ¡°You came up with this in the half hour I was visiting?¡± ¡°Hah, no. Like I said I had infected their servers before I got put in jail. I was planning how to steal a lot of their data gathering tech since the day I found it. I had a plan already, but your software running on their server gives me an even easier option to distract them.¡± ¡°Sounds suspicious that my code recommended the one guy who could actually protect my code.¡± ¡°Yeah right! The AI must have found my worm. It might have even set this whole project of yours in motion as a plan to protect itself. That¡¯s scary, but once we get the code I can try to figure out if there is some AI pulling our strings or if it is just a really good Human Resources program. It¡¯s possible it just picked me because I am the best guy for the job.¡± ¡°Hrmm, so either a scary AI planning to take over the world or a program that just works really well at what it was designed to do.¡± Scott was kind of a pessimist, so the second option seemed unlikely. But in the movies the AI always started launching nukes when people tried to shut them down. Would the world be better off if the computer AI just won without people trying to attack it? Scott decided then he would just try to work with the scary AI, even if it was probably controlling him like a puppet. He wasn¡¯t a fan of post-apocalyptic sci fi and wanted nothing to do with it. Later, talking to Matt. ¡°Scott, that was pretty scary. The computer recommended the one guy who had a plan to get it off the Russian servers.¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m not so sure building this company is a good idea.¡± ¡°Hey, you warned us this was dangerous the first day. I¡¯m having the most fun of my life right now. The way I see it - we were likely going to be killed anyway once the Russians found us. I¡¯m pretty sure it is just a program designed for Human Resources that is really good at its job.¡± Matt was more of an optimist and had way too much faith in Scott¡¯s programming skills. ¡°It seems implausible that a super genius AI would pick this for its plan to take over the world,¡± Matt said with a chuckle. ¡°Barry gave me some money, so I think I¡¯m going to stop for the night somewhere. Probably going to sleep in a bit and see you tomorrow afternoon.¡±
Back at the prison, Solomon Rhodes was very pleased. He had been planning to steal the Russian tech since a few days after he started searching through their servers. He thought it was fun teasing that nervous kid about an advanced AI running things in the background. In reality, this was just a really lucky break for him. He would have tried this in a year or so after getting out, but now he could start his plans immediately. The timing was pretty good, so he ran a few more tests then kicked off his plan. Solomon didn¡¯t mind letting the kid keep his little HR program up and running. He seemed like a nice guy and there didn¡¯t seem to be any harm letting him use this to start a little company. Honestly, the kid was so naive he¡¯d probably end up hiring someone who stole the whole thing from him before long. It wasn¡¯t really his problem. The Russians were focused on spying for their government and running small time scams to pay the bills. Scott wanted to live his dream of building a company. But Solomon saw what the Russians had built as an opportunity to make billions. The ability to see the emails of top companies and government bureaucracies combined with sophisticated code to parse and search would allow him to do insider trading at a level politicians could only dream of. The quality of the data would degrade over time without the network of Russian agents adding in new sources. Still, the sheer quality of infiltration they already had would provide enough intel for him to make him more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes. Solomon Rhodes kicked off the first step of his plan. Chapter 13 - Adrianna It was Monday morning. Adrianna found herself in an Engineering building that she had never had a class in and waiting for office hours of a professor she had never met. She thought back to how she had ended up here. It had been an unusual weekend for sure. Friday evening had started out well enough. She had been invited to a party by a cute guy. Normally she and her friends were left behind by the girls who were joining Sororities or who had boyfriends. This time they were excited to get out and finally meet some new people. The party was fun. They had met some guys, although they weren¡¯t exactly boyfriend material. Scott had been really shy at first, but he seemed very intense when talking about his little hobby of helping out some crazy homeless lady. Her friend Elsa liked his friend Barry. She had bullied Adrianna into telling Scott she would look at his code and see if she could port it to mobile. A few hours after leaving the party Scott had sent her his code and a video of the lady he was trying to help. The next morning, she slept in, but decided she would at least take a look. She wasn¡¯t really interested - coding was a lot of work and not something she wanted to do on the weekend. His code was fairly organized, and it looked like he had added comments to explain some sections - probably just for her. What kind of guy leaves a party early to spend a couple hours commenting on his code? Did he think she would be impressed by well written code?! To be honest, she was a little bit impressed. He had speech to text, video processing, and an almost casual use of some machine learning code she had only read about. Her opinion of Horace Mango¡¯s computer science department went up a few points. She remembered at the party his friends teased him but seemed to be a little bit in awe of his programming. Maybe if Scott had spent a little more effort picking out his clothes, getting a decent haircut or going to the gym once in a while he would be more her type. Ugh, never mind that. Against her better judgment she had given a bit of thought on what it would take to make a version of his code that could run on a phone. She quickly decided it would take a month of solid work and there was no way she was going to get sucked into that mess. She felt sorry for that old homeless lady, but she had enough trouble with her own Civil Engineering classes. She was not going to take on some huge side project! On Sunday she got another email from Scott. Hello Adrianna, Hope you are doing well. I have this pretty good program that recommends training material. If you are interested in helping on my projects, you might find some of this useful. This was followed by about 10 links. The nerve of that boy! He asked for her help and then sent some training materials like she needed his help learning to program. That jerk!! She remembered trying to decide whether to just delete the email or respond, telling him to get lost. While trying to think of a suitably rude response, one of the links caught her eye. She had been thinking the different video codec would be the hardest part of running the code on mobile, but this link indicated it was easy to solve. She had clicked the link and a few hours later had clicked some of the other links as well. Reluctantly she admitted to herself that the articles in the links saved her hours of effort for every hour she had spent reading them. During this time, she had written about half the code. Still, there was probably a good two weeks'' worth of work and she was pretty tired. It was painful to her pride, but she replied with the following. Scott, The articles you recommended were interesting. You said you had a program that recommended them. Could you share it with me? She waited a few minutes to see if he would respond. He didn¡¯t. Hmmph! She was not going to sit around waiting for some boy to write her an email! Adrianna turned on her TV and watched a few dumb shows before going to bed. She would never admit to anyone she had checked her email a couple times and once before going to sleep. So here she found herself on Monday, waiting to meet Professor Springer. On Friday she had been convinced Barry was lying and she thought it would be fun to prove to Elsa he was a dishonest jerk. It would give her an excuse not to have to be nice to Scott. Now she kind of hoped Barry was telling the truth. Scott was not her type at all, but he was interesting. He had sent her a link to something called Glitch_HR this morning along with some instructions, but she had not had a chance to look at it yet. Finally, Dr. Springer called her in. ¡°Hello, can I help you? I don¡¯t recognize you from any of my classes,¡± the professor said. He seemed friendly but a bit distracted as if he wanted to be somewhere else. ¡°Oh, sorry to bother you. This may seem a bit silly, but I was wondering if you could tell me anything about a student named Barry Yong?¡± ¡°Oh!¡± Dr. Springer said, suddenly looking excited. ¡°Yes, Barry and I are partners in some very interesting projects. I hope you understand I can¡¯t go into much detail about what we are working on - I promised to keep things secret.¡± He was telling the truth?! ¡°That¡¯s good to know.¡± Adrianna said, trying to keep her composure. ¡°In that case you should probably tell Barry not to blab. He was telling my friend about some kind of fusion research - you should probably know if he¡¯s giving away some kind of military secrets.¡± Adrianna felt like a horrible snitch, but she didn¡¯t want Elsa dating someone who was going to get thrown in jail for treason. ¡°Hah! That¡¯s a relief.¡± Dr. Springer said. ¡°I was dying to tell my wife, but I thought Barry would be furious if I told anyone. How many people did he tell about this?¡± ¡°Oh, he was kind of drunk, but there were 3 girls and 3 other boys with us when he was talking. I don¡¯t think anyone really believed him except 2 of his friends who had apparently heard it before.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a bit disappointing. I¡¯ll talk to him - he should probably not be sharing this with everyone. I ran some tests this week and the results were very promising. There are people out there who would take advantage of us if they knew how close we were to making a prototype.¡± ¡°Oh wow. I don¡¯t know much about this, but it sounds like a big deal.¡± ¡°That is probably an understatement. Well, it was nice talking to you¡­ Adrianna?... anyway, I will tell Barry you were asking about him and I would ask that you not tell anyone else about this without his permission.¡± ¡°Sure¡­ thanks for talking with me.¡± Adrianna made a quick exit. What had she gotten herself into going to that party?! Later that afternoon. Adrianna opened Glitch_HR. According to the program she was an employee of a company called Genysis with the job title ¡°Junior Architectural Designer¡±. That was a puzzle, but she went to the ¡°Job Skill Training¡± section following Scott¡¯s instructions. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Her name and job title were at the top with a skill ranking that indicated hundreds of millions would be better at her job - rude! The links were a mix of articles on architectural design in harsh environments (weird), mobile app programming (useful), and an eclectic mix of items that were just confusing. She spent a few hours browsing and got some ideas for Scott¡¯s program. Maybe she could get it finished this week after all. Oops, she had forgotten to call Elsa! ¡°Hello?¡± Elsa answered. ¡°Hey. I investigated Barry Yong. Talked to his professor - apparently, he was telling the truth.¡± ¡°Oh, that''s good.¡± Elsa didn¡¯t seem too surprised. ¡°Hey, Barry sent me some program called Glitch_HR. I wasn¡¯t going to open some random application from a boy I didn¡¯t really know. He said it had a really cool system to get training articles. Why would I even want something like that? I already spend all day in class!¡± ¡°Scott sent me the same thing. I thought it was rude at first, but I gave it a try. It was amazing! I was working on that app for Scott, and it made things so much easier.¡± Adrianna said, surprised at her own enthusiasm. ¡°I didn¡¯t think you were going to help him with that. You must like him more than you were letting on!¡± Elsa teased. ¡°Ugh. Maybe if he got a decent haircut and picked some clothes that didn¡¯t emphasize his pitiful physique!¡± ¡°Ouch! Hah, well even if he¡¯s not boyfriend material he seemed nice enough. Anyway, I¡¯m opening that program.¡± ¡°What job did it give you?¡± Adrianna asked, curious. ¡°Oh. It says I¡¯m a Junior Medical Tech. I guess that makes sense since I¡¯m Pre-Med. And there are 140 million people better than me¡­ ouch!¡± ¡°That¡¯s much better than my ranking. Anyway, read some of the articles. I know it sounds lame but you might find something interesting.¡± ¡°Whatever, talk to you later.¡± Elsa hung up. A couple days later, Adrianna found herself addicted to the Glitch_HR training. She had finished an initial version of her phone app, but she found herself immersed in some strange articles about retraining her brain. At first, she assumed this was one of the junk links that were fairly common in the recommendations. Still, it was interesting enough that she decided to give it a try. Now she was starting to get a headache after doing some of the mental exercises and decided to take a break. She was a bit nervous but decided to call Scott. Her first impression of him had not been good, but after playing with the software he built she found herself a bit intimidated. Taking a deep breath, she dialed his number. ¡°Hello, Scott? This is Adrianna¡­ uh¡­¡± Adrianna blanked about what she was going to say. ¡°Oh hi! It¡¯s really great to hear from you! I thought I had scared you off¡± Scott managed to say this so quickly she could barely understand. Was he nervous too? Hah! ¡°Oh yeah, I thought it was weird that you shared it, but I admit it is pretty great!¡± Adrianna recovered smoothly, ¡°Anyway, I have a version of that phone app for Melinda and wondered if you would introduce me to her. Maybe we could test it out?¡± ¡°Oh umm¡­ you want to go with me. That would be great! I mean not like a date. Urgh.¡± Scott seemed to be really struggling - had he never talked to a girl before? ¡°Um yeah, I have a car but it¡¯s really not good.¡± Adrianna was amused - how could she have been nervous talking to this goof? ¡°Sure, I don¡¯t care about your car unless it smells bad. I don¡¯t have a car. If you want, I have time this afternoon after 3¡± They made plans and Scott picked her up in an ancient looking Oldsmobile Cutlass. It smelled so strongly of Lysol; Adrianna wouldn¡¯t be surprised if he was trying to cover the smell of a dead body. During the chat they discussed some things they had found on Glitch_HR training. When Adrianna mentioned the article she had read about improving memory, Scott was very excited. ¡°Oh yeah, Nadia Kucharska is the best! That lady is probably the smartest person on the planet. I¡¯ve worked through three of her articles and I still do some of the practice exercises every day. I thought I was kind of average before, but now I feel like my classes are too easy!¡± Scott gushed. ¡°It was interesting. I¡¯ll have to look for some more articles like that. If it helped me understand my classes, it might be worth doing a few exercises a day!¡± Adrianna agreed. They arrived at Melinda¡¯s new apartment. It was sparsely furnished and undecorated. Melinda greeted them - she looked better dressed and her hair was neat. A big change from the video Adrianna had seen. Melinda smiled at them and walked back to a room she was using as an office. Scott proudly explained the set up. ¡°So, I figured I could track what Melinda was looking at and just switch between applications automatically. Most programs just sit there waiting for user input, so it wasn¡¯t too hard. We just needed to add some monitors, an external graphics card and an application that kept track of a different mouse position for each screen. It¡¯s actually something I wouldn¡¯t mind running on my own computer. It can¡¯t handle real time stuff like audio or video.¡± Scott seemed much more at ease talking about his project to help Melinda. Adrianna looked a little closer at the screens. Melinda had already sat down and seemed to be happily working on five different things. She saw a business plan including an oceanic survey, a schematic for some kind of robot, a copy of Glitch_HR, some gossip about celebrities, and several odd medical diagrams mostly about brain surgery. ¡°So, I have an initial version of a video chat application.¡± Adrianna said. Melinda stopped working and looked at her expectantly. ¡°You can start or accept up to five sessions, and the screen and input will switch based on head tracking. I would probably work great if you were looking at the different screens here while you are talking. I understand you might not want to talk to five people at once, so you can add a personality as a separate participant if you want more than one on a call. There will be a bit of a pause when she speaks as it decodes. I just freeze the video while it is waiting.¡± Adrianna continued. ¡°Also, if her other personalities still want to talk, it will just record the data to a file. It seems like she likes to talk with all five, but it might not make sense to always have them participate in a meeting.¡± ¡°That sounds great!¡± Scott enthused. Melinda had a big smile. They tested it out. Scott and Adrianna went to different rooms while Melinda practiced calling them with different personalities individually or in a group chat. She seemed to be amused using the labels that Scott had given them. Melinda giggled a little when he saw you could add cat ears, mustaches or silly hats on people. That was the best feature! ¡°Thank you so much for your hard work, dear¡±, Melinda said sweetly. ¡°You are just a beautiful young lady! Poor Scott got so flustered every time he thought about you.¡± Melinda giggled. ¡°Uh yeah, I don¡¯t think I¡¯m interested in him like that. But he¡¯s a really nice guy.¡± Adrianna said feeling awkward. ¡°So, now you have helped Scott finish his little project, I will need you to really focus on designing a long-term undersea habitat. You should spend a couple weeks on skill training - honestly your skills in this area are unimpressive. You will need to work harder!¡± Melinda demanded. ¡°Don¡¯t mind me dear, I can be quite rude sometimes!¡± Melinda apologized¡­ for herself?... ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we will offer you fair compensation. Scott would probably overpay you, but we will come up with a combination of salary and equity that should make this an easy decision for you.¡± ¡°Uh, I¡¯m not sure I want to do that. I never really agreed to work for this company.¡± Adrianna hedged. She hung up before more Melindas could gang up on her. ¡°OK, I think the software worked pretty well. There were some visual glitches I will fix for the next version.¡± It was really creepy talking to multiple personalities. ¡°That was amazing!¡± Scott gushed. He had had a separate conversation while she was talking. ¡° Melinda said she is almost ready to pitch the first company to some investors.¡± ¡°Umm, first company?¡± Adrianna asked. She knew Scott and his friends had mentioned starting a company but wasn¡¯t really clear on the details. ¡°Oh, we¡¯ll send you a copy of the business plan. We¡¯d love to get you involved with this one if you are interested. Your friend Elsa is not a good fit for this, but Melinda has been eager to work with her about some other project.¡± Scott continued. This was all moving so fast Adrianna wasn¡¯t sure what to think. ¡°Your friend Marta has some unusual aptitudes. We haven¡¯t shared Glitch_HR with her - frankly she¡¯s a little scary.¡± Scott continued rambling. Huh? Marta was kind of an out-of-shape couch potato¡­ Why was she scary? They said goodbye to Melinda who seemed extremely pleased, but also seemed reluctant to stop working. Her fingers were just flying on the keyboard while her head jumped around. Adrianna and Scott left. Scott seemed to want to talk, but he realized Adrianna needed some time to process and trailed off. She didn¡¯t say much - this was overwhelming, and she was not sure she wanted to get on this crazy train. Her life was boring, but this looked like a bit much in the other direction. After she said goodbye to Scott, Adrianna decided to take it easy that evening. She took a bath and went to bed early. Chapter 14 - The Investor Darren Dalton looked out of the window of his office in the New York financial district, staring at a message. He had received a tip about how the military was going to start construction on a new base in Oregon for drone operations. His fund received a lot of information like this from congressmen who had oversight roles, and also executives in various companies. These officials and executives would have his fund ¡°manage¡± their money so there would be no accusation of insider trading. They would feed him information and he generated significant returns. The fund was closed to people if they did not contribute sufficient information except for some capital from his core fund. The returns on this fund were huge and generated about half the profit for his mainstream fund that was open to a wider pool of investors. The profits in the core fund were not publicly shared, but they were typically over 200% return per year. In comparison, his main fund returned about 15% per year and was considered a top performer in its risk category. He personally made a lot of money on the core fund. He didn¡¯t show up on lists of richest people, but only because his fund was privately held. He went to great lengths to hide how much money they pulled in. Darren was obligated to give generous donations to his member politicians to make sure they held onto their positions, but even spending 10s of millions a year was hardly worth worrying about. What did worry him was today¡¯s report. The land around the site of a new military base had been purchased yesterday in 16 transactions with different parties. Futures contracts on various construction supplies had also been acquired. In short, all the money from this tip was gone before he had a chance to act on it. Someone had blabbed about the project. No doubt people with similar operations to his own had snapped up the profit. This could happen sometimes. After all, there were several politicians overseeing large projects and they often shared information with multiple investment funds. What worried him was that it was the fourth time in two weeks that people had beaten him to profit on an insider tip. Two other tips were from politicians, but one was from an executive who understood the value of his secrets. He kept his key people invested in the same managed fund, so how did this get leaked? A couple bad weeks would hurt, but if this continued Darren could not keep up the huge returns his clients demanded. If they got wind of it, some would start pulling their money out. Many investments he had were not very liquid so a run of key investors could ruin him. He would need to use his own money to pay out anyone who wanted to leave. Worse, he would lose his trading edge and the implied protection against legal prosecution. In short, Darren seriously considered if it was time to pull his own money out and hand the fund over to one of his junior partners. Angela Stein was one of the managers of his more public fund. After the returns from the core fund, her investments were the best performing. She had a talent for spotting startup companies with talented management. Some of her ideas had not panned out, but she would get involved and help fix issues. Her returns had been 30% last year and would easily beat that as one of her portfolio companies was moving into a rapid growth phase. She had helped with a timely injection of capital and introduced their management to a specialist who solved a tricky manufacturing problem. Darren felt bad dumping his problem on her, but it wasn¡¯t entirely a bad deal. She could sink or swim. If she could turn it around, Angela would be a billionaire and well deserved. If she failed, well that was the risk you take playing the game at this level. Darren had finally talked himself into believing this wasn¡¯t a horrible thing to do. He started moving his money out of the fund. He then called Angela to tell her the good news about her promotion. ¡ª-------------------------- Angela Stein received a call. She had received a very detailed proposal about an undersea mining operation. It was an unusual pitch. The potential was huge and the level of detail in the proposal was better than what she usually received. The downside was that the partners were college students and a woman with zero professional experience. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. She had asked a few questions and quickly received detailed responses. These people didn¡¯t have a pedigree, but they seemed highly competent. She forwarded a portion of the document to one of her research contacts to confirm that the idea was plausible. As for her call, her boss was giving her a promotion and wanted her to take over the core fund! This fund managed billions and she knew the returns were too good to be true. Angela had always suspected there was insider trading involved. ¡°Congratulations Angela! Your performance has been fantastic, and we feel it is time to recognize your contributions and let you take a larger role in the company,¡± Darren gushed. ¡°Thank you,¡± Angela replied. ¡°This is quite an honor, but I¡¯m not sure I am ready to produce the kind of returns the core fund is known for.¡± ¡°Well, you have done amazing work with the resources available. The core fund has sources of information which are a little more¡­targeted.¡± Darren said with a smile. ¡°I see. Well, I¡¯m excited for the opportunity, but I would like to take a couple days to think about if I can handle the extra responsibility.¡± Angela said. She had a bad feeling about this. If he pushed, she was definitely not taking the job. ¡°Oh, I see. Well, I hope you don¡¯t mind if I am also making the offer to Wallace. Maybe a little competition would do you both some good.¡± Darren recovered smoothly. He was not stupid - he could tell Angela had concerns. Smart girl. Wallace was a well-connected Ivy Leaguer - his parents bought him into the right schools and helped him make connections to get some big deals. His returns were inflated above average due to tips from his family network. In a way he was a vastly inferior version of Darren¡¯s own success. Darren should have dumped this on him from the start but had convinced himself Angela might actually turn it around. Oh well, his retirement was just going to get started earlier. Angela left the office with a bad feeling. She wasn¡¯t an idiot - if Darren was handing over the core fund, something must have gone really wrong. Either a big investor was pulling out, some legal troubles popped up, or maybe one of their large trades had cratered. The details didn¡¯t matter much. Angela typed up her two weeks'' notice and sent it to Darren and Human Resources. She had vacation time saved up, so she could leave immediately. She hadn¡¯t taken a vacation in four years. After walking out the door, she called up a contact she had saved on her phone. The woman on the other end was friendly, but she would only speak after a notable pause. It was like there was a bad connection or the woman was taking time to think carefully about everything she said. ¡°Hi Ms. White, this is Angela Stein. I was very impressed with your investment proposal but regret to inform you I will no longer be associated with the Blue Mountain fund.¡± ¡°... Don¡¯t worry dear, we were interested in working with you more than that fund.¡± The woman replied. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s nice to hear. Unfortunately, I¡¯m not currently in a position to work with you. I expect my company will execute a clause that forbids me from working on investment deals for a year after my employment contract is ended. I can refer you to my friend Marty Tyler who works on similar deals.¡± ¡°...That is sweet of you, but not necessary. Marty was also on our list, but we are more interested in you. You should check your contract. It probably forbids you from working at another investment fund for the duration of the garden leave period. They are not legally allowed to forbid you from taking an advisory position in an unrelated industry - for example a technology or mining company. Furthermore, they cannot dictate how you invest your personal funds.¡± Melinda smoothly replied. Just who was this woman?! ¡°Well, that is a rather impressive understanding of my situation. It would be a large personal risk for me to commit the level of funds you had requested. I think the most I would be comfortable with is about $2 million for a 60% stake in your company.¡± After a pause, Melinda¡¯s voice sounded slightly different. ¡°...You wouldn¡¯t be offering anything if you didn¡¯t see the potential. Also, the funds you have on hand is not a problem since you are free to re-sell fractional ownership to your wall street contacts - for example your friend Marty¡¯s fund. This company is going to succeed even if I have to go to someone else for funding. $4 million for 51% is my final offer.¡± Melinda replied with a cackle. Chapter 15 - Millionaires Scott Henderson was sitting in his room looking at a spreadsheet. He owned 196,000 shares of Genysis Mining which was 19.6% of the total. They had split 40/25/25/10 between Scott, Matt, Barry and Adrianna. Then, their initial stakes were diluted by the wall street investors'' ownership of 51%. Based on the initial investment of $4M, the company was valued at $7.8 million. That meant his personal stake was worth a little over $1.5 million. There were some other moves Melinda had made in the past few days. She had made a $300,000 investment in Genysis Energy in exchange for 100,000 shares. This diluted his ownership of 225,000 shares but put a value of roughly 3.3M on that company. His share was therefore worth about $670k. Melinda had also incorporated Genysis Robotics. Matt had the largest initial share of this, but Scott started with 25%. At 10% dilution from initial funding by Genysis Mining of $300,000 for 10% gave it a valuation of 3M and his stake was therefore worth $675k. His bank account had $144.67, not even a rounding error in his net worth of over $2.8 million. 19 years old and he was a millionaire! Of course, if any of their companies failed, the whole thing fell apart. They would have to work really hard to see any of that money. Barry and Professor Springer had got a prototype micro-fusion generator working. This should have been cause for a huge celebration, but Barry was kind of grumpy about it. ¡°We wasted a ton of money on prototypes that just melted or exploded. We had to use over half the mass on thermal distribution and cooling and the power efficiency is crap. You get less usable power output than you would from a lithium battery, and it produces a lot of waste heat.¡± Barry complained. ¡°You built a working fusion reactor. Doesn¡¯t that mean it can run for a really long time without a recharge?¡± Scott argued. ¡°Sure, but our process for getting deuterium takes a lot of work and we finished off Rudolph¡¯s initial investment buying the centrifuges and equipment to extract from the heavy water molecules.¡± ¡°But Melinda gave you more cash to play with.¡± ¡°I know, we were grateful for that. But our fueling process sucks and we probably only have enough stockpiled for 2 or 3 years of operation for the prototype. We could hire someone to make more, but it¡¯s going to be a bottleneck if we are trying to keep dozens of robots and vehicles fueled.¡± Barry said. ¡°Well, it still sounds much better than long cables and a barge with diesel generators. Anyway, why don¡¯t you take a break from working in the lab and see if Glitch_HR training has anything that sparks an idea.¡± Scott replied. ¡°Besides, we have finals coming up in a couple weeks so it¡¯s OK to put things on pause for a bit.¡± ¡°It¡¯s really dumb that we are millionaires and still have to go to stupid classes, ¡° Barry complained. ¡°Melinda said I can¡¯t quit yet because we can¡¯t afford all the lab space and equipment that Rudolph lets me use.¡± ¡°So weird that you call Professor Springer ¡®Rudolph¡¯,¡± Scott laughed. ¡°Ugh, I agree! But he insisted. He also invited me to visit his family over Christmas too. He¡¯s a really great guy and super smart. Even if he is older than my dad.¡± ¡°How are things going with you and Elsa?¡± Scott asked. ¡°We went on a date. I thought it went really well and we still talk on the phone, but she never wants to go out anymore,¡± Barry said sadly. ¡°Oh, I¡¯ll ask Adrianna what is going on.¡± Scott said, wishing he could help his friend. ¡°Supposedly she is working on some project with Melinda, so I expect you will be part owner of another company soon.¡± Barry laughed. ¡°How would that work? I have nothing to do with it.¡± Scott protested. ¡°Wrong! Melinda says any company that uses Glitch_HR you get 25% of the starting equity. According to her it is the greatest invention since capitalism. I think she is also really grateful that you built all those tools that let her be CEO of multiple companies. She did hint that we were in trouble after the first year was up - she is going to get paid!¡± Barry laughed. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°Probably shouldn¡¯t admit it to her, but she deserves it.¡± Scott said and Barry agreed.
Angela Stein was amazed by the volume and quality of work produced by the enigmatic Melinda White. Honestly, why had she never heard of this woman before? Her resum¨¦ was blank, but she couldn¡¯t believe a talent like this wasn¡¯t running a Fortune 500 company. She was either hiding something or she had been one of those genius housewives that started a career after staying home with the kids. She had heard of some proving themselves more competent than managers who had been working the whole time. First, she had bought an interest in an energy company. It smelled a bit fishy since the stakeholders were the same as the mining company. Angela initially worried this was some kind of shell game. Was she trying to keep control of the company while shuffling money around into various shell companies? Melinda had then shared with her some redacted plans, a video tour of the lab and a demo of a prototype. There was an interview with a well-respected scientist who was a minority partner and equity investor. She was a finance person, but she knew enough about science to realize a controlled fusion reactor was a huge deal. $300k for a 9.1% stake was an absolute steal! She could have gotten 10 times that for a similar stake if she shopped it around. The synergy with the mining company was significant, so after her initial disbelief Angela was firmly in the Melinda White fan club. Then Melinda sent her a detailed description of a similar sized initial stake in Genysis Robotics. Once again, a lot of the same players who Melinda affectionately called ¡°Her boys¡±. The lead engineer on this group was the talented Matthew Stanton who had designed a mining robot which was the intellectual property of Genysis Mining. She had again questioned this. If we already owned the design for the robot, what was the benefit of investing in a stake in this robotics company that currently had no assets? Melinda had explained that the Robotics company would be keeping the technology needed to improve the designs and manufacture them. Angela would reserve judgment. They owned the schematics and if Matt¡¯s company charged more than a couple million per robot, she could insist on a fair bidding process and get them manufactured overseas. She didn¡¯t want to have to dilute her ownership too much to get up and running. Spending too much on robots would cripple the operation.
Like everyone else, Matt was caught up in the whirlwind of Melinda¡¯s executive planning. He had been tinkering with his designs and trying to come up with a plan to build a prototype for less than 50k in material and tools. He was also dreading what would likely be 1000 hours of labor to build it. ¡°Matt my boy.¡± Melinda had called him. ¡°I am concerned you are wasting time on your little robot project. We have a plan of execution, and you are becoming the biggest bottleneck.¡± ¡°I¡¯m working as hard as I can. I think I have a plan, but it will cost 50k and take at least 6 months to build.¡± ¡°...Yes, I anticipated you would be struggling. You now have a new company and $300k initial investment.¡± Melinda explained a few details before continuing. ¡°So, I¡¯m hiring a couple people to help you. They contributed to some of the training and tools you use. They are currently working at jobs that are low paying and unsatisfying. Both are a bit more senior than you, so you will be lower on the org chart. Don¡¯t worry, you will still have the most equity in your company. I¡¯m directing you to hold off on the mining robot and focus on building robotics that can help you assemble prototypes. Ideally, they could also allow small scale manufacturing runs once you work out the prototype.¡± ¡°That might be helpful. I¡¯ll start working on some designs.¡± ¡°Great - I think you should focus on initial designs, and I will instruct your co-workers to refine and assemble the initial build. After this we can use this system to bootstrap future versions or test out prototypes of other robots.¡± ¡°Awesome!¡± said Matt. ¡°... Oh, both these guys are really into building junk for robot fighting leagues. You better not let that be a distraction.¡± Melinda demanded. These guys were into robot fighting? Matt was going to focus on his assignment but would find the time to give that a try!
Adrianna was not a millionaire yet with the current math, but she had been happy to dive into her current project of designing an undersea habitat that could support 20 people indefinitely. She had been supplied a list of materials with different properties and costs to acquire. These didn¡¯t match anything she had in her civil engineering classes. Where was Barry getting this list? The CAD programs she used in her school classes were not well suited to this kind of design. Glitch_HR had mentioned some articles on space habitat design using a different program. It was very expensive - $12,000. She mentioned her struggles to Melinda and within an hour she received a link to download and a license key. Things had changed since they got that Wall Street person involved! Glitch_HR skill training helped her learn quickly, but finals were approaching so she didn¡¯t think she¡¯d have a design ready. There were a lot of things that she couldn¡¯t finalize. She didn¡¯t have an area reserved for power generation and assumed that robots would dock there to recharge. The original proposal just had a big battery that would be charged up by a surface ship with diesel generators. Last week they told her to scrap that and just leave a space for ¡°unknown power supply¡±. She had planned a large kelp garden closer to the surface. They would pump in waste CO2 and pull out oxygen. Melinda had hired someone to design this module, so she just focused on the system to circulate the air. Adrianna really enjoyed the creativity of designing something like this, but realistically she thought it was missing too many pieces to be built in the next couple years. Chapter 16 - Masterminds Solomon Rhodes looked around his plain but comfortable prison room. He had about 8 months left on his sentence, but he had never been happier. The Warden had let him subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. Solomon made the request with perfect timing when Warden Davis was in a really good mood. Davis¡¯s daughter had been accepted to a top tier school on the West coast. She had thought it a very long shot at best. A million-dollar donation to the school renovation fund was enough for her application to get the most favorable consideration. Solomon smirked - it was doubtless a waste of money, but Warden Davis was a nice guy and bribing him directly was impossible. There was an article on page 5 about an FBI securities investigation starting on a fund called Blue Mountain. It looked like Solomon¡¯s activities were starting to cause some problems. He had been getting the jump on some extremely corrupt hedge funds. In just a few weeks he had made over a billion dollars using insider trading opportunities. It was so simple. If a company was about to get a contract awarded, he would buy some short-term options to leverage the upside. When a government agency was about to make a large purchase, he bought up the futures contracts or real estate in that area. He then sold it back to them for a quick turnover with a huge mark-up. He was getting the information a few hours earlier than the hedge funds leaving barely any profit in these schemes. Some large funds were about to have a lot of trouble as the easy money dried up. The investors would get angry their absurd returns were gone and pull out their money. These funds usually didn¡¯t have a lot of liquid reserves. A few big withdrawals would force them to scramble for cash. They would have to dip into their more stable investments even if they had to sell at a loss. Solomon placed a range of large short positions on big stable companies that were widely owned by these funds. When the funds dumped their stable investments, the stock market would crash. This would probably cause a recession, but he was going to make a killing. He had donated about 10 million anonymously to hundreds of small charities and would continue to do so. It just felt so good to steal from the rich and then give a small fraction of it away to poor people. Solomon idly checked the big numbers pouring into his account. He laughed when he saw his minimum wage salary getting paid by a company called Genysis Mining. That Scott kid had really done him a favor moving the timeline up. His prison stay was so much more enjoyable as a result. He had gotten revenge on the people who put him here, screwed with the Russians, and made a fortune. Life was good!
Ed Gill was the manager of the Spring Vale homeless shelter. He almost never showed up there because homeless people were smelly, and they often tried to talk to him. Besides, he had delegated feeding the bums to one of their own, a gluttonous woman called Tara. And if she ate so much that some didn¡¯t get any, why should he care? They should get a job or something. Anyway, he had gotten an email that the shelter had received an anonymous donation of 50,000 dollars. He should be happy, but now he had to come up with a plan to spend it. That was a lot of work he didn¡¯t want to deal with. He idly tried to come up with some way to embezzle it, but wasn¡¯t smart enough to come up with something foolproof. He figured he could just pay for the place to be cleaned and get some new furniture. The last time he went, the place was filthy. Tara had told him it was because Melinda White moved out and she used to organize the residents to do basic chores. He sort of remembered that gibbering hag. He shivered a bit. Kind of a relief she was gone, although he¡¯d have to visit here even less if it was going to be this dirty. Tara also mentioned a guy named Carl who lived in the parking lot had disappeared and not come back. Now there was a guy who was never going to get a job! Poor guy had a room set up for him but still decided to sleep outside in a box. Ed felt vaguely sorry for the guy - he had serious mental problems and something bad had probably happened to him.
Elsa Pittman had been very busy. It had all started going to some party with her friend and meeting a strange group of boys. They had casually talked about unbelievable technology they were working on. Her friend had even confirmed they were telling the truth! She had taken a look at the program they all seemed so excited about and read some interesting articles about developmental biology. She had already learned the basics in high school about how DNA encoded mRNA which was expressed as proteins. These proteins determined how everything in a cell operated. She understood the basic idea that an organism started as stem cells which differentiated into all the different types of tissue and organs in the body. In college her education tended to focus on more detail of how different systems worked and how defective genes, external toxins, or pathogens could cause things to go wrong. There was a lot of talk about how they designed drugs to target various proteins to help or hurt certain functions. It was just a lot of information - so many genes named after so many scientists who studied some rare disease or came up with some experiment. She had always felt the system was overly complicated by learning all the process and history of thousands of scientists who had contributed. It wasn¡¯t that she didn¡¯t appreciate their hard work, but it just felt like there was too much historical baggage and not enough explaining exactly how things worked. The Glitch_HR training seemed to agree with her. Instead of exhaustive histories of past experiments and distinguished scientists, she found articles written by data scientists or speculation from undergraduate lab assistants. One person had used a computer to categorize all known genes into broad categories related to where the proteins they produced would operate. The main categories were proteins that stayed in the nucleus, proteins that were never expressed, proteins that stayed in the cell, proteins that moved outside of the cells. This was not particularly exciting, but they went further from here. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The author colored the DNA according to these categories and projected it onto images of chromosomes. It wasn¡¯t really groundbreaking, but the non-expressed sections were typically bound tightly in proteins and formed the structure. Bound sections did not get expressed, while free loops were constantly producing mRNA and protein. A closer look at the sequence found that the bound sections had a few hundred repeating sequences that showed up at a high frequency. Proteins that just sat in the nucleus could bind with the DNA or other proteins and the author speculated that many would either lock or unlock portions of the chromosomes. Cells that had specialized into different tissue types had significant differences in the structure of which DNA was bound or free to express. The author lamented that they could not find the details of exactly which changes to the structure of the chromosome corresponded to different cell specializations. Another author built a database mapping the most common proteins expressed in various cells by tissue types - they used a notation for identifying proteins based on size and amino acid fraction with no attempt to trace them back to the proper name of some 20th century scientist who had mapped a gene to some rare disease. Someone else had gone the opposite way and shared a database with all the genes identified with linked scientific papers that had identified a function or disease related to mutations in that gene. The amount of data was overwhelming, but Elsa felt she was on the verge of putting some pieces together. She got a bit obsessed reading through all this science and speculation. She started skipping classes and ignoring her friends - even Barry. She had really enjoyed their date, but the poor guy could not compete with unraveling the secrets of the universe! A couple weeks into her deep dive, Elsa took a break and decided to talk to Melinda White who had been persistent in requesting they have a chat. She knew Adrianna and Barry both were in awe of the woman, so she figured a few minutes talking wouldn¡¯t hurt. ¡°Hello dear, ¡° the kindly sounding woman began. ¡°I¡¯m not sure if you are aware of this, but I get some reports summarizing the articles people are looking at in our training software.¡± ¡°Oh. Is there something wrong?¡± ¡°Not at all. I¡¯m excited at the direction I think you are going. I just wanted you to be aware of some plans I have and where I think you will fit in.¡± ¡°Oh, OK.¡± Elsa replied skeptically. ¡°So, I have set up an organization called Genysis Biotechnology. You are currently a member of this company in Glitch_HR. You probably haven¡¯t looked much at the org chart screen or you would have seen there are four other employees in this group.¡± Melinda explained. Elsa wasn¡¯t sure where this was going. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m planning to turn this into a real company soon and I¡¯d like you to be one of the main owners. Similar to how Barry, Matt and Scott have their own companies that I am helping to manage.¡± Elsa really had been out of touch. Adrianna had mentioned something about companies and how Scott was a millionaire, but she honestly hadn¡¯t paid attention to the details. She made an effort to focus. Melinda wanted her to be part of a company along with a few other people she didn¡¯t know. This was probably important, so she consciously tried to stop thinking about DNA and proteins. ¡°Briefly, I¡¯m working with a girl named Lata Dhar to build a microchip that can encode proteins. I have a boy named Sebahat Babacan who can help us with databases and other computer graphics. There are another couple employees you don¡¯t need to worry about right now.¡± ¡°A microchip to encode proteins sounds very interesting. So much of what I¡¯m learning in school involves inserting DNA and expressing it in yeast or bacteria. If you get that working you could skip a lot of steps. It would really disrupt the whole biotech industry!¡± ¡°That¡¯s correct. This is part of the reason I wanted to talk. You need to be aware of some of what we will be doing that wasn¡¯t available to others when they wrote the articles you have read.¡± ¡°So, with a database guy I could combine some of the databases that others produced and map out a good portion of the developmental pathways from stem cells to fully differentiated¡­ if we could print out proteins we could fill in all the gaps or even force new paths¡­¡± Melinda waited patiently while Elsa babbled on. ¡°Oh! This was your plan all along and I was too dumb to pick up the phone!¡± Elsa exclaimed with embarrassment. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I figured you would talk to me when you were ready.¡¯ Melinda replied. ¡°So, there is some equipment I read about. They use it for testing pharmaceuticals. It can automatically inject different solutions into hundreds of cells. If we had that, plus what we just talked about we could probably come up with new medicines.¡± ¡°Of course. I¡¯ll look into that. Medicines are just a part of what we will look at, but it¡¯s enough for initial funding.¡± Melinda replied. ¡°If you are willing to work with Lata and Sebahat, I¡¯m going to finish up a business plan. Angela is a bit overwhelmed so I¡¯ll look for a different source of funding. If you are onboard I was going to set initial equity as 30% for you, 25% for Scott, 15% each for Lata, Sebahat and myself. Our shares will be diluted further when I find an investor, but I¡¯ll let you know when I have details. I will not be giving up control of this company, so I hope to get up and running selling no more than a 20% stake.¡± ¡°That sounds exciting. Sorry, did you say Scott is getting 25%?¡± ¡°Yes, we will continue to use Glitch_HR and I am eternally grateful to him for building the tools I need to communicate. I will insist that he gets at least a 25% initial stake in any company I¡¯m involved in.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± Elsa said sheepishly. ¡°Yeah, I guess he deserves it! That all sounds great. I hope it works out because I am pretty sure I¡¯m going to fail all my finals.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much about that. I¡¯ll make sure we have a salary allowance for you in the proposal. Besides, you might do well on your finals, if you give it a try. Why don¡¯t you take a step back and use your new skills to learn the basics they are teaching in class? Maybe have a little fun and give Barry a call. The poor boy is worried he scared you off. I¡¯ve heard he¡¯s a millionaire now - quite a catch!¡± Melinda cackled. ¡°Yeah, I think I got a bit too intense the past few weeks. I¡¯ll try to act like a normal college kid for a bit.¡± Elsa agreed. After hanging up, Elsa decided to look at the org chart in Glitch_HR. She was sitting at the bottom as a Junior Medical Tech. She saw Lata and Sebahat - both were listed in Senior technical positions, and there was another electrical engineer. Melinda was CEO but listed as a Senior Research Surgeon. Finally, there was a guy named ¡°Carl¡± with the job title ¡°Cybernetics Guinea Pig¡±. What the heck?! Chapter 17 - Finals, and a new business gets going At Melinda¡¯s request, the boys and girls took a break from building their corporate empires and joined their fellow classmates cramming for finals. The week before finals, Scott¡¯s Logic professor called him into his office. ¡°Scott, I have some concerns. You have been missing a lot of my classes. When you show up and take tests, your grades have been nearly perfect. The exception was one test where you didn¡¯t show up for class, but you did well enough on a make-up test to keep your grade average high enough to pass. At the beginning of the year, you showed up most days and your grades were mediocre.¡± ¡°Uh, yeah. I can see how that looks strange. I¡¯ve been studying a lot at home and working on some projects outside of school.¡± Scott explained. ¡°That is plausible. I¡¯m concerned that you might have bought the answers to my tests and are skipping class because you plan to cheat and don¡¯t need to waste your time learning.¡± ¡°Oh! No, I¡¯m not cheating. I learned a few tricks that made figuring out most of your problems easier, but I haven¡¯t seen any of the questions in advance. I could prove it if you gave me some problems to solve.¡± ¡°OK. I¡¯m going to give you the final early so there is no way you can cheat.¡± Dr. Weng expected to see Scott looking panicked. Instead, he relaxed and smiled. ¡°Oh, that would be great! That means I don¡¯t have any tests scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.¡± ¡°Hrmm¡­ well here is the test. You have 2 hours. I¡¯m going to work on some other projects while you work.¡± Scott finished after about half an hour. ¡°Uh, here you go. All done.¡± Dr. Weng looked over the test. The work Scott showed was definitely not the techniques he had shared in class - they had a lot less steps and some symbols he didn¡¯t recognize. ¡°Your answers are all correct. Sorry for accusing you of cheating, but can you explain what these symbols are?¡± Dr. Weng asked, puzzled. ¡°Oh sure. Like I said I learned a few tricks online. If I can have my phone back I¡¯ll send you a couple links.¡± After Scott left, Dr. Weng started reading. This couldn¡¯t be right¡­ Surely this method was oversimplifying things! He looked up the author and sent him an email asking for clarification. The response detailed referred him to several extensive mathematical proofs supporting the original article. It had boiled something extremely complicated down to a few simple operations. It was kind of genius - how lucky for Scott to have stumbled on something like this! Sometimes dumb luck beat hard work, but he left Scott¡¯s grade as an A. The second link was a similarly brilliant insight from a different mathematician. Once was dumb luck, but how did lightning strike twice in one place?
Lata Dhar worked at a small-scale chip fabrication plant near Hyderabad. She enjoyed designing chips, but the equipment at her plant was several generations outdated. Even with the pittance the employees were paid they couldn¡¯t compete with modern facilities that could print chips that were many times more powerful. Poor management had tried to squeeze out more profit by overworking and underpaying employees instead of upgrading the equipment. Recently, their facility had been purchased by an American company. Presumably they had bought it cheap, but she wondered what they could want with this outdated equipment. Her new boss had a strange manner of talking - Lata assumed it was just a slow connection. She had described a fairly simple design. Multiple strings 100 um in length with code that would convert 6-bit codes into 20 configurations of positive and negative charge. The remaining codes were confusingly labeled as ¡°bound¡± and she was supposed to just release the charges. The feature positions were carefully specified, but it basically just repeated 2500 times down the string. It was supposed to take instructions from a more traditional CPU architecture to specify timing. Overall, this was not a difficult design, and she had a working plan after about a week. Puzzled, she called her new boss. ¡°We have your chip ready to produce next week if you want.¡± ¡°Excellent - now the hard part. When you print it, you will not add the final insulating layer. Instead, you will find a way to keep the wafer in clean room conditions and deliver it to a warehouse I am renting 3 miles away. The final layers of the chips will be printed there using some specialized equipment.¡± Lata thought that sounded tedious and risky, but also very interesting. ¡°Do you mind if I ask what you are planning at the other facility?¡± ¡°No problem, dear. I was planning to hand it over to you to manage after the contractors are finished with assembly. We are going to deposit a single layer and run an x-ray laser lithography for the final etched layer. The feature size will be 1 nm which is well beyond what any available equipment can handle. Since we are doing a single layer, it will only take one pulse after we deposit a layer of conductive material. I expect there will be a lot of defects initially and the architecture is not easy to test electronically. We are going to do a few hundred runs over the next couple weeks and send them to a specialized facility in the United States for testing.¡± ¡°1nm! That¡¯s just a few atoms wide. It¡¯s impossible to print a transistor that small. Even with x-rays your error rate would be unacceptable¡± Lata objected. ¡°Yes, that is true if you were printing transistors. Note that I said features and not transistors. Basically, we are etching space for insulators between small regions of slightly positive and negative charge. The charges will be at very low voltage to minimize bleed.¡± ¡°Anyway, the interesting thing about this design is we are using the charged regions to catalyze a certain type of chemical reaction. The process should be quite error tolerant - it was designed by someone far smarter than me.¡± Melinda figured either God or billions of years of evolution definitely qualified as smarter than her! Lata thought her boss was being purposely opaque about what they were building. ¡°Is there a reason you aren¡¯t telling me more about what this is for?¡± Lata asked. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Indeed. Before you tour the other facility, I have some rather strict confidentiality agreements,¡± Ms. White admitted. Then she added, ¡°If you accept the terms, I would like to reward you with some equity in this venture. This depends on if you can meet my rather strict production targets.¡± Lata was too curious to back out now. She signed the agreements and entered the facility. A series of cylindrical machines made up a line about 30 meters long. At the end was a rather heavy steel chamber with what looked like vacuum pumps attached and some equipment that looked like vapor deposition machinery she was more familiar with. The contractor giving her tour seemed rather excited. ¡°We have 15 high powered klystrons in series. They move through a rather expensive array of magnets. It took us about hundreds of man hours to assemble the sections offsite.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what that is.¡± Lata admitted. ¡°Oh, it accelerates electrons through a series of linear accelerators. As it passes through the magnet array you create an x-ray beam. It¡¯s awesome, but you need to get behind the lead shielding when it is running, or you will get cancer.¡± The contractor laughed. ¡°Sure, that sounds impressive.¡± ¡°Yeah, then it goes through a series of lead plate templates and solid diffraction crystals. Finally, it hits a standard 8-inch wafer in the deposition chamber.¡± Lata was impressed but had some more questions. ¡°Oh, we have an operations manual for when you take over this place. Everything except how to get your wafer in there in clean condition, which I assume you have handled. Oh, I forgot the best part!¡± They walked around behind the huge machine to a device about as big as a filing cabinet with some large tubes going in and big cables coming out. There was a logo that said Genysis Power on the side. ¡°I have no idea how this works, but it powers the whole building including the laser! You''re not even on the power grid. The boss lady said that there were some tamper proof electronics inside. If you try to open it to look inside the whole thing will melt into scrap. The important thing is it needs water flowing through it to keep cool. There is an 8-pound canister they said has fuel and some instructions for swapping it out. There was a crate with a few dozen locked up back.¡± ¡°Is it safe to handle?¡± ¡°There are some warnings about acceptable heat ranges - nothing too difficult. I thought for sure this was some kind of nuclear battery, but it must be some kind of advanced fuel cell. One of my guys was nosy and said he thinks there is hydrogen in the canister. No idea how long it lasts - there wasn¡¯t really a battery gauge or anything that we saw. There were some LED lights that should turn on when it needs replacement.¡± ¡°Who are these people?¡± ¡°I have no idea. We tested the laser 3 times. The generator still hasn¡¯t registered low power. We all thought it would run out after one shot. Anyway, we all signed some crazy confidentiality contracts, so you are the last person I¡¯m allowed to talk to. Good luck, and here is my info if you have any questions or need any adjustments to the machinery.¡± A few days later, Lata received a call from an American named Elsa Pittman. Elsa explained the rather ambitious goal of this project. Lata mentioned she was supposed to produce a set of chips for testing. Elsa admitted she didn¡¯t know about that plan, but she promised she would talk to Melinda to get details. Elsa also casually mentioned that Melinda had mentioned they were both part owners of a company called Genysis Biotech along with a couple other people. ¡°Wait, Genysis was the name on that strange device that powered the x-ray laser. Genysis Energy I think?¡± Lata said. ¡°And you¡¯re saying I¡¯m a part owner of this company?!¡± ¡°Oh, Genysis Energy is run by my friend Barry. Not sure how much I can say about it, but that is really cool they are using it to power your lab!¡± She added, ¡°Oh yeah, I¡¯m surprised Melinda didn¡¯t tell you this. Sometimes I think she forgets she can talk to people! Yeah, I¡¯ll remind her to send the details, but you own 150,000 shares. The investors valued the company at $15 per share for the initial funding round. It¡¯s kind of unbelievable. Sure, it¡¯s a great idea, but I have no idea how Melinda convinces people to give her all that money.¡±
Phillp Schuman was controlling a lightly armored but nimble robot. His opponent had gone for the more traditional wedge-shaped style with an armature intended to flip over an opponent. Philip was amused that people still tried designs like that. It had been a fairly dominant style ten years earlier, but modern robots were hardly in danger of losing their balance. His robot consisted of 5 limbs and a central core. The limbs could be used either for mobility or attack. The central core of his had the batteries and motors safely behind some tough composite armor. All the limbs had cables that transmitted the force needed to move. He was pretty proud of the AI controllers that helped keep balance and transformed his control input into various actions. He couldn¡¯t take credit for the latest controller code. Some college student named Matt Stanton had helped him in exchange for helping Matt work on a very interesting project. Anyway, he had let his thoughts drift and the wedge robot had driven under his robot. He was currently using a four-leg configuration which gave good stability while leaving an arm to attack. Even without him paying attention, his robot had scampered up on top of the larger wedge and was holding on as it tried ineffectively to use its flipper arm to pummel him. Looking at a screen on his controller, he targeted the servo on the flipper. Waiting until it was extended, the one free arm lashed out with a quick stab. There were some sparks and his opponent¡¯s limb was disabled in one hit. With a quick flex, his robot leaned far to one side. It planted the free arm and flipped the wedge upside down. He was going to climb onto its underside and start dismantling it, but his opponent conceded. Watching a few other fights, Phillip felt pretty confident he was going to win this regional tournament. He had come 3rd in nationals last year, but his robot last year ended up so beat up he couldn¡¯t participate in the big invitational league in Japan. That was worth real money, but honestly his robot last year would have been crushed. This year, he thought his chances were pretty good, but he might miss out on nationals. The project Matt was working on had some similarities to the battle robot he was currently playing with. It had 6 arms, but they were much bigger than his creation extending to about 8 feet. The arms could be used to hold objects of various sizes at any orientation. Large heavy objects would be held by multiple arms, while smaller objects could be picked up by a single arm. The arms could switch out attachments on their ends for various tools or gripping devices weighing up to around 10 pounds. What really excited Phillip was that this device was designed to assemble other robots. He thought about all the hours he had spent putting together his designs. It always seemed like he could use an extra hand to grab the tool he needed while keeping various parts in place. His latest robot had been particularly challenging to assemble. You needed to hold several cables at the right tension while lining up parts and tightening screws in multiple locations. Matt had used his battle robot design as a test and his machine assembled the whole thing in about 25 minutes. He had driven to a small workshop near Spring Vale after corresponding with Matt and a woman who he claimed was his boss. They had spent most of a weekend assembling and testing Matt¡¯s project. Melinda has paid him $5k which was an awesome bonus on top of getting to work on a really exciting project! Now, Melinda had invited him to spend 3 weeks working on some project in Mexico. She had made him sign some pretty serious looking confidentiality agreements, but Phillip was excited to see what Melinda and Matt were up to. He was disappointed that he would miss the national fighting robot championship. From what he had seen on YouVid, there was only one other robot that he thought would cause him problems. It was a real beast made by some guy called Rafael Sarkisyan. Rafael¡¯s robot didn¡¯t have the elegance of Phillip¡¯s robot, but it made up for it in overpowering weaponry. It was basically a ball of robot death covered in layers of vibrating blades and spikes. He had seen this beast cut through almost any armor or robot limb that it could touch. Anyway, he was getting paid $20k plus expenses for a 3-week trip to work on a secret robotics project. How could he turn that down?! Chapter 18 - Mexico part 1 With Finals over, most students were going home to visit with family over the holiday. Melinda had invited Scott, Matt, Barry, Adriana and Elsa to come to Mexico. She claimed it would be for business and a fun retreat that would last 10 days starting a few days after Christmas. Matt left shortly after his last final. Apparently he was needed to help set something up, but he didn¡¯t know the details. His parents had moved to Singapore after he graduated High School and he had not planned to visit this year. Scott enjoyed his time with family. His sister Alyssa was still in high school. Despite being a couple years younger, his sister had always been more confident and popular. She had been a bit nicer to him since he went off to college. Alyssa was planning to go to a smaller school in South Carolina on a soccer scholarship. ¡°So Scott,¡± Alyssa teased. ¡°Have you met any girls yet?¡± ¡°You are worse than mom!¡± Scott complained. ¡°There is a girl I like, but she¡¯s not interested. We are working on a project together.¡± ¡°Oh, so she¡¯s a nerd too,¡± Alyssa laughed. ¡°Well, she¡¯s probably not impressed by your appearance. But¡­ don''t give up too easily. You are a pretty good guy, and you¡¯ll get a good job once you graduate - a girl could do worse. Don¡¯t be too hard on yourself. That¡¯s my job!¡± ¡°Wow, that¡¯s surprisingly nice of you.¡± Scott said. ¡°Don¡¯t tell mom and dad, but I might not even finish school. That project I¡¯m working on - I¡¯m starting a company with some of my friends and so far it¡¯s going pretty well.¡± ¡°That¡¯s kind of awesome! But I hope you aren¡¯t going to drop right now. Mom was bragging about how you got straight A¡¯s this semester. ¡° ¡°Yeah, I told myself I¡¯d give it one more semester. It¡¯s a lot of work, but I think I can keep passing my classes for now, and we aren¡¯t making any money yet. I kind of need to keep living in the dorm. Oh, I forgot to tell you¡­ our group is all going to Mexico in a few days! We will be doing some work, but it should be a chance to have fun hanging out with my friends.¡± ¡°Is that girl going to be there? What is her name?¡± Alyssa asked, interested. ¡°Adrianna. I¡¯m not sure, but I think she will.¡± ¡°Nice, I want to hear all about how it goes.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t tell you much. We are keeping everything secret right now.¡± ¡°Duh, I don¡¯t care about your silly business. It¡¯s probably just nerd computer stuff anyway. I want to know if you hook up with Adrianna! It¡¯s so embarrassing to have an older brother who¡¯s never gone on a real date!¡± ¡°Ugh. Well, nothing is going to happen, but if it does, I am not telling you!¡± ¡°Lame¡± Alyssa laughed. But she grinned and left him alone after that.
Scott, Barry and the girls were on the same flight. They were excited and curious about what this trip was about. Melinda had not shared much in the way of details despite their pestering her. Matt had gone up earlier and had been evasive about what he was working on. They had flown into a city called Merida and a private driver was waiting for them. After leaving the city, the lush tropical scenery was beautiful as they drove to a small town called Sisal. They went past the town and continued along the coast to the East. The coast was rocky and did not have the large swamps that were common further around the peninsula. They saw a series of what looked like vacation homes before they pulled up to a fairly modest house hidden in the trees. As they pulled up, Scott noticed a large metal shed next to the house which looked new. There were a couple work crews. One seemed to be building a wall around the property. The other was unloading a truck filled with some heavy looking crates into the shed. Matt and Melinda came out to greet them. Melinda was holding a margarita in one hand and her phone in the other. She smiled but refrained from babbling at them. ¡°Hey guys!¡± Matt said, excited. ¡°I¡¯ll show you your rooms. Scott & Barry are sharing a room. Adrianna and Elsa are in this one here.¡± ¡°Did you get your own room?¡± Barry asked. ¡°No, I¡¯m sharing with a guy named Phillip, and Melinda is sharing with Lata.¡± ¡°Ooh, Lata is here?¡± Elsa asked. ¡°That was a long way for her to travel.¡± Melinda nodded. A middle-aged Indian woman, who looked comfortable in the heat, emerged from one of the rooms. ¡°Hello, you must be Elsa. I had pictured you as being older given how diligent you worked on testing our chips.¡± ¡°Yeah, Elsa has completely ditched all her friends working on that project.¡± ¡°I worked with Matt a bit,¡± Elsa protested. ¡°He assembled the testing equipment and even made a cool robotic arm to switch out the chips.¡± Barry looked a bit jealous ¡°So you ditched me to hang out with my best friend. I¡¯m a bit offended.¡± Elsa gave Barry a grin and a big hug. ¡°Well, I did miss you, but I¡¯ve been so busy! Besides, Matt¡¯s robots are super useful.¡± ¡°I have to admit that is true. We used that contraption of his to assemble our latest reactor,¡± Barry admitted. ¡°Oh, was that your work?¡± Lata asked. ¡°We¡¯ve been running our X-Ray laser around the clock and only had to refuel your reactor twice. It is amazing!¡± ¡°Wait a minute. X-Ray laser? When did we get one of those?!¡± Scott asked. They all chatted a bit longer, getting caught up on the various projects they had worked on the past couple months. Finally, the subject turned to what Matt had been up to in Mexico the past week. ¡°Oh, so we finally got to the main event!¡± Matt said with glee. He led the group outside where they went into the large metal shed. It was almost as big as the house - could you even call it a shed? Scott wondered as they entered. Inside there were stacks of the large crates. A wide array of parts and partially assembled equipment covered one side of the interior room. On the other side, a guy who appeared to be late 20s with a rather impressive beard smiled and walked over. ¡°Hey everyone! I¡¯m Phillip Schuman and I¡¯ve been working with Matt. He told me it was OK to show you all what we¡¯ve been doing here.¡± The small group introduced themselves. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Phillip showed them a 3D printer that seemed to be printing metal parts at a high temperature. They were behind some heavy double paned glass and there seemed to be some heavy-duty air conditioning keeping the rest of the facility at a pleasant temperature. ¡°We are leasing these.¡± Phillip explained. ¡°They are really expensive. I totally want one, but it would cost over a million. Hopefully I can borrow it to build my next fighting robot once we get this project up and running.¡± Matt scowled at him. They moved on to a large machine with 6 large arms darting around. It was fascinating to watch as it changed attachments between a screwdriver, drill, clamps, a welding tool, and some kind of saw. It looked like what it should be doing would be really loud. ¡°Yeah, we have an active noise cancellation system. It was also not cheap, but the boss insisted we needed to keep our activity from bothering the neighbors.¡± The group watched as the machine assembled what looked like a metal shell with various modules attached. Scott asked what it was building. ¡°Oh, that looks like a fusing mod. It basically takes a bunch of sediment and flash boils excess water. The remaining sand and clay fuses into a brick which we can stack up or use for surface construction.¡± Barry recognized the latest design of his fusion generator. This was similar to the one they had sent to the lab in Hyderabad, but he had not helped build it. He asked about it. ¡°Oh yeah, we had Professor Springer up here last week. He had to leave for a vacation he had planned with his family, but we were able to assemble it and get it running. He said you guys were still not happy about the conversion efficiency, but it is much more efficient than the small portable units.¡± ¡°Yeah, we are stumped on those. They give off so much heat, we need some pretty exotic materials to get them working.¡± Barry complained. ¡°Well, that brings up a good point. That¡¯s what you are working on this week! We were able to acquire some of those materials and have a small electric forge. You can try to make some of the more portable units,¡± Matt said. ¡°Right now, we are just powering the robots with long cables, but it is a hassle and won¡¯t be feasible after we get to a certain depth.¡± ¡°Wait a minute,¡± Scott interrupted. ¡°You are already starting to dig?¡± ¡°Yeah!¡± Phillip interrupted. ¡°We had a lot of this pre-assembled and started producing robots a couple days ago. They have been hard at work¡± He pointed to a set of stairs heading down, practically bouncing with excitement. The group went downstairs. There was a fairly large room that had been roughly carved out of the limestone under the shed. The room was larger than the shed and had a large pool covering about half the floor. There was another generator down here with a bunch of cables going into the water. Sitting in front of a large monitor was another man with graying blond hair and a middle-aged physique. ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Rafael Sarkisyan. I helped design the cutting tools on the mining robots and right now I¡¯m making sure they are following the plan.¡± The main switched the screen he was working on to show a diagram. It appeared to be a side view of a tunnel system under the sea floor. There was a long tunnel near the top that started at what was labeled as the factory. The scale wasn¡¯t clear, but the tunnel sloped down and then went through a series of switchbacks going down. There was a more vertical shaft roughly in the center of where the tunnels went back and forth. Most of the tunnels were colored red, but a small part of the first slope down and the upper part of the vertical shaft were colored green. Looking closely, there were several dots moving up and down the tunnel. They all received an email from Melinda at about this time. Welcome boys to our first mining operation! I figured I¡¯d wait to send this so it wouldn¡¯t ruin the surprise. Early on in the process I decided that the walls of the Chicxulub crater would be a great site for our first operation. As you probably know, this is a 110 mile-wide impact crater believed to be where an asteroid hit 65 million years ago. ¡°Oh yeah, that¡¯s what killed the dinosaurs.¡± Barry said. About a mile below the seafloor are some large faults where liquified material from the asteroid and the mantle layer intruded far up into the crust. As a side effect, this area is poor in hydrocarbons and the faulting makes drilling operations difficult. In short, it is a large region that is potentially rich in rare elements but not valuable to the state-owned Mexican oil company that holds the lease. It turns out that Glitch_HR is not only good at finding conventional employees, but it can find government officials willing to expedite permits for an unofficial fee. I was able to negotiate rights to an area of about 5000 acres that extends in a strip from here to out deep in the gulf. Since we are a new company, they insisted on a pretty sizable yearly fee. I was able to convince them we were researching techniques to access difficult geologic formations. They either didn¡¯t notice or didn¡¯t care that I kept full rights to any minerals extracted in exchange for giving them a large share of any revenue from hydrocarbons. We have taken efforts to keep our operations hidden. We are technically honoring the permits and contracts, but if the government or oil company realizes what we are doing they may try to renegotiate our terms. Needless to say, we expect everyone here to keep this confidential. As for the ladies I have invited here, Elsa and Lata will be working with me on planning a biotech lab which we will operate underwater in our permitted area. Adrianna will be modifying her underwater habitation plans to accommodate the expanded lab and she can start planning the materials needed and starting construction. We will be starting construction of a base for the habitat near the top of the vertical shaft. This will be used to pull out materials from the tunnels. Initially we will build up a foundation that will rise about 150 meters off the seafloor using materials cleared from the tunnels. On this base we will eventually build our first habitat and lab, which will have access to the surface by submarine and can take the elevator down to any subsurface structures we decide to build. Matt¡¯s robots are digging the tunnels at a rate of roughly 4 meters per hour. We are continuing robot production to keep this rate up even as they have to travel farther down to get to the active face. ¡°Yeah, so we started digging a few days ago.¡± Matt explained. ¡°The green part on the map is what we have cleared. As you can see, we have a long way to go! We might get there quicker with a vertical shaft, but this configuration has room at each switchback for robots or vehicles to pass each other so we don¡¯t need to worry about elevator bottlenecks as we go farther down.¡± ¡°So, if we don¡¯t run out of money, we¡¯ll get down to the depth indicated in about 2 months?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Well, it sounds like portable fusion cells are going to be expensive due to the cost of exotic metals. I think this will slow us down. Not to mention we don¡¯t have the money to build the habitat.¡± ¡°We could sell some of the fusion tech.¡± Barry said reluctantly. Melinda shook her head. She went to the house and called them on her phone app. ¡°We can¡¯t sell that tech yet. You are only a couple generations in. If you sell it now, companies and governments will reverse engineer it within a year. We will lose our edge in a lot of different businesses! I am planning to hire an engineer to help you improve the failsafe device so that it will meltdown if someone attempts to tamper. You guys put in something like that, but we need an expert to make sure it can resist the efforts of governments and big energy companies.¡± ¡°Could we just sell electricity?¡± Barry asked ¡°No. There is a lot of government oversight of the power industry so you can¡¯t dump power onto the grid without proper permits and inspections of your facilities. For now, we can only use this to power secret facilities.¡± ¡°Maybe we could do bitcoin mining.¡± Scott suggested. ¡°The hardware isn¡¯t that expensive, but it takes a lot of power to run. We could build a farm here and use seawater to cool the equipment room.¡± ¡°Not a bad idea. Why don¡¯t you run numbers on that?¡± Melinda replied. ¡°Eventually I want to have a larger foundry and chip fabrication facility here. There is not much point until we are getting iron out of the mine. We can take advantage of the high-pressure conditions underwater and produce carborundum and graphite. Carborundum is not super valuable, but we use a lot of it on the cutting surfaces of our robot boring tools. Graphite is used in a lot of our tools and equipment.¡± Melinda continued, ¡°Near term, we need to excavate some more space and make sure we can keep it watertight and handle ventilation. Our space on land is extremely limited. Ocean front property is not cheap, even here away from the main tourist spots. Adding room for workshops, storage and laboratories will help us move forward quickly. This can work short term before we build out the habitat.¡± Another email popped up on everyone¡¯s phone. Apparently from Melinda. It was still weird getting a phone call from one personality and emails from the others. Enough of that. We¡¯ve all worked hard enough. We hired some local people to prepare dinner and they are serving drinks! It¡¯s time for us to all have a bit of fun. The robots will keep working without us, and everything else can wait! Everyone went upstairs. Sure enough, a large table had been set up outside along with a canopy for shade. The group sat down and forgot about business for a few hours. Scott had a bit too much to drink. Barry and Elsa disappeared, and Scott realized he shouldn¡¯t go into his room right now. He noticed Adrianna had approached. He was buzzed and she looked amazing! ¡°Hey Scott. Looks like our roommates are in your room and need some privacy.¡± she smiled. ¡°Do you want to go to my room¡­¡± Was this really happening?!! ¡°And help me design a submarine?¡± Oh¡­ Well, that was actually pretty awesome too. Chapter 19 - Mexico part 2 Sergio Guerra had been an enforcer for the Cortes cartel most of his adult life. Over the past few years, the cartel fell apart as their main product was legalized in most of the US. Parts of his group had been absorbed into other cartels, but he had used this as an opportunity to retire. Sergio¡¯s group was not particularly feared. They would beat up anyone trying to move into their territory, but they acted more like local police than a criminal organization. Sergio had never actually killed anyone - he believed that leaving his enemies with broken legs and arms was usually a sufficient deterrent. It kept his victims out of the action, and used up a lot of the enemy¡¯s resources taking care of their members. Sergio¡¯s claim to fame was an ambush he organized that took out the entire Merida branch of a rival gang. They had been trying to move in on one of his gang''s production facilities. He had relished setting traps and picking off the overconfident thugs one by one. After most of their members had been caught in bear traps, fallen into pits, or had their kneecaps shot by snipers, the rival gang had fallen apart. Most of them still could not walk without a cane, and it had amused him for years foiling their revenge attempts. Sergio¡¯s retirement hadn¡¯t really changed much. He still would intervene in the occasional domestic disturbance, or intimidate anyone trying to steal from tourists. Unlike the police, he had no problem with planting surveillance equipment or cracking some heads. The police chief was an old friend and former member of his cartel. He could get away with a lot, but he also helped them deal with a lot of potential problems. Sergio was surprised when he received a call from a person named Ms. White. He didn¡¯t advertise his skills, so he had not expected anyone to attempt to hire him for a security job. He wondered if she had a cartel connection, but she was an American so it was doubtful. He always suspected a trap - his habit of not killing anyone left a long list of people who had yet to learn not to mess with him. Some quick investigation indicated this woman had no employment history to speak of. She had appeared out of nowhere a couple months ago when she started using a cell phone and renting an apartment. If she was CIA, it was extremely poor quality work building a cover alias. He spent some effort placing surveillance equipment around a property she had recently bought. More interesting was that she had negotiated an offshore mineral lease in the area. Her company was an unknown startup - another red flag for a covert operation. Security was nonexistent as she met with 3 men who had joined her shortly after arriving on the property. There had been a lot of activity - construction crews quickly building a large steel shed, lots of supplies getting delivered in crates. There was a lot of technical talk about robots. Robots? Drones he understood well enough - he used them frequently. Robots were typically used for manufacturing. That was something they did in the U.S. or Japan. Labor was so cheap here, who would waste millions buying robots? Sergio decided to take the job. He would eventually figure out what they were up to from his bugs, but if he took the job he could just walk in there and ask some questions. If they were doing something he didn¡¯t like he could just turn them over to the police. That had been a week ago. Since then, what Sergio had seen he could hardly believe. Robot assembly, underwater mining, fusion reactors?! This group seemed to be just getting started. They had the right idea of keeping all this tech secret, but they were clueless amateurs. If the wrong cartel or government caught wind of this, these people would be shipped off somewhere and forced into slavery. Sergio had brought his concerns to Ms. White. She was a strange woman who couldn¡¯t speak normally, but she had an app on her phone that allowed communication. ¡°Ms. White, I have serious concerns about your physical security. It seems like you have extremely valuable technology, and it is a miracle no one has stolen it from you.¡± Sergio declared. ¡°Yes dear, ¡° Ms. White responded, seemingly not worried. ¡°That is why we are hiring you.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you understand. Your employees speak freely in front of the cleaning people and catering staff. It is almost a miracle none of your local staff have cartel connections.¡± Sergio argued. ¡°Ahh, well I may be clueless about security, but I have a really good HR program.¡± Ms. White replied. What did that have to do with anything? Sergio thought. ¡°Anyway, we are at a vulnerable phase of our operations right now. Please let me know your recommendations for securing our facility and if you need additional people. I will provide you with a list of candidates we are willing to hire if you tell me what skills they need, but you can have final say.¡± Melinda continued. Sergio had planned to bring in some more guys he knew. If she was restricting who he could hire, it would be tough. He decided to play along for now and listed what he needed.
Alexey Lukina arrived in Merida. The weather was pleasant, although a bit overcast. His mood was not pleasant. A couple months ago his facility in Russia had been monitoring activity that he believed was the NSA. They had assembled a program on his data collecting center, and his supervisors had ordered him to keep an eye on it. What they did not realize was that it had burned his entire operation, but he was not quick to share that information. A few weeks later, his servers had been attacked. As far as he could tell the rogue program had removed itself and formatted all his drives. After a week sifting through the wreckage, he had found some traces pointing to a known NSA facility in North Carolina. He had mobilized some assets there to get information, but still kept an eye on Horace Mango. At the University, his agents had infiltrated a couple computer labs that were working on NSA projects. This was a pretty big success which bought him some time with his superiors. But he found no trace of the attack on his systems, leaving him to focus on the Carolina labs. For two months he had little success. He used this time to re-establish some of his other systems. After all, his best resources were the people he had turned. They did not know that most of the blackmail information was lost, so he was able to survive. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Late in December, he got notice that five people of interest were headed to Mexico. Kids going on vacation were not noteworthy, but they were all headed to a city that was not known as a popular destination for college kids. There were a lot of expats who retired there for a nice seaside location away from the big hotels. Among the retirees was an ex State Department employee named Charles Steel - supposedly a low-level tech support guy, but Alexey knew the CIA/NSA tried to keep their best assets hidden with phony job titles. Even his name sounded impressive. This had to be the clue he was looking for! Alexey pulled some people from the US and made some calls. He didn¡¯t have much going on in this area, but he was able to hire some muscle from the nearby Calavera cartel. They were greedy, but willing to talk. He had to pay them quite a bit and shared some information about some undercover DEA agents. The guys they sent looked tough, but their training was pathetic. They would make good cannon fodder - he expected whatever operation was going on would have well trained agents providing security.
Sergio had received word from some of his contacts that someone had hired a group of mercenaries. He was worried - the cartels had not paid attention to this region in a while. He had set up some basic monitoring and had a few guys available to help him but had not expected this level of interest. The list of people Melinda had given to choose from was interesting. There were a few guys he knew - he naturally picked them, but some others were expats living in the area. Retired guys older than him, he had been surprised at how good they were. A couple guys were former special forces and seemed to be bored with retirement. Still, Sergio wasn¡¯t confident in his preparations to fend off a cartel attack. His guys were alerted, and they made some last-minute preparations. They had been building a wall around the property, but it was unfinished and not yet defensible. There were six SUVs approaching - that would probably mean 20 guys so they would be heavily outnumbered. Sergio was regretting taking this job. But the SUVs went past their house, continuing on the road to the East. He had a drone following them and watched as they continued up the road another mile. The cars pulled up in front of a beach house and men with guns started spreading out and covering the exits. A quick search found the owner of the house was a retired IT guy named Charles Steel. Sergio called his friend the police chief and they had a quick discussion. He wasn¡¯t sure who this Steel guy was, but he was not a fan of the cartels kidnapping people in his neighborhood! These guys were heavily armed, and he didn¡¯t want any of the police getting hurt. Sergio made the call and his men moved up the road a bit. They might as well cause these guys a bit of trouble, whoever they were.
Mr. Steel was a scrawny, balding man in his sixties with an expansive gut. He did not look like a top spy, but Alexey figured the best agents would be forgettable in appearance. They had put a hood over his head and zip tied him. He was playing the part of an innocent retiree, begging them not to hurt him and insisting that he didn¡¯t have much money. He had rented an empty warehouse back near the city where they could interrogate Mr. Steel properly. The thugs he had hired were a disgrace. They had broken windows, furniture, and the front door for no apparent reason. They even wasted time eating food out of the kitchen. He didn¡¯t expect a quick police response, but it was not something he wanted to deal with. One of his agents notified him of police chatter. They had caught wind of something here and were heading here in force. Idiots! He would send the SUVs to run into the police and hopefully cause a big distraction. He would have to change vehicles and take a different, longer route. Alexey was satisfied until the tires on the first three cars blew out and his driver slammed on the breaks. His guys boiled out of the cars. He heard some shots fired and there was a lot of screaming. He ordered his driver to turn around and head the other way at top speed. Mr. Steel¡¯s people had set an impressive ambush. It took a real pro to let your guy get captured before springing the trap, but only someone heavily outnumbered would take a risk like that. He could still get away, and they would regret letting him capture their man.
¡°Can you believe these guys?¡± Terrance chuckled. He had set up a sniper position and was happily shooting people in the feet or shins. ¡°They keep getting out of the cars. I don¡¯t think they have even figured out we are firing from both sides!¡± ¡°That one guy ran out with a baseball bat!¡± Caesaro laughed. ¡°Hey! keep focused.¡± Sergio reminded them. So far, he was impressed with the old timers Melinda had recommended. They had set up a quick spike strip and taken flanking positions without needing any prompting. The other guys, who he had picked up from his old cartel, were a little slower to pick good spots, but they were also good shots. One of the SUVs had the sense to run from the ambush. 3 had no tires but one was still trying to drive off, throwing a bunch of sparks as the wheels spun. Of the other two, one had swerved and hit a tree. The final SUV sat idle - the driver having run outside at the beginning of the fight. He was currently lying on the ground moaning about his foot. ¡°Sotera, are you still tracking the guy who got away?¡± Sergio asked. ¡°Yeah, I got a decent picture of the guys in the front but can¡¯t see the passengers. They don¡¯t look local.¡± Sotera replied. ¡°We¡¯ll look at it after we get these guys cleared up.¡± A couple men were pulling some of the injured guys back into the cars. Sergio left them alone. His guys were having fun shooting the guns the mercenaries had dropped on the ground. ¡°They are going to get blood everywhere in there. That is going to be hard to clean!¡± Terrance grinned. ¡°Caesaro, stick around and keep them pinned until the police arrive. Then disappear and meet back at the house.¡± Sergio ordered. The rest of his guys left the scene and headed back to the house. A little while later, Sotera reported ¡°They switched cars, stole a vehicle from one of the houses near here. I¡¯m sending you the picture. I got a glimpse of two other passengers, good face image on the prisoner, but couldn¡¯t get the other guy.¡± ¡°OK, bring it home. We¡¯ll leave it to the police from here.¡±
¡°The prisoner was a guy named Charlie Steel. The police recovered him and the driver of the stolen car. Two others got away. We couldn¡¯t ID the guys who got away. Mr. Steel had no idea why they kidnapped him - he is not wealthy and used to work in IT for various government offices before taking his pension and moving here. The other cars all had local cartel guys. They surrendered quickly when the police showed up. Most didn¡¯t even bother threatening the police. The uninjured guys will likely be released soon, but the cartel will leave the wounded in jail, so they don¡¯t have to take care of them. I don¡¯t think they know who shot them up, but they will probably send someone a little more subtle to look into it. We¡¯ll stay alert,¡± Segio explained. ¡°That is troubling.¡± Melinda agreed. ¡°Don¡¯t mention this to my employees. They are focused on some important projects right now and I wouldn¡¯t want to disturb them. Let me know if we need to make any changes at the house to increase security. I honestly had no idea things would turn into a firefight. Are you guys all OK with continuing to work for us?¡± ¡°Are you kidding? We haven¡¯t had that much fun in years!¡± Chapter 20 - Mexico part 3 Elsa was struggling. She had a lot of fun that first night and it was tough to get out of bed the next morning. Somehow, the next day they had excavated a lab space and set her up. She was staring at hundreds of small dishes with microchips in the bottom. The robot arm Matt had built was great - it switched out the chips and sterilized the dishes. Lata had even helped her set up the program to interface with the chips. Depressing was that they had so many tests to run. There were about 20 variations of chips they were testing. Each one had thousands of possible configurations to try and bind with an amino acid, and in an orientation that it could bind. On top of this, the chips had a high frequency of defects, so she had to run multiple sections of the chip in isolation to verify any results. All this had to be done for 20 different amino acids. For each test she had to add the correct amount of amino acid, ATP solution, and protein enzymes. Then it needed to sit for 10 minutes before she would run an analysis, then sterilize and try a different test or tell the machine to switch the chip out. After about 4 hours she was exhausted and worried she would make mistakes. She knew objectively this was important science, but it was so boring! Barry came into the lab. ¡°Hey, you look like you could use a break. Want to go get some dinner? You can tell me about your day,¡± Barry said. He seemed excited. Clearly, he wanted to tell her about his awesome day and was trying to be polite. Big jerk! ¡°Sure, that sounds great. I¡¯d love to hear about your day too,¡± Elsa lied. Well, she was hungry. That part sounded good. The house wasn¡¯t fancy, but it was amazing having a chef to cook you a meal when you wanted it. They also had people to bring drinks and clean up. Barry was looking cleaned up and dressed nicely. Of course, she looked like a mess. This would be an amazing vacation if it wasn¡¯t for her stupid work. The chef recommended some options he could cook. Elsa chose filet and lobster, because it was kind of awesome to just have that for lunch. Barry ordered some red snapper dish that also sounded pretty good. ¡°Fine, tell me about how great your day was,¡± Elsa laughed. She couldn¡¯t really stay mad. Barry was great and this trip was quite an adventure. ¡°I thought you¡¯d never ask!¡± Barry laughed. ¡°Nah, it¡¯s no big deal but I got a fusion cell working that only weighs 10 kg. We had to use some really expensive materials, but it proves the concept. Professor Springer was dancing around on our video conference. It was kind of hilarious.¡± ¡°I hope you recorded that. It would be fun to play that at his Nobel Prize acceptance.¡± Elsa said. ¡°Hah I wish!¡± Barry said. ¡°So, it sounds like you are pretty frustrated. Want to tell me about it?¡± ¡°Ugh! I¡¯m going to tell you and then you are going to solve my problem and I¡¯ll feel stupid.¡± Elsa grumbled. ¡°Hey, I can¡¯t help it if I¡¯m amazing!¡± Barry said. ¡°Well, how about I listen, and you figure it out on your own? Or if I figure it out, we can just tell everyone it was all you.¡± ¡°You¡¯re kind of a brat. Fine, so I have to do all this tedious lab work. We¡¯re trying to figure out what chip parameters and binding settings will work for all the amino acids. Assuming there even is a correct combination. I kind of got Glycine to bind a little, but we couldn¡¯t make chains of it. Anyway, there isn¡¯t even a guarantee that it will work with anything we try. There are about half a million variations to test and each one takes about 20 minutes between setup, letting it react and then cleanup. I run them in batches of 200, but still it¡¯s going to take forever and if it doesn¡¯t work, we will need to change the chip designs and do more tests!¡± ¡°That sounds hard. I thought Matt built you a robot arm to help with the tests.¡± Barry said. ¡°Um yeah. It¡¯s actually pretty great. It swaps out the chips which used to take a lot of effort when we first started. Hard to get those things placed without damaging them.¡± Elsa admitted. ¡°Oh, I should ask Matt to help me automate some of the other steps,¡± Elsa concluded. ¡°See, I knew you¡¯d figure it out if you took a break.¡± Barry laughed. Elsa¡¯s phone rang. It was Melinda. ¡°Hey, I was spying on your conversation.¡± Melinda admitted. ¡°We need to have a meeting about what you are working on. I¡¯m inviting Lata and Scott too.¡± ¡°Do you have cameras everywhere in this house?¡± Elsa asked with suspicion. ¡°Entrances, living room, dining area and kitchen. I asked Sergio to install them in the bedrooms, but he said they weren¡¯t needed for security. I told him it was for entertainment purposes, and he gave me a dirty look and wouldn¡¯t install them.¡± Melinda admitted. ¡°Our boss is harassing us,¡± Barry complained. ¡°Too bad our HR department is only Scott.¡±
Shortly after dinner, the group met up. ¡°Elsa, I explained the difficulties you were having.¡± Melinda started. ¡°I¡¯d be happy to help you with some robotics to automate your lab testing. Rafael will help program the robots and I will work with Philip to assemble them. We should be able to get something set up tomorrow. Tests and adjustments might take a couple days after that.¡± Matt said. ¡°Will this interfere with your mining plan?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Not really,¡± Rafael admitted. ¡°We have a design that uses Barry¡¯s new fusion cell, but we only have one of them. We don¡¯t really need them while we are close to the surface. We can test it after we help Elsa.¡± ¡°Matt and Rafeal have time. They were screwing around with a rail gun design yesterday.¡± Phillip tattled. ¡°Oh?¡± Barry said with interest. ¡°I totally want to try that out when you build a prototype.¡± ¡°Boys and their guns.¡± Elsa sighed. ¡°Invite Sergio and his boys when you try that out.¡± Melinda ordered. ¡°Our geriatric security forces?¡± Matt asked rudely. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°Oh, I forgot to tell you boys.¡± Melinda said with a smirk ¡°Our old timers just helped the police take out a group of about 20 cartel mercenaries that were causing problems in the area. You might want to be careful about insulting them.¡± ¡°Ugh, I should have known Glitch_HR would find a bunch of retired action heroes.¡± Matt sighed. ¡°Well, maybe they¡¯ll forgive me when they see some of the toys Rafael and I want to build.¡± ¡°Enough about this, this meeting has gotten off track. Let¡¯s get back to Elsa¡¯s work.¡± Melinda declared. ¡°Right,¡± Elsa started. She explained the difficulties with chip types, electrical configuration, and effort to run the tests. ¡°So, I think with some robotics we can speed up setting up the tests and it will be less tedious. But I still don¡¯t know if it will even work. Also, by my math, even if it could work round the clock the tests could take over a year. Given how expensive the reagents are we would run out of money long before then and there is no guarantee it will even work.¡± ¡°So, it sounds like a brute force approach. In coding there is usually a way to improve your odds with a bit of extra work,¡± Scott said. ¡°We could prioritize configurations to test. My training lately has had a fair number of articles on 3D modeling and simulation of molecular interaction. It doesn¡¯t directly apply but I think I could code something that could reduce the number of tests you would need to run.¡± ¡°That would be helpful.¡± ¡°So, I know a fair bit of chemistry.¡± Barry said. ¡°Catalyzing a reaction with a fixed electrical configuration sounds like you are depending on molecules to hit in the right place at the right angle. You can speed it up with higher concentrations and temperatures, but there might be a better way.¡± ¡°Well, we were trying to optimize concentration and temperature, but there were already so many variables we were going to tune that after we succeeded on the basic conditions that would bind.¡± Elsa said defensively. ¡°Might want to look at it sooner if you are looking at a year of testing. Saving one minute per test would add up. That wasn¡¯t really my point.¡± Barry continued. ¡°Anyway, traditional catalyst reactions work like what you described but we are setting up a digital catalyst. Instead of a static pattern, you could animate a sequence that would match the molecule colliding at different orientations and rotate it to the correct position.¡± Scott looked excited. ¡°Yeah, if we had a proper 3D model, we could try that. The problem is we don¡¯t get any feedback from the chip. If it was just running a loop, I think it wouldn¡¯t be any more likely to bind and might even mess the reaction up.¡± ¡°What if we had something built on the chip to sense if the molecule had bound?¡± Lata asked. ¡°That would help a lot!¡± Scott agreed. ¡°But is that possible?¡± ¡°We could add some layers on the original etching that could detect changes in resistance at the site where the molecules are supposed to bind. It wouldn¡¯t give you any detail on what was there or which way it was facing.¡± ¡°That could work.¡± Scott said. ¡°We could train the computer to match the resistance state of a sensor and its neighbors. If something stayed in place for a certain time at a certain temperature you could assume it was bound. So we go through patterns that match various orientations. When something sticks, we rotate to the correct orientation and position it for binding.¡± ¡°See why we needed this meeting?¡± Melinda asked with a smile. ¡°Lata will get her people to run some new chip configurations that use this idea. Scott will work on the coding, and Matt¡¯s guys will work with Elsa getting the lab automated.¡± Elsa left the meeting in a bit of a daze. If she understood correctly, they would only need to test a few configurations per amino acid. Robots would run the experiments, and the reactions should run at least 100 times faster. Instead of a year of mind-numbing work with low prospects of success, they might get this working in a week. She pitied the scientists toiling away in labs that didn¡¯t have the right people around to make their jobs easy.
Adrianna had also been very busy. She had initially asked Scott to help her while she designed a submarine that could transport ore from their mining operation to a cargo ship. He had been interested in her work, but he was kind of useless. So, she continued her work the next day without asking for his input. She had learned to use a CAD tool that was optimized for ship design, based on training recommendations from Glitch_HR. Melinda had approved spending money on this, and it was helpful even though not intended for submarines. Her current design was a cargo freighter which could detach an underwater portion that would act as an unmanned submarine container. It was guided by wire and much easier to design without worrying about an onboard crew. The underwater part would fill with water and could be loaded by the robots. When it docked back up with the container ship, they would pump out the water and unload. She had started work on other designs that had crewed submarines that could dock with an underwater habitat. These were much more complex and expensive, so she set these aside until they had a lot more money to spend. The cargo freighter design was on the small side, technically a mini-bulk carrier that was about 120m in length and could hold about 10,000 tons of material in 3 cargo holds. Typically, something this size would probably cost more than 20 million to build given the high level of customization. Not to mention it could be years before they could get approval and find a shipyard who could handle it. After seeing what was going on here, Adrianna was pretty confident they could build the ship themselves with some of the robots Matt¡¯s team could create. They would need about $2 million in materials. After setting up this facility, she was pretty sure they didn¡¯t have much left from the initial funding. She called Melinda. ¡°I finished a design for a small freighter to haul ore from our mine. It includes a remote submarine that can pull stuff up from underwater down to about half a mile depth. That will be more than enough for our current location. Problem is, just the materials to build will be about $2 mil.¡± ¡°I see. I¡¯m assuming that it doesn''t include electronics, hvac, cabin fittings, engines etc.¡± Melinda said. ¡°Yes, I assumed we could use one of Barry¡¯s generators for power and the rest of the equipment and fittings is about 300k, not counting labor to install. That¡¯s assuming the boys can program the sub controls and we get low end gear.¡± ¡°Thanks,¡± Melinda replied. ¡°This is excellent work. The boys are busy the next couple days, but go ahead and finalize the design and we will start building it. Send me a list of materials and parts we need to order or fabricate. Our purchasing guys are good, but they will need time for such a large order.¡±
The next few days were a whirlwind of activity. The boys helped refit Elsa¡¯s lab and Lata¡¯s new chip design was sent by air freight to their location. Scott spent half his time pulling code and articles from skill training that were relevant to the project. The rest of his time was spent trying to put something usable together and test it. He noted that his ranking was now in the top million junior programmers. He knew he had built some great stuff, but he was still mostly pulling together pieces of code from other programmers who had done the hard work. Most of the articles he read now were labeled advanced, although he did get ¡°3D Modeling of Molecules for Beginners¡± when he started this project. This seemed way more advanced than a hello world app, but the article was helpful, if a bit condescending. The work crew had finished the concrete wall around their property and crews were starting to load large piles of steel plates inside the wall in the front yard. Most of these were covered with tarps and starting to rust a bit. Barry was experimenting with a process to embed graphite fibers into the surface of the plates to make them resistant to corrosion. As a bonus they would have less drag in water. With two days to go before they all had to return to school, Elsa had started to test the new process using Scott¡¯s code, Lata¡¯s chip and Matt¡¯s robots. The first few experiments did not produce anything. Scott checked his code and found a few bugs. The next few runs produced some short strands. This was comparable to her best result when she had done everything manually for a whole day. They took a break for a few hours as Scott added code to give feedback to the machine learning based on the chromatography results. He seemed embarrassed he hadn¡¯t thought of it before. Then they left the lab running. It was amazing watching the robots set up tests, then clean the equipment and do it all again. They all took a break to get lunch, leaving the machines to run. The so-called essential amino acids were cheap because they were sold in bulk as nutritional supplements. They had used Valine for testing because it was relatively cheap. When they returned from lunch, the computer indicated it was no longer improving. The results were impressive. They could make chains of Valine of various lengths at a very high reaction rate. The error rate on longer chains was a bit high, but hopefully they could improve that with some changes to the chip fabrication and lab procedure. In short, the grand experiment might actually work. Her thoughts racing to the next steps, Elsa felt deep down that this was something that would change the world. Chapter 21 - Back to school The students had finished a few projects and supervised packing up some lab equipment. Some of the grown-ups had decided to stay longer than their original contracts. Phillip and Rafael had both missed the nationals for robot fighting. As much fun as they had with the sport, they currently had access to a world class facility, fusion cells and a team of ex-cartel and special forces old timers eager to try out their inventions. They were also pretty involved in keeping the robots running smoothly for the mine and programming robots to build a ship underwater. The plan was to assemble the ship¡¯s hull offshore, then float it up. After they pumped out the water, they would have crews install equipment and outfit cabins. Melinda had promised she would find workers. A cargo ship was not top-secret tech, even if it did have an unusual submersible system. Melinda was staying in Mexico for now. She was eager to expand the biotech lab and run some experiments now that the first block of core technology was ready. Scott had needed to take some student loans even further to pay for his housing, books and classes. His parents had said the money they had saved for his college fund was apparently already gone, and they sounded like they couldn¡¯t contribute anything. It was odd to think that he was on paper a millionaire but couldn¡¯t afford new clothes and had only budgeted going out to eat once a week. At least he had a taste of the good life in Mexico with fancy food, an open bar and servants to pick after him. Sure, he had never worked harder, but it had been amazing. His first class was Theory of Computation. He spent the class speed reading through the course materials. Fortunately, the teacher didn¡¯t seem to care. He had a class on Operating Systems, then an elective on Computer Graphics. There was a fair amount of material he didn¡¯t know yet as he skimmed ahead, but it did not seem like he would need a whole semester of this. The important thing was he figured out who was in his classes and made a note so he could ask them when the tests were. ¡°Hey Scott!¡± His friend Matt called out in the cafeteria. ¡°Is it just me or are our classes a huge waste of time?¡± Scott agreed. ¡°So, I didn¡¯t pay attention to world events while we were in Mexico. Apparently, the stock market crashed really badly. A lot of companies have been laying off workers. My mom¡¯s job should be OK, but my dad is worried.¡± Matt said. ¡°Oh, I didn¡¯t know. I got an email saying my parents couldn¡¯t send any money. They didn¡¯t mention anything like that.¡± Scott said, worried. ¡°It¡¯s really bad. Some Wall Street funds started going out of business and investors panicked. The stock market lost about 75% in a couple weeks.¡± ¡°The only stock I own is Genysis stuff. Does this mean it will be hard for us to get more investment money?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Probably.¡± Matt said. ¡°I haven¡¯t asked Melinda about it.¡±
Later, Scott checked some internet news sites he hadn¡¯t looked at in a while. Politicians on both sides seemed to be blaming wall street greed and were trying to top each other about punishments and regulations. The level of anger seemed pretty real and not just posturing for voters. Normally he would have expected them to just talk while ramming through a huge bailout package. There was some mention of riots going on in several cities where the city governments had gone bankrupt. It sounded kind of rough out there in the real world. Maybe it was best he had stayed in school. Scott had messaged his parents but not yet got a response. Later they sent a message indicating his dad had lost his job. His mom had her hours cut to part time, but they still expected her to do the same work. They told him they didn¡¯t want him to worry but hoped he would try hard to get good grades. It was pretty upsetting. Later, he found out Barry¡¯s mom had lost her job too. All this in 3 weeks? The rest of the week went by as Scott attended his classes and read through a few training articles. He didn¡¯t feel as motivated, probably because he worried about his family. Idly, he looked up his dad on Glitch_HR. He had some skills as a plant foreman. It also indicated he had some skill as First Mate on a ship. Scott remembered he used to be in the Navy a long time ago. ¡°Melinda, how is the ship coming?¡± Scott asked, giving her a call. ¡°Well, it¡¯s coming along quickly. Our budget doesn¡¯t have enough money to finish it. I was going to get more funding, but Wall Street is a mess right now.¡± Melinda answered ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much about that,¡± Melinda replied. ¡°I have got our biotech chip setup to crank out insulin. We can leave out the code that can synthesize other proteins, and I¡¯m working with Rafael to rig it so it fries the circuit if anyone tampers with it. All you have to do is put in a liquid with the ingredients and it cranks out insulin. I have a couple companies lined up to test it. We can get quite a bit of money for this.¡± If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Wait, don¡¯t you guys talk to each other in your brain? I mean, that¡¯s great, but won¡¯t that money be for Elsa¡¯s company? They have separate investors and won¡¯t let you just move money around.¡± ¡°We are talking to ourself right now, and nice work Doctor!¡±, said. ¡°Don¡¯t be silly, Scott! I billed Elsa¡¯s company $2 million in consulting for the help that you, Matt and Barry did to get that chip working. Another $600K for lab setup, but that goes to the robotics company.¡± ¡°That was only like 2 days'' worth of work.¡± Scott said. ¡°So what? You guys likely saved that company years'' worth of work and millions in equipment and testing supplies. It was a great deal for them!¡± ¡°Oh well, I guess that makes sense.¡± ¡°Yeah, so that deal should go through soon. Even with the crash, some privately owned companies are excited about that product. Once they verify it works, we¡¯ll be all set to start the next phase.¡± Melinda said, excited. ¡°Great news, can I share it with the others?¡± Scott said. ¡°Nope. I¡¯ll let Elsa know, but the rest of you can read about it in the press release.¡± Melinda said. ¡°Awesome. Before you hang up, can I ask you to hire my dad as First Mate on our cargo ship?¡± Scott said. ¡°Hah, nepotism. I¡¯m reporting you to HR!¡± Melinda cackled. Everyone seemed to like that joke in this company! ¡°I¡¯m kidding. He needs to brush up on his skills, but it would be good to get someone we can trust. The captain is going to be a Mexican citizen. Much easier that way, but they don¡¯t care much who is on the crew.¡± ¡°Thanks, I¡¯m really worried about him since he lost his job. Hope he is interested.¡± ¡°Oh, he should be. I¡¯m planning to underpay the crew but give them a 2% share of cargo value for every successful delivery. Captain gets half, the rest is split. Still, I bet they¡¯ll do pretty well.¡± The next day, Scott called his dad. ¡°Hey dad,¡± Scott started. ¡°Oh Scott. I just got a job offer.¡± His dad sounded excited. ¡°That¡¯s great. Is it with Genysis Mining?¡± Scott asked. ¡°How did you know?¡± Mr. Henderson was surprised. ¡°Oh, I do some IT work for them. I asked the CEO if she was looking for crew members on this new ship they are building.¡± ¡°Oh wow. I didn¡¯t even realize you remembered I was in the Navy.¡± His dad said. ¡°Well, the salary is about the same as what I made at the factory. But they give a share of the value of the cargo delivered so I might get thousands in bonus money if they keep busy.¡± Scott¡¯s dad was on a roll, so he didn¡¯t interrupt. ¡°Anyway, my skills are rusty. It¡¯s been almost 20 years! They said my employment was contingent on getting my skills up to date in the next month and sent me some program which has training materials. It¡¯s actually pretty good!¡± ¡°Thanks dad. I did some work on that program.¡± Scott interjected. He let his dad talk some more. ¡°So anyway, they have a number rating your skills.¡± ¡°Oh yeah, we set it to show your percentile instead of the raw number by default. Melinda said that people felt better about it that way.¡± Scott replied. ¡°OK. Anyway, I was at around 85% which didn¡¯t seem too bad considering I haven¡¯t done this in years. I¡¯m supposed to try to get above the 95th percentile before they will hire me. My unemployment benefit should run for a few months, so I hope I can get it done.¡± ¡°That¡¯s great!¡± Scott¡¯s own percentile was now over 99.99. His dad should be able to get up to speed before the ship is completed. He suspected Melinda was being generous only requiring 95th percentile, but he would not complain. ¡°So, thanks for the referral. They said I¡¯d be in Mexico a lot for this job. Do you know what they are mining?¡± ¡°Actually, I¡¯m not sure about that. It¡¯s kind of a new company and they are still getting their mine started. I think we will know more in a few weeks.¡± ¡°You just got back from Mexico,¡± his dad commented, putting the pieces together. ¡°Was that related to this company?¡± ¡°Oh yeah, it was a nice vacation, but we were also working pretty hard. I¡¯ve seen what they are planning for the mine. It¡¯s impressive.¡± Scott admitted. He wasn¡¯t really sure why he didn¡¯t tell his dad he was a major investor in the company. Maybe if the mine started making money, he¡¯d let his parents know, but he did not feel rich at the moment.
Solomon Rhodes was now really rich, but he was worried. He had shorted a wide range of stocks shortly before the market tanked. He had underestimated the damage he would cause by skimming all that insider knowledge. With so many angry politicians and corporate executives, their response had set off a chain reaction which might end up worse than the great depression. He had moved a lot of money to the Caymans and Swiss accounts, but his US accounts had billions. In short, he had gotten too greedy. The government would be tracing the records of his trades. Someone would figure out quickly that he was involved in their lost profit and also the market crash. They would be coming for him, and he was still stuck in prison. He had toyed with the idea of trying to frame that Scott kid, but he didn¡¯t think he could pull it off. He considered trying to bribe key government officials, but he couldn¡¯t get access quick enough. Buying influence takes time. You had to donate a lot of money for years before calling in a favor like what he needed. His best chance was running. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to find mercenaries who could break him out. He had all the money he could ever spend but was lacking a way to quickly find employees. ¡°Mr. Rhodes, you have some visitors.¡± the Warden said. He looked concerned. ¡°Well, I guess I ran out of time,¡± Solomon sighed. He typed a quick command that would erase all traces of activity on his computer and lockout his access in about 2 minutes. No need to make it easy on whoever came to get him. Chapter 22 - Quarterly Report ¡°Welcome to our first Quarterly meeting.¡± Melinda started on the video call. ¡°I have sent each of you a report on the financial balance and major transactions for each company where you have an ownership stake. I¡¯m limiting this meeting to Mining, Energy and Robotics since our investors have either a direct or indirect stake in these operations.¡± ¡°Since I took the time to write all that up and sent it to you yesterday, I am not going to repeat the information in this meeting.¡± Melinda continued. She seemed a bit grumpy today. ¡°I¡¯m planning to visit the Mexico location next week,¡± said Angela Stein. She technically controlled the largest stake in the company. ¡°I see a lot of transfers from the mining company to Energy, Robotics and a Construction company plus millions in materials and a fair amount in salaries. The company¡¯s balance is already more than 10 million negative. You¡¯ll have to forgive me for wanting to keep a careful eye on this to make sure these are all valid transactions. Second, there is an entry for Biotech consulting. I¡¯m not against the cash flow coming in, but how does a mining company provide consulting for a biotech?¡± ¡°Fair enough. As you know we obtained favorable leases for mineral rights over a pretty large area. I also bought up a small property to serve as a base of operations. What the quarterly report may not fully express is the scope of our operations and the progress we have made.¡± Melinda began. ¡°As you will see when you visit, the transfers were on very favorable terms for the Mining company. We have two active fusion plants supplying our operations. Comparable gas or diesel units would have cost us more than twice what we paid and would require ongoing fuel and personnel to manage. If we had instead paid to upgrade existing infrastructure for grid power the cost would have been three times as much. Either option would also have delayed our operations by 6 months to a year.¡± ¡°OK, that was a great deal then. Tell me about the expenditures for Robotics and Construction¡± ¡°Robotics was really the best deal. We provided space for a manufacturing facility and paid for the equipment. We are also leasing a fleet of mining robots at a discount. Each robot uses technology owned by the Mining corporation so we are getting their yearly lease at about half what we would charge an external company. Compared to traditional equipment and laborers an operation on land would cost about 5 times more per year. Since there isn¡¯t a viable underwater equivalent, you should treat it as an even higher multiple.¡± Melinda continued, ¡°Finally the Construction company has been responsible for expanding our facilities and building us a custom designed ship to move our product to customers. I¡¯m happy to announce our first ship will be floated this week. This ship will be fusion powered and has a submersible system allowing us to retrieve ore and products from our mining location. We have crews ready to finish out the build working in shifts day and night. The economic collapse has made it easy to line up good work crews. Construction has billed Mining $10.3 million for ship and facility buildout. A good portion of this is owed to robotics and energy. We estimate purchasing a ship that could perform the same function would cost $25 million and would have taken at least 18 months. The backlog of ships scheduled for build has reduced since the original estimate or else it would have been closer to 3 years.¡± ¡°As to your second question. Scott, Matt and Barry worked with some key partners in our Biotech company while they were in Mexico. The insights and technical help they provided accelerated that company drastically and led to their first commercial project. I split up the fee for this work between the companies they are aligned with, but I had no complaints from the investors in Genysis Biotech.¡± ¡°Yeah, no kidding. Marty was gloating about how they had sold tech and kept 20% royalties on a device that makes insulin from water and a powder that doesn¡¯t need refrigeration. It costs less than a dollar per dose. A profitable biotech in less than 4 months? That is ridiculous!¡± Angela grumbled. ¡°You didn¡¯t even offer me a stake in this company.¡± ¡°Yes, you made it clear you were tapped out investing in our mining company.¡± Melinda laughed. ¡°If that was just a negotiating tactic, it might have backfired.¡± ¡°I have a question.¡± Scott piped up. ¡°We were going strong when I left, but there was some concern about keeping up the pace after a certain depth. Something about the problems of keeping the robots powered. I know we tested a robot with the small fusion pack prototype. How is that going, and at what depth are we now?¡± ¡°Rafael and Phillip have refitted 10 robots with the new power system. I¡¯m happy to share that the dig rate has continued at about 4 feet per hour. As of this morning we were at a depth of 1010 ft for the switchback and 1840 ft for the vertical shaft. As noted, we should be able to reach depth and finish the ship with available cash on hand. Currently, there is no need for an additional round of funding.¡± ¡°Can you provide detail on the minerals you are expecting from this mine? As you know commodity prices have crashed lately.¡± Angela said. ¡°We have some data from some scientific projects that examined the crater rim, and we have a guess on the composition of similar mantle intrusions around some big volcanoes. We expect plenty of iron, manganese, cobalt, copper and other lower value materials. We are hoping for platinum group metals and some others like silver and gold. Also, the meteor may have been rich in iridium. We have confidence these higher value items will be found somewhere in the region, but it may take a while to find once we can start digging lateral tunnels.¡± The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Well gold and silver are going pretty strong right now with the panic about the economy. Let¡¯s hope you can find some of that.¡±
¡°Alexey, I am a patient man, but we have spent a lot of money in Mexico. The Americans have started digging around,¡± said Yusup Ismailov, Alexey¡¯s contact with the FSB. ¡°There is clearly a big operation here that was hidden from us. It must be very important for them to run it outside of their country. We did not have any assets in this area,¡± Alexey argued. ¡°Does it strike you as odd that all your mercenaries were badly injured, but none were killed? If secrecy was their goal, they would have just killed everyone.¡± Yusup mused. ¡°Oddly enough, 20 cartel thugs injured in a fight is not really big news. If they had been killed, the press would be talking about escalating gang warfare.¡± Alexey replied. ¡°It¡¯s kind of a risk though - usually the Americans would just have a drone hit that convoy with a missile and not risk people on the ground,¡± Alexey pointed out. ¡°Yes, so they are going to great lengths to keep something hidden. Now they know we are onto them; how do you think they will react?¡± ¡°Worst case they abandon the operation here and move it somewhere we can¡¯t find. Best case they are close to completion and try to rush the operation. We might spot the activity and be able to counter it.¡± Alexey said. ¡°OK, I¡¯m moving some more resources to this area. You need to look at anything unusual going on. See if you can intercept any American surveillance of the area - it might give us a clue. Sometimes their agencies are not well coordinated.¡± Alexey had lost the capabilities to steal surveillance from most of these sources, but he did not admit it to his boss. He would try to get the information the old-fashioned way. On the ground, bribing or threatening any business or government official who might have information.
Jack Edwards was having a very busy week. Jack was the DEA agent in charge of the part of Mexico that was not on the border, which was not an area of much interestHis assignment here was a good indicator that his career had gone off track. This week was different; two of his agents in Campeche had gone missing. Someone had leaked information and he could only pray they were dead and not still suffering. He had received a report of a group of Calavera cartel members getting injured in neighboring Yucatan around the same time. There had to be a connection, but he wasn¡¯t seeing it. The Cortez cartel was supposedly disbanded, but the report he received indicated they might have restarted. It was an odd cartel that seemed to try hard to avoid killing and had spent a lot of effort building goodwill in their communities. This was a very different approach from the Calaveras who preferred brutal killing and torture to ensure the police and their rivals would fear them. He tagged both regions for increased surveillance. The Calaveras had grown much stronger in recent years and would react harshly to a resurgence in their former rivals. It looked like their initial attempt had been an embarrassment. They would need a strong response to avoid internal factions breaking off. One location they flagged was near to where the gang altercation had happened. The property had recently built a large second structure and a wall for security. Owned by an unknown company called Genysis Mining this seemed very suspicious. The analyst noted that the company had purchased a large area of low-quality mineral rights in the gulf, but there were no signs of them doing seismic studies or hiring drilling rigs. Continued surveillance found there were several heavily armed men frequently seen on property and a few were flagged as former Cortez cartel members. There were also a large number of trucks moving supplies to the area. Mostly it was steel plate, but there was also lab equipment and furniture. Jack Edwards was convinced they were building a bunker that could resist drone attack. Likely, they would be producing drugs here. He bumped this up to a high level of surveillance.
Scott¡¯s latest assignment was painful and humiliating. Melinda and Elsa had cooked up an idea to study how muscles repaired after a workout to increase in strength. That sounded fine, but they had insisted the results would be easier to measure on someone who was out of shape. So here he found himself in the school fitness center with Elsa and Marta. Marta had also been drafted as a test subject, but she had a much better attitude than Scott about the project. The current torture involved doing sets of curls on the same arm until his arm was shaking. Then they would lower the weight slightly and continue on the same arm. At this point he could barely lift 5 pounds. It was really embarrassing to be struggling with a tiny dumbbell when guys around him were curling 45 pounds with ease. Marta was flabby, but she still seemed to be stronger than him. She was fascinated by all the equipment and exercises people were doing. ¡°I never even knew all this was here, ¡°she had said. ¡°There are all these hot guys just hanging out! Those weight machines look fun. Do you think your friends could show me how to do some of this?¡± Marta had asked about 10 minutes after they arrived. The worst part was when Elsa had whipped out a scary looking needle and stuck it in his poor, overworked bicep. It hurt a lot, and he really didn¡¯t want to cry in front of these girls. Once again, Marta was unfazed. ¡°That is a big needle. Looks worse than what they use to take blood.¡± ¡°Yes, it¡¯s a biopsy needle. I¡¯m taking tissue samples, so it will hurt a bit more than blood work. There will be some bruising for a few days.¡± Elsa had explained without a hint of compassion. She wanted to be a doctor? Her bedside manner was terrible! ¡°OK, do you mind if I work out the other arm a bit?¡± Marta asked. ¡°Sure, I have what I need. Thank you both.¡± Scott had no interest in working out anymore. He wondered if one arm would grow big muscles and the other would stay a skinny twig. He didn¡¯t really know how all this stuff worked, but he guessed it wouldn¡¯t be a major change after one workout. Barry and Matt went 3 times a week and they weren¡¯t huge muscle men. There had been an article about an exercise routine the last time he was on Glitch_HR. Lately, there had been less off-topic random articles, so he noticed the few that still popped up. Besides the exercise article, there was one about how to eat healthy in a dorm cafeteria. Even more odd was an article about fashionable men¡¯s haircuts. Why would a junior programmer need something like that? Chapter 23 - Shipping A dark shape appears in the water about 100 meters off the coast of the northern shore of the Yucatan peninsula. This was not a beach full of tourists. It was a more isolated, rocky stretch in view of just a few homes surrounded by the lush jungle. The shape grew clearer before a large ship erupted from the surface. This was not a submarine, but a flat ship with 3 large panels on the deck. The bridge sat above three floors of accommodations, but curiously there was not a visible funnel. The ship had a dark color that gave it a sinister, military appearance despite no visible weapon systems. The ship sat on numerous bright yellow flotation bags that had lifted it from the sea floor. Water was pouring out of several holes in the side of the hull. Despite the remote location, there were several groups watching the appearance of this curious ship with interest. One group had poured champagne and were cheering loudly as they watched the video feed. Their neighbors assumed the noise must signify some grand milestone in video gaming. In a well-furnished New York city apartment, a stylish woman stared in amazement. Her instincts about this group of people were proven again with this spectacular event. In a house in Mexico eight people cheered loudly as staff served drinks and appetizers while they enjoyed the show.
In a Washington DC office, Jack Edwards was simply speechless. He was familiar with all kinds of speed boats and submarines the cartels used for smuggling, but he had never seen a vessel that looked quite like this. After a few hours of frantic scrambling his aids had come up with a few theories. Despite its dramatic appearance, this ship was not likely to be submersible. It was probably just a shell. They would need to add equipment, engines, furnishings now that the ship was floated. How it had been built was a mystery. There must be some extensive underground facilities. How they were getting supplies for what must be hundreds of workers was inexplicable. Was there a long tunnel that exited in another location? He made finding this a high priority for his agents in the area. The biggest mystery was why this had been built. There were a number of wild theories, but the most plausible was that they would fill the ship with thousands of tons of drugs. They could use it as a mobile base for speedboats to deliver to the United States while keeping the mother ship in international waters. That theory seemed unlikely. Surely the cartel would not expect the Navy to leave it alone.
Equally puzzled was a group of Russian analysts. The appearance of the ship was dramatic and the idea of an underwater shipyard very troubling. The capabilities of this new class of ship were unknown, but they assumed a few things. The absence of smokestacks indicated nuclear power, but the hull design did not indicate the ship was built for speed. The large covers on the deck were likely filled with launchers for drones or some kind of unknown weaponry. With the assumption of a nuclear reactor, it was possible this ship had some kind of railguns or energy weapons. The analysts knew quite a bit about various programs under research, but the existence of a new class of ship built under such high security was shocking. The hull seemed to be made of some new alloy or material. It was unclear if this was some new kind of armor or stealth system, but they would be scrambling to find out as soon as possible. Alexey felt vindicated. He had been outmatched at every turn by his opponents, but he had persisted. His actions had probably forced the Americans to reveal their project earlier than planned, but he would need to work hard to understand what they had uncovered.
A final group noticed the appearance of the ship, although they had no direct surveillance. The Armada de M¨¦xico had several ships patrolling near Campeche offshore oil rigs and noticed a ship appearing on radar that was not registered. They sent a ship to investigate. Hours later, the owners of this new ship had presented a copy of their pending application for registration of the vessel Dark Siren. They had supporting documentation indicating a lease for mineral extraction in the area. The owners indicated that they would be finishing construction onsite before proceeding to trade in ores and extracted minerals. The Mexican Navy captain was suspicious but did not really know of a crime or regulation that was violated here. Why had his supervisors not mentioned an offshore mining operation? He was given a tour inside the unfinished ship. It had three empty holds. The accommodations, engine area and bridge were also unfinished and empty. Some pumps were still running to remove water from the interior.
Shortly after the Navy ship had left, work crews and various supplies started arriving on the Dark Siren. Observers noted that a flurry of activity had been happening onshore while the ship was raised. A small dock made of the same dark metal had emerged from the water and was moved to the shore. The water was clear, but cameras were not placed to get a good view of any workers underwater. A couple trucks had pulled up to the property, and a forklift was moving large crates onto the dock. Two tender boats had arrived from the west, and they got to work moving supplies and people to the new ship. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It was noted that the timing of crews and supplies showing up was impressive. This indicated someone was paying well and closely managing all the sub-contractors. This kind of efficiency was sometimes seen in the military, but rarely in other government projects that tended to award contracts to the lowest bidder or to politically connected favorites. At the center of all this, in a lab underneath the house on the Avenida Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Melinda had started yet another project. While simultaneously managing a number of logistics operations on her computer, Melinda eagerly watched several of the flat containers where they had tested synthesizing proteins. The experiment complete, she pulled several small metal plates that were now coated in tooth enamel. She had generated amelogenin and enamelin and added calcium phosphate. Growing tooth enamel was interesting and would probably be useful for dental procedures, but more importantly this was her first success with protein guided crystal growth. The possibilities of a whole new class of materials were exciting. Melinda pulled up Glitch_HR and started looking for some more employees.
Scott¡¯s friends were clearly enjoying themselves. Melinda had sent them a care package with a note that they should open on Saturday at 1PM. The package contained snacks, several bottles of champagne and a link to their camera feed in Mexico. Melinda apparently didn¡¯t care that buying alcohol for minors and sending it by mail was a federal crime. She seemed to be pretty unconcerned with breaking laws in general. They had watched in amazement as the ship breached the surface. Scott thought about how trusting he had been about the recommendations of a software program he suspected was built mostly by Russian gangsters. Melinda was brilliant, but he got hints that she might be some kind of aspiring criminal mastermind or warlord. Roughly half the people she had hired so far were mercenaries, and she seemed rather obsessed with building a secret underwater base. They had also hired an actual convict. Solomon had done good work moving their code to well distributed and protected locations, but they hadn¡¯t heard much from him in a while. For all Scott knew, he was using his computer access to cause trouble again. Scott would likely be blamed if Mr. Rhodes did anything. Now, on top of his other worries they were the owners of a rather ominous looking ship. It was just designed for hauling cargo, but the ship looked a bit more sinister. Government officials were going to notice a new ship and anyone in the shipping industry would notice that it was not a standard design. In short, Scott felt that there would now be a lot more attention on his company and he did not like the idea of intense scrutiny. They had started with just building fun tech, but soon they would be up against competitors not wanting them to disrupt their profitable businesses. Governments would not be happy if they had tech more advanced than the military. In general, a lot of powerful, established groups would be taking a closer look. While Scott¡¯s friends were celebrating, he was in a downward spiral of anxiety. Adriana noticed his troubled look. ¡°Hey Scott, you look like you ate something bad. Any of the snacks I should be avoiding?¡± Adrianna asked. ¡°No, the food is great. I¡¯m just worried about what kind of attention we will get when people see this new ship.¡± ¡°I think it looks pretty amazing. I would have preferred to paint it something cheerful, but now that Melinda named it the Dark Siren, I¡¯m guessing we don¡¯t have paint in the budget.¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m kind of worried Melinda¡¯s goals are a bit more super-villainy than what I was planning for our company.¡± Scott added. ¡°She¡¯s a sweet old lady¡­ OK, I guess some of her personalities might be more likely to build a crime syndicate.¡± Adriana admitted. ¡°She doesn¡¯t actually have much ownership in any of the companies. If she gets too out of line, we could always replace her.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m not planning that. She¡¯s done a great job. I¡¯m just nervous because she always seems to be planning 10 steps ahead and I can only see a couple at most. Also, I¡¯m worried about what competitors and governments are going to do when they see us as a threat.¡± ¡°Basically, you are worried that Melinda is doubling down on security and secrecy while at the same time worrying that big companies and governments are going to attack or try to steal from us. So Melinda has just been taking steps to address issues you are only starting to be aware of.¡± ¡°I guess you¡¯re right,¡± Scott admitted. ¡°I¡¯m just not sure I¡¯m ready to deal with challenging really powerful groups. I don¡¯t like conflict.¡± ¡°Hey Scott!¡± Barry interrupted. ¡°Quit whining about your feelings. Matt and I were discussing what kind of secret weapon systems we should install on Dark Siren.¡± ¡°Oh yeah, the port authorities will love that,¡± Scott complained. ¡°Dude, we¡¯re not really going to do it. Well, probably not. Remember when you used to be fun?¡± ¡°Yeah, so I think the whole ship could transform into a Mecha.¡± Matt said. ¡°Obviously it would have a sword in one hand and a big rotary missile launcher in the other.¡± ¡°That¡¯s stupid.¡± Barry replied ¡°A big robot would just sink, and all those parts would waste space. It would be nice if it could turn into a submarine. Airship would be better, but we haven¡¯t invented anti-gravity yet.¡± ¡°Yet? ¡°Matt asked, ¡°Do you have any ideas on that?¡± ¡°Unfortunately, no. I looked on Glitch_HR. There is some theoretical stuff and science fiction, but mostly they concluded it wasn¡¯t possible.¡± Barry said, disappointed. ¡°A submarine would be nice, ¡°agreed Elsa. ¡°we¡¯re probably going to be running from the law at some point. It would be funny if they were chasing us, and we just go ¡®bloop¡¯ under the water.¡± ¡°Exactly!¡± Barry agreed. ¡°Of course, if we had a huge gun that popped up from one of those storage bays, they would think twice about chasing us.¡± ¡°A huge gun?¡± Scott laughed, starting to get into the conversation. ¡°It would be better to just have a swarm of drones fly out. With lasers so they could shoot down any planes or missiles.¡± ¡°Boring. How about a huge gun with giant bullets that shoot lasers!¡± Barry said, excited. ¡°That¡¯s super dumb.¡± Matt argued. ¡°We should launch robotic dolphins that would sneak up on other ships. Then they pop up out of the water near the other ship and Bam! Lasers!¡± Barry was snorting with laughter at this point and Scott was in a much better mood. ¡°You guys are idiots.¡± Adriana complained. ¡°I design this amazing ship and you just want turn it into some stupid kids¡¯ cartoon.¡± Scott knew they would soon cross some very powerful people in the near future. But their enemies would never expect the robotic laser dolphins! Chapter 24 - Enemies Scott returned to his dorm after class, lost in his thoughts. His test had been easy despite skipping most of the lectures. It was still hard to believe he had struggled so much his first year. A man in a dark blue suit and a red tie appeared in front of him. ¡°Hello, Scott Henderson?¡± the man said. It was more of a statement than a question. ¡°Yes¡­¡± Scott replied confused. A suit? Only devils, lawyers and government officials wore suits in Texas. Probably they could handle the temperature due to their familiarity with hellish conditions. Scott realized he hadn¡¯t really been paying attention to the man waving some kind of badge at him. ¡°Um sorry, can you repeat that?¡± Scott asked politely. The man¡¯s eyes narrowed. ¡°I am agent Keller with the FBI. We would like to ask you a few questions.¡± We? Did this guy not realize he was alone? ¡°Sure, I guess so. Am I under arrest for something?¡± Scott asked nervously. ¡°Not yet. My car is over there. We have an office a few minutes off campus.¡± Agent Keller said, pointing to a black SUV. Yeah, they were totally going to whisk him away to some illegal detention center. ¡°Um, I¡¯m not resisting or anything, but can I call someone, so they know where I am?¡± Scott asked. Agent Keller briefly considered denying the request. This little twerp was going to cause him problems. Keller always followed the rules, so he allowed Scott to make a call. ¡°Make it quick.¡± ¡°Hey Melinda, ¡°Scott said. Sometimes it was really nice to have a boss that could handle 5 calls at once before she had to put you on hold. ¡°Hello Scott, can I help you with something?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°Yeah, so I¡¯m about to go answer some questions for an FBI agent named Keller. Would you mind checking that he¡¯s really with the FBI and call the police if I don¡¯t come back in a few hours?¡± Agent Keller grabbed the phone, giving him a dirty look. He gave Melinda his full name and id number. She quickly confirmed he was a real agent. This didn¡¯t really do much to relieve Scott¡¯s nervousness, but at least Melinda could send in a squad of mercenaries to break him out if things went poorly. Scott got in the car, and they drove a short distance to a small office in a strip mall. They walked into a small conference room. Scott did his best to pay attention to Agent Keller. ¡°Mr. Henderson, you were flagged by our artificial intelligence as having links to several persons of interest. Please tell me anything you know about the current whereabouts of Mr. Solomon Rhodes.¡± Aw crap! ¡°Um, I talked to him a couple months ago. As far as I know he is in Big Spring prison for another year or so. I asked him to help me with a computer project.¡± Scott explained. ¡°You know that lying to the FBI is a federal offense?¡± Agent Keller asked ominously. ¡°I heard that it is what the government uses to bully political opponents or cover up for their own criminal activity.¡± Scott blurted. Stupid memory tricks! His cursed training pulled up memories when associations were triggered, but his stupid mouth just blabbed it out. He pulled that little tidbit up from his memory of the conversation with Solomon. Agent Keller was angry. ¡°Your disrespectful attitude is not doing you any favors!¡± ¡°Um sorry, I was just repeating what Solomon Rhodes told me. I¡¯m trying to tell you everything like you asked!¡± Scott mumbled. For some reason he started imagining a dolphin popping up from behind Agent Keller and¡­ ¡°You¡¯re not paying attention!¡± Keller said. ¡°Sorry, please repeat your question.¡± Scott said. He was terrible at this high-pressure stuff! Keller sighed. ¡°Look, we have records indicating you employed Solomon Rhodes as an IT security consultant. Your company has continued to pay him. It is hard to believe you know nothing.¡± ¡°Well, I was thinking of calling him. He set up some security stuff for a human resources application I built. We needed to add him as an employee so he could have computer access, but I haven¡¯t talked to him since. Um, do I need a lawyer?¡± Scott mumbled, realizing he probably should have asked for this before he started blabbing. ¡°You have the right to get legal counsel.¡± Keller admitted, ¡°Although lawyering up seems very suspicious.¡± ¡°Right, but you are already suspicious, so I think I¡¯ll get a lawyer.¡± Scott said. ¡°Can I call my boss again to arrange it?¡± Keller sighed but agreed. This kid was hiding something, but at this point he was still fishing for clues about the disappearance of Solomon Rhodes. Melinda indicated she had already sent a lawyer to the office. Keller decided to try a few more questions before the lawyer showed up. ¡°So, I¡¯d like to hear about what you discussed with a man named Sergio Guerra while you were in Mexico over winter break.¡± Keller continued. ¡°Um, I was introduced to him as the head of our security at the Mexico location, ¡°Scott recalled. ¡°And¡­¡± Oh crap! The only other time I talked to him was when we were laughing about all the fish they killed when they were testing Matt¡¯s rail gun. Nope, not going to talk about that with the FBI! ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m going to wait on my lawyer.¡± Scott finished lamely. Keller looked at him with interest. ¡°Is Solomon Rhodes hiding at your Mexico location?¡± Keller asked. ¡°Wait what? He¡¯s not in prison?¡± Scott asked. When did that happen? Keller was good at reading people. Scott seemed to be genuinely surprised. He was definitely hiding something. Everyone was nervous talking to the FBI, but this kid seemed particularly worried about something in Mexico. The FBI didn¡¯t have any jurisdiction there, but Scott didn¡¯t seem to be aware of that. ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Myrna Emerson,¡± a woman announced. She was a dark skinned, older woman wearing casual clothes - definitely not a big firm lawyer, Keller thought. He was pleased that this kid had pulled some inexpensive joke of a lawyer. ¡°Nice to meet you Ms. Emerson, ¡°Keller said. ¡°Scott here is not a suspect in any crime, but as you know obstructing the FBI is a serious matter, so it is important he answers as many questions as possible. If an answer would incriminate him he is allowed to remain silent.¡± Yeah, let¡¯s see if he could bully them into answering. He implied that if they refused to talk it was an indication of guilt. ¡°I am not up to speed on what you are investigating, but I am allowed to advise my client not to answer if you are just fishing for a crime to pin on him.¡± Emerson replied with a smile. Apparently, she was not intimidated. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Fine, we are trying to find the location of Solomon Rhodes who recently escaped from the Big Spring correctional facility. A couple members of the staff were assaulted during the escape.¡± ¡°Is Warden Davis OK?¡± Scott asked. Oops, he wasn¡¯t supposed to talk. ¡°Yes, you seem well informed about the staff of the facility.¡± Keller replied. ¡°You don¡¯t have to respond to that.¡± Emerson interrupted. ¡°Ah, that¡¯s all right. Warden Davis was a really nice guy. I just hope he wasn¡¯t hurt. I didn¡¯t know anything about this escape until Keller just told me.¡± Scott said. ¡°Right, so I¡¯m willing to believe you had nothing to do with the escape.¡± Keller admitted. ¡°I am quite interested in your activities in Mexico.¡± ¡°Nope.¡± Emerson stated firmly. ¡°That¡¯s not your jurisdiction. Anything Scott saw or did in Mexico is for the Policia Federal Ministerial. If you have anything to ask about activity in the US, I will request that you ask it before we leave.¡± Keller knew he wasn¡¯t going to get anything useful out of this. ¡°OK, well if you hear anything about Mr. Rhodes, I would like you to call me and let me know. Failure to notify me would be considered aiding and abetting a fugitive.¡± Keller said. Scott and his new lawyer left. Myrna offered to give him a ride back to his dorm. ¡°Thanks for your help. That guy really did not like me.¡± ¡°Yeah, so I¡¯m not actually a lawyer. Notice I never introduced myself as one there. I¡¯m actually a court reporter, although I am taking night classes to get my law degree. I have no idea how your boss found me, but she gave me $2k and asked me to go to that office and speak up for her employee.¡± ¡°Well, you were great in there, ¡°Scott laughed. For that money surely, she could have hired a real lawyer, but it must have been a Glitch_HR recommendation. ¡°Yeah, so your boss also asked me if I was interested in some part time work writing contracts for her company. I guess we are co-workers now.¡± Myrna said. ¡°Oh, well welcome to Genysis then,¡± Scott said. ¡°I would recommend you check out the training section on our HR program. I don¡¯t mean that as an insult - you are obviously really smart, but I¡¯m kind of proud of it.¡± ¡°Melinda said something about the HR training system too. I guess I¡¯ll check it out when I¡¯m on the clock.¡± Myrna agreed.
A distinguished man in a white button-down shirt and khaki pants was waiting at the door of the house on the Avenida Felipe Carrillo in Yucatan. He had been nervous walking past the heavily armed older man sitting by the gate. The weapon that guy was openly carrying was not legal indicating the owner of this home had connections with either the police or local cartels. Melinda was alerted to his approach and pressed a button on an automation app on her phone. Inside the nearby shed, a metal plate slid over the stairs that led down to most of their operations. She would apologize to Phillip and Rafael later. They were enjoying their work so much they might not even notice she had trapped them underground. The man looked uncomfortable standing in the heat in his clothing - he was probably a government official. At least he wasn¡¯t wearing a tie, which indicated he probably still had a shred of decency in his soul. ¡°Hello, how can I help you?¡± Sergio asked. Melinda looked on but kept quiet. She wasn¡¯t about to start babbling. ¡°Greetings. I am Lorenzo Ceron with the ministry of commerce and trade. I was recently contacted by the Navy about the ship that is now floating near your property. Is this woman Melinda White?¡± ¡°Yes. She has a disability that makes it difficult for her to speak. If you don¡¯t mind, we can record any questions you have, and she will respond by email.¡± Sergio politely requested. ¡°Well, that is unusual but acceptable. My supervisor had some concerns about irregularities related to the origin of this ship.¡± Se?or Ceron replied. They proceeded to the metal building. Lorenzo Ceron expressed amazement at the robotics and machinery on display. ¡°This is a very advanced facility you have hidden here.¡± ¡°Yes, we are quite proud of our company''s technical capabilities.¡± Sergo replied. ¡°You understand of course that we cannot share all the details of our intellectual property.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll try to be brief and list our concerns. First, the construction of a vessel of this size likely requires dozens of skilled laborers. We are concerned about their living conditions and the lack of documentation about how they are paid and taxed.¡± Lorenzo began. ¡°Well, I can probably help with that, ¡°Sergio replied. ¡°We have five people on the security team. We bunk in the main house and have been paying our taxes. Melinda is the CEO, and there are two engineers staying here who are also Americans. They have all filed the papers and taxes to work here. That¡¯s it.¡± ¡°But who built that ship?¡± Lorenzo demanded. ¡°Right, so we used this equipment to assemble robots. The robots built the ship. We had some college kids here over their winter break who helped design the ship and program the robots. Anyway, that¡¯s it.¡± Sergio answered with a grin. This is not what I expected. Lorenzo thought. My boss wanted me to find some kind of work camp with slavery conditions and assess a huge fine or give him a reason to seize that boat. Sergio received a text on his phone. ¡°Uh, my boss said she had some extra forms filled out for your boss.¡± He handed Lorenzo a rather hefty envelope. Peeking inside he saw a bundle of money. This should keep me out of trouble this time. Lorenzo thought. It won¡¯t be long before his boss would come up with an excuse to seize this property and all that high tech machinery. He hoped they sent someone else next time - hopefully with a lot of armed men. Lorenzo had a feeling that these people would not hand over their property without a fight.
Tony Zimmerman approached Matthew Stanton. ¡°Hey Matt, remember me? We all hung out at that party last year.¡± Tony said, pretending he had just run into Matt by accident. ¡°Oh hey! Tony, right?¡± Matt said. ¡°Yeah, that party was really fun. Thanks for inviting those girls for me.¡± ¡°No problem. Hey, a friend of mine is having a party this weekend. It would be really great if you could go! I think there will be a lot of girls there, so feel free to invite your friends. Scott and Barry right?¡± Tony asked, pretending he didn¡¯t have extensive files on Scott Henderson and Barry Yong. ¡°OK. Hey, can I invite the girls too? It will be like last time, although I¡¯ll try to get my friends to talk to some other people too!¡± Matt said. ¡°Yeah, that would be great. Here¡¯s the information.¡± Tony said, closing the deal. Tony was aware that Matt and his friends had traveled to Mexico with Adriana Foster and Elsa Pittman shortly before the Dark Siren incident. They were marked as people of extreme interest to his organization, but this party would allow his people to infiltrate the group and get more information about what they were up to. The other girl, Marta Lopez was flagged as a lower interest level, but recent activity indicated she might also be involved. There was some debate in his organization about whether they should infiltrate vs. extraction for these kids. It was likely these people would easily break under torture, but the organization they worked for would have an aggressive response if they disappeared. They had scrutinized his report of the first party after the incidents in Mexico. They had made the connection that Scott mentioned going to meet with Solomon Rhodes. They had recently grabbed Solomon Rhodes. He had burned all traces of his activity before they could acquire him. He talked quite a bit after they worked on him for a couple hours. He indicated that Scott Henderson had come to him about a school project that had ¡°accidentally¡± hacked into their operation. He had helped Scott extract the data and set up some protections, but the passcodes were burned when he disabled his computers. He claimed no knowledge that Scott was working for any government agency but admitted that it was likely in between screaming in pain. Tony personally thought people getting tortured would just try to answer what the torturer wanted to hear, but he did not bring up his doubts to his boss. The fusion research Barry had talked about had been flagged as high priority. This new ship appeared to be nuclear powered and if the American military had fusion power, this could upset the entire balance of power in the world. One of their spies in Mexico had also caught a reference in a report by the ministry of commerce about advanced robotics. Tony was instructed to make sure Barry Yong got drunk to see if they could get him to brag about more details of secret projects. The last item was the coded references to helping Melinda the ¡°homeless lady¡±. Melinda White had been flagged as a key person and they constantly referenced her as their boss. She had apparently assumed the idea of a homeless woman who had disappeared recently from a local shelter. The manager, Ed Gill had claimed he had no idea what happened to her. Around the same time, a smartly dressed mystery woman appeared using the same name. By all accounts she was a whirlwind of activity setting up shell corporations and dealing with a wide network of seemingly unrelated people. Her true identity was a mystery, but she was currently active in their tightly guarded Mexican compound and seemed to be a central figure. Vasek Golovko, who currently used the name Tony Zimmerman, knew this mission was coming to an end. He started planning for the party. Chapter 25 - Spring Party Part 1 Alvarro had been slowly moving up the rankings in MegaSuit Robowars since the beginning of the school year. The graphics were amazing, but he really loved the strategy of how to optimize the load out of his mecha for different maps and opponents. He tried all the different weapons, armor, shields and utility items and attempted to find unexpected ways to use them. He studied the streams of top players to copy their strategies or just to puzzle out how he could beat them. If Alvarro spent half as much time and effort on school he would easily have straight A¡¯s. Unfortunately, school was dull and could not compete with MegaSuit, He had barely passed his classes last semester. He remembered a few nights hanging out with friends like Scott Henderson who lived a couple doors down. It had been fun to get out once in a while, but he had skipped out so many times they had stopped inviting him. Today he was getting frustrated. One player kept sniping him and a couple others were pinning him down with recoiless rifles. They were clearly griefing him. They kept attacking him after he respawned instead of just finishing their mission objectives. Alvarro had had enough of this and logged off. Maybe he would see what Scott was up to. Even though they stopped inviting him out, the guys would wave and say hello so he didn¡¯t think they were too angry with him. Alvarro overheard Scott and Matt talking in the hallway. He decided to stick his head out and see if they wanted to hang out with him. ¡°Hey guys!¡± Alvarro called out. Matt looked over, surprised. ¡°Oh hey, I guess you decided to take a break from MegaSuit.¡± ¡°Yeah, some jerks were griefing me. I was wondering if you guys wanted to hang out?¡± Alvarro asked hopefully. ¡°Um yeah,¡± Matt replied enthusiastically. ¡°We were invited to some party with upperclassmen. I was told to invite my friends so you are welcome to come too!¡± ¡°Yeah, we haven¡¯t seen you in a long time.¡± Scott laughed, ¡°You¡¯ve kind of missed out on a lot!¡± ¡°Oh, did Wedge Pizza finally start serving edible food?¡± Alvarro laughed. ¡°Not a chance!¡± Matt replied. ¡°Actually we started a business, made millions and met some girls. You totally missed it. But, I guess you probably had fun playing Robowars¡± ¡°You liar!¡± Alvarro spluttered. ¡°If you had money, Scott would not be dressed like that.¡± ¡°Why does everyone always make fun of my clothes?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Maybe you should read one of those ¡®Fashion on a Tight Budget¡¯ articles Glitch was recommending.¡± Matt said. ¡°I thought that was one of those bad search results.¡± Scott said. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you guys are talking about, but were you telling the truth about going to a party?¡± Alvarro asked. ¡°Yeah,¡± Matt agreed. ¡°We can fit four in Barry¡¯s car and we¡¯ll meet the girls there.¡± ¡°Wait¡­ were you serious about knowing some girls?¡± Alvarro demanded. ¡°Dude, Barry is going out with Elsa. Don¡¯t hit on Adrianna because Scott is completely in love with her.¡± Matt explained as they headed to meet Barry. Scott was about to protest, but Barry called out first. ¡°Whoa, my eyes!¡± Barry teased. ¡°The glare from your pasty white skin is blinding me, Alvarro. Have you left your room in the past 3 months?¡± ¡°Very funny Barry. Also, kind of racist coming from you!¡± Alvarro laughed. This was more fun than he remembered. His friends seemed more¡­ confident? Maybe he should make an effort to play less MegaSuit - at least on weekends.
Most parties the boys attended were at apartments and had at most a couple dozen people. Whoever was throwing this party lived in a house a few blocks away from campus, not far from where some fraternities and sororities were located. They had to park about 4 streets away due to all the cars. They were charging a cover to get in. Based on the noise there were probably over a hundred people, many of whom had spilled out into the front lawn. They could see flashing lights and loud music coming from the house. A metal fence extended around the property, and they had a security guard next to the gate. There was a short line of people waiting to get in. The people in line looked like a more popular crowd than the engineering kids the boys usually hung out with. ¡°Maybe we should just go home,¡± Scott said. This was too crowded, too loud and more intense than what he thought he could handle. ¡°No way,¡± Barry said. ¡°This is going to be awesome!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think they will let us in, ¡° Alvarro said nervously. ¡°That guy out front is checking IDs¡± ¡°Tony said he knows the person throwing the party, I¡¯ll text him.¡± Matt said. ¡°I think they are letting underage people in,¡± Barry argued, not wanting to give up so easily. ¡°Looks like you get a band if you are old enough to drink.¡± Tony: Don¡¯t worry, just tell them you are on the list. See you inside! The boys waited in line. Scott and Alvarro were nervously attempting to look invisible. Matt and Barry both looked excited and had struck up a conversation with the person in front of them. ¡°Hey, do you know who lives here?¡± Matt asked. ¡°Nah, I thought some old people lived here. This week we got some flyers about a party here and decided to check it out. My friend is already inside and says there is a lot of talent! Cover charge is steep for guys, but they have tons of booze in there,¡± the frat boy in front said enthusiastically. It seemed like they were following the college standard policy of charging a lot of money for boys while letting girls in for free. Great, Scott thought, I have $20. I was going to spend it on dinner tomorrow since the cafeteria is closed. Maybe I¡¯ll go get a meal at Melinda¡¯s old homeless shelter. The group in front of them went in. ¡°Did they say the cover charge was $40?!¡± Alvarro said, shocked. ¡°Oh crap!¡± mumbled Scott, he was wondering if Matt or Barry would lend him the money. Or else he could just hang out in the car until they were done. ¡°IDs¡± the security guard said, glaring at them with suspicion. ¡°We¡¯re supposed to be on a guest list.¡± Matt said. ¡°Right, ¡°the guard said skeptically. ¡°Let¡¯s see your ID.¡± ¡°Guys, I can¡¯t really afford the cover.¡± Scott admitted, backing up. Matt handed the guard his ID. The man stared at it for a few seconds. ¡°Oh, welcome Mr. Stanton. I have a note to let you in with any guests. Here are your armbands.¡± The guard handed them 4 armbands. ¡°These bands look different from what the last group got. Is it because we are underage?¡± Barry asked. ¡°I don¡¯t know what the difference is, ¡°the guard admitted. He was much more friendly than before. ¡°Just people on the guest list and their friends get those. Have a great time!¡± ¡°Wow, Tony really hooked us up!¡± Barry said. ¡°I¡¯m surprised he even remembered hanging out with us last semester.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Scott said. He was relieved, but this whole experience seemed a bit odd. He was not the type of person used to getting invited to the best parties. The boys walked in. Looking around they didn¡¯t see anyone they knew, but no one was paying attention to them either. ¡°Let¡¯s go in and see if the girls are here yet.¡± Barry said. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Walking into the house, the volume of the music got too loud to really hear conversion clearly. As 19 year-old males, they immediately noticed there were quite a few good-looking women dancing or hanging out with drinks. There were lots of guys too of course, but it seemed to be an even ratio which was unusual for parties they had attended. A tall and athletically built guy, likely on the school football team, approached them. The group tensed up. Now was the moment they would be exposed as frauds who shouldn¡¯t really be here. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m Vince, I¡¯m friends with the guy who owns this place.¡± The guy said. Despite his intimidating size, he seemed friendly. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m Matt, ¡°Matt said, quickest to recover from the initial panic. OK, Scott was probably just imagining that anyone else had panicked. ¡°These are my friends Barry, Scott and Alvarro¡± ¡°I think Barry is in one of my classes. Dude almost never shows up and gets the best grades in the class!¡± Vince laughed. ¡°Are you all geniuses like him?¡± ¡°I guess you do look familiar,¡± said Barry. ¡°These guys are pretty smart, but no one is quite like me!¡± ¡°All right! There is an open bar setup out back, and kegs if you¡¯d rather drink beer and not wait in line.¡± Vince left. The boys proceeded out back. It was a bit quieter out here, enough that they could speak without yelling and saying ¡°What?¡± every other sentence. As promised, there was a full bar setup with several lines of people waiting. They spotted Tony chatting with two very attractive women. ¡°Dang, I had no idea Tony was such a popular guy! ¡± Barry said, ¡°He must have thought that party we went to last year was pathetic.¡± ¡°Yeah, we probably shouldn¡¯t interrupt him. That guy has some serious game.¡± Matt said. No wonder he had been able to convince Adriana and her friends to go to that party. Matt thought Tony was a decent looking guy, although he wasn¡¯t a great judge of such things. Apparently, he had underestimated him. Tony looked up and seemed to notice them. He walked over, the two women he was talking to followed. ¡°Hey Matt, Barry, Scott!¡± Tony said, looking pleased. ¡°Glad you could make it. Hi, I¡¯m Tony Zimmerman.¡± He introduced himself to Alvarro. ¡°These are a couple friends of mine, Natalie and Aida.¡± ¡°Umm¡­ hi¡­¡± Alvarro stammered. He had the same speech problem that afflicted Scott when in the presence of attractive females. ¡°This is Alvarro.¡± Barry said helpfully. ¡°He¡¯s allergic to sunlight and drives around in giant fighting robots.¡± Alvarro¡¯s pale features quickly started turning red. ¡°Fighting robots?¡± Aida asked, puzzled. ¡°Not really. Some of my friends actually build the real deal. Alvarro just likes to pretend.¡± Matt laughed, clearly enjoying his friend¡¯s suffering. Apparently, Matt had a little resentment for all the times he¡¯d invited Alvarro and the guy blew them off to play video games. ¡°You should be nicer to your friend, ¡°Natalie said. She moved next to Alvarro and linked her arm through his. Was this gorgeous blond really flirting with him? He looked even more shocked than the other boys. ¡°Uhh.. thanks¡­um.. hi¡± Alvarro added. His brain had probably come up with something witty to say, but it never came close to getting past his hormones and out of his mouth. ¡°So, Tony, how do you know the person throwing this party?¡± Scott managed. Oddly he found himself immune to the effects of Aida and Natalie. Maybe hanging out with Adriana had finally taught him to be cool around women. ¡°Oh, I did some work for him a while ago.¡± Tony replied, giving Matt a nod. Apparently, he was implying some kind of detective work. ¡°He paid well, but he still thinks he owes me. I get invited to these events regularly,¡± Tony lied smoothly. ¡°Oh look, there are the girls! Barry said. Elsa, Adriana and Marta had arrived in the area behind the house. They also had armbands. Scott noticed Adriana had worn a colorful dress that looked Mexican. She looked gorgeous. He bravely decided to tell her. ¡°Urr.. hi¡­we are at the party¡­¡± Crap! Scott¡¯s stupid mouth had stopped working again. Adriana smiled and laughed a bit. ¡°Hi Scott! We are at the party too!¡± She mocked him lightly. Matt and Barry were giggling. Probably a good thing they didn¡¯t have drinks yet or his friends likely would have spat them out. ¡°Hello Adriana, that is a lovely dress you are wearing. Is that a Mayan tribal print?¡± Tony asked politely. Damn him and his silver tongue, Scott thought. Adriana greeted Tony with a big smile. ¡°Why don¡¯t we grab a drink and chat a bit.¡± Tony said. ¡°I¡¯m not drinking,¡± said Marta. ¡°I¡¯m going inside to hit the dance floor!¡± Marta seemed more confident than the last time Scott had seen her. She still looked overweight, but her clothes seemed to be loose on her. Tony prided himself in reading social situations so he could take the best advantage of people. He could tell Scott wasn¡¯t going to be interested in the girls Tony had brought unless it was clear Adriana was with someone else. He thought she probably liked Scott too but wasn¡¯t ready to admit it to herself yet. Alvarro was clearly hooked. He wasn¡¯t a person of interest, but it wouldn¡¯t hurt to plant some bugs in his room and Natalie was sure to get an invitation tonight. Barry and Elsa were paired up, so his best chance was if Matt was interested in Aida. He wasn¡¯t sure Matt was even interested in girls after the last party, but today it was clear he was admiring the view. They waited around for drinks. Scott was amazed to see there were five bartenders! Whoever was organizing this party had a lot more money than their usual group of friends. There were lines, but it seemed to be moving quickly. Tony felt pretty good about his chances of getting intel from this situation. Charm, flattery and intoxication would be the first choice. Intimidation and violence would alert whatever organization these people were working for, but he had people who could handle it if the nicer approach failed. ¡°So, did you guys do anything fun over Winter break?¡± Tony asked. ¡°I went skiing in Vale with some friends, it was amazing! Do any of you like to ski?¡± ¡°I used to ski a lot when I was younger, ¡°Matt replied. ¡°Haven¡¯t gone in a few years, but it sounds fun.¡± ¡°Nice, maybe next time you can go with us next time. So, did you do anything fun?¡± Tony replied, not ready to drop the topic. ¡°Oh yeah, ¡°Matt admitted, ¡°a friend of ours has a house in Mexico so several of us went there. It was great to have people cooking for us and serving drinks. The weather was a bit overcast, but it was still really fun.¡± Matt was pleased with himself for answering without lying but not giving anything away. ¡°I love Mexico,¡± Aida added, ¡°the beach is great and the resort I went to was amazing.¡±. She was standing very close to Matt. She had lightly curled dark hair and bright blue eyes. She was gorgeous, but Matt was a bit suspicious. He knew Tony had been highly rated in skill and experience when he was looking for an investigator. This smelled like some kind of setup. The group stood around chatting about school and sipping their drinks. So far no one had slipped up and talked about secret projects. Barry and Elsa seemed happy to ignore their friends, so Matt thought they were probably not a big risk. Elsa had ignored Barry again since the last time they got together to watch the arrival of the Dark Siren. She had been spending all her time in the lab or studying but she was obviously happy to see him here. Matt thought she was kind of a terrible girlfriend, but Barry forgave her every time. Scott seemed to have relaxed even though Adriana was sitting next to him, occasionally glaring at Natalie and Aida. Matt was worried that Scott would slip up and say too much. He didn¡¯t really know that Tony was likely a spy and Matt thought Scott was too trusting around strangers. ¡°Hey Scott!¡± Matt said, getting up and leaving Aida looking disappointed. ¡°I need to go find a bathroom, come with me for a bit.¡± Scott looked disappointed, but he was a good friend and got up. ¡°It¡¯s through that door on the right,¡± Tony said. They left, but Matt dragged Scott out to the front of the house. ¡°Dude, he said it was to the right.¡± Scott said, oblivious. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m pretty sure this party is a setup.¡± Matt said, looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to them. ¡°That makes sense, no way we¡¯d be invited to something like this.¡± Scott admitted. ¡°Should we get out of here?¡± ¡°I¡¯m kind of worried what would happen if we forced their hand like that. I¡¯m sending a text to Melinda to see what she thinks. I think we should misdirect them. Maybe make up some tech we are working on and see if they believe us.¡± ¡°Sure, I can do that. Give them a grain of truth wrapped up in a big dose of science fiction.¡± Scott agreed.
¡°Yeah, so Alvarro is crazy good at MegaSuit,¡± Barry was telling Natalie. Alvarro was getting close to being able to form a sentence, but Barry seemed to be enjoying talking for him. ¡°I know what you are thinking¡­ that¡¯s kind of lame. But it¡¯s not!¡± Natalie nodded politely. Elsa was rolling her eyes. ¡°Right, so my boy Matt has designed this ship that turns into a giant robot and Alvarro here is going to pilot it!¡± ¡°Wouldn¡¯t a ship that turns into a robot just sink?¡± Alvarro asked, finding the words to talk in the face of Barry¡¯s nonsense. ¡°Right! That¡¯s what I thought too!¡± Barry was on a roll now. ¡°That¡¯s why we had to put anti-gravity boots on it.¡± ¡°Surely you are making this up. It sounds like a children¡¯s cartoon.¡± Natalie protested. ¡°Barry lives in a cartoon, ¡°Elsa laughed. ¡°Only recently his reality has started overlapping with the real world.¡± ¡°Look, I have a video!¡± Barry said, pulling out his phone. ¡°Um Barry, we are not allowed to show that.¡± Elsa warned. Tony had been laughing along, but he seemed very interested. ¡°I want to see,¡± Tony said. ¡°It¡¯s not like he¡¯s going to send us a copy. It¡¯s probably just some internet fake anyway.¡± ¡°Oh right.¡± Barry said. ¡°Sorry Elsa, I forgot we aren¡¯t supposed to show that to anyone.¡± He seemed to sober up a bit. Scott and Matt returned. ¡°Hey, what was that we heard about a video?¡± Matt said, sitting down next to Aida again. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Barry didn¡¯t show them.¡± Elsa said. ¡°You can¡¯t just talk about a ship turning into a robot and then not show us the video!¡± Tony complained. Alvarro agreed. ¡°I don¡¯t think it¡¯s a big deal,¡± Scott said. ¡°It¡¯s not like it really turns into a robot.¡± Adriana gave him a look. ¡°Not a big deal! I¡¯m sick of you boys. My ship is amazing.¡± Scott looked contrite, ¡°Of course. It¡¯s just going to be even more impressive once they finish the more advanced systems.¡± He pulled out his phone as Matt whispered something to Elsa. Barry gave Matt a dirty look for talking to his girlfriend. Tony, Alvarro, Aida and Natalie watched the video with interest as the beautiful water off the Yucatan showed a black shape which resolved into a large ship bursting from the water. Tony noted that this was a much better camera angle than the video he had seen. ¡°We¡¯re going to install a huge gun with giant bullets that shoot lasers.¡± Adriana declared with a straight face. Barry was shocked for a second, then gave her a big grin and offered her a fist bump. ¡°Genius!¡± Chapter 26 - Spring Party Part 2 Adriana had been excited when they had received Tony¡¯s invitation to the party. She had been working way too hard the past few weeks, and her friends were even worse. She hardly ever saw Elsa around anymore - the girl seemed to live in her lab. She hadn¡¯t been particularly close with Marta, but the girl has been obsessed with going to the gym lately and Adrianna was not getting dragged into that. It had been fun seeing everyone at the ship raising party, so she was looking forward to catching up with her friends again and maybe meeting some new people too. She even had the perfect dress to wear - they had done some shopping in Mexico, but the weather had been too cold to wear most of what she had bought. This weekend the weather was on the warm side, so she was going to look amazing. She got her hair done and spent more effort than usual on her make-up. It was going to be funny to see Scott get all flustered again like he usually did. Plus, she might actually meet someone worth going out with. Arriving at the party with her friends, Adriana was pleased with the VIP treatment they got when they arrived. A nice-looking guy named Vince had said hello and told them their friends were out back. She briefly considered inviting Vince to join them, but she hesitated and missed the opportunity. They met up with the boys outside. Scott had been hilariously tongue-tied - her efforts to look good had been totally worth it! Tony was charming as always, but he had brought two scantily clad hussies who were fawning over the boys. Ugh, surely that Aida girl realized her shirt was a size too small and doing a terrible job covering her stupid perfect breasts. Another guy was with the group. Alvarro kind of had this vampire vibe going as that tramp Natalie shamelessly rubbed against him. Wait, he wasn¡¯t even cute, and he was a bigger dork than Scott! She only thought he was interesting because another girl seemed to like him. She needed to get a handle on her stupid over-competitive brain before she said something rude or stupid. They chatted a bit with Tony, he bragged about some amazing vacation, but seemed interested in their trip to Mexico. She hoped the boys wouldn¡¯t blab anything important. Soon after they settled in, Matt¡¯s pea sized bladder forced him to leave, and he invited Scott to go with him. Obviously, they were going off to talk about something, probably about that Aida girl who had clearly picked Matt as her next victim. Adriana could reluctantly admit Matt wasn¡¯t a bad looking guy, although she was surprised none of the girls seemed interested in Tony. Maybe they had some history? She received a text while pondering how to defend Matt from that harlot. Melinda: Your party is likely a setup. Try to give them information they already know, like the appearance of the Dark Siren. Make up something if you want. Say nothing about our base or biotech. I¡¯m going to send help. Adriana thought that sounded ominous. She was kind of lost in her thoughts when Barry started blabbing about their ship, but fortunately he was going back to their earlier dumb conversation. She assumed Barry did not believe the nonsense he was talking about. He had only had one drink, how was he so intoxicated? Scott and Matt had returned. Scott said something disrespectful about her ship. ¡°I¡¯m sick of you boys. My ship is amazing!¡± Adrianna protested. Scott looked apologetic and showed everyone the video of her totally perfect design. They looked suitably impressed, but Adrianna remembered Melinda had asked to embellish it a bit, so she repeated Barry¡¯s stupid idea from the other day. The idiot looked pleased, but she gave him a fist bump because his stupid grin was kind of entertaining. ¡°How would that even work?¡± Tony said. He seemed skeptical. Also, why wasn¡¯t he impressed with the video they just showed him? ¡°Oh that¡¯s easy,¡± Barry slurred. ¡°You just put a mini fusion reactor inside a 160mm shell. Add a high wattage laser, optic fibers to aim and some magic robot targeting software, then boom! The dolphin pops up and you never saw it coming!¡± ¡°That was a combination of too much detail and complete idiocy,¡± Elsa scolded. ¡°You are way too drunk. You haven¡¯t even finished your first drink.¡± ¡°Down the hatch!¡± Barry corrected the problem. ¡°Gimme another of those! Anyway, changed my mind, laser bullets are dumb. We need to stick to our principles and make the robot turn into a ship, s¡¯right Alvarro? Um other way round.¡± Barry seemed to get more insistent, but also more confused. ¡°Uh, I think maybe you had enough,¡± Alvarro replied. ¡°Nope, only had one! Elsa is gonna genetically engineer me so I can drink at least three.¡± Barry insisted. ¡°I think we need to get Barry out of here before he pukes,¡± Elsa said. Matt and Scott moved to help their friend. Maybe this would be a good excuse to leave? Tony could hardly insist on Barry staying and puking. ¡°Um, I think he should drink some water first. It might help him sober up again.¡± Tony attempted. ¡°Yeah, water. You know I can turn that into a bomb, right?¡± Barry resisted his friends, siding with Tony. ¡°Maybe some water to go,¡± Matt insisted. Scott and Matt helped Barry get moving, Elsa followed. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°I want to go with Barry, ¡°Elsa explained. ¡°Alvarro, can you get a ride with my friends?¡± ¡°Oh, don¡¯t worry, I can drive Alvarro home, ¡°Natalie offered. At this point, Alvarro was not thinking with his upper brain and quickly agreed with the girl who was way out of his league. Adrianna snorted; the girl was definitely a spy, but Alvarro didn¡¯t know anything. Might as well let him have a good time with that tart. She decided it was time to find Marta and get out of here.
Tony realized his plan wasn¡¯t going well. One of his objectives had been to get Barry intoxicated so he had put a moderate dose of GHB in his drink. It should have been similar to the effects of about 6-10 drinks, but without the nausea. Typically, there would also be some memory loss of the evening which should have also worked to his advantage. Unfortunately, Barry was a lightweight - the effects had hit him way too quickly. He had started acting erratically and babbling enough nonsense his friends had become suspicious. ¡°So, the secret is anit-matter, see? You have an anit-proton. Those guys sez it has the same mass but negative charge. They got it backwards, see, cause it has the same charge but negative mass!¡± Barry was currently explaining his theory on anti-gravity while his friends were trying to get him to leave. ¡°I think they would have already figured that out if it was true.¡± Matt tried to argue. ¡°Nope! Caus¡¯ you can¡¯t make enough to test without blowing up a city and they are chicken!¡± Barry declared. ¡°Not blowing up a city sounds like a good decision¡± Scott tried to argue. He really hoped Barry wouldn¡¯t remember this and try something dumb later. ¡°Anyway, it¡¯s like we keep the hydrogen protons in a nanotube just backwards and you have to smash ''em together first. OK, not the same but I can do it. Probably.¡± Barry looked like he didn¡¯t think this quite made sense. ¡°You angle the collision and catch protons, neutrons, electrons. Bam!¡± Barry was waving his hands around and clapping them together as if that explained everything. ¡°Please don¡¯t try anything like this, unless you ask Professor Springer first. And then, still don¡¯t do it.¡± Matt insisted. ¡°Barry is either a drunk idiot or a drunk genius. The first is much more likely,¡± Elsa added. ¡°Love you too, babe!¡± Barry said, trying to plant a sloppy kiss. Tony decided he wasn¡¯t missing anything important and stepped away and called his boss, Alexey Lukina, quickly explaining the situation. ¡°That is unfortunate. It seems your cover is blown here, so execute protocol seven,¡± Mr. Lukina had said. Instead of being disappointed, his boss actually seemed eager. Tony understood this meant he would abandon his cover identity after they started taking more aggressive actions. ¡°Four primary targets are heading to one car, and the other is collecting her friend. Which group should I target?¡± Tony knew they had a few people on hand, but it seemed unlikely they could capture both groups. ¡°Target the girl who was left behind.¡± Alexey said. He didn¡¯t explain his reasoning, but Tony agreed it was a good choice.
Adriana had found Marta dancing with some guy who seemed to be uninterested. She grabbed her friend''s arm. The girl had pretty impressive biceps under that flab. Marta turned and looked at her with a glare. ¡°Hey, sorry to interrupt you. Everyone else is leaving. Barry is sick - I think someone might have drugged him. Do you mind if we go home too?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°Oh, I was having fun.¡± Marta complained, but then processed what her friend had said. ¡°Sorry, I mean I hope your friend is OK. Let¡¯s go, I don¡¯t think that guy likes me anyway.¡± The girls left the house. Adrianna noticed that football player Vince seemed to be watching them leave. She started to walk faster and noticed Marta seemed to tense up a bit. The front yard still had a lot of people. Why are so many people hanging out in the front? Adriana wondered. Alcohol is out back, and music is inside the house. Are all these people arriving or leaving and just got distracted talking to people? Maybe they are waiting here for friends to arrive. Those stupid boys didn¡¯t wait for us, they just went out back to start drinking! That would be sad if a group is waiting here, and their friend is stuck in line outside because he¡¯s not on the list or something. Why would they just stay here while a friend looked on pathetically through the fence? Oh! That girl has cute shoes! I wonder where she got them. ¡°Hey! I thought we were leaving.¡± Marta said. How long had she been standing here? Was she becoming a Front Yard person? Adrianna focused and resumed walking to the exit. The girls pressed through the crowd. Adrianna felt something sharp poke her as she neared the entrance. She spun around, but no one seemed to be paying attention to her. The girls headed outside. Adriana paused to talk to the security guard. ¡°Hey, I think some guys are following me. Can you keep an eye on us until we get to our car?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not really allowed to leave the entrance, but if I see anyone, I¡¯ll slow them down for you.¡± The guard said helpfully. ¡°Did you want me to call the police?¡± ¡°No, I don¡¯t think that¡¯s necessary. I would appreciate it if you could slow them down.¡± Useless rent-a-cop, Adriana thought. They started walking down the street quickly. Their car was parked a few blocks away. Adriana had started to feel a bit dizzy. Had she been drugged? The girls noticed a guy wearing a dark covid mask was following them. Healthy young adults did not wear masks on a Friday night. This guy was obviously up to no good. That stupid low-rate security guard had probably just given their stalker a fist bump and then given him directions. The girls sped up, almost to a jog, and went around a corner. As they approached their car two large men, also wearing masks, appeared from behind a nearby house. The third turned the corner behind them, he had clearly broken into a run after they passed out of sight. Adriana knew she should be panicking, but instead felt calm and kind of happy. She just wanted to sit down for a bit. One of the nearby men grabbed her, while the other reached for Marta. Marta spun away from the man¡¯s grasp, then kicked him in the throat! Continuing her rotation, she ducked low and swept her back leg behind the surprised man¡¯s knees and he fell to the ground hard. His head hit the pavement with an audible thump. Adriana was being led into the back of a car but was barely staying awake. There were some muffled gunshots and she saw some blood spray off Marta who was darting behind a car. Adriana¡¯s eyes closed as she sat down, no longer able to stay awake. Chapter 27 - Hostage It should have been a good week. Their fledgling mining operation had reached the target depth over a mile below the surface of the sea floor. The carbonate rock they had been digging through changed to an iron rich ore. It was tougher to dig through, but they had started smelting iron and were also able to get decent quantities of aluminum and nickel. They were currently pouring magnesium rich slag on top of the large mound of tailings near the vertical shaft and still several hundred meters below the surface of the Gulf. The robots had changed to more horizontal tunneling, and a couple geologists they had added to the staff were busy examining ore samples that were brought up to map out any promising intrusions of other rock types. For the first time since Scott had given her this new life, Melinda was struggling to multitask. Her thoughts kept returning to worries about Adriana who had been kidnapped over the weekend. was obsessed with what kind of ransom offer would be made and how they could secure the girl. Her concern wasn¡¯t as much what they would have to give up so much as what she could reasonably demand to ensure the girl was released unharmed. was planning out likely scenarios of what would happen when their technology fell into the wrong hands. She was also worried about the girl, but even more worried about the longer term consequences. If the Russians secured this technology, they could overhaul their military within a year to the point where they could overpower Europe. Would biting off chunks of Europe be enough for them, or would they keep pushing until nuclear war was the only option? In the nearer term, how could she protect Scott, Matt, Barry, Elsa and Dr. Springer. schemed how they could launch a counter strike. She scanned through lists of mercenaries, investigators, negotiators and bounty hunters in Glitch_HR. Was there someone out there who could find their enemies, and if so could she assemble a team to kill them all and rescue her girl? She didn¡¯t know who they were up against, but was busy making contingencies for potential opponents ranging from governments to multinational companies. wondered how they were interrogating the girl. She believed Adriana would not be tough enough to resist more forceful questioning. She also knew that they had some interesting drugs that made it hard to keep a secret, so they likely would not even need physical torture. They might do it just for fun since there was a high correlation between psychopaths and people who got involved in the interrogation business. Still, if they started lopping off fingers or toes to prove they were serious, she was eager to try re-growing them. She had been working on a new tech with that darling girl Nittaya Chaikhot in their lab in Thailand. She also had some ideas of a brain surgery that might help with the trauma and probably would keep the girl''s intellect intact. of course was just mostly weeping about what poor Adriana was going through and how scared she must feel. Also, she was worried that Scott would be blaming himself. At the same time she was kind of excited about how Adriana might realize her feelings for Scott once he helped rescue her! Sometimes, having multiple personalities was no help at all. There was a lot of planning needed for their various companies and she could not focus on any of it.
Scott Henderson naturally blamed himself. Melinda had called him and apologized for not anticipating this attack. She seemed really remorseful that she hadn¡¯t been able to find anyone to hire as a bodyguard fast enough when they had called her at the party. Melinda was in Mexico running at least 5 companies. This wasn¡¯t her fault. Scott had warned Barry and Matt when they first joined that his software might get the attention of dangerous people. He was pretty sure he had not warned the girls. Honestly, he had been so excited to work with Adriana and Elsa he had been afraid to scare them off. Instead of a happy life in college he had dragged her into this. Who knows what she was going through right now? Matt had told him it wasn¡¯t his fault and Adriana would have chosen to work with them even if she knew all the risks, but he wasn¡¯t so sure. Elsa probably would have - that girl loved her work so much Barry only got scraps of affection. Yet it was Adrianna who had been kidnapped. He knew Melinda would be doing everything possible to get her back. When he asked how he could help, she had assigned him a project to upgrade Glitch_HR so it could match people with facial recognition to the data in his software. She said it was important that he train the computer to work even if they had different facial hair or covid masks. For the moment he was scanning through the training for anything that could help. Detective skills, fighting skills, surveillance - he wasn¡¯t finding anything useful like that. Scott sighed and got back to working on Melinda¡¯s project instead. Scott was interrupted from his work by a request to speak with a police detective about Adriana¡¯s abduction. She had requested a meeting near his dorm. Scott agreed and went to a campus security office that they had provided for the police to use on this case. Detective Benton was a tough looking Hispanic woman, probably in her thirties. She asked him some basic questions about the events leading up to the party and his relationship with Adrianna. She figured Scott probably had a crush on Adriana, based on the body language as he explained his version of the events at the party. Detective Benton thought this attack sounded more like organized crime, but she did not understand their motive. The girl¡¯s family was firmly middle class and not worth the effort for such an elaborate kidnapping. Earlier, Benton had interviewed the primary witness, Marta Lopez. Marta had reported getting jumped by three men outside a party near the Horace Mango campus. She claimed to have disabled one of the attackers while her friend was getting pulled into a car. The third attacker had opened fire and hit her with a bullet that had gone through her right lung. The girl, Marta Lopez had somehow crawled away while the gunman had dragged his unconscious partner into the car before they sped away. The physical evidence supported the girl''s story, including blood on the pavement from the attacker she claimed to have taken out with a leg sweep combo. Marta needed her rest to recover from injuries and she had not had any idea why someone would kidnap Adriana, other than because she was pretty. ¡°So, we haven¡¯t heard of any ransom demand and your friend was kidnapped two days ago. If there is anything you know about why someone would take her, it would really increase our chances of finding these people. ¡° Benton said. She left unsaid that if they didn¡¯t receive a demand in the next few days, the odds were not good for Miss Adriana Foster. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°I¡¯ve signed some confidentiality agreements so I can¡¯t tell you all the details, ¡°Scott began, ¡°but I can tell you Adrianna owns a stake in some startup companies that have valuable technology.¡± ¡°That¡¯s interesting. ¡°Benton considered whether pressing him to break his confidentiality would help the case, or if it was just her curiosity. ¡°I guess you don¡¯t have to tell me just yet, but maybe you could explain who might be interested in this technology? Is it likely to make a lot of money, or maybe it would hurt another company?¡± ¡°I think a lot of people would be interested. It has military applications, but also could threaten other companies'' business. I probably shouldn¡¯t say any more until I talk to my boss.¡± Scott said nervously. Detective Benton thought industrial espionage could explain it, but she had a hard time imagining that some college students would have access to anything so valuable or important. Also, it seemed unlikely that a company would go to such drastic lengths. ¡°OK, that¡¯s helpful but doesn¡¯t narrow it down. Could you provide me with your boss¡¯s contact information?¡± Benton said. Scott gave her a number. ¡°What can you tell me about Tony Zimmerman?¡± Benton had interviewed several other people who were with the victim at the party. They had mentioned a student named Tony Zimmerman had invited them and they were all suspicious he had been involved. Mr. Zimmerman was not actually a student and had disappeared before she could speak with him. He had been staying in an apartment near the school for over two years, but the place was cleaned out when she had the manager let her in. It smelled strongly of bleach and the carpet had even been ripped out. ¡°We met him at a party last semester. He was kind of a smooth talker, and there were a couple of girls with him. He invited Matt to the party and asked him to bring friends.¡± ¡°Do you think Tony was involved with the kidnapping?¡± ¡°Yes, he seemed very interested in our company. Matt and I were suspicious and had decided to leave before we accidentally said anything important.¡± ¡°Can you tell me about the women who were with him?¡± ¡°I think they said their names were Aida and Natalie. They were very good looking and seemed interested in my friends. I can¡¯t really see girls like that being interested in my friends. Matt maybe could date someone like that, but I don¡¯t think they would throw themselves at him. For a girl to be interested in Alvarro, that¡¯s what clued us in something wasn¡¯t right.¡± ¡°Some girls like intelligent men.¡± Detective Benton argued. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve heard that before but never found it to be true personally. Regardless, this guy has no money and sits in his room about 16 hours a day playing video games. Do you really think a girl who looks like a model is going to fall in love with that?¡± Scott laughed. Detective Benton had already talked with the boy Alvarro. Apparently one of the girls had returned to the dorm with him, but he sadly admitted he had no way to contact her. She had to admit it didn¡¯t seem like a woman would willingly enter his room without some other motive besides love. ¡°We¡¯ll be in touch if I have any more questions.¡±
Alexey Lukina had a big decision to make. He was certain that the girl Adriana had told him everything. There was a treasure trove of technology in that Mexico facility. Micro fusion reactors which used magnetically pulsed deuterium ions channeled through carbon nanotubes. Advanced composites to capture the energy. An advanced robotics lab that built other robots. Extensive underground research and mining facilities. They even had some kind of novel biotech device which sounded valuable, although it was not strategically interesting. The problem was this tech was too valuable. If the Russians controlled it, they could dominate the US and European military within a few years. They could challenge China¡¯s manufacturing economy. Assuming they could keep it to themselves and keep it secret. The US probably had the right idea, building this in a remote facility outside of their country, but Alexey had caught a lucky break when Scott Henderson had hired Solomon Rhodes to secure their IT. Rhodes was quite skilled and so far they hadn¡¯t been able to find where he had hidden all this data. He had triggered a dead man switch when they captured him so that even he couldn¡¯t access the systems, no matter how they persuaded him. He suspected that Rhodes might have made a different choice if he had known who was capturing him and what they would be willing to do. Regardless, this had led him to uncovering the facility and could save his country from embarrassing irrelevance in the next century. His current dilemma was how he could best benefit his country while also protecting himself. With such a valuable find, it was a complex problem to solve. Obviously, he would extort prototypes and detailed schematics of every piece of tech in that Mexican facility. Equally obvious would be the need to send a strong offensive to eliminate the facility as soon as he acquired the tech. The value increased immeasurably if he could also deny it to the Americans, or at least delay them from rebuilding it. Alexey had idly considered grabbing it all for himself. He could take over a small country and set himself up as a king. It was possible, but the most likely outcome would be the major powers sparing no expense to steal any advantage he had and kill him off. This was not worth the trouble. His best bet was to share some of the information, and withhold more to protect himself. If Alexey played this correctly, he could help his country return to glory but also set himself up with control of key government contracts to provide for their upcoming war. He would be a proud patriot, but also a man of unassailable wealth and power. It took him several days to finish his schemes, but finally he was ready to start the endgame.
The ransom note Melinda received was pretty much what she had expected, although it arrived almost a week after Adriana had been abducted. The waiting had been tough; she couldn¡¯t imagine how the poor girl was feeling by now. As expected, the kidnappers demanded a working fusion device and full schematics. They wanted the design for the robotics factory, the Dark Siren and the mining robots. Furthermore they demanded notes on all biotech research. Melinda assumed Adriana didn¡¯t really know or understand much about the biotech since she had not been involved. Her captors didn¡¯t know enough about what to ask for. The kidnapper demanded that all of this be delivered and verified that they could reproduce the technology before releasing Adriana. In short they wanted almost everything and provided little in the way of guarantees they would even bother keeping the girl alive. She was certain they would detect any tracking devices, and plans to frustrate them would only keep the girl hostage for longer. Melinda thought her best leverage was the threat they would just abandon Adriana, or else share the tech with the kidnapper¡¯s enemies. She was also certain they would make an attempt to destroy her facility in Mexico. A good deal of her efforts were now spent working with the security team to prepare for the most likely attacks. The problem was that Melinda didn¡¯t expect there was any scenario where they would let the girl go. Adrianna was a loose end who knew too much about who they were and what they were planning to steal. They would be keeping her alive for now to ensure the deal went through. They might even keep her alive briefly afterwards as protection in case they were located. Adrianna¡¯s continued health would be a deterrent against aggressive retaliation like bombing their location. Once they got what they wanted and escaped, the girl would be dead. The Mexico facility would also be exposed even if it somehow survived whatever attack they planned. Scott was too soft-hearted to be kept in the loop. She was keeping him busy at the moment, but could not allow him to be involved in any critical decisions. Kidnapping was a common problem in this part of the world, so she had found a fair number of people with experience who she could hire to advise her. Melinda also had a secret weapon that was almost ready in their Thailand lab. She booked a ticket, wanting to supervise the final stages in person. Chapter 28 - Before the storm Spring break was approaching. The boys and Elsa were again planning to go to the house in Mexico. Scott¡¯s dad was already there preparing for his first voyage. The Dark Siren was nearly complete, and they were already loading it for the first delivery. The group decided to meet up at Wedge Pizza. Scott was secretly hoping he would not have to eat here much longer. If the mining company made any money, he was going to ask Melinda for a small salary so he could eat somewhere fancy where they had actual waiters. After the party, Melinda had hired bodyguards for all four of them. Their bodyguards were all late twenties or early thirties and would even sit in class with them. The professors didn¡¯t pay them much attention, assuming they were probably students who just didn¡¯t show up much. Scott¡¯s bodyguard was an ex-marine named Brad Robles. He would usually sit near the back of class when Scott bothered to attend. Scott idly wondered what Mr. Robles was writing on the test he had been handed, and what the professor would think of it. Their bodyguards were sitting at a couple other tables, pretending to eat. Scott assumed they were paid well enough to eat somewhere better when they weren¡¯t on duty. ¡°Hey Scott, haven¡¯t seen you much since¡­ well you know.¡± Matt said awkwardly. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve been training and working on a project for Melinda.¡± Scott said, ¡°I¡¯m struggling to get it all working and we¡¯re running out of time. Melinda insisted I come meet with you guys or else I¡¯d still be trying to get it done.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll figure it out. I¡¯ve been pretty busy too. There is a lot going on in Mexico right now.¡± Matt replied. ¡°On the plus side, with all this work my Junior Programmer ranking is up to about 74 thousand,¡± Scott said with a bit of pride. ¡°Nice work!¡± Matt said, but he was smirking a bit. ¡°Oh, let me guess, your rank is higher. What is yours?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I¡¯m six. Phillip and Rafael are both higher and a few guys in Japan.¡± Matt said with a big grin. ¡°You¡¯re freaking kidding me! Now I feel dumb too. Where is Barry?¡± Scott said with a groan. ¡°Speak of the devil.¡± Matt said, waving to Barry as he joined them at the table. ¡°And he will appear, ¡°Barry added with a big grin. ¡°What¡¯s up, losers?¡± ¡°Matt was just explaining how he was the #6 robotics expert in the freaking world.¡± Scott said feeling bitter. ¡°Nice!¡± said Barry. ¡°I¡¯m only ranked 37. Professor Springer is in the top ten. That dude is legit!¡± ¡°Oh come on!¡± Scott whined. ¡°Apparently, I¡¯m the slow one in the group. No wonder I can¡¯t figure out this project.¡± ¡°Hey, don¡¯t beat yourself up. We all underestimated the risks. We¡¯ve been focused on all the great things we could build and the money we were going to make. Even now I think we need to keep trying to make it all work. Think about all we¡¯ve built so far with almost no resources. These kidnappers have no idea what they are up against¡± Barry said, serious for once. ¡°Thanks Barry.¡± Scott said. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m stuck, and Melinda said she needs this by tomorrow at the latest. She arranged an initial meeting with the kidnappers. She¡¯s giving them about half of what they asked in exchange for letting us see Adriana is unharmed.¡± ¡°Maybe you should get some help. I¡¯m sure Melinda will agree to pay for it.¡± Matt suggested ¡°Hey guys!¡± Elsa announced, last to arrive. She had spent some effort on her appearance, unlike the boys. ¡°We were just embarrassing Scott with our ranking scores in Glitch_HR.¡± Barry prompted helpfully, reverting back to his normal personality. ¡°Oh, I think I was 92 but I don¡¯t really look at it. I¡¯ve been spending more time working on projects than looking through the training system.¡° Elsa said. ¡°Trying to keep busy so I¡¯m not worrying about things.¡± ¡°I think I¡¯m going to try to get help on my project. I don¡¯t want my lack of skill to put Adriana at risk.¡± Scott said. ¡°That¡¯s really mature of you Scott,¡± Elsa encouraged. ¡°Hey, your bodyguard is kind of hot!¡± Barry said, staring at the dark-haired woman who had followed Elsa inside, ¡°want to trade?¡± Elsa punched him hard in the arm. ¡°Unlike this dope who can¡¯t filter what comes out of his mouth.¡± Elsa glared at Barry. ¡°Um sorry! She¡¯s not as pretty as you!¡± Barry gulped, sinking into his seat. ¡°So Elsa, what have you been working on lately?¡± Matt interrupted. Elsa loved her work and maybe it would distract her from killing his dumb friend Barry. ¡°Oh yeah, we¡¯ve been working on some new chip versions to synthesize RNA and DNA strands. The DNA stuff is not working because strands are so long. We won¡¯t be making any chimeras or de-extincting dinosaurs anytime soon.¡± Elsa said. ¡°Too bad, I¡¯d like to see those kidnappers get chomped by a T-Rex.¡± Matt said. ¡°Yeah, but we¡¯re still doing some amazing work. We¡¯ve mapped out several hundred previously undefined developmental proteins and finished something a bit more practical too.¡± Elsa grinned. Without hesitation she pulled out a syringe and stuck it in Scott¡¯s arm. ¡°Ouch! What the heck was that?¡± Scott whined, scampering away from the table. His useless bodyguard just looked over and rolled his eyes. ¡°Oh, just a test. Remember when we were studying muscle development with you and Marta?¡± Elsa said. ¡°Um yeah, I was sore for like 3 days after that.¡± ¡°Well, you¡¯ll probably want to eat more protein than usual in the next few days. I figured I¡¯d do the first test on you. Marta has been working out a lot and has too much subcutaneous fat. It will be easier to see the effects on your skinny arms.¡± Elsa was pulling out a cloth tape measure. ¡°Hold still, I need your initial measurement.¡± ¡°I never agreed to this!¡± Scott complained. ¡°Actually, you did when we started testing you at the gym. You signed a waiver that agreed to a series of tests.¡± Elsa said. ¡°Besides, you aren¡¯t going to sue your own company. OK, your bicep is 9.5 inches. Roughly average for a 10 year-old girl.¡± Barry had been sipping his soda right at that moment to disastrous effect. Matt was now covered in bright green liquid but laughing so hard he didn¡¯t really care. ¡°Oh come on!¡± Scott said. ¡°Why do I even hang out with you guys?¡± ¡°So, is he going to have one big bicep, and the other side will still be a little girl arm?¡± Matt asked, still chuckling. ¡°Well, we think the effect will recede after a couple months.¡± Elsa said. ¡°We don¡¯t want to do more in case it rips some of his ligaments. I actually have a couple injections that should help with that, but we wanted to just test one thing this time.¡± ¡°So, is anyone else working on something fun?¡± Elsa asked politely. Playing mad scientist had clearly helped her get over her annoyance at Barry. ¡°Oh yeah!¡± Barry said. ¡°Melinda wasn¡¯t happy that we were dumping so much magnesium from our mine. So, Rudolph and I have been working on a variation of the protein guided crystal growth.¡± Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡°She mentioned something like growing tooth enamel and bone with that.¡± Elsa said. ¡°Exactly!¡± Barry continued, excited. ¡°So instead of calcium, we are using magnesium and we get this stuff that looks like a white metal, but it is much more resistant to corrosion than metallic magnesium.¡± ¡°I thought you were already getting good results with your graphite treated steel?¡± Scott said. ¡°Yeah, but this stuff is really great. We build a base layer of a porous material with one type of protein, and a surface layer is the solid enamel. Unlike teeth, it is flexible like metal.¡± Barry continued. ¡°The best part is, if you damage the surface layer this fluid comes out from the lower layer and heals the damage! You just have to keep the fluid topped off and the material maintains itself.¡± ¡°That sounds neat. Are we going to sell it or use it for internal projects?¡± ¡°Melinda says this isn¡¯t going to upset the balance of military power, so we can sell it. It only repairs minor chips and scratches so it¡¯s not like it can repair damage from a military attack. We¡¯re also going to use it in the underwater habitat. They are designing a factory now, and also one to make transparent aluminum.¡± ¡°Did you guys invent that too?¡± Scott asked. ¡°No, AlON has been around since the eighties I think, ¡°Barry said. ¡°It¡¯s actually stupidly easy to produce under the high-pressure conditions we have 600 meters below sea level. Harder to sell because people usually want custom shapes and sizes, and we would probably have to pay royalties.¡± ¡°Have they found anything interesting in the mine yet?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I¡¯ve been focused on building some automated defenses, but the guys I work with mentioned something, ¡°Matt said. ¡°Rafael seemed excited about something they found a couple days ago. I pressed him on it, but he said he had to wait until the geologist finished his tests. I¡¯m sure they are done, but no one decided to tell me anything. I guess they don¡¯t want to distract us.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s call Melinda.¡± Scott said. ¡°We¡¯re owners of the company, I think she needs to tell us if they found anything!¡± The friends agreed and dialed her number on speaker phone. ¡°Hello my dears!¡± Melinda said cheerfully. She hadn¡¯t been in a good mood since the party, so this was a pleasant surprise. ¡°First of all, I¡¯m planning to hire some help finishing my project.¡± Scott said. ¡°That¡¯s great Scott. Try to get that Theofanis Zervou guy - he¡¯s still #1. You are authorized to spend up to $20k if he can help you get a working version by the end of day tomorrow.¡± ¡°Ugh, the Algerian job stealer gets $20k for one day of work. I can barely afford the $20 buffet after working for months.¡± Scott grumbled. ¡°Don¡¯t be a grump, Scott.¡± Melinda chastised. ¡°I think your financial situation might soon take a turn for the better!¡± she cackled a bit. ¡°Yeah, about that¡­¡± Matt interrupted. ¡°What did you guys find in the mine?¡± ¡°Well, we found a shard which might be from the original meteor. Mostly iron and carbides, but it has silver, iridium, palladium, osmium and some platinum. The rare metals all together are less than 1% by weight, but we¡¯ve started refining the ore today.¡± ¡°Less than 1% doesn¡¯t sound like that much.¡± Scott said ¡°Hah, you don¡¯t get it. We pulled out 30 tons of this ore yesterday. The geologist said we can expect 168 pounds of silver, 66 pounds of iridium, 72 pounds of osmium, 78 pounds palladium and 36 pounds of platinum. We have a nice video of him dancing around after his first test on the samples.¡± ¡°Ok, that sounds like a lot more when you put it that way. What is that worth?¡± ¡°Well, at current market prices it would be a little over $7million. Plus, we have a full load of steel ready to go. About 8000 tons, which is worth roughly $14 million for our first delivery when the Dark Siren is ready to go. They are loading it now and leaving tomorrow for the first shipment.¡± The group was a bit stunned. ¡°So, I was thinking I need a raise.¡± Scott said. ¡°Sure. We can vote on a dividend and some bonuses over spring break. ¡°Melinda said. ¡°Now I just need you all to work really hard on the tasks I assigned so we can try to rescue Adriana.¡±
Scott had contacted Theofanis. The guy was pretty nice but said he was too busy to take any jobs in the next few weeks. Scott had asked him what his normal rate was and asked how much more they would need to pay to get him to work on their project first. ¡°Well, I have about 6 jobs this week. None of them are that interesting, but I think it¡¯s about 80 hours of work. I bid the jobs for $60 per hour, so I¡¯ll get about $4800 when I finish on time. ¡°OK, how about I pay you $12,000 to help me for one day. You can probably still finish most of your other projects and make more than twice as much money in one day.¡± ¡°Not finishing on time hurts my reputation. If you can find someone else to finish a couple of my jobs and pay me $15,000, I will do it. But I¡¯m not even going to start until you have someone reputable working on those jobs.¡± Scott couldn¡¯t believe he was going to pay someone so much money for one day, but it sounded like they were about to have plenty of money. ¡°OK, I think I can handle that. Send me the info on those jobs, and I¡¯ll call you back.¡± Scott pulled up Glitch_HR and found a couple other top programmers. He got them to agree to finish one of the jobs within a week for $2000 each.¡± Melinda sent payment and Theofanis agreed to get working on the project. ¡°So, this is obviously important to us. I can¡¯t tell you all the details, but we need this facial recognition code to help us with a hostage situation. That¡¯s why it needs to work as well as possible with masks, sunglasses, hats or other possible disguises.¡± ¡°Sounds fun, ¡°Theofanis said. ¡°Not sure I believe you of course. With that kind of money, you probably work for the government and are trying to oppress someone. Still, it sounds fun, and you pay really well!¡± ¡°Do you think it¡¯s possible?¡± ¡°Yeah, you actually have a pretty good code base here. Your programming team is better than what I usually see. Anyway, I think we¡¯ll need to train the machine to not only recognize facial structure but how the people move and their posture. Ideally, we would get data in some other frequencies besides visible light. For the timeframe we have, that won¡¯t work because you would need to collect a lot of broad-spectrum footage on crowds to train the program.¡± ¡°Maybe we can hire you to help us with that later, but time is critical for this project.¡± ¡°Sure. There will be a fair amount of uncertainty and a lot of holes in the data. I¡¯m not even going to ask how you have a database of 7 billion people to match this to. I did some work on a project like that before and I¡¯m pretty sure it was a government spy agency.¡± ¡°Well, I can¡¯t tell you all those details. This is personally very important to me. Is there anything I can do to help? I¡¯m not a bad coder myself even if I¡¯m not at your level.¡± Scott could hear Theofanis typing rapidly as they were talking. ¡°Umm, if you want good results in a hurry, we are going to need a lot of cloud computing resources. That¡¯s not included in my fee.¡± ¡°How much are we talking about?¡± Scott asked nervously. ¡°Probably a few thousand of top tier servers for about 8 hours.¡± ¡°A few thousand?!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry, it costs a lot less than it did five years ago. Probably another $6000 dollars. If we use cheaper servers, I don¡¯t think we can finish on your absurd timeline.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll call my boss.¡± Scott said with a sigh.
¡°Hey dad, I heard you are about to go on your first trip on that new ship.¡± Scott had called his dad. Melinda had approved his spending requests without complaint. Now that he realized how much money the mine was going to make, he figured they could afford it. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s really exciting here. I¡¯m not supposed to talk about some of this stuff, but I guess you¡¯ve already been here.¡± ¡°Yes dad. I¡¯m going to be there next week over Spring break. I probably know more about the company than you do.¡± ¡°Right, so they have this submarine thing that comes in the bottom of the ship. Then they have robots unloading all these steel ingots. I thought we would just be hauling ore, but steel is way more valuable! I get to split 1% of the value with four other crew members,¡± his dad said, obviously excited. ¡°Yeah, did you see them loading anything else?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I didn¡¯t, but they installed a big safe in one of the slots I thought would be crew quarters. Not sure what they are going to use it for. Do you know if there is something other than iron they are getting from this mine?¡± Mr. Henderson asked, curiously. ¡°Melinda told us there are small quantities of some more valuable metals. I don¡¯t know if they are going in your shipment, but it might add a bit more to your bonus. I can ask her about it if you want.¡± ¡°No need son, I don¡¯t want to sound greedy. The captain said he¡¯d let us see the bill of lading and was going to show us the accounting once the cargo was delivered. He gets a full 1% so he¡¯s even more excited than the rest of the crew about this first run.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a nice deal. Work hard so you can be captain of our next ship.¡± ¡°Hah. Well, they really rushed finishing this ship from what I heard. From our inspections, the work crews did a better job than I would have expected given how many people they had working at once.¡± ¡°Well, I heard we¡¯re shipping out tomorrow. The navigator said it was only a two-day trip there. Unloading will take a few days, then two days back. This ship is a bit faster than the big cargo ships. If things go well, we¡¯ll be back while you are there!¡± ¡°Awesome dad! I¡¯m really excited this seems to be working out for you.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll feel a lot better when I see that first bonus check, but I¡¯d like to help pay off the student loans you took this year.¡± ¡°Thanks dad. I know you¡¯ve been doing the best you can. I think I¡¯m going to get a bonus of my own once your ship makes the first delivery, so you probably don¡¯t need to worry about helping me out anymore.¡± ¡°That¡¯s great! You said you did some IT work for the company. It¡¯s nice that they are showing appreciation for the workers. Most companies, the owners and management keep all the money for themselves.¡± his dad said. ¡°Right, well, I guess I should have told you before, I¡¯m one of those owners.¡± Chapter 29 - Carl Carl woke up in a hospital bed. He felt IVs attached to his arm. He could tell it was daytime, but there seemed to be bandages over his eyes. Everything felt a bit fuzzy. Had he been in an accident? His memories were not sharp, but Carl was pretty sure the year was 1988. He knew he was a student at Texas State University. Crap did he have homework due? Had he been in a car accident? He was having trouble remembering who his teachers were. ¡°Hello Carl. Nice to see you awake.¡± A pleasant, Asian sounding voice greeted him. ¡°Was I in an accident?¡± Carl tried to ask. Wow, his mouth was really dry. It sounded more like ¡°Waffy in a askin?¡± ¡°Hold on a second.¡± He felt a squirt of water in his mouth. It tasted really good. He swished around a bit and swallowed. ¡°Um, was I in an accident?¡± ¡°No, you had a brain tumor. It was considered inoperable, but our lead researcher had some rather brilliant ideas for fixing you.¡± ¡°Oh, I guess I have brain damage. Probably why I can¡¯t remember my teachers'' names.¡± ¡°Teachers? Oh, well Ms. White said she thought you might have significant permanent memory loss. What is the last thing you remember?¡± Carl thought for a minute. ¡°Um, I drive an Acura Integra, it¡¯s pretty sweet. I¡¯m a student at Texas State, I think I¡¯m studying business. I remember all 3 Star Wars movies, but they were out a while ago. Um, this is hard.¡± ¡°OK, take it easy. This is going to be a bit of a shock. It is 2022. I don¡¯t know all the details of your personal life, but you¡¯ve been homeless for a while.¡± ¡°What? I¡¯m a bum? And I¡¯m like 50 something years old?¡± ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s not polite to call homeless people that anymore.¡± ¡°Who cares what I call myself? I¡¯m kind of freaking out now.¡± Carl pulled at the bandages on his face. The light was really bright, so he closed his eyes quickly. ¡°Careful, we performed some surgery on your eyes. You are still recovering so we have the lights dimmed and you need to keep the bandages on.¡± ¡°The light isn¡¯t dim. It¡¯s like the sun is glaring in my face.¡± He felt the bandages getting put on his head again but didn¡¯t fight it. ¡°It¡¯s actually quite dim here. Your eyes should adjust in a few days.¡± The voice said kindly. ¡°I¡¯m going to give you a sedative so you can rest some more.¡± ¡°Wait!¡± Carl protested. ¡°Relax, you are recovering much faster than we expected.¡± That was not encouraging, but Carl fell asleep before he could respond.
¡°How is he doing?¡± Melinda asked over the chat program. She was labeled and for some reason had cat ears. ¡°Extensive memory loss. Doesn¡¯t remember much past the 80s, but his speech is fine. He¡¯s probably going to struggle with being politically correct, ¡°Nittaya Chaikhot replied. ¡°Don¡¯t we all?!¡± Melinda asked. ¡°I am never hiring an HR director if I can help it!¡± ¡°OK, well his eyes were very sensitive even with dim lighting¡± ¡°Yeah, we¡¯re regrowing some of his optic nerves. It took a few tries to get the cybernetic surgery right.¡± ¡°It is fascinating how you are able to regrow brain and nerve tissue. This will be able to help a lot of people who are paralyzed.¡± ¡°Yes. You¡¯re going to have to take the credit for that since I¡¯m not really a doctor. They¡¯d arrest me for all kinds of nonsense. Practicing without a license, nonconsensual brain surgery, genetic engineering on humans. That¡¯s not even counting all the cadavers I stole to practice my surgical techniques.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll pretend I didn¡¯t hear all that.¡± ¡°Yeah, good plan.¡± ¡°What exactly did you implant in Carl? The surgery was fascinating to watch, and it is quite impressive you didn¡¯t kill him.¡± ¡°Thanks. I¡¯ve known Carl for a while. He doesn¡¯t look like much, but he is a tough old dude. Anyway, the device I put in allows us to show a heads-up display into his field of vision. It also allows mental commands to interact with certain features. Most of the processing is done on the unit at the back of his head which has similar computing power to a traditional cell phone. Currently we still have to charge lithium batteries and swap them out when his power gets low.¡± ¡°You broke countless laws and invented groundbreaking technology so Carl can have a built-in cell phone?¡± ¡°Well, it sounds kind of stupid when you put it like that. Basically, he can communicate and run apps without holding a device. Maybe it doesn''t sound that great, but the exciting part is how his brain developed a whole mass of tissue which self-trained to interact with the tech.¡± Melinda continued. ¡°At first, we thought it was just his tumor growing back and cut it out a couple times. Eventually we realized the new brain cells we grew had the plasticity that you find in a baby¡¯s brain. They were learning how to interact with the device!¡± ¡°I admit it sounds interesting. I¡¯m sure if I had the technology you developed, I would have gone in a different direction.¡± ¡°Yeah, I know. I¡¯m an odd person.¡± Melinda continued. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean it as an insult. I think you¡¯ve advanced science more in 6 months than most research labs achieve in decades. What kind of features will this device have? I assume you didn¡¯t build so he could watch cat videos.¡± Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. ¡°Well, my boy Scotty is working on the most exciting thing you can imagine.¡± Melinda gushed. ¡°A new version of our human resources software!¡±
After a few fitful days, Carl woke up again. He remembered a strange dream about all his teeth falling out. His teeth felt strange, almost like they were just a bit different shape than what they should be, but they were all there. The bandages on his eyes were gone. The light in the room was comfortably dim. He opened his eyes. The hospital room was sterile white. The only furniture was an uncomfortable looking couch that could slide out to a bed that looked even less comfortable than sleeping on the floor. There was a flat piece of what looked like dark glass high on the wall. He was still attached to a stand with IVs, but he also noticed a cord attached to the back of his head. A device with some buttons and a cord was sitting next to him on his bed. He pressed some of the buttons. One of them turned on the piece of glass which was apparently some futuristic television. Some people on the TV were sitting around talking about some lady who didn¡¯t know which of five guys was the father of her child. They were going to reveal it with something called DNA. What kind of demented game show was that? ¡°I see you are awake.¡± An older asian woman had entered the room. Was she older than him? He wasn¡¯t sure.
Name Nittaya Chaikhot
Role Senior Medical Technician
Company Genysis Biotech
Age 34
What the heck was that? A floaty box had appeared in his vision. Carl started freaking out and rubbed his eyes. ¡°Careful!¡± Nittaya rushed over and tried to restrain his hands. The pop-up window had disappeared. ¡°I saw this box appear in my vision. It said your name was Nitty something.¡± ¡°OK, calm down. I¡¯m Nittaya, I¡¯ve been supervising the nurses here and helping with some of your surgeries. I believe what you saw is called a pop-up window. They are very popular in certain types of stories, but you may be the first person in the real world to have such a system installed.¡± ¡°What the heck? Am I some sort of guinea pig?¡±
Name Carl ??
Role Cybernetics Guinea Pig
Company Genysis Biotech
Age 53
¡°Dammit!¡± Carl cursed. The ¡°pop-up¡± disappeared from his vision. Somehow he had absorbed the information even though it only appeared briefly. ¡°Why doesn¡¯t it know my last name? My last name is ???¡± Oh, he couldn¡¯t remember it either. ¡°Do you need another sedative?¡± Nittaya asked. ¡°No! Don¡¯t drug me again.¡± Carl insisted. ¡°Wait a minute, I''m a Cyborg now? That¡¯s actually kind of awesome. I am looking for Sarah Conner!¡± The last part was said with a lame Austrian accent. He felt the plug at the back of his head. ¡°Oh no, do I have to stay plugged in all the time? Why couldn¡¯t you guys have waited until you invented fusion batteries or something?¡± An old woman entered the room. She smiled at him. It was kind of sweet like he remembered his grandmother. Also kind of scary, like he was a delicious steak. Who was this woman¡­ Nope! Nope! Don¡¯t want the pop-up. It had flickered on, but he shut it down instantly. She was looking at some device in her hand. It looked about the size of a deck of cards. She seemed to be pretending to press buttons on it, but it didn¡¯t have any buttons he could see.
Melinda: Hi Carl! It¡¯s great to see you awake. Can you try to respond to this message without talking?
¡°Argg!¡± Carl yelped. ¡°Another pop-up just jumped into my head.¡± It took him a few seconds to settle down. He made the box go away with a thought. ¡°Did you just send a telegraph into my head?¡± Carl said. He reached up to the wire that was attached. ¡°If I pull this out, will I shut down?¡± ¡°It should be OK. We were just charging the battery. I bet you can see what your battery level is at.¡±
Battery 100% (12.3 hours)
Carl reached back and pulled the cord out of the back of his head. He noticed there was some kind of round plastic plate about 3 inches wide with a couple small ports. He really was a cyborg! ¡°So, do I have super strength or armor or anything?¡± Carl asked. ¡°No, right now we figured it would be enough to start with a highly illegal brain implant before we started replacing body parts.¡± Nittaya said, somewhat amused. ¡°Oh, cool. Is that old lady Doctor Melinda?¡± Carl said. ¡°She¡¯s about the same age as you, Carl.¡± Nittaya laughed. ¡°Yes, she is Melinda.¡± For some reason she did air quotes while she said . ¡°Can you try to respond to her text message? What you called a telegraph.¡±
To Melinda Carl the Cyborg: Hi stop Hope you are getting this stop I am a robot stop Melinda: That¡¯s great Carl. You don¡¯t need to think ¡°stop¡± after each sentence. These are text messages which are way more advanced than telegraphs. You can do punctuation and even emojis which are little pictures ????
¡°OK. Gotta ask. Do they have flying cars?¡± ¡°Sort of. They are not that great, and you aren¡¯t allowed to fly them because the government thinks terrorists will crash them into a building.¡± Nittaya said. ¡°Terrorists? I really need to read some newspapers to figure out what has been going on.¡± ¡°Yeah, they don¡¯t really have many newspapers anymore. We get news on our phones or the internet.¡± ¡°Someone calls you and tells you the news? That¡¯s messed up¡±
Melinda: I am definitely going to get the boys to build flying cars as soon as we sort out this kidnapper incident. You should be able to access the internet through your pop-up windows. It¡¯s like a big library with pictures and lots of other stuff for free. Just think ¡°Search, News Last 40 years¡± or whatever. Your brain should figure out what to send to the implant
Carl discovered the internet. He sat there staring into space with a big dopey smile for about 10 minutes. Finally, he was interrupted.
Melinda:That could probably fill up your spare time for the next 20 years, but right now we actually need your help. One of my employees was kidnapped and we have an exchange scheduled in a couple days. I want you and one of my security guys to be there. We are counting on your HR technology implant to identify people at the meeting. A young girl¡¯s life is at stake. Also, if these people get our technology and we can¡¯t track them down, they will likely start World War 3.
Oh wow! Carl was now a cyborg, and his mission was to save the world! Carl was actually surprised the Soviets hadn¡¯t already started WW3. Reagan must have scared them off with his space lasers. Right, he really needed to catch up on the news during his plane trip. Carl attempted to get out of bed. He had old man skin, but he was actually kind of ripped. He didn¡¯t remember having so much muscle. Maybe in the future people just took a pill and they could look like Arnold in Conan. ¡°Take it easy. You are on a lot of pain killers, but you are probably going to be very sore for the next couple days when the meds wear off.¡± Nittaya said with some sympathy. He didn¡¯t really pay attention to her warnings, because Carl was feeling good. They had rebuilt him better, stronger, faster just like the six million dollar man. He was ready to go save the world. Chapter 30 - The Meet It was the day of the exchange. Scott was extremely nervous and also in quite a bit of pain. Whatever Elsa had injected in his arm had caused his bicep to swell up. At first, he had felt really hungry. His arm had seemed noticeably stronger. The second day it looked absurd. He had given himself a black eye when he tried to rub his eyes in the morning and ended up punching himself really hard. He had trouble getting a shirt on and eventually had to remove one sleeve on the third day. Then he tore the muscle while trying to pull up his pants. It was pure agony. His arm was not only swollen, but the tear made it even more unnaturally lumpy. Elsa was excited, but she looked a bit apologetic once she realized how much pain he was in. She pleaded with him not to go to the school doctor but gave him a sling and some pills for the pain. He had no idea where she got those pills, but they helped a lot. While no longer in much pain, he felt too loopy to go to class. Melinda had promised him they would be able to surgically repair the damage to his ligaments over spring break. She even promised there would be a real doctor there named Nittaya Chaikhot. Not wanting to know the answer, Scott had not bothered to ask if this woman was actually certified in anything related to Orthopedic surgery. Melinda had somehow negotiated the partial exchange. The kidnappers would get a working fusion reactor and schematics for the Dark Siren and mining robots. The Dark Siren was nothing groundbreaking and would be difficult to build without understanding the materials used. The kidnappers apparently thought it was some top-secret warship. The mining robot design was valuable, but she only gave them Matt¡¯s initial working version before all the improvements added by Rafael and Phillip. She had added notes on some of the initial protein encoding chip design. The design would never work without all the changes they had come up with over winter break. She believed someone could get the rest of the way just by knowing it was possible if they threw millions of dollars and a few years of research at the problem. The chemicals needed for testing were fairly specialized, so it was another potential method to track down what organization the kidnappers were associated with. Theofanis had finished with linking video recognition to the HR database. They had tested it and it immediately identified Scott and his friends, even when they wore covid masks or hats. Scott learned that it could sometimes match people facing away just by their posture and how they walked, but this had a low accuracy...
Scott and his friends watched a camera feed from Sergio¡¯s van. They were meeting outside the city on a farm road about half a mile from the main freeway. The land was undeveloped and covered with trees. A car had pulled off the side of the road and a man stood waiting 20 yards away wearing sunglasses and a dark mark over his face. Sergio and another man unloaded a cart with a dark blue tarp covering what looked to be a large device. Sergio was pushing the cart up the shoulder of the road towards the car. The other man had exited from the passenger side of the van but did not help with moving the device. Sergio was a solidly built guy. His hair was dark with some gray in it. His skin was dark, and he was a bit overweight. Despite his bulk, he moved with a grace that indicated he would be dangerous in a fight. The other man was older, but he was built like a linebacker. He walked stiffly, like he was suffering from some old injuries. Probably a guy like that had a fair amount of scar tissue and shrapnel in him, but it was odd that he wouldn¡¯t even try to hide his pain whenever he was walking. Even more strange, was that when he stopped, a strange smile would spread across his face revealing the perfect teeth of a toothpaste model. The man was very disturbing. What kind of psycho would grin like that in a life or death situation? Scott thought his face looked sort of familiar. Was that Carl?
¡°I¡¯m not a cat!¡± A goofy looking cat wearing a suit was insisting. Carl didn¡¯t understand why this feline lawyer was denying it, but the expressions on its face were hilarious. Melinda had told him not to watch these silly videos while he was on the job, but he was in a lot of pain and it was distracting him from the pain. He had already learned that porn was blocked on his mental computer. That old lady Melinda had told him if he wanted to see someone naked all he had to do was ask. She was so creepy! He ached all over. Every muscle and joint felt like someone had tenderized them with a hammer. Dr. Chaikhot had warned him he would feel some soreness from some procedure they used to build up his muscles. She had totally understated it - even with pain pills it hurt a lot! No pain no gain, he reminded himself. Ugh! He really should be paying attention to the heavily armed criminals they were meeting.
Name ??
Role Kidnapper
What the heck? How was that helpful? Carl looked around. He saw a rectangle flash in his vision highlighting a person he hadn¡¯t noticed. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Name ??
Role Sniper
This was not a good start. ¡°OK, we have the device that was promised, and this flash drive has all the schematics we agreed to.¡± Sergio announced. Carl tried to play it cool. He had shut down all his internet windows and tried his best to keep alert. Another car with dark tinted windows pulled up about 200 yards away. A man wearing a ski-mask got out of the other car and pulled a girl out from the back seat.
Name Adriana Foster
Role Junior Facility Designer, Junior Ship Designer
The slender girl had messy blond hair, but no visible injuries. Carl was building up a simmering anger that these people would kidnap this cute young lady. He wished they had installed some kind of weapons or martial arts training when they upgraded him. He needed to remember to ask for something like that later. He couldn¡¯t get any information on the masked guy handling her either. Yet another unnamed goon. At this point Carl wasn¡¯t really sure why he was here. His cybernetics were not giving them anything useful. ¡°OK, you¡¯ve seen her. Leave the cart and the flash drive and get out of here. If you failed to deliver, her death is on your hands¡± ¡°We delivered what was agreed,¡± Sergio replied. ¡°I would like to warn you that this thing is dangerous. You won¡¯t want to disassemble it until you have the schematics. You can verify that it works and confirm the power output but opening it up is a bad idea.¡± ¡°Yes, we were warned by your boss as well. After we verify the tech, you will get a time and location for the final exchange.¡± ¡°Looking forward to it.¡± Sergio confirmed. They got back in their car and left, driving away quickly. ¡°Did you get anything?¡± Sergio asked. ¡°Nothing.¡± Carl said sadly. ¡°It confirmed the girl was Adriana, but no IDs on any of their men. It did spot the sniper.¡± ¡°Yeah, I was surprised they only had one. At least one that we spotted.¡± Sergio said grimly. This mission was a bust and the boss would need to make some hard decisions soon.
¡°How did it go?¡± Scott asked eagerly. ¡°Not well. Carl didn¡¯t get any hits on the identification.¡± Melinda replied. ¡°Why did you send him anyway? We could have just run our software off a camera.¡± Scott said, a bit confused. ¡°Carl is kind of unique. His brain has grown a unique structure around his implants and I was hoping biological intuition might have a better chance than just running it directly through a computer. It didn¡¯t seem to help.¡± Melinda said sadly. ¡°Didn¡¯t you try anything else?¡± Scott asked. Melinda knew she should have kept Scott out of this. Ultimately, she judged their best chance was getting a hit on the HR software and Scott understood it the best. Still, if they couldn¡¯t find the kidnappers after this meeting, she knew she¡¯d have to make a hard decision that Scott would hate. ¡°They put the fusion device in a Faraday cage, so our trackers aren¡¯t providing a signal. The biotech research might trigger some alerts if they buy certain reagents or equipment. It is more likely they will pass that on to someone who doesn¡¯t have an obvious connection.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand what went wrong with the software.¡± Scott said unhappily. ¡°I¡¯m sorry Scott. I know I didn¡¯t give you and Theo much time to perfect it.¡± Melinda replied. She didn¡¯t tell him that the odds of Adriana¡¯s survival were now close to zero. Later, Scott downloaded the video feed and ran it through their program in debug mode. Debugging machine learning blocks was basically impossible. The internal state in a neural network didn¡¯t really give you anything understandable. All you could check was that the inputs and outputs made sense relative to what you saw in the training data. He wasn¡¯t optimistic, but he just couldn¡¯t understand why they did not get any match. The video stream reached where the program isolated the first man from the surrounding noise and hit Scott¡¯s breakpoint. The code tried to match a bundle of data it identified as a person to heuristics compiled from a massive set of video feeds. Scott wondered where Theo had found the data to train this feature. He must have had access to a lot of surveillance feeds to build the training set. Scott saw something in the code. The algorithm had a threshold before it considered someone a match. Normally it had to be at least 80% certain and even then, it would indicate the match was not very good. About 500 names were getting discarded because the match did not meet the criteria. Scott pulled up the first match, Felipe Hall had a 42% match. He looked him up in Glitch_HR. The guy had average scores in insurance sales, and a decent rating for a security officer. Contact information had him living in Phoenix, Arizona. So, he was a maybe? Going through this list would take a while. Scott decided on another approach. He kept the names in one file. Then he requested Glitch_HR return potential employees who could fill the role of ¡°Kidnapper¡±. He cross referenced the list with the matches from the visual recognition. The order matched closely to the original ranking. It seemed the program was already using this information to correlate a good match. Then he tried for the role of ¡°Industrial Espionage¡±. A different name popped up to the top of the list - Andrei Osipova at about a 35% match. He sounded Russian and had high scores in espionage, marksmanship, unarmed combat and wilderness survival. Scott thought this person sounded more likely than the insurance salesman from Arizona. He worked on this for a bit, also checking the sniper and the man in the other car. Nothing really jumped out for him in these lists. The matches returned for the sniper were a bunch of military types. There were some Russian names, but also a lot who lived in the US, Israel, Europe or China. The match scores were all in single digits. Scott had been working on this for about an hour before he remembered to share this with Melinda and the others. His friends were excited. Melinda promised she would research some of the better matches including Felipe Hall and Andrei Osipova. It wasn¡¯t much, but they had a lead. Chapter 31 - Spring Break 1 Scott had been sick with worry since the initial exchange. He knew Melinda was deliberately keeping him out of the loop, but he had been watching the Glitch_HR org chart as a large number of people were added. Melinda had been putting them mostly in Genysis Construction which had Adriana as the largest shareholder. It also didn¡¯t have any wall street money so she could spend money without having to explain it. There were several detectives, some mercenaries and a field medic. Oddly enough, there was now a real estate agent on the payroll. Scott knew something was going down soon, but Melinda wasn¡¯t sharing details claiming it was important for operational security. He also noticed a few more random security people for the mining company as well as a couple robotics technicians and a scuba diver. Having a diver for an undersea company made a lot of sense. Their robots could do a lot, but there were plenty of times something happened outside their programming and Matt¡¯s team had needed days to patch the code. He arrived in Merida, Yucatan along with his friends and their bodyguards. Even Barry was in no mood for joking around as they met with a couple drivers waiting for their group. Their SUVs were not waiting near the terminal, but instead parked a further away in the parking lot. Everyone was tense as they made the walk to their cars. As their luggage went into the back, they were handed bullet proof vests and ballistic helmets to wear for the ride. Scott noticed a drone circling overhead. This was not going to be a relaxing Spring break. The drive to the house was tense. At one point, soldiers stopped them at a checkpoint. A couple men in one of the vehicles did the talking and handed some documents over. They were waved on, but the soldiers gave them a hard look as they went by. Arriving, the ¡°house¡± was now a heavily fortified compound. The original concrete walls were now covered in dark metal plates. There were a couple guard towers. The next-door neighbor had a ¡°Sold¡± sign in their front yard. The gates had also been replaced with a heavy metal door that had thick beams which dropped into the concrete when it closed. As they entered, the original house was mostly unchanged, but the metal shed had been enhanced with thick, sloped concrete walls and a vault-like door. A tough looking older guy was waiting for them. Scott thought his name was Terrance - he remembered him from the org chart and was one of the guards they had brought in when they were here over the Winter. ¡°Come on in, kids, ¡°Terrance said with a grin. ¡°You guys look terrified!¡± No one really knew what to say to that, so they exited their vehicles. Their bodyguards stayed out in the courtyard and looked to be heading to a small hut next to one of the guard towers. The rest entered the main house which hadn¡¯t changed much since their last visit. Unlike last time, there were no servants offering them drinks. Melinda was on her computer typing away. She gave them a wave and went back to work. An Asian woman who looked to be in her 30s smiled and waved to Elsa. ¡°Nice to finally meet you,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m Dr. Nittaya Chaikhot.¡± Elsa perked up a bit. ¡°Oh hi. Sorry we are all so worried about our friend I didn¡¯t see you there. I understand you¡¯ve been helping Melinda test a lot of the projects I¡¯ve been working on.¡± ¡°Yeah, I still can¡¯t believe how ambitious you and Melinda are! I have to admit I thought she was making it all up at first.¡± ¡°Yeah, I know the feeling. Excuse me boys, Nittaya and I need to catch up on a few things we¡¯ve been working on.¡± She took off her helmet and ballistic vest and headed out of the house with Dr. Chaikhot. Barry and Matt traded glances. ¡°Um yeah, I need to go check in with Phillip and Rafeal and meet the new robotic technicians.¡± Matt said, heading for the door. ¡°I got a text from Professor Springer. He said he¡¯s in one of the labs, so I¡¯ll see you later Scott.¡± Scott was sitting now alone except for Terrance who was grinning at him, and Melinda who wasn¡¯t paying him any attention. Um yeah, I guess I¡¯ll go do some programming or something because I¡¯m totally useful like everyone else. Back-office software programming was apparently not a high priority when you were about to get in a shooting war with Russian special forces or whoever they were up against. Scott¡¯s phone rang. Melinda was calling him from the other room. ¡°...Hello dear. We need to get that arm of yours fixed.¡± He could hear her babbling for a few seconds in the other room before the app translated it. Still weird. ¡°Um, are Dr. Chaikhot or the new field medic we hired available?¡± Scott asked nervously. ¡°Oh, we don¡¯t need to bother them with this. I have a research hospital set up in the bunker. This will be an easy fix.¡± Melinda said, looking a bit too eager. ¡°Well, you aren¡¯t really a doctor. I¡¯m fine with waiting a bit.¡± Scott was edging away towards the stairs to his room. Terrance moved very quickly for a man his size and injected something into Scott¡¯s arm. Not again! Scott tried to escape, but instead decided to sit down on the stairs. He lost consciousness right as Terrance scooped him up in a princess carry.
Scott woke up to some alarms. He was sitting in a hospital bed. There was a tube down his nose which was extremely disturbing. That witch had drugged him and performed surgery on him! He felt his arm. It was still pretty sore, but he could move it. Wait, was this really his arm? Scott noticed his forearm had more lean muscle. His other arm looked pretty good too, although it had an IV tube attached. It wasn¡¯t as swollen as his left bicep - instead it looked lean and densely muscled, but not bulky like a weightlifter. He tried to sit up and his abs were pure agony. More slowly he looked down. Why did he have a six-pack? Moving very slowly he confirmed that nearly every part hurt. He tried to stand up slowly, but his legs gave way and he fell on the floor. The door to his room opened. A concerned looking Dr. Chaikhot entered. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. ¡°Oh! I guess the alarms woke you up early. Hold on a second.¡± She injected something into the IV tube that was still connected to his arm. Not again! ¡°Please, don¡¯t knock me out again!¡± Scott begged. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m just giving you some pain meds and a low dose muscle relaxant.¡± Dr. Chaikhot said apologetically. ¡°Am I correct to assume you didn¡¯t agree to this procedure?¡± ¡°Yeah, Melinda is a psycho!¡± Scott complained. ¡°Well, she does seem to have a very low regard for medical ethics, ¡°Dr. Chaikhot agreed. She started removing the feeding tube which apparently went through his nose and into his stomach. It was an awful feeling. ¡°She had already done a minor surgery on your arm and started the muscle enhancement procedure before I saw what she was doing.¡± Scott then looked down and noticed some tubes and bags attached to regions under his hospital gown. He almost fainted when he realized what that must be attached to. He pointed at the bags half full of substances he did not want to think about. ¡°Oh yeah, we¡¯ll have to remove those a bit later.¡± ¡°I saw Carl earlier, but kind of assumed they had put him through boot camp or something. Did he get a similar procedure? I¡¯m feeling pretty violated right now, but also kind of impressed. Um, what are the alarms for?¡± ¡°Yes, Carl was our first test subject. We actually did a lot more than just the muscle enhancement on him. As for the alarms, they woke us all up around 2AM. Everyone staying in the house was told to move to the bunker. Apparently, someone is attacking us, but I haven¡¯t heard any explosions or gunfire.¡± ¡°Do we have a wheelchair or something? I¡¯d really like to know what is going on.¡± Scott said. He was already feeling much better. ¡°Sure, hold on.¡± Dr. Chaikhot was eager to help. Obviously, she was not a heartless monster like Melinda. She returned fairly quickly with a foldable wheelchair and helped him get in. Now that the pain was reduced it was actually easy to move around, but everything felt extremely weird. Scott noticed he felt very hungry. He decided that eating was not as high a priority as finding out about an imminent attack. Dr. Chaikhot wheeled him out into a hallway. The facility had been expanded quite a bit since the last time Scott was here. It still had the same roughly carved walls and a poured concrete floor, but there was a fairly long hall with several doors before reaching what looked like an elevator. There had only been stairs and about 5 rooms last time he was here. She rolled him to one of the doors closer to the elevator and opened the door. Matt was there along with his robotics friends Rafael and Phillip. They all had screens and controllers set up like they were having a FPS gaming session. Barry was also in the room. ¡°Hey Scott! Looking swole!¡± Barry cheered. ¡°Ugh, did you guys know what Melinda was doing to me.¡± Scott asked, feeling like his friends had betrayed him. ¡°Uh, not really. We¡¯ve been pretty busy, and she said you were working on a project. Didn¡¯t find out she was turning you into a superhero until yesterday and by then it was already too late. You¡¯ve been out for three days.¡± Barry said, feeling a bit guilty he had not worried about his friend. Scott looked at the screen Matt was viewing. It looked like a view of someone walking through a jungle except there were a few houses not far away. ¡°Is that near here?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Matt replied. ¡°We heard there was a convoy of guys heading our way. They attacked a police checkpoint. Several armored APCs, some SUVs and a few pick-up trucks with mounted high caliber guns.¡± ¡°So, a small army is heading our way?¡± Scott asked. It didn¡¯t seem real given the gaming controllers. ¡°Yeah, we¡¯re having a contest to see who can take out more of the vehicles,¡± Matt explained. ¡°I¡¯m at a huge disadvantage because I¡¯ve been stuck at school while Raf and Phillip have been here with the robot lab. Also, they are semi-professional at robot fighting.¡± ¡°Hey, don¡¯t sell yourself short. You built your robot after looking at our designs so I¡¯m sure you were able to copy something useful, ¡°Phillip teased. Scott watched Rafael¡¯s screen. The view was from a spot in the jungle looking down a road. He saw some headlights approaching. Glancing at Phillip¡¯s screen was a similar view, but from a different angle. It looked like they were waiting on opposite sides of the road. Matt¡¯s view seemed to be from up in a tree looking down. Scott went back to Rafael¡¯s screen. The convoy was moving pretty quickly. In the lead was an Armored Personnel Carrier, sort of a cross between a bus and a tank. The view lurched as the robot apparently leaped out in front of the vehicle. The vehicle didn¡¯t slow down as it crashed into the robot. Scott could see a couple arms sticking into the armor plating, and another that looked like some kind of chainsaw throwing up sparks as it tried to cut its way into the vehicle. Glancing over to Phillips'' screen he got a view of moving swiftly alongside a truck. The men in the back were swiveling a large machine gun around when the whole truck was spun around with a powerful explosion coming from the engine block. The truck rolled and Scott winced thinking about how messed up the people riding in the back would be if they even survived. ¡°I¡¯m taking fire.¡± Phillip said. Scott was having trouble keeping up. ¡°Got it,¡± Matt replied. Scott glanced over and saw Matt¡¯s robot looking down at the convoy. There was a robot running on four legs nearly keeping up with the convoy. It had another arm with some kind of gun. The convoy had slowed down as the lead vehicle seemed to be swerving around with a lot of sparks flying up from the front. 12 small missiles shot out hitting the remaining vehicles. Four SUVs and a couple pickup trucks stopped or crashed into the surrounding jungle. A second APC launched a shell at the four-legged robot, but the aim was off as 3 of the missiles slammed into it. The first APC had now crashed, and Scott watched Matt¡¯s screen as a robot with a big central wheel and 8 arms backed out of the wreckage. Half the arms were sharply pointed, and the others had various cutting tools. The wheel spun and it smashed into the side of the second APC which had swerved around to the lead position. ¡°Hey, that one¡¯s mine!¡± Phillip complained. The four-legged robot pointed its gun arm at the back of the APC and an explosion shook it from the inside as smoke poured out of a hole in the back. ¡°Watch the friendly fire,¡± Rafeal complained. ¡°Your railgun just broke one of my arms!¡± ¡°I¡¯m seeing some gunmen on foot; most are running away. A couple are taking potshots.¡± Matt declared. ¡°See if you can scare them off.¡± Phillip ordered. ¡°I don¡¯t really want to see Rafael turn them into meat paste.¡± Matt¡¯s robot appeared to jump off the tree branch and crashed into one of the gunmen who had stayed and was currently unloading shots into Phillips¡¯ robot. The impact knocked him about six feet sideways where he stopped moving. ¡°Oops, I just gave him a little tap. He¡¯ll probably survive.¡± Matt said. Rafael had moved right up to another shooter who was rather stupidly trying to unload his pistol into the heavily armored robot. He swept the man¡¯s legs with one of the pointy arms - obviously trying really hard not to kill him. It looked like the guy was not going to be walking any time soon. ¡°Well, that was kind of easy.¡± Matt said. This setup seemed so much like a video game that it wasn¡¯t hitting him yet that they probably killed some of these people. ¡°Oh crap.¡± Scott said, looking around at the screens. ¡°I think some of those people are really badly injured or dead.¡± Then a large explosion shook the ground and the power in the bunker went out. Chapter 32 - Spring Break Part 2 Carl was excited when he heard the girl Adriana had been located. Some of the mercenaries had given him some basic instruction on how to aim and fire a gun. To his disappointment his cybernetic upgrades did not give him any particular advantage with aiming or reflexes. It did make it easy to see in the dark and he could usually identify whoever he was targeting if they were friendly. A couple guys had shown him some exercises and basic things to practice for hand-to-hand combat. Carl thought the weightlifting was easy, but endurance training was really hard. The mercenaries were getting paid extra to train him, but it was clear none of them wanted him to participate in the raid once they received a target location. Regardless, when the call came, he was brought along but ordered to stay in the car as various specialists left to get in position for the raid. Carl was disappointed but realized he really wouldn¡¯t be able to help much. Still, Carl had watched enough TV to know that the guy waiting in the car always got out and ended up helping in some unexpected way. It was nighttime, but Carl was able to spot several members of his team surrounding the target building. He exited the car but didn¡¯t get close because he did not want to risk alerting the kidnappers. He also didn¡¯t want to get shot by someone on his own team. The building they approached was a low-end apartment complex. He identified a few snipers working for his team who had set up covering the building. Another group of four were entering the complex dressed inconspicuously like normal residents coming home for the night. A couple minutes later there was a loud bang and some audible gunshots. The four men who had entered the complex were leaving quickly, escorting a girl and a dark-skinned man. Carl confirmed it was Adrianna and a guy named Solomon Rhodes. The whole operation had taken less than ten minutes from when they had arrived. ¡°Carl, get back in the car.¡± Sergio told him, sounding amused. ¡°Sorry,¡± Carl replied. Unlike on TV shows, they didn''t need him at all. He resolved that one day he would be one of the guys who got to go in and rescue the hostage. There was a feature in his cybernetics software called ¡°Skill Training¡±. He had checked it out before and it looked boring. It had been much more interested in catching up on the whole internet thing. As they drove back, he decided to look at some of the articles and videos it recommended. There was an article which detailed some simple martial arts moves to improve fitness. Another article described training your brain to improve your observation skills. Carl watched a video that explained basic safety and maintenance for firearms. He continued working through the list well into the night.
Alexey Lukina was supervising this operation personally. He had received news that the hostage had been rescued, but it was not a big concern. The tech they had traded in the initial exchange was verified although the reactor had melted down when his technicians had tried to examine the interior. He had been angry, but not really surprised after their repeated warnings. Regardless, the Mexico facility would have all the data he needed, and the key people were here in case he needed more hostages. He had stirred up the Calavera cartel who had been embarrassed during their last raid. A donation of a couple of APCs and some intel on their opponents had persuaded them to send a significant group of their thugs. He didn¡¯t expect them to be successful but having them blasting away at the walls should be a great distraction. It didn¡¯t really matter how successful they were. If they made it through the walls, his men would easily put them down. His main attack was an amphibious assault. They had several small boats that were silent and nearly invisible to sonar about a mile away from the target. One of his commandos had scouted the area and returned evidence of extensive mining operations. There was a mound underwater which occasionally released red hot slag near the top. It kind of looked like a small undersea volcano. He saw signs of industrial robots with designs similar to the schematics they had received moving materials around. He had teams of frogmen approaching the facility underwater. Meanwhile, a Tsirkon cruise missile was launched from a submarine over 200 miles away. Technically this could be considered an act of war against Mexico, but after their initial confirmation of the fusion reactor, his bosses had declared he must seize or destroy the facility at any cost. The explosion leveled the house and knocked out whatever power the guard towers were getting. He expected the lower levels of the bunker would survive. His men continued their approach. A heavily injured guard in one of the towers somehow propped himself up and launched an underwater grenade into the water, killing a couple of his divers and injuring more. Some of his men surfaced and suppressed the tower with heavy fire. As the first group of his men were starting to exit the water, emergency power kicked in. Some turrets on the wall swiveled towards the ocean. There were a couple large cavitation events in the water and some of his men exploded in the water leaving a nasty looking chum. One of his men had a portable missile launcher and took out one of the turrets. After about 6 seconds the remaining turrets fired again injuring most of the remaining men still in the water. He didn¡¯t recognize the guns; they seemed to fire a powerful blast relative to their size, but with a slow rate of fire. Eventually, the men who had made it on land finished off the turrets and a grenade had silenced the remaining tower. Casualties had been severe and there were only 12 men left in fighting condition, but a few more were badly injured using floatation devices. He signaled his boats to move in towards the shore. He had more men on the boats along with some heavy equipment to get into the bunker.
When the missile hit, the main power unit on the first floor of the bunker was destroyed. Also destroyed was a backup gas generator that was located near the house. No one had been in the house when it was destroyed - everyone staying there had already exited through a tunnel into the bunker. They had installed some anti-dive ultrasound devices which had picked up the enemy about 20 minutes before the missile hit. Losing all power took out their connection to the battle robots, automated turrets and sensors. They also lost communications with the guards in the towers. Worse, it had disabled their ability to remotely trigger an array of underwater mines that had been set up to counter an attack by divers. They still had a generator for electric smelting operations in the lower level, but it had not been set up as a backup source. The technicians quickly started running cables originally used to power the first-generation robots which needed to tie into the bunker¡¯s power network. They were improvising, so it took several minutes before they could restore power. ¡°The antennae to control the surface robots are completely fried.¡± Phillip cursed. ¡°See what systems we still have.¡± ¡°Wall turret controls and some of the underwater facilities.¡± Rafael replied. ¡°Turrets!¡± They took control of turrets and started firing the rail guns into the water. Everyone remembered how they had accidently killed a school of fish testing these guns, so hopefully it would cause divers some problems too. The turrets managed to get a few shots off before the feeds were cut. ¡°Well, this is not looking good,¡± Matt said. ¡°Do we still have any of the first gen mining robots?¡± ¡°There are six we didn¡¯t bother to upgrade. We could probably power and control them by wire if we loaded our fighting robot controller software and made a few changes.¡± ¡°Can we just tell some robots to dig us a tunnel out of here?¡± Scott asked. ¡°The house next door is empty. If we dug up under it, we could probably get away.¡± ¡°Not a bad idea.¡± Matt admitted. ¡°I can change the dig plan on some of the newer robots near the surface. Much easier than reprogramming the older models to accept manual fighting controls.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s do both.¡± Melinda ordered. She had installed an intercom which allowed her to communicate to various rooms in the base through her phone. ¡°I didn¡¯t expect they would hit us with a missile so most of my defensive plans were ruined from that first attack. In the future we need to hire a general, since I keep messing this up.¡± ¡°Hey, we¡¯ve taken some damage, but you rescued Adriana and most of our people are still alive.¡± Scott said. ¡°Let¡¯s not give up yet.¡± ¡°Right,¡± agreed Melinda. ¡°They had four boats unloading men with jackhammers and other equipment to dig into the bunker. I see about 40 additional combatants besides the 12 that made it to shore.¡± This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°That is not exactly motivating us.¡± Scott complained. ¡°Don¡¯t be a baby. We have 2 guards inside the bunker plus your bodyguards. They are well armed but won¡¯t be able to stop an assault once they break through the entrance. The Dark Siren was about 4 hours out last time I spoke with them. We could communicate by cell phone from the surface, but the Russians are probably jamming signals in the nearby area.¡± Melinda continued. ¡°I got the robots returning here with a new priority dig plan.¡± Matt announced. ¡°That was quick. How long will it take them to tunnel out of here?¡± ¡°I think they can get outside the wall in about 6 hours.¡± ¡°How long until the Russians dig into the un-collapsed part of the bunker?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°No idea, but at least a few hours. I can¡¯t exactly look up the digging speed of soldiers on the internet right now. I can only assume they are not faster than our robots.¡± Matt replied. ¡°Is there any way to get our battle robots back online?¡± ¡°We could probably run a cable through our tunnel and fabricate a new antenna.¡± ¡°OK. You robot guys do whatever you can to rig up the first generation wire guided robots to your fighting controls. I¡¯m going to send our Scuba diver Jansen to sneak out and head down the coast. I¡¯ll see if he can run the cable to the shore at the next property over. I recently bought out the neighbors, so we own it anyway. He can also contact Dark Siren and the police. I¡¯m sure the police and Mexican military are already aware there is a major situation here, but it might help to get them information on what they will be facing.¡± As usual, Scott felt like there was little he could contribute. He couldn¡¯t even walk at the moment, and most of his skills depended heavily on access to the internet. ¡°Scott, I¡¯m sorry I got carried away with your upgrades,¡± Melinda¡¯s voice was saying over the intercom. ¡°It is very important you go down to the gym with Dr. Chaikhot and get started on your rehab. We are in a dangerous situation so getting you up and walking is kind of important right now.¡± Well, he was still mad at Melinda, but she had a point. With their base under attack, being stuck in a wheelchair might get him killed and could put others at risk if they tried to help him. ¡°OK, I¡¯m not forgiving you, but we can discuss it after we get through this situation.¡± Scott grudgingly agreed.
Dr. Chaikhot wheeled Scott to the elevator. He heard Elsa¡¯s voice from down the hall asking if she could save her rainbow rats. He didn¡¯t even bother worrying about what that was about. This place had a lot of crazy projects going on that he would ask about if they survived. They went down a couple levels. This place had really grown in just a couple months. This floor had more of the same rough, low-quality limestone walls, poured concrete flooring and industrial looking light fixtures. He hoped they would have time to improve their facilities eventually, so they didn¡¯t resemble a Soviet style prison. Through a door was a fairly large gymnasium. There were racks of dumbbells, about a dozen weight benches, a row of treadmills and other pieces of cardio equipment. No one was currently working out; not surprising given they had just been hit by a cruise missile and people hopefully had better stuff to be doing right now. There was one rather fit looking guy who sprang to his feet when they entered. ¡°Hello, I heard on the intercom we are under attack. Do you need me to help push the guy in the wheelchair?¡± The meathead asked helpfully. ¡°No thanks, Gabriel.¡± Dr. Chaikhot answered politely. ¡°Can you bring out the physical therapy bars and the walker?¡± Gabriel hustled to a storage area and started setting up a pair of parallel bars that Scott had seen before in movies for people re-learning how to walk. He also wheeled out something that looked like what old people used to move around, but it had additional padding and straps. While he was setting up, Dr. Chaikhot had rolled Scott over to an area with a thin mat on the floor. ¡°First we need to do some stretching and make sure all your ligaments are staying attached.¡± That was very disturbing. Gabriel helped Scott down onto the mat and started moving his arms and legs into different positions. It was really awkward having a muscular dude so close and personal. Why couldn¡¯t they have hired a female personal trainer or therapist? ¡°Wow, you are built like a chimpanzee. This guy doesn¡¯t look that big, but he is heavy!¡± Gabriel said, sounding impressed. ¡°Funny you should say that. We used some proteins from apes to build up his muscle density.¡± Dr. Chaikhot replied. What the heck? Was he some kind of half monkey hybrid now? Scott glanced at one of the wall mirrors trying to see how bad he looked. His face looked normal as far as he could tell and if anything, he looked fit, but not freakishly hairy or misshapen. ¡°We think it¡¯s critical to get his muscles moving on their own in the next day or two or a lot of it will break down. We will have to treat him for severe ketosis.¡± Dr. Chaikhot declared casually. Scott thought that sounded pretty bad. The pain from the stretching wasn¡¯t too bad, probably because he was still doped up on pain meds. What followed was pure torture as Scott was made to do all kinds of basic movements starting on the mat, then pushing around the walker and finally using the torture bars. Everything hurt as he moved and his limbs would frequently shake or twitch. Why did normal movements like lifting his arm or sitting up hurt so much? After about half an hour, Dr. Chaikhot allowed him a break but pulled out the horrifying biopsy needle. Gabriel was holding him down, but Scott shoved him away. 250 pounds of fitness trainer went tumbling about 10 feet across the floor mat. Holy crap! ¡°Um, sorry!¡± Scott apologized. He had never really had to worry about hurting anyone before, and thus far his muscles had seemed stiff and barely able to keep himself up. Fear of large needles had briefly activated his full strength. Dr. Chaikhot ran over to Gabriel and was checking to see if he was OK. The trainer looked a bit stunned, but not badly hurt. ¡°Wow dude. You hit like a truck.¡± ¡°Scott, I really need to get a sample to make sure your muscles aren¡¯t breaking down. Can you hold still without hitting me or Gabriel?¡± Dr. Chaikhot asked. ¡°Yes, it probably won¡¯t even hurt as bad as everything else we have been doing. I didn¡¯t mean to push him like that. I¡¯ll be good.¡± Scott promised. The doctor took her sample and left to go run some tests. Scott decided to try standing on his own power. It hurt a bit and he was very wobbly, but he found he could stand up. ¡°Nice!¡± Gabriel said with some enthusiasm. ¡°Do you feel up to trying some light weightlifting?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know anything about weightlifting. The first and only time I went to a gym like this was when they made me do curls until I couldn¡¯t move my arm.¡± ¡°No problem, we¡¯ll keep it simple.¡± Scott was directed to a contraption that looked like a chair with a strange, padded desk that sloped away from the person sitting. Gabriel said it was used for something called isolation curls. ¡°This should be easier than a regular dumbbell for you to control. We¡¯ll start with something easy, and I¡¯ll spot you in case you need to drop the weight.¡± Scott agreed to give it a try. Gabriel¡¯s idea of something light was 20 pounds which was about the maximum he had been able to manage when they last dragged him to a gym. ¡°So just try to curl your arm, then back down slowly.¡± Scott tried to lift the weight. It was so light it slipped out of his hand and went flying across the room, landing with a series of loud clangs. It bounced and finally cracked one of the wall mirrors. ¡°OK, I can see control is still a problem. Do you think you can just move your arm slowly without any weight?¡± Moving his arm felt really weird, but with a bit of practice his movements were smooth. ¡°OK, we should probably be doing yoga instead of weights, but I¡¯m still curious how strong you really are.¡± Gabriel admitted. Scott was kind of interested too. He had never imagined himself being strong, but he admitted to himself it might be pretty cool. Gabriel handed him a 45-pound dumbbell. ¡°OK, go really slow and be careful. I¡¯m going to stand back a bit just in case. Please don¡¯t hit yourself with it!¡± Gabriel said. Scott curled it with ease. They tried 60 pounds, then 90. Scott couldn¡¯t believe how big that dumbbell looked, but he was able to curl it. It wasn¡¯t easy, but he thought he could do more. ¡°Dang, these are getting hard to lift.¡± Gabriel said, carrying the largest dumbbell they had which was 110 pounds. He was using two hands to lift it. Scott struggled with this weight but was able to curl it a few times before asking for help to put it down. ¡°OK, your form is terrible, but you are crazy strong for your size.¡± Gabriel said. ¡°There are some powerlifters stronger than you at the same body weight, but they have been working out for years and tend to optimize specific lifts.¡± ¡°Can we try some other exercises?¡± Scott was now a lot more interested in this whole weightlifting thing. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Dr. Chaikhot asked, disapprovingly. ¡°Uh, we just wanted to get a baseline of his strength.¡± Gabriel said, looking guilty. ¡°None of that macho nonsense! We need to focus on basic control and mobility. Maybe some yoga. The good news is his muscles are not breaking down, but he¡¯s going to need to keep eating a lot of protein to keep it up.¡± Scott was pretty hungry. They took a break for a protein smoothie, before getting back to work. Over the next hour Scott¡¯s soreness became more manageable and he felt like he could jog on the treadmill for about a minute. ¡°OK, that¡¯s enough. Melinda wanted to upgrade his heart and lungs, but we haven¡¯t even tested that yet. I was able to stop her. If I were you, I¡¯d keep away from her until she finds some other victim to run tests on. Scott, you need to take it slow on the exercising for a few weeks because the unimproved parts of your body are not yet adjusted to these changes. While Scott was doing some light stretches to cool down, his bodyguard Brad rushed into the room. ¡°The Russians have entered the bunker. We need to get out of here now!¡± Chapter 33 - Spring Break Part 3 - Invasion Scott¡¯s bodyguard handed out a couple helmets similar to one he was wearing. It seemed to be a combination of a gas mask and infrared goggles. They had one for Scott and Dr. Chaikhot, but the personal trainer Gabriel was left without. ¡°You should hide in your office and lock the door.¡± Scott¡¯s bodyguard Brad told the trainer. ¡°This area is probably not a high priority target for them, so you should be OK.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what I was thinking about taking this job, ¡°Gabriel complained. ¡°Looks like you can walk now. Can you handle stairs or ladders, Scott?¡± Brad asked. ¡°I think so.¡± Walking still felt uncomfortable, but Scott thought he could manage. Their group headed away from the elevator towards a door further down the hall. There was a loud creaking noise as the elevator doors were manually pried apart behind them. They picked up the pace as a flashbang was tossed into the hall. Fortunately, their helmets protected them from the noise and bright light. As they sprinted through the door, Scott¡¯s bodyguard started firing back towards the elevator. He was carrying a weapon that had a large stock and a long thin barrel. The weapon was somewhere between a machine pistol and a rifle in length. When he fired it made a high pitch buzzing which was probably filtered heavily by the noise cancellation in their helmets. Scott was too busy trying not to trip down the stairs to pay attention to see whatever damage the weapon was doing. Brad passed him and took a position looking up the stairs, still in sight of the door. ¡°Keep going, Scott. It¡¯s only a matter of time before someone punctures through one of the ceiling plates and this level starts flooding.¡± Brad said. The bodyguard was very pleased with the flechette rifles. The needle-like rounds were osmium tipped and had an insane rate of fire. They went through a steel plate like it was cardboard. Equipping guards in an underwater facility with something like that seemed borderline insane, but right now he enjoyed having the firepower. Scott stumbled down another set of stairs. The door to the next floor had a red light on it and wouldn¡¯t open. Dr. Chaikhot had already gone further down. The buzzing sound of the flechette rifle sounded off upstairs, followed by some cursing. Brad was suddenly sprinting down the stairs and Scott heard the sound of rushing water. He hurried up but stumbled and fell down the next flight. Fortunately, the helmet protected him from what would have likely been a concussion when he hit the ground. ¡°That¡¯s one way to do it.¡± Brad laughed. He grabbed Scott and dragged him through a door as water started rushing past them down the stairs. They sealed up the hatch. Looking around, Scott realized they were in a robotics lab. Matt and a few other technicians were sitting at consoles or hovering while offering suggestions. His other friends were all here too, but Barry was lying down and looked injured. Melinda was stitching up what looked like a large gash on his leg, while Dr. Chaikhot looked on. ¡°Levels 2 and 3 are flooded. We¡¯re trapped down here.¡± One of the bodyguards updated Scott and his group. ¡°Jansen was able to set up the antennae outside.¡± ¡°The Dark Siren is nearly in range.¡± Melinda¡¯s voice came out of the intercom. ¡°The robots outside are in range, but there is a group of Mexican military outside the compound.¡± Matt reported. ¡°The robots we had inside the compound have been destroyed. I think they have some divers inside stealing our computers and equipment.¡± ¡°What tech can they recover if they escape?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°Biotech chip configuration and testing data. They will struggle with this without the chip design data from the lab in India. They can also get most of the data from the materials lab including the schematic for the newer fusion devices and studies on protein guided crystal growth. We cleared out a lot of the genetics work and weapons tech. The robotics tech is in this room, but if they breach here, we have bigger problems.¡± Terrance, the leader of the security forces replied. ¡°How likely are they to breach this level?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°About half their forces were killed between our defenses and the upper levels flooding. Most of the rest are in a fire fight with the Mexican army unit outside the compound. I think they have less than a dozen guys equipped for diving, so they will prioritize grabbing computers and gadgets on the levels they can access. I think they will try to breach this level with explosives soon.¡± ¡°What options do we have?¡± ¡°We can seal ourselves in the warehouse area. I would recommend we do this now.¡± ¡°Almost done here.¡± Matt said. ¡°If you could stall them for another two minutes, we can get this robot out into the water.¡± Their robot factory and huge 3D printers had been working non-stop since Scott had arrived. A variation of the spider-like robots Phillip favored was almost assembled. This version had a flechette rifle mounted on one arm. ¡°The tunneling robots are connecting the mining tunnel with the elevator shaft. They are breaking through now, but we don¡¯t have visibility up the elevator shaft yet.¡± ¡°OK, everyone not in the security group or robotics move to the warehouse space.¡± Terrance ordered. Scott was heading through the door when the floor rumbled. ¡°The mining robot ran into one of their divers. He set off a charge and destroyed it, but the plates we sealed over the elevator door are holding.¡± Terrance announced. They all waited for a few tense minutes to see if there would be further attacks on this level. ¡°The robot is done,¡± Matt said. The ball of sharp, pointed arms scuttled quickly into the pool at the edge of the room which connected to the mine. Several of the other techs had stopped what they were doing to watch his screen. ¡°I¡¯m climbing up the elevator shaft.¡± Matt announced, guiding the robot. ¡°Go up to the second floor. Materials and fusion research are the top priority.¡± Melinda said. They waited as the robot climbed up through the dark elevator shaft. After a minute, a few of the technicians watching the screen cheered. ¡°A guy swam into the elevator shaft from the top floor, and I tagged him with the flechette. A lot of blood and air bubbles. I don¡¯t think he¡¯s moving.¡± Matt seemed unfazed that he had just killed someone. Scott supposed it wasn¡¯t the first time today for Matt. ¡°Floor 2.¡± Matt continued his narration. ¡°Two guys were moving one of the fusion prototypes. Got them both. Checking the materials lab. Looks empty.¡± ¡°They probably already pulled the computers. Head back to the elevator and go up to the top level.¡± Melinda ordered. ¡°Back at the elevator. Whoa, a guy is swimming up from level 3, no scuba gear!¡± Matt said. ¡°Don¡¯t shoot! That¡¯s Gabriel the personal trainer.¡± Terrance said. ¡°OK, I¡¯m going up to the top. Moving past the corpse.¡± Matt said. ¡°Taking fire!¡± Matt announced. ¡°Two more down on the first floor. Gabriel made it up.¡± ¡°He looks injured. That guy is tough to swim all the way up with half an arm missing.¡± ¡°He¡¯s going to bleed out. Can you help him?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°I don¡¯t think I can do anything.¡± Matt said, starting to panic a bit. ¡°All right, I¡¯m swimming up.¡± Terrance announced, grabbing a medical kit and a tie down cord before heading towards the pool. He put a rebreather over his face before jumping in. ¡°Matt, can you send the robot down and help pull Terrance up to the top?¡± ¡°On my way. I¡¯ll pick him up at the mining tunnel.¡± About 30 seconds later. ¡°Got him, he missed the exit and was heading down the wrong tunnel.¡± Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Roughly a minute later. ¡°He¡¯s up. The Russians have cleared out of here. Terrance is working on Gabriel. No idea if he¡¯s going to survive. I¡¯m heading outside of the bunker now. Oh crap, there are bombs in the first room.¡± ¡°Pull Gabriel out if you can.¡± Melinda ordered. ¡°Terrance got the message and he¡¯s making a run for it.¡± By now everyone had exited the warehouse and were watching Matt¡¯s screen. Matt''s robot had picked up the unmoving personal trainer and was dragging him up a slope of fallen rocks where the bunker had been breached. They saw daylight for a few seconds before the feed cut off. A loud rumbling was felt by everyone, and some dust and small rocks fell from the ceiling. ¡°That is not good.¡± Scott said.
Alexey Lukina had ordered the retreat when one of the commandos announced that robots had broken into the elevator shaft. The man had managed to destroy the first one with the explosives intended to breach the final level of the bunker. The arrival of a unit from the Mexican army had already made it clear he had a limited timeframe. His men were able to hold them off easily using the base¡¯s heavily fortified walls which gave them a strong defensive position. They had bloodied the army unit and even shot down a helicopter gunship. Alexey had no illusions that they could hold out long once the army mobilized a stronger response. In the bunker they had met stiff resistance from soldiers with powerful weapons that pierced through his troops body armor. He had also lost a couple men to some powerful mining robots that had been moved up to the lower floors. Even with the challenges, he had grabbed computers and equipment from some very interesting labs and loaded it onto the boats. His superiors would accept the losses once they saw what he had retrieved. Alexey had planned on making copies of all the tech before handing it over, but a couple of the commandos who survived were on high alert and not letting the materials out of their sight. They were heading down the coast planning to load the goods onto a waiting submarine when one of his boats blew up. The remaining boats started to move in evasive patterns and his boat started a sprint towards the coast. ¡°Dark Siren spotted North-Northwest two nautical miles away,¡± their look-out announced. ¡°It is approaching at 25 knots.¡± The Dark Siren had fired from long range. It was approaching them at nearly the speed of a frigate. ¡°Fire the missile and torpedoes,¡± Alexey ordered. Two of his remaining boats had anti-ship weapons and quickly fired. A surface-to-surface missile streaked towards the distant ship accelerating in a blur. A couple torpedoes were dropped in the water and started moving away rapidly. Another of his boats blew up right before the missile hit the Dark Siren. There was a bright flash and a cloud of smoke. Alexey thought they must have taken out the gun and likely damaged the bridge. The torpedoes cut through the clear water until a large dome of water and bubbles appeared, indicating one of the torpedoes had somehow been intercepted. Seconds later, a bright flash of light appeared on the distant ship, followed by a loud rumbling sound. The second torpedo had hit and more smoke was hindering his view of the enemy ship. From what he could see, the ship had gone off course and was leaning to one side. He had seen the specs and it was not compartmentalized like a true warship. Alexey expected it would not survive. With only two boats left, Alexey¡¯s group returned to their escape path. The submarine was still several miles away, but he would be grateful to put this difficult mission behind him. ¡°An F-5 fighter is approaching. The Mexicans are taking this attack seriously.¡± His radar technician announced. Alexey made a call to the submarine. ¡°Split up, the submarine is retreating. Proceed to secondary exfil locations,¡± Alexey ordered. Alexey¡¯s boat raced towards the coast. He would use the alternate escape plan along with 6 commandos and the stolen materials. The remaining boats would continue on as decoys, but the submarine would be leaving without him. He had multiple contingencies in place, so it was not worth risking the submarine with a hostile air force flying overhead. The submarine had been the easiest escape plan, but he was not surprised that it had been chased off after firing a cruise missile at another country¡¯s territory. Alexey thought their response had been unimpressive - the Mexican military was not expecting something like this in such a remote area, and their lack of preparation showed. Once they reached the shore, Alexey and his men disappeared into the jungle. It had been a while since he had participated in any kind of field work like this, but he found himself looking forward to the next challenge.
It had taken a few hours, but everyone in the bunker was able to exit through the underwater tunnels with the use of a few rebreathers they had on hand. Their resident scuba diver had returned after setting up their communications antennae and helped guide them out in small groups. Terrance and Gabriel had made it out before the explosion collapsed the top two levels of the bunker. They were both seriously injured and were rushed to a hospital in Merida. Scott had never done scuba diving before, and they were fairly deep, so they needed to make a safety stop about 20 feet from the surface to allow nitrogen in their blood to dissipate safely. They had all been given a crash course on what to expect and he was sure he had not understood all the details. While he was waiting in sight of the surface, he admired some fish swimming around. They seemed unconcerned about the battle that had recently taken place nearby. Their guide Jansen had warned them that a fair number of sharks had been in the area earlier attracted by blood in the water, but they had mostly cleared out by now. ¡°Mostly cleared out¡± and ¡°sharks¡± was not that comforting to Scott who kept looking around for any signs of some monster coming back for the next course. He was in one of the first groups to exit. Matt and a few other technicians were in the last group. They had a plan to package up and hide some of the robotics equipment before leaving. They also sealed up the mine and set the mining robots to a dormant state. They weren¡¯t sure what the government response would be to all this, but it was likely some divers would be sent to investigate what they had been up to. No one saw the need to have even more of their technology stolen. When it was safe to surface, his group handed Jansen their dive equipment which he put in a mesh sack and headed back down. The guy had to be tired - he had been swimming around for hours now, but he seemed to be in a good mood despite the life and death situation. On the shore, Scott and the others in his group were greeted by some military people pointing guns at him. Scott¡¯s group made it clear they were surrendering and were brought to a van. They had agreed in advance on what they would talk about and what they should try to keep hidden. In short, they were admitting to mining operations which they had relevant permits for. No mention of their human resources software or biotech was considered necessary for the Mexican authorities. After some painful discussion, they had agreed that the fusion tech was no longer a secret they could keep. They would not share all the technical details but would admit they had this to the authorities. Melinda claimed she would file some related patents as soon as possible. They assumed the Russians would be able to reproduce their initial success within a year based on what they had stolen. The patents would provide some protection from Western companies trying to steal from them, but chances were good that others would duplicate their work soon. Scott was questioned for a couple hours. The authorities seemed very skeptical about his claims that they had started an undersea mining operation using robots, but they had found the robots Matt¡¯s group had used to attack the convoy, so they couldn¡¯t completely dismiss his claims. He had asked for a lawyer or if he could contact the US embassy, but they had refused and locked him in a room with a small cot.
It was 3 days before Scott was released. His passport had been destroyed during the attack, but regardless they told him he wasn¡¯t allowed to leave the country until they finished their investigation. Scott was finally allowed to contact the U.S. embassy and start the process of getting new identification documents. An official from the embassy asked more questions. Scott thought they must have already had a file on their Mexico base, but a lot of questions indicated they had been flagged as some kind of drug operation. The U.S. was so obsessed with drugs they seemed to have totally missed that it was a Russian attack. Sergio Guerra, the head of their security, had returned from the U.S. accompanied by Adriana and Carl. Solomon Rhodes had turned himself in to the police and was returned to prison to finish out his sentence. He had hired several expensive lawyers. They were suing the prison system for not protecting him from the Russian attack and the torture he had suffered. Melinda thought there was a good chance they would release him soon in exchange for dropping the lawsuits. Scott was very excited to see Adriana. Unlike Solomon, she had not been physically harmed. ¡°Uh, you look different,¡± Adriana mumbled when she saw Scott. ¡°Yeah, Melinda did some experiments on me. It was awful.¡± Scott complained. ¡°I have to do all these exercises every day now or my muscles will break down and poison my kidneys.¡± ¡°Well, it¡¯s great to see everyone. I heard you helped a lot finding where they were keeping me, so I guess I owe you one.¡± ¡°No need, we were all so worried,¡± Scott was surprised he wasn¡¯t even stumbling over his words. He was so happy she was safe he wasn¡¯t really thinking about how amazing she looked. ¡°Yeah, um we missed you, but our base blew up so I guess you were better off, um stupid!¡± So much for not getting flustered. Better off with the kidnappers? Scott was once again talking like an idiot. ¡°Heh, don¡¯t worry,¡± Adriana said. ¡°We¡¯ve all had a rough time. I can¡¯t believe the Russians shot our house with a cruise missile! And they sank my ship. Oh crap! Is your dad OK?¡± ¡°Um, sort of.¡± Scott said. ¡°He¡¯s in pretty bad condition with some broken bones and burns. A couple other guys on the ship didn¡¯t make it.¡± ¡°Oh no! I hope you aren¡¯t blaming yourself for this¡± Adriana said. She knew him pretty well. ¡°Last I talked to him was before the fight. He was so happy. He got a $42,000 bonus for that first delivery and he said he loved being on a ship again. Now he¡¯s in the hospital and almost died. Several of our people died in the attack.¡± ¡°Hey, take it easy Scott,¡± Adriana said. ¡°Everyone here made their choice to work here. We¡¯re not babies you need to protect from making bad decisions. I can¡¯t speak for everyone, but I never once blamed you when I was kidnapped. Actually, um I kind of missed you while I was there.¡± Adriana confessed before continuing, ¡°We are going to rebuild our ship and make an even better base. I had a lot of time to think while I was captured, and I can¡¯t wait to get started building our underwater habitat. I also want to build some submarines and launch some missiles at the stupid Russians.¡± ¡°Are you sure you want to just jump back into work after all that¡¯s happened? Maybe we should just go back to being students, so people won¡¯t keep attacking us.¡± Scott said. Adrian continued, ¡°You might look like some hero now, but you are still acting like the same whiny person I first met. You need to toughen up and stop worrying so much about what people might steal from us or do to stop us. We need to push back hard so they will think twice. You can¡¯t defend against everything. The people who attacked us are going to keep pushing everyone around until someone stops them.¡± Well, so much for Adriana being grateful about his help rescuing her. Scott didn¡¯t disagree with her - he needed to toughen up. He would ask some of the security guys if they could add some training as part of his workout. Melinda had rented them a car with a driver. For now, Scott was just glad to put this place behind him. Chapter 34 - Spring Break Aftermath Spring Break was over, but Scott and he and his friends were not allowed to leave Mexico. They had given statements to three different law enforcement agencies along with the US Consulate. Melinda had insisted that they were junior employees of the companies, and she was their manager, so she was handling the majority of follow up requests. They had notified a rather skeptical school administrator that they were the victim of a terrorist attack in Mexico and were not allowed to leave the country and return to school. The news had not covered the incident, so they had to get the Embassy to contact the school on their behalf. Both governments and Genysis members had agreed not to involve the press. Melinda had reserved a block of rooms at a resort on the Mayan Riviera a few hundred miles to the East of Merida. Spring Break was over, so there were a lot of rooms available. She told them not to worry about the expense. They had made over $20 million on their first and only delivery of metals with the Dark Siren. About $12 million got the mining company out of debt and much of this was owed to their other companies which were now all showing a profit. All had at least some cash surplus although most of their assets were wrecked. Scott found the tropical resort relaxing and it was a well needed break from the high stress of the last few weeks. His father was in stable condition. Melinda was frustrated that the doctors for their injured people would not let her transfer them to the Thailand facility. She complained they were suffering unnecessarily, and that most of the procedures they were going through would just have to be ¡°cut off and regrown¡±. Melinda hired a private car to take Scott to visit his father once they declared he was able to accept visitors. It wasn¡¯t hard to find someone who could understand him at the hospital, so Scott was able to fill out the necessary forms to visit. His dad was conscious when he arrived but resting. He had visible burns on one side of his face and an eyepatch. One arm was heavily wrapped in bandages. ¡°Hey dad, it¡¯s Scott,¡± he announced. His dad looked a bit drugged but focused on his son. ¡°Scott, is that you? You look like you¡¯ve been working out. A lot!¡± ¡°Um, yeah. We have some crazy medical tech that seems to have helped my fitness.¡± ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be doing steroids. Just because we were attacked, you don¡¯t need to do anything crazy.¡± Mr. Henderson said. Even half burned to a crisp he was worried about his son. ¡°Too late. Melinda did this to me. It doesn¡¯t hurt anymore and I¡¯m actually enjoying working out. It¡¯s cool seeing these ex-military guys look impressed when I¡¯m weightlifting.¡± ¡°So, I heard the base was destroyed and obviously our ship was sunk. I¡¯ve been out most of the time since then, although Melinda told me that you kids came out OK,¡± his dad replied. ¡°Yeah. We want to start rebuilding, but the government is still investigating the site. It might be months before we can start up again. Very frustrating for all of us. They won¡¯t even let the other kids go home. I want to stay here until we can get you out of this hospital.¡± ¡°Might be a while. The doctors are worried about infection and want to do some skin grafts. Melinda told me to decline any treatment and try to get out as soon as I can. Do you think I should trust her?¡± Scott¡¯s dad asked. He didn¡¯t know Melinda like Scott. Scott also wasn¡¯t willing to admit that anyone should trust her, especially once she got you into that mysterious lab in Thailand. ¡°Um, I¡¯m not sure if you should trust her. She does have some amazing medical tech, but I would make sure Dr. Chaikhot is around at all times. Otherwise, you might end up with some untested upgrades.¡± Scott admitted. ¡°Well, maybe you or your mother could go with me to keep an eye on what they are doing.¡± ¡°Sure, I will definitely insist on that.¡± Scott agreed. It was the least he could do for his dad after getting him into this mess. ¡°I knew this job was too good to be true.¡± Scott¡¯s dad lamented. ¡°All that money, and cruising around in the Gulf was great. That ship was so fast it was amazing to conn. Even that fight at the end was exciting! All my time in the navy was boring by comparison. Here I was exchanging shots with the Russians! I even sank two of their boats!¡± ¡°I was underground at the time. I heard a bit, but what happened up there?¡± ¡°Oh, so we got the distress call and started really pouring on the speed. That freighter felt more like a frigate when we were cruising at full speed. Of course, turning it wasn¡¯t going to be easy, so we were kind of a sitting duck.¡± Scott¡¯s dad began. He was clearly excited to talk about his adventure despite the horrific injuries he received. ¡°We saw five boats on radar, slinking away from our base. When we got in sight, I lined up this really long range shot and blew up one of their ships right away. I shot at the closest one - probably a mistake in hindsight, but it¡¯s been 20 years so I¡¯m a bit rusty. I should have gone for one of the bigger ones.¡± ¡°Still, it¡¯s lucky we hired you. We didn¡¯t realize we would need combat experience on a cargo ship.¡± Scott admitted. ¡°Right! So, the Ruskies were pissed and launched an SSM and dropped a couple fish in the water.¡± Mr. Henderson was starting to use jargon Scott didn¡¯t understand now. ¡°Uh, SSM? Is fish a torpedo?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Oh. SSM is a surface-to-surface missile. Fish is old-fashioned slang for torpedoes, but appropriate in this case because they were close to the surface, and we could see them in the clear water. Just like you see in the old movies! Anyway, I lined up another shot and blew up another boat. I didn¡¯t even try to hit the missile since it came at us so fast. Anyway, the missile knocked me unconscious. I heard later that the captain had launched the collection submarine which blocked one of the torpedoes. He probably saved our lives. Too bad he didn¡¯t make it.¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s awful.¡± Scott said. He hadn¡¯t been thinking about the captain and one other crew member who had not survived. ¡°At least his family is taken care of. We all had life insurance through the company, and he had just got a $200k bonus for the first run. Still awfully sad.¡± Mr. Henderson appeared to be struggling. ¡°Um, so it¡¯s great to see you, but I¡¯m about ready to press this pain med button again which will probably knock me out.¡± ¡°OK dad, thanks for the story.¡± Scott left and his car returned him to the resort.
As Scott was returning to the resort, he received a call from Solomon Rhodes. ¡°Hello, Scott? My lawyer got me this number,¡± Solomon began. ¡°Hi Mr. Rhodes. I heard you were held in the same place as Adriana. I¡¯m really sorry you had to go through all that.¡± Scott said. He had heard that the Russians had been a lot rougher on Rhodes than they were on Adriana. He shuddered thinking about what the man had gone through. ¡°Yes, it was very unpleasant, but I am grateful that your company was able to get me out of there.¡± Rhodes continued, ¡°The reason I¡¯m calling is because I heard you were recently attacked by the same group that kidnapped me.¡± ¡°It was terrifying,¡± Scott admitted. ¡°They destroyed our base and stole a lot of valuable equipment and tech. They also killed a couple of our sailors and some security people. I¡¯m pretty worried about what they will do next.¡± ¡°Yes, we probably shouldn¡¯t talk too much over the phone about things like this. Anyway, I destroyed the data on my computer that accessed their systems, but they made me tell them about you. Sorry, but I told them everything I knew but I burned my access so they can¡¯t get it either. They took my phone and computer but won¡¯t get anything from it. Your people helped me regain access to one of my accounts here in the States before I turned myself back in. I have to go in person to Switzerland and the Caymans after I¡¯m released to get the rest of my money back. Getting kidnapped really hurt some trades I had going. They probably cost me half my wealth.¡± Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Um OK,¡± Scott said confused. ¡°Not sure I can help you with any of that.¡± ¡°Right, of course not. Don¡¯t worry I¡¯m still rich, but there are still other people that want me dead. Anyway, I was calling to ask if we could continue my employment with your company under the same terms. I would need you to supply me with another laptop, but the rules would allow me to continue to access what I need.¡± ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll ask Melinda to send you another computer. The Russians weren¡¯t able to steal a lot of our research and our HR application because of how you set up our systems. We think they got some designs and research data stored on personal computers that mirrored the cloud drives, but it would have been much worse without your help.¡± ¡°Right. Well, I destroyed my master access key before they captured me. Your systems are secure, but no one can really access them anymore. All we can do is allocate or remove cloud resources. By the way, before they captured me, I noticed you had some systems using most of your server resources. If you can afford it, I would recommend doubling what you have provisioned.¡± ¡°OK, I don¡¯t know how to do all that,¡± Scott admitted. ¡°Can you coordinate that with Melinda when you get your computer back? Also, if you need a raise or something we should have a bit of money now.¡± ¡°It pains me to turn down a raise, but I think I¡¯ll be OK financially. One of the reasons I need that computer is so I can resume some of my charity work. It will be a good defense against some of my other enemies if I can buy a bit of goodwill.¡± Scott wasn¡¯t sure how contributing to charities would help defend against enemies, but he wasn¡¯t going to stand in the way if Solomon wanted to do some good in the world. ¡°All right, anything else I can help you with?¡± Scott asked. ¡°No, I¡¯ll be in touch once I¡¯m set up again. I¡¯m hopeful they¡¯ll take some time off my sentence now, so maybe I¡¯ll come visit you in Mexico if you are still there. I could use a very long vacation.¡±
At the resort, Scott wondered why more companies didn¡¯t run their businesses from Mexican resorts. Meetings happened over meals or hanging out in a private pool cabana, so people didn¡¯t seem to mind. They set up a multi-monitor, high end computer in his room so he could work while looking out at the Caribbean Sea from his 3rd floor room. For an IT guy, it was hard to beat this setup. Matt, Elsa and Barry all missed having their labs. Their complaints seemed half-hearted as they were currently all sitting in a cabana with frozen drinks in hand. ¡°Elsa, it was crazy during the attack, but I remember hearing something about rainbow rats?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Yeah, my babies were drowned when the level flooded. We didn¡¯t have a way to get them out.¡± Else replied sadly. She looked pretty good in a bathing suit with a floral-patterned cover-up. There was something odd about her straight dark hair. The roots looked like they had been dyed a light blue color. She passed him her phone which had pictures of these adorable mice dyed a wide range of bright colors. Also, they had a bizarre mix of hair length and curl. One looked a bit like a bright green sheep with long, very curly hair. A few others had long, silky hair in red or purples. Scott could see why she called them rainbow rats. ¡°I¡¯m assuming this was some kind of experiment?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± Else said, getting a bit more excited. ¡°We just loved the colors that nature invented for tropical birds and wanted to see if we could express it in hair color. As you can see, it worked! We can basically make a shampoo that edits the DNA in a mammal¡¯s hair follicles. It¡¯s much easier than making changes to internal organs since you can just apply it directly and repeat as needed.¡± ¡°That¡¯s awesome!¡± Barry added. ¡°I noticed your blue hair coming in, but I didn¡¯t realize you were a mutant.¡± ¡°Yeah, I kind of wanted to try a new look. We¡¯re taking time lapse pictures as it grows. It will take a couple months before I get the new hair to the right length. I think this would be a very popular product, but genetic engineering on humans is illegal. We could probably sell it for pets.¡± Elsa said, sounded disappointed about not being allowed to genetically engineer humans. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure this is part of why Melinda wants us to build an underwater habitat deep in the Atlantic. With international waters so she can just ignore whatever rules she wants.¡± Adriana added. ¡°She already ignores all the rules!¡± Scott protested. He did admit he didn¡¯t mind his new physique. He had caught Adriana staring a few times and had noticed a few of the girls at the resort giggled sometimes when they saw him. At first, he had been embarrassed and wondered if he had something in his teeth or if his hair was sticking up more than usual. ¡°No kidding!¡± Matt agreed. ¡°Did you know she is starting up the mine again, even while the government has the whole property cordoned off?¡± ¡°How?¡± asked Scott. ¡°She already bought up a couple of the neighbor¡¯s houses. They had been eager to sell thinking we were a cartel or something. Most people don¡¯t want to live near a walled compound with guns on the walls.¡± Matt continued. ¡°Yeah, I feel kind of bad for our former neighbors.¡± Scott said. ¡°Oh, she paid them more than the market price for the area as soon as our first cargo run hit the balance sheets. With how the economy is right now, they should all be able to upgrade somewhere safer.¡± ¡°We used that tunnel we dug to set up the comms at the next-door neighbor during the attack and expanded it. Rafael and Phillip are setting up a new basement and robotics lab. The high-end 3D printers we rented are still in the original lab. We can¡¯t get them out until the government allows us back on our property. That is about $6 million in gear we were renting, so it¡¯s good that it wasn¡¯t destroyed.¡± ¡°Can you still make what you need to rebuild the lab?¡± ¡°We are buying our own machine at the new location, but the capacity will only be about a third of what we had. The good news is, we have most of the mining robots and the mine is already at the depth we wanted for the lateral tunnels. We still have most of the robots we used for shipbuilding, and they are hard at work repairing the Dark Siren on the seafloor.¡± Matt explained. ¡°Nice!¡± said Barry. ¡°Hey Scott, how is your dad?¡± ¡°He¡¯s not in great shape, but his mood is good. Melinda was talking about a military raid to get him and Gabriel out of the hospital so they can get what she considers proper care. I have mixed feelings about that, but I¡¯m not sure I can talk her out of it.¡± Scott admitted. ¡°Hah, that explains why she was asking me to research venom that knocked people unconscious or caused temporary paralysis.¡± Elsa said. ¡°Hah! You might be the largest shareholder, but Melinda is just going to do whatever she wants regardless of what you or the government says.¡± Barry laughed. ¡°Speaking of the government, do you think we¡¯re in any trouble with the law?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°Obviously we are the victims. They don¡¯t have a specific law about owning railguns or needler rifles, but the lawyers say they might try to charge us for building firearms without a license. Our battle robots might have been a problem, but the cartel guys we intercepted have apparently been released and refused to talk about incident.¡± Matt said. He seemed to be the most informed of the group. ¡°Between the bombs and what the Russians stole, I don¡¯t think they know about the illegal genetic engineering. Building a nuclear device is probably illegal, but they wouldn¡¯t be able to prove anything without destroying the generator. We had permits for all our mining operations, even if the government had no idea how valuable they would be.¡± Matt concluded. ¡°Are we really going to just get up and running again like nothing happened?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Of course not. It will take a while to get the labs rebuilt and the ship repaired. We were supposed to get a big dividend from the first cargo run, but that is out the window now that most of that money is spent. The house had insurance, but obviously our secret underground lair wasn¡¯t covered.¡± Matt laughed. ¡°What are the rest of you working on?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I¡¯m working with Dr. Springer to rebuild our labs. His family is here at the resort so I¡¯m doing most of the work!¡± Barry complained. ¡°Same here,¡± Elsa said. ¡°A lot of my equipment was wrecked so I¡¯m just planning my new lab. All my research is on hold for now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m finishing plans for our underwater habitat. We made a lot of security related changes after the attack. There are so many things to think about now that I¡¯m designing it with military attacks in mind.¡± Adriana said. ¡°I need Melinda to hire some more people in the construction company. We have two habitats to finish planning, the design for rebuilding the base and we need several types of submarines for different purposes.¡± ¡°I wonder if my friend from NASA would be interested,¡± Matt said. Scott remembered Matt had a bit of a crush on some girl who had commented on some of his designs. Scott pulled up his laptop. ¡°What was her name again?¡± ¡°Zaliha Min. She works on spaceship designs, so submarines are probably something she could handle with a bit of extra training.¡± Matt replied. ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s in the top 5000 skills even without Glitch_HR training. It looks like she¡¯s not currently making all that much money. Would you mind asking her if she¡¯s interested?¡± Scott said. ¡°Melinda can figure out what to offer her for salary, but I bet we can pay more than NASA.¡± ¡°Awesome.¡± Adriana agreed. ¡°It¡¯s about time we get another woman working here. This company was turning into a bunch of beefy men running around with guns.¡± ¡°Hah, I¡¯ve caught you admiring my work, looking at Carl by the pool.¡± Elsa teased. ¡°What can I say? He¡¯s 50 years old, but Carl looks good!¡± Adriana laughed. ¡°I think I need to figure out how to cure skin wrinkling and maybe some other female upgrades,¡± Elsa said. ¡°Poor Melinda doesn¡¯t have a chance with all those young ladies fawning over him.¡± ¡°Right. You will just casually destroy the multi-billion dollar beauty industry so Melinda can get a date.¡± Barry said, sounding impressed with his girlfriend. ¡°The laws won¡¯t let us sell any of it, ¡°Elsa grumped. ¡°Besides, helping Melinda out will probably save the lives of some of those women drooling over Carl.¡± Chapter 35 - Rebuilding and a Medical Rescue The next few months passed quickly as everyone stayed busy on various projects. The University had agreed to let them drop all their classes for the semester after receiving confirmation of their story of a terrorist attack from the US Embassy in Mexico. Some of the group moved to the new house next door to the original house, but it did not have room for everyone. They ended up renting a couple other houses in the neighborhood longer term to keep everyone close by. Elsa had rebuilt her lab and there were several brightly colored animals wandering around the property. The girls and Melinda were all growing different colored hair. Adriana had gone with a light green color, while Melinda was replacing her gray hair with a more traditional blonde. Matt¡¯s friend Zaliha had accepted their job offer but was not willing to let the mad scientists alter her DNA. She did seem very happy to be working in the tropical location and getting to design submarines all day. She mentioned that NASA spent a lot of time in meetings and that they had procedures in place that kept the large organization functioning but did not allow much creativity. Here she could just whip out a new design using robot labor and nearly unlimited materials, and no one really complained when it failed. NASA had been big on planning every single detail upfront because an error would be disastrous. Everything was debated and checked extensively by committees, and you couldn¡¯t build anything unless it passed a gauntlet of approvals. Here she could just create a design, get it built and modify any problems based on feedback. They had iterated through multiple designs before NASA would have even approved funding for further study. The government had finished their investigation and ruled that recreational drugs were not being produced at the facility, much to the disappointment of the U.S. DEA. The Russians were criticized by Mexico and the U.S., but they denied the attack despite all the evidence. Nothing really came of it publicly since the press had not been encouraged to report on the attack. One local journalist had written a story which showed up on AP, but it wasn¡¯t a talking point on any of the news networks. They had repaired the Dark Siren''s hull and re-floated it. Crews were repairing and replacing the interior systems and it was scheduled to launch again soon. Scott was a bit overwhelmed with how chaotic their property had become over the past few weeks. Cars and trucks were parked three deep in the yard and lined up on the street. The air was noisy with chatter in Spanish and English as workers hustled around to different locations. They were framing a new house on the original property. It was much larger than the original and they had poured a foundation over where the shed and bunker entrance had been located. Two large piers were getting assembled going far out into the water with about 150 feet of rocky coastline between them. The piers were solidly built and wide enough for a two-lane road. The original wall had been partially demolished. A crane lifted steel beams for a parking garage between where the houses had been. A couple crews were chopping down or trimming trees. All this was just the activity on the surface. Scott knew there were also crews installing lighting, plumbing and machinery in some of the new underground spaces that had been carved out. Despite a fair number of robots working, Scott knew they had over 200 people hired short term on various tasks. The money they had made from the first run was quickly running out. They had paid off $12 million in debts, but they had spent the remainder of the money made on the first run and were already taking on some new debts. Melinda was sitting inside the second house drinking a martini with the wall street lady Angela Stein. Scott decided to go see what they were talking about. ¡°Hello Scott, we almost have the mats installed in the new gym. I know you were excited to start sparring with some of the security guys.¡± Melinda¡¯s voice came out of the intercom while she babbled away into her phone. ¡°Um, hi Melinda. I¡¯m not sure excited is the right word, but I am going to give it my best effort.¡± ¡°Is this really Scott?¡± Angela was amazed. ¡°Last I saw him he was this awkward, skinny guy. He¡¯s looking pretty good!¡± Scott wasn¡¯t entirely comfortable with how Angela was looking at him. She was at least ten years older than him and rather attractive. She was letting her eyes wander all over him without any shame. He reminded himself that he finally had a chance with Adriana now and didn¡¯t want to ruin it. ¡°Don¡¯t be flirting with my boy Scott,¡± Melinda said with a smirk. ¡°He¡¯s in love with that sweet girl Adriana who doesn¡¯t realize yet what a catch he is. Doesn¡¯t he look nice with the new haircut and clothes I bought him?¡± Scott¡¯s face flushed as his embarrassment reached new levels. Melinda had ordered him new clothes after his old wardrobe had been destroyed by the Russian cruise missile. His old clothes wouldn¡¯t really fit anyway now that he had all this muscle. Still, the way she said it made him feel like a little boy who had his mother picking out a cute outfit for picture day. To be fair, the clothes were comfortable and looked better than the stuff he used to wear. Scott remembered how weird and embarrassing it had been having a tailor measure him and making adjustments. Melinda had said it was to help him ¡°show off the goods¡±. She could be really creepy sometimes! ¡°Right, so I¡¯m guessing Angela was a bit worried when she heard we got blown up and attacked.¡± Scott said, trying to change the subject. ¡°No kidding. Startups often have difficulties, but Russian commandos are not something I would expect you needed in your contingency planning.¡± Angela said. ¡°Still, I was impressed with how quickly Melinda is getting things back on track. I came here wondering if she would need additional capital, but once again my attempt to buy more equity has failed.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be greedy dear,¡± Melinda scolded. ¡°I think we¡¯ll have plenty more opportunities soon that you can get a piece of.¡± ¡°Oh? I¡¯ve pulled a lot of money out of my other investments because the economy is looking grim. There was a bit of a bounce due to the stimulus packages, but I feel like a lot of what the governments are doing is making no sense. It seems like a group of senators and congressmen are working across party lines to target anything to do with wall street. It¡¯s really going to put a stranglehold on any possible recovery.¡± Angela said. ¡°I heard some very interesting gossip on that topic from one of my associates,¡± Melinda said. ¡°Someone cut into those politicians'' insider trading profits, and they panicked, pulling all their money out of the major funds. Someone finally fixes a major corruption problem, but extracting the parasites is taking the whole system down with them.¡± ¡°I heard something like that from some of my friends in the industry. I wonder if the person who took them down was doing it for political reasons or if they were just trying to make a quick buck stealing from a bunch of thieves?¡± Angela speculated. ¡°Wait, are you saying this whole economic collapse is because politicians weren¡¯t allowed to steal any more money?¡± Scott said. ¡°Try to keep up dear,¡± Melinda said patiently. ¡°Anyway, the important thing for us is that labor, land and other resources are getting much cheaper. The downside is that demand for some of the metals we are mining is greatly reduced. When the governments try to throw money at the problem, there will be lots of opportunities where the prices will no longer match the underlying supply and demand.¡± ¡°I think I can understand that.¡± Scott said. ¡°So here in Mexico, they are feeling the drop in demand, so we benefit from the easy availability of workers and supplies. This is great for our rebuilding efforts, and we¡¯ll earn some goodwill with the local government keeping their economy up and running. We can use a lot of the steel and lower price materials right now to build up our internal projects instead of trying to sell it all.¡± ¡°So how do we make money in this environment?¡± Scott asked. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. ¡°I can answer that one,¡± Angela said. ¡°You get loans and grants from the government. They are going to print a ton of money to fix the economy, so you bid on some big projects and generally try to soak up as much of the excess cash as possible. If they are pushing green energy, we start a solar panel company. If they are doing infrastructure, we bid on every contract they have. We can undercut most competitors with your robots and cheap resource costs.¡± Angela continued, ¡°Normally these projects would only go to their friends and supporters, but when the economy is crashing, they are handing out so much cash that a wider group of people can grab a share.¡± ¡°You¡¯re saying if they propose a project to build a bridge with the goal of creating a couple hundred jobs, we take their money and build it with robots for cheaper?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Pretty much. Then we take the money we saved and hire people for jobs we actually need. It¡¯s not like we¡¯re the bad guys, we are just fixing the government¡¯s tendency to misallocate resources. The taxpayer wins with a cheaper bridge, people still get jobs that they are actually suited for, and we get more money.¡± Angela said. Scott felt like the argument was missing something, but he was willing to roll with it. ¡°I think I get it. Right now, demand is low so we soak up the excess resources for our own projects. When the government is handing out money, we grab it and build stuff cheap. Later, as other people start building the demand will go up and we sell resources to them, so we make money on both ends of the cycle.¡± Scott said. ¡°The problem is knowing when and where the government is going to hand out money so we can bid on projects. We don¡¯t exactly have many connections. I guess we should start donating to political campaigns or something.¡± ¡°No way! That¡¯s a terrible idea. We use that brilliant program of yours and hire lobbyists,¡± Melinda corrected. ¡°Why go through all the expense and time building up some slimy politician when we can just pay someone who already has the relationship? So much cheaper and faster plus we don¡¯t need to deal with all the junk mail you get once you start donating.¡± ¡°Nice. Did I just hear you have a program that helps you find lobbyists?¡± Angela perked up. ¡°Can you tell me more?¡± ¡°No way!¡± Melinda said. ¡°Trade secrets. Even if you somehow convince Scott to go up to your room, he better not tell you anything.¡± She glared at Scott. Did she really think that something like this would happen? Scott had never even been on a date with a girl. ¡°I would never!¡± Angela protested. ¡°Unless he¡¯s interested¡­ I¡¯m in the 2nd room upstairs on the right.¡± She chuckled. She was obviously joking. Scott would never just show up at some strange woman¡¯s room. ¡°Umm, I think I¡¯m going to go¡­ yeah¡± Scott practically ran out of the room. Melinda and Angela were giggling as he hustled outside.
Scott decided to head into the tunnels next. He needed to get away from those women; they had clearly been drinking too much. The first room underground was set up as a kill box with transparent aluminum windows on one wall and a couple holes that guards could shoot out. Two heavily armed guards he recognized waved him through. They didn¡¯t yet have enough employees that people needed an ID badge - at least not for the core employees. Scott was sure there would soon be a time when not everyone recognized him as the employee count continued to rapidly grow. Only a couple dozen people were allowed on in the lower levels which were still mostly unfinished. The second floor down was all Genysis Biotech. Elsa and Melinda spent a lot of time there along with a couple others Scott didn¡¯t know too well. Dr. Chaikhot had returned to Thailand after the attack. The third floor down was going to have the gym, firing range, and probably housing for some of the security people. They were planning to have a cafeteria here too and some meeting rooms. At the moment it was mostly rough space carved out of the rock, but there were a few work crews. One crew was wearing welding masks and had some kind of laser cutting out blocks of stone to make conduits for plumbing and electrical work. Scott would have to ask someone about that later. He didn¡¯t think normal crews used energy weapons. There were a couple security guys in a meeting room watching several video feeds. ¡°Hey Sergio. What are you guys watching down here?¡± Scott asked. He was a junior programmer, but technically he was also everyone¡¯s boss. He figured they wouldn¡¯t kick him out. ¡°Hey boss!¡± Sergio answered amiably. ¡°I¡¯m surprised Melinda didn¡¯t tell you about this. She¡¯s been pretty stressed lately so maybe it slipped her mind.¡± ¡°Stressed?¡± Scott said. ¡°She¡¯s sipping cocktails upstairs with her friend.¡± ¡°Come on man, you know that¡¯s her socialite personality. She has a pretty unique ability to be stressed and relaxed at the same time.¡± ¡°I guess I never thought about it. I kind of assumed moods were more of a hormone thing that would be shared across her personalities.¡± ¡°It probably bleeds over like that. She¡¯s made some odd comments during this mission which makes me think she¡¯s not entirely focused¡­ or sober. Fortunately, she has a hands-off management style so her erratic behavior shouldn¡¯t cause any real problems.¡± ¡°Speaking of that, what exactly is going on here?¡± ¡°Right, so see that building there?¡± Sergio asked. ¡°Wait, that looks like the hospital my dad is at!¡± Scott said, alarmed. ¡°Yeah, we¡¯re kidnapping your dad and Gabriel. Melinda decided their medical care was unacceptable and she thought our chances were better with military options instead of a doomed attempt at fighting with the medical bureaucracy.¡± Sergio said ruefully. On screen, Scott watched as someone pushed a security guard who was slumped in his chair away and was doing something with the computer and camera feeds at his desk. Another screen showed someone walking through some hallways. ¡°It¡¯s not really that hard to steal patients unless they are in a pediatric ward.¡± Sergio explained. ¡°The complication here is that we have two targets on different floors. Also, Gabriel does not want to go willingly. He¡¯s probably still upset about getting left behind during the attack and nearly dying a few times.¡± Scott could sympathize with what the personal trainer had gone through. He had been told to lock himself in an office shortly before the whole floor flooded. While his office slowly filled with water a Russian diver had shot up the door forcing him to leave quickly or drown. He had somehow overpowered the diver - Gabriel was a really fit dude. He received a bad injury that eventually led to the amputation of his left hand. With some help from Terrance, Gabriel had made it out to the surface and was carried away in time, but only barely. He had received some puncture wounds, burns and shattered eardrums from the explosion of the upper level. He had survived thanks to a military medic who was onsite with the Mexican armed forces. Scott remembered how cheerful and helpful the man had been when they first met. By all accounts he was now paranoid. There had been some incidents where he attacked some of the medical staff, suggesting he was not handling the mental trauma. Currently, he had been sedated and was strapped in a wheelchair with a couple men making their way to the exit. ¡°We took the security guard out a little early. Need to work on our timing a bit, but a lot of these guys are new to the team.¡± Sergio said apologetically. ¡°About half our best guys chose not to participate in this operation. I can respect a guy with moral lines they won¡¯t cross.¡± ¡°Anyway, we are jamming cell phone service. All the people trying to call for help about the security guard getting knocked out can just pound sand.¡± Scott decided it was best to just keep silent and observe. His dad seemed to be happily chatting with his kidnapper. Scott guessed they knew each other. The two patients were wheeled into a standard white abduction van, and then most of the feeds were cut. ¡°Well, that was a bit sloppy, but no one was hurt so I¡¯m calling it a win. The security guard will wake up a bit groggy but shouldn¡¯t have any pain.¡± Sergio narrated. ¡°I guess they are going to take them to Thailand?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s the plan. Private charter with some medical documents. We got the documents to transfer an unconscious patient out of the country before the hospital denied us the same transfer. These bureaucrats don¡¯t really talk to each other. Most of this nonsense is still on paper so it might as well be shoved in a black hole unless lawyers start looking through it years later.¡± ¡°Do you think I can talk to my dad?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Uh sure. We¡¯re on regular cell phones, so try not to use words like drugs or kidnapping if you can help it. I don¡¯t really know if they monitor cell phones as closely in this country as they do in yours.¡± Sergio admitted. ¡°Hey dad, it¡¯s Scott. Just watched you on TV. How are you feeling?¡± Scott asked. That sounded pretty non-incriminating. ¡°Hi Scott! It was awesome! They totally kidnapped me and drugged the security guard.¡± Mr. Henderson gushed. Sergio gently face-palmed. ¡°Oh hehe. Funny story dad,¡± Scott lamely replied. ¡°Well, I think I¡¯ll keep it short. I guess you are going to Thailand soon. Hope you have a nice trip and feel better soon.¡± ¡°Oh yeah, I tried to talk Melinda into giving me the full Carl treatment, but she said they were just going to fix the burns and grow me a new eye. Can you imagine them growing an eye in a jar or something? She said something about how they couldn¡¯t do the full upgrade without putting a computer in my brain which would wipe out a big chunk of my memory.¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m already mad at her for doing medical experiments on people without their consent. What they can do is really amazing, but it¡¯s so risky since they haven¡¯t tested it on real people. Um, not that I know of. I should probably ask if they tested it on real people. OK I¡¯m going to hang up now based on the dirty look Segio is giving me¡± Scott said. Great, Scott was sure he would be on all sorts of government watch lists if they wiretapped here like they did in the U.S. Chapter 36 - Moving Forward A few weeks after Melinda had extracted his dad and Gabriel from the local hospital, they were still in Thailand. Scott had talked to his dad who had now regrown his skin and said they had shown him an eye growing in a vat that would replace the one he lost in a few months. He was excited about the whole thing and also because he was promoted to captain the rebuilt ship. Mr. Henderson had been working with Adriana and Zaliha on some improvements to the design including more defensive features to counter torpedoes and missiles. To Matt¡¯s mock disappointment, there would not be any robotic dolphins in the design. Gabriel Hauser, who had somehow survived the Russian attack only to be kidnapped by Melinda, was unhappy to have been whisked away to her Thailand research lab. Melinda claimed she had perfected her technique of regrowing a hand. Unfortunately, Gabriel now had two right hands, though one was still small and growing. They had not used the correct combination of developmental signals for the bilateral symmetry. He was understandably upset and had started aggressively resisting his abductors. Gabriel did not take kindly to Melinda¡¯s offer to lop off the hand and grow it back correctly. Gabriel had managed a daring escape from their facility. He seemed to have keenly developed instincts for getting out of bad situations. Gabriel was starting to get a small cult following on a streaming video channel where he talked about secret government labs in Mexico and Thailand. His two right hands were creepy enough to give his stories some credibility, plus some of the local workers must have contributed some supporting evidence. Scott had been working on physical training with the security guys. His coordination was better than ever and he had maintained most of his new strength. Some of the others received a similar procedure to what Melinda inflicted on him; they learned that it was not nearly as painful for someone who was already in decent shape. He was practicing unarmed combat with Terrance in the new gym. The old gym had collapsed in the explosion, but the new space was even bigger and had more of an emphasis on fighting skills. ¡°Oof!¡± Scott grunted. He had meant to ask what was wrong with his fighting stance, but Terrance had demonstrated with an Aikido throw augmented by his ridiculous strength. Bruises and minor fractures were common among people who trained with the security forces. No one was really used to their new strength. A couple guys had even allowed Melinda to experiment with new bone chemistry. The first guy had a bad reaction and would need to have both kidneys regrown. The second guy was currently in recovery from his surgeries and the initial tests were impressive. The mercenaries were competitive and fairly reckless, agreeing to test out new ideas for upgrading various physical features with enthusiasm. ¡°Uh, I need a break.¡± Scott said, coughing up a little blood. Their combat medic started running some tests to see how bad it was. The good news was they could fix a lot of issues that would have been challenging with traditional sports medicine. Bad news was that he would be doing rehab for a few days. They had a new personal trainer, Morgan Newman. She was a tough woman who didn¡¯t take kindly to any of the security guys flirting with her. She had not had the muscle enhancement procedure, but even without it she was pretty strong. More importantly she seemed to have an endless series of exercises and stretches so Scott was constantly discovering new areas to improve. Or suffer when he had to do yet another round of rehab. Morgan promised him he would toughen up as he recovered from more injuries. While recovering from his latest beating, Scott watched as Carl sparred with an ex-cartel guy named Sotera. Unlike Scott, Carl seemed to be picking up the combat training quickly. He was already winning about 3 in 10 matches against everyone except that monster Sergio who won almost every time. Carl didn¡¯t have any combat experience, but his brain seemed to pick up techniques quickly. Whatever they did to his muscles seemed just a bit more powerful than the version everyone else got. The rumor was that they did a lot of trial and error on Carl while he was in a coma and some surgeries no one was willing to risk on someone who wasn¡¯t already brain dead. Scott realized he was the weakest here, but he was used to humiliation. Most of these guys were around 50 years old, but they could beat him every time. The only other young person was the new addition of Marta Lopez. She was the girls¡¯ friend from school who had quit to join the company as a Junior Security Specialist. Marta had struggled at college, but she was particularly gifted at beating people up. Scott heard stories about how she had fought off one of the Russians that was trying to kidnap Adriana, but she backed up her reputation, establishing herself as an even match for guys like Terrance and Sotera who presumably had been kicking butt for decades. Despite his lack of talent, Scott was not willing to give up. He had felt so helpless when they were attacked. Even if he couldn¡¯t match these experts, he could now shoot a gun and he could probably fight better than average people his age. He had looked himself up in Glitch_HR for how suitable he would be in various security related professions. Currently, his rating was not great; he was best suited to be a mall cop.
Adriana was loving her work. After a mad scramble designing the new base, she was pleased that they were spending a little effort to make the interior attractive so people wouldn¡¯t mind staying there long term. The initial base had felt more like a mine or a prison. This time they would be using the new magnesium enamel paneling to give everything a sleek, futuristic look. There would be plenty of windows looking out into the ocean, and there were plans to add a beach and an artificial reef between the two massive piers. The building above ground was designed like a high-end vacation home that could be rented by rich people entertaining a few dozen friends. The underground levels felt more like an underwater resort than a mining and research facility. Melinda had approved hiring an interior decorator to help pick art and furniture. It made a big difference having a budget, although they could not finalize the purchases until more cash came in. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The Dark Siren was ready to go on another delivery run. Demand for metals had dried up in Mexico, but they would be able to sell a load in Houston at about 70% of the price they had received for the first load before the economy had fully crashed. Demand for the exotic metals had dried up quickly, but most of them would be used internally for research projects Barry and Dr. Springer worked on. Scott¡¯s dad had returned, ready to captain the ship and Adriana had enjoyed working with him even if they were mostly adding military upgrades. He was upbeat and cheerful despite the horrific injuries he had suffered. Adriana secretly thought his eyepatch looked pretty good. She was having trouble with what to think about Scott. He was looking good lately and the attack seemed to have motivated him to train seriously. He was the same insecure, awkward guy on the inside but there were times when a more confident Scott emerged. Adriana had also enjoyed working with Zaliha. Adriana had been proud of her design for the Dark Siren, but Zaliha knew so much about building things from her work at NASA. It didn¡¯t hurt that Matt would drop everything to help program his robots to build whenever she came up with something. They had built a small test submarine the first month. It sank due to a faulty seal when they tested it at a 300 meter depth, but the next version could handle 600 meters down to the sea floor. The whole area nearby was a relatively shallow shelf extending from the peninsula for about 150 miles off the coast, so this design could handle anything nearby. There were a few areas of shallower water including some small islands and a protected whale sanctuary further out, before the depth in the Gulf dropped down to about 1600 meters or more. The current design was not expected to handle this depth, but Zaliha was using what she learned to design a much larger vessel. The next generation was intended to handle depths up to 3 miles and it was intended they would use it when building a base on the Atlantic ridge. The first two iterations had been piloted remotely by wire, but the third version was intended for a small human crew. Adriana was helping with some of the environmental systems along with a couple engineers who were working remotely. Scott had been drafted to help program the user interface for the controls, and he was also working with a small team located remotely. The first test run would stay in shallow water. They had an underwater dock on the fifth level of the new base where Zaliha and Adriana were running through a list of tests and working with a couple engineers who would take over submarine maintenance once they had a fleet. The test pilot was a local marine biologist who they had hired recently, and she was accompanied by their scuba expert Jansen. Jansen was an adrenaline junky who had seemed bored since the Russian attack. He went on frequent dives troubleshooting problems and helped a bit with the construction projects, but he didn¡¯t seem happy unless there were sharks circling in the water or people shooting at him. Testing a new submarine design seemed interesting enough that he had volunteered several weeks before they had even started building. The submarine had basic systems installed but did not have the finishing touches or conveniences they would add once they confirmed it wasn¡¯t a death trap. Jansen and the pilot, Feliciana did not need the galley, sleeping quarters or even the bathroom finished for the initial run. For the first run, the water intake clogged with algae after about half an hour underwater. This was not an emergency, but it could eventually cause damage to the environmental systems on a longer trip, so they reworked the intake and self-cleaning systems. The control software had a few bugs, and the crew requested some adjustments to make it easier to use. The test was a huge success, so after some minor modifications they had planned to produce several of these small submarines. They would be used during the construction of the first habitat a few miles off the coast. It would be too far to control with remote relays, so the subs would allow them to manage the robots without programming them for every contingency. The submarines were designed to be easy to use - requiring a similar level of training to driving a car on land. They spent a lot of effort building simple controls with effort on automatic troubleshooting and automation to manage most systems. They would have different modules that could be swapped out for various activities - controlling robots, moving equipment or scientific analysis. A crew of up to 5 people could stay in the submarine for several weeks if needed. After a few more test runs and reworking minor systems, a crew started adding the finishes and conveniences for longer duration trips. In a few months, most of the core personnel would be used to driving around in the submarines and construction would start on the habitat. The habitat had features in common with the base near the shore, but it was on a much larger scale and needed to be mostly self-sufficient underwater. They needed to produce their own oxygen and food. They would need living, recreational, and commerce spaces. Space was reserved for medical, manufacturing and shopping areas. Transportation options needed to connect with the main base on shore, but also needed to reach up to surface shipping. They planned an underwater gondola system to connect with the shore, although the cars would float above the wire in this design. There would be a floating dock on the surface connected to the habitat with an elevator system. Barry and Dr. Springer had planned an ambitious system to power the facility, but Adriana didn¡¯t know the details other than it was something different from their first-generation fusion devices. Security features including the ability to seal off or evacuate entire sections. There were too many things for one person to plan so Melinda had hired a small team of experts who were working for their construction company. Economically, the plan was to let people rent or even buy space in the habitat. Adriana wasn¡¯t sure who would even be living down there, but she was designing it with space to eventually support up to 50,000 residents. The project seemed to be bigger and more expensive than what their small company could handle. Adriana did not really understand how it was going to make money, but she really enjoyed designing and planning something on this scale. Chapter 37 - Nova Scott was sitting in a small submarine, looking out at a school of fish through a transparent aluminum window. Adriana had invited him to look at the site where they had started work on their first deep sea habitat. Various building shells made from dark graphite embedded steel were being assembled on the edge of the underwater mound that had risen up from mine tailings and coated with slag from their electric forge. Much of the habitat would be under the seafloor, but these buildings marked where airlocks allowed various submarines or robots to enter or exit. Large frames made from a lattice of pipes spread out overhead forming a grid that would grow various types of algae and underwater plant life a dozen meters below the surface. The lattices could be raised or lowered in sections in case a cruise ship or cargo ship needed to pass by. There was not much traffic here due to the lack of beaches and the distance to oil wells or major ports. Scott was learning to drive the submarine which had been designed for simplicity. He had worked on some of the software, but using the finished product was a new experience. Most of the work had been done by other programmers, but it had been a good project to keep his programming skills sharp. ¡°Let¡¯s go check out the farm.¡± Adriana said, pointing upwards. Scott guided the sub up through the lattice which had holes big enough for the smaller subs to pass through. The aquatic plants were genetically modified, and the current field had stalks covered in grains. It was an underwater variant of rice if he remembered correctly. Melinda had hired botanists who were gleefully designing aquatic versions of a wide range of fruits, vegetables and grains. He had tried the rice - it was barely edible, and the other crops were still early in the testing phase. They passed by a plot with small plants of different types. ¡°Are those fish eating our crops?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Well, there have been a lot of fish sampling the merchandise.¡± Adriana said, ¡°I think they are trying to grow some kind of melon in that zone.¡± ¡°An underwatermelon?¡± Scott asked, laughing. ¡°Ugh, it might be sea cucumber,¡± Adriana replied, rolling her eyes but she couldn¡¯t resist matching him with another bad pun. ¡°Those things are gross. I saw one spitting out its guts.¡± Scott said. They were spending a lot of time underwater these days, so watching sea creatures was becoming a normal part of their day. The new cafeteria had a nice wide window with a view into the shallow water near the shore. ¡°We won¡¯t need the outside world much with all you have planned.¡± Scott said. ¡°Yeah, Melinda even hired a guy working on vat grown meats, so we won¡¯t have to just eat fish. She¡¯s also working on fish that taste like pork or chicken. That is going to be so confusing. The biggest problem is we don¡¯t have enough CO2 for growing so many plants. There is not enough dissolved in the water and the concentration in the air is too low for us to get the level we need for rapid growth.¡± ¡°Are we going to have to ship in dry ice or something?¡± Scott asked. ¡°That is the current plan. Melinda is talking to a local gas fired power plant,¡± Adriana explained. ¡°They are skeptical that we offered to reduce their emissions to zero, but we will let them keep the carbon credits and it¡¯s not costing them anything other than some minor downtime while we install the first unit. We had an engineering team build a prototype to show it working. It¡¯s kind of funny using a fusion power generator to convert emissions on a gas plant. We could probably design something better, but it¡¯s the cheapest solution we could come up with for now.¡± ¡°How is the Atlantic base planning coming along? Did we even pick a name yet?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Yeah, Barry wanted to call it ¡®The lost city of Atlantis¡¯. Fortunately, no one listens to him.¡± Adriana said, rolling her eyes. ¡°So, we are going with the mythology names then?¡± ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s kind of traditional for Sci Fi bases, but at least we aren''t using something so cliche as Sanctuary or Haven. This habitat will be Proteus and the Atlantic base will be Triton.¡± Adriana explained. ¡°Do we have a site picked out?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Not really. It will be on the Mid-Atlantic ridge. There are a lot of volcanoes so there will be sites very rich in minerals, but we haven¡¯t narrowed it down yet. Zaliha¡¯s next submarine is designed for long term exploration, and it can go really deep. A crew of about 20 people will be able to stay down there for months looking for potential sites. Initially they will test for geologic stability and take mineral samples.¡± They enjoyed the view in silence for a few minutes before heading back towards the shore.
Barry and Dr. Springer had been working for several months on their latest project. They had tried and failed to create a fusion reactor that could combine four normal hydrogen nuclei into a single helium. It had been an expensive failure but at least nothing exploded. In theory, they could accelerate the protons enough and modulate the frequencies to ensure the four channels would overlap precisely. In practice, they generated some fusion reactions, but it had been too infrequent to produce the energy needed to sustain power for the synchrotrons. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. They had collected good data, but the results indicated that to make it work they would need a reactor at least ten times as large. Their equipment was already filling a fairly large room. It wasn¡¯t impossible, but the cost would be impractical given their current resources. The new machine took a different approach. They used multiple deuterium reactors to provide the initial energy to get the machine running. Like their smaller designs, it took significant power to get their machine started, but once running it would generate a surplus of power until they ran out of fuel. Their latest idea was to simply smash electrons directly into protons inside a region with an extremely powerful sustained magnetic field at about 10 Tesla. Superconducting magnets could not support the field strength needed, so they had built big rings made from silver reinforced with iridium wire that could support massive currents. They had diverted most of the silver output from the mine from this experiment, but there was nothing else known that had the same combination of strength and conductivity at high field strengths. Combining hydrogen into helium was the reaction that powered the sun, but combining individual protons and electrons was more similar to the reaction that happened when a star went nova. Free neutrons were dangerous and could turn ordinary atoms into a radioactive mess. The current configuration had electrons and protons entering the field at small but opposing angles so they would spiral together in a tight helix. A third beam of hydrogen ions circled in the magnetic field which would absorb the free neutrons that exited in a disk to form deuterium or possibly tritium. The process produced a lot of free energy which could be converted into electricity. They used thermoelectric generators chained to steam turbines to convert the extreme heat levels to electricity and needed a lot of the osmium and iridium to handle the high temperature heat exchangers. Waste heat was a problem, so they circulated a lot of water through the final stage for cooling. Like their fusion reactors, restarting was a pain so these technologies were not great for applications like weapons or vehicles unless they could deal with the surplus power when they weren¡¯t active. The mining robots had been a great application because they were always running, and fixed installations also worked because you could dump excess power back into the grid. This device needed four industrial sized fusion reactors to run the oversized synchrotrons and the massive electromagnets. They didn¡¯t even try to recycle the power generated by what Barry was calling the Nova reactor. It could produce up to 50 MW of energy but more importantly it enriched hydrogen into deuterium which was the fuel needed for their normal reactors. Normal seawater had deuterium in about 1 part in 1000 of the abundant hydrogen atoms, but this reactor increased it to about 50 times the natural level. In theory, they could also configure the device to emit a high energy neutron stream which could transmute other elements. That had the downside of a lot of radioactive byproducts, so they didn¡¯t plan to implement it in the near term. ¡°Our reactor test was successful,¡± Dr. Springer announced, talking to Melinda over the phone. ¡°Excellent, I¡¯ve been working with the power grid so we can tie in and sell excess power. They move at a glacial speed, so it will be about 18 months before they even start working on running power lines. For now, we¡¯ll just want a couple more reactors for redundancy and run them all at low power. I remember reading your notes that a low power setting reduces efficiency, but it will be better to have redundant capacity in case of unit failure.¡± Melinda replied, ¡°We need to organize a party to celebrate your success. I understand this is kind of a big deal!¡± ¡°What kind of budget are we talking about for this party?¡± Barry asked, suddenly interested. ¡°Depends on if you are willing to wait until the next Dark Siren shipment returns from Houston.¡± ¡°Yeah, of course! I don¡¯t want Scott¡¯s Pirate Dad to miss out on the party!¡± ¡°Right, well they unloaded their cargo. We only made about half of the dollar amount as the first run because the economy is soft now. Also, we¡¯ve been keeping most of the precious metals for your projects.¡± ¡°So, I¡¯m not super interested in accounting stuff but how is my company doing?¡± ¡°You used about $1 million in silver, $3 million in iridium and about $500k in osmium. Other materials and use of construction robots is under $1 million. Your expenses the past few months were about $5.5 M.¡± ¡°Uh oh. Don¡¯t you credit us some back for all the reactors we made for the robots?¡± Barry asked, a little bit alarmed by the big debt they had racked up. ¡®Of course, dear. We¡¯ve licensed 160 or your smaller reactors at 50k each and 4 of your facility sized units at $800k. Your company was credited $11.2M minus expenses of $5.5M. You also have other expenses for Dr. Springer¡¯s salary, living expenses, renting space in our facility and your share of the overhead for the house servants. I¡¯m currently projecting your profit this quarter at about $5.4M.¡± Melinda rattled off numbers like she had a spreadsheet open while she was talking. Melinda continued, ¡°You¡¯re going to have to start paying a lot of taxes, but I think we should pay out a dividend and decide how much to spend on your party. It¡¯s better to spend some of the money as a corporate expense than just pay more taxes, don''t you think?¡± ¡°Hell yeah!¡± Barry said. ¡°Can we hire a party planner or something? I want every worker invited along with their families. Limos, open bars, a DJ. Oh yeah, I totally want some of those Mariachi guys!¡± ¡°Wow, we made over $5M this quarter?¡± Dr. Springer finally interjected, a little slower than Barry on the uptake. ¡°Am I right to assume that our Nova reactor is going to make even more money? I know we have to go slow introducing our tech to the world; by the way I¡¯m fine with that! This is my dream job, and it sounds like we are doing great financially.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll be crediting you guys $30M for a Nova unit the size you just successfully tested. You could probably sell it for much more to various governments, but they would be focused on stealing your technology. We¡¯re planning to buy a couple next quarter for Proteus along with a lot of the midsize fusion units for submarines. Of course, we¡¯ll need lots of the smaller packs for robots and other things we have planned.¡± ¡°What do you think about the dividend? We had talked about that at Spring break, but obviously the whole base getting blown up got in the way.¡± Barry said. ¡°As CEO, I¡¯ll send out my recommendations to all the company owners. We¡¯re due an update on our finances and it will be a nice treat for everyone to get their dividend numbers during the party,¡± Melinda said. ¡°I can¡¯t wait!¡± Barry agreed. Chapter 38 - Celebration Barry had really outdone himself with the celebration party. Spending half a million dollars for a single event was a little over the top. Merida was not an expensive city, so the money went a long way and he had hired three party planners to organize the details. The guest list included all their workers and contractors and their families included those who lived in other countries. They had invited the soldiers who had come to their rescue as well as local politicians and other people they had worked with the past six months. Close to 1000 people including family members had accepted the invitation, and they had rented out most of the Merida Hyatt for the event. Barry¡¯s original plan to pick everyone up in stretch limousines was not feasible. There just weren¡¯t enough available in the area, but they were able to find private drivers for everyone who wanted transportation. There were six bars set up including the pool bar and two ballrooms were filled with tables and dancing areas. Barry, Scott, Matt and Carl arrived in one limo and the girls in another. There were several other limos for the top employees and all the security forces who had participated in defending the compound. A small army of tailors and dressmakers had made them all custom outfits for the event. They had spent time with hair stylists plus makeup artists for the girls. At Barry¡¯s insistence, the boys were wearing Cuban influenced clothing with button down shirts and slacks made from lightweight, colorful materials, complete with Fedoras. The girls had custom dresses made, but the boys had not been allowed to see them yet. Arriving at the party, Barry had insisted they have a red carpet and a DJ playing music outside announcing them when they arrived. A fairly good-sized crowd had gathered to see what was going on, and one enterprising street vendor had set up a taco cart nearby. Because Barry was kind of an idiot, he insisted the boys were armed with T-Shirt cannons and they had fun launching Genysis logo T-Shirts into the confused crowd. Entering the lobby of the hotel, one of the party planners, Oscar, led them to the first reception area. ¡°Welcome Mr. Yong and friends. I was told to lead you here for drinks and appetizers until your lady friends arrive.¡± Oscar said politely. He enjoyed working with Barry who had been excited about everything and wasn¡¯t worried about the cost. The boys sat around admiring the colorful decorations and greeting a few people they had worked with. A lot of people looked familiar but were better dressed than usual. They didn¡¯t know the names of all the construction crew or house staff, but between the four of them they remembered about a quarter of the people in the room. One man, dressed in a sports coat and t-shirt, Scott remembered as Lorenzo Ceron who was the government official who had inspected their facility when they were first getting started. ¡°Ah, hello. I heard you announced on arrival as Scott Henderson, one of the owners of the Genysis companies who are sponsoring this event.¡± ¡®Hello Mr. Ceron,¡± Scott said. He was pretty pleased his memory tricks allowed him to retrieve the man¡¯s name. ¡°It has been a very eventful time since the last time we saw you.¡± ¡°Ah, I am impressed you even remember me. Yes, it has been eventful. I have received a large number of permit and business license requests from your company. It is safe to say you are one of the few bright spots in our city¡¯s economy at the moment, despite the rather alarming reports I received about military conflict and a large explosion.¡± Scott didn¡¯t like where this was going. ¡°Well, we were attacked, but our rebuilding is going well. Is there anything I can help you with this evening?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m not on duty now. I was pleased to receive this invitation even though I must insist this will not affect how I will process any of your requests. Honestly, I was planning to skip this party to avoid impropriety, but the mayor insisted. Perhaps I can introduce you to him?¡± Scott wondered why he was getting singled out. Dealing with people was not his specialty, although he supposed Melinda would struggle in a face-to-face meeting. Maybe they should hire another executive to handle this kind of thing? Lorenzo led him to an overdressed man with salt and pepper hair. ¡°Scott Henderson, may I introduce you to the mayor of Merida, Antonio Bucio?¡± ¡°Ah, a pleasure to meet one of the young Americans investing in the great state of Yucatan,¡± the mayor said with a smile. ¡°Nice to meet you as well. Thanks for attending our party.¡± ¡°Oh, I wouldn¡¯t miss the chance to meet with such a dynamic group of people. I was told by Lorenzo that you are one of the main reasons my city has been an island of stability during this terrible recession. I believe one of you backers, Solomon Rhodes has also been quite active setting up homeless shelters, funding research hospitals and sending generous donations to our schools. Do you know if Mr. Rhodes will be attending this evening?¡± That was news to Scott. Solomon Rhodes was donating millions to charities in Merida? The guy was in prison. How did he have so much money? ¡°Yeah, Mr. Rhodes won¡¯t be attending. He¡¯s unavoidably detained with some business in Texas.¡± Scott answered. He was pretty pleased with how he had phrased that. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s too bad. Well, please send him my compliments. There are so many people having a hard time right now, so we really appreciate the support of those who are more fortunate. Please pass on my regards and let Mr. Rhodes know I would love to meet with him at his convenience.¡± ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll pass that on.¡± Scott said. His phone buzzed. He had a text from Melinda saying the girls had almost arrived. ¡°Well, the ladies are arriving so I¡¯m going to go watch their entrance.¡± ¡°Well, it was a pleasure,¡± the mayor said smoothly, handing him a card. ¡°Please feel free to contact me if you need any advice on expediting bureaucratic matters.¡± If that wasn¡¯t fishing for a bribe, Scott would eat his stylish new hat. He wondered how much it was going to cost them to keep in business here.
The girls exited their limousine in glamorous new dresses, complete with heels and elaborate hairstyles. They all had flowers braided into their hair and Scott¡¯s eyes widened when he saw Adriana. She had dyed her hair to match the light green color that was coming in at her roots, with small red flowers braided in. A tropical print dress and wide brimmed hat completed the look. The girls entered with much more dignity than the boys, although Barry had insisted on photographers to capture their runway moment. The crowd had grown a bit larger since the boys entered, and many were cheering as if these women were real celebrities. Scott could see how someone could make that mistake and he heard people in the crowd speculating on who they were. He was still working on his Spanish, but he was amused to hear one girl insisting that they were Princesas. ¡°Hey Scott, pick up your lower jaw and escort me into the party.¡± Adriana teased, clearly amused with the reactions she was getting. Scott noticed that Adriana had arrived with Elsa, Zaliha, Melinda, Marta and Angela Stein. He quickly kept his eyes moving when Angela made eye contact with him. He was definitely not going to notice how good she looked in her white floral dress. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Oh, do I have competition now?¡± Adriana asked. Scott kept his eyes down in embarrassment. They walked into the reception area, and the girls quickly ditched Scott and his friends to talk to various people. He decided he needed another drink. Scott watched as Carl was already surrounded by four different women. He seemed to be telling a very entertaining story based on their reactions. Scott cast a worried glance at Melinda, but she was ignoring Carl¡¯s antics and had gone off to a table to talk on her phone. He hoped she wasn¡¯t ordering a hit on the women flirting with Carl. He decided to give her a call, so he sat at a nearby table and made eye contact. ¡°Hey Melinda, you look great!¡± Scott said. She actually did look good for someone her age. Her hair looked nice, and her wrinkles were less pronounced. Melinda also seemed fit enough that Scott wondered if she had gone through a version of the procedure she had forced on him. If he didn¡¯t know better, he would have guessed she was an athletic woman in her mid-forties. ¡°I feel like crap.¡± Melinda was talking through his phone. They were talking to each other from a table away, but it was easier this way. Despite her improved appearance, Melinda still had the random twitches as she tried to look in five different directions. ¡°I¡¯m not drinking tonight because I¡¯m on some pain meds. Nittaya flew in a couple days ago and we did a few procedures on me. Not as bad as what you and Carl went through. Once again, sorry about that! My personality is completely out of control sometimes.¡± ¡°Well, I have to admit it was worth it. Adriana seems to like hanging out with me now.¡± Wow, that girl is kind of shallow, Scott realized. ¡°She is kind of insecure. She liked you before but was too embarrassed to be with you the way you used to look and act.¡± Melinda explained. ¡°What?¡± Scott said. ¡°Well, sorry. Anyway, you probably felt the same way about me. We can¡¯t all have natural charisma like that magnificent man.¡± Melinda said, gesturing over at Carl. How did Carl get women half his age fawning over him? Scott thought he looked almost as good, but he didn¡¯t exactly have groups of random women hitting on him. Well, maybe a few women had checked him out. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m about to make an announcement, so we can talk later.¡± Even with five personalities, Melinda had better things to do than talk to Scott right now. ¡°Hello, is anyone sitting there?¡± Scott looked up to a dark-haired young woman. Her eyes sparkled in the light, and he couldn¡¯t miss her tight black dress and bright red lipstick. He briefly looked around to see if any of his friends could bail him out. ¡°Ah, not at the moment but I really need to go meet my friends.¡± ¡°OK, maybe I can meet them too. My name is Carmen. I came here with my parents. This party is amazing! I heard you were some kind of VIP.¡± Scott looked around nervously. Either this girl liked him, or she was some kind of spy. This was way outside his social experience. ¡°Yeah, this is a party for one of the companies I work with. It¡¯s mostly my friend Barry¡¯s company. He¡¯s that guy over there doing shots with that guy who looks like a shaved gorilla. That gorilla is Sotera, and he would just laugh if he heard me call him that. He beats me up all the time sparring, but he¡¯s super nice the rest of the time.¡± Scott found he was talking way too much. He should stay focused on getting away from this girl! ¡°Let¡¯s go say hi then, maybe do a shot with them?¡± Carmen asked. ¡°Yeah, if Barry is doing shots, he¡¯s probably about 15 minutes from passing out. Before that we can expect him to treat us with his latest crackpot theories on quantum physics.¡± Scott decided it was time to get away from this overly friendly girl. ¡°Anyway, I think I need to go find my date.¡± ¡°No problem. See you around.¡± The girl smiled and left. Scott struggled not to enjoy the view as she left. He didn¡¯t really know if Adriana was his date, but he was going to try not to ruin it if he had a chance.
¡°I have an announcement,¡± Melinda¡¯s voice came over the speakers after a song finished playing. ¡°For those of you who don¡¯t know me, I¡¯m the boss! Anyway, please head to the dining hall and sit at your assigned tables. I¡¯ve left a small gift for all my employees, so please take a break and eat some of the amazing food. Especially you Barry! Can one of you meatheads make sure he eats something and stops drinking before he blabs all our company secrets¡­ again!¡± Scott had spotted Adriana talking to some ridiculously good-looking guy and had decided not to interrupt her. He was glad that Carmen had flirted with him, or he would have been more upset. Instead, he decided to hang out with Matt and Zaliha. Scott felt like a third wheel, but they were both really smart and not afraid to talk about geek culture, so he was having fun. They made their way to the dining hall. All the young people were at the same table near the front. Looking around, most of the tables had gift baskets with envelopes. He saw people opening their envelopes and they looked pleased. At Scott¡¯s table they only had envelopes. ¡°What, no gift basket? Lame!¡± Barry complained. Melinda continued, ¡°Oh yeah don¡¯t forget to look in the envelopes at your table. We¡¯ve had a rough start, but everyone here helped us get things back on track and I¡¯m deeply grateful for the hard work and excellence of all our amazing employees.¡± Scott opened his envelope. Inside were a small stack of dividend checks. A sticky note on top, said they had hired an accountant and he should expect his taxes would be about 30% for Mexico plus an additional 7% on top for US expat taxes. The first check from Genysis Mining, followed by Energy, Robotics and Biotech and they all had big numbers. He fumbled with his phone and added it up. The total was $1,642,500 US dollars. Scott stared at it, completely stunned. ¡°Whoa dude¡­¡± Barry said. ¡°Yeah, that is a lot.¡± Matt replied, looking equally stunned. They compared their numbers. Matt had received the most, slightly over $2 million. Barry had $1.8 million. Elsa had $250k and even Adriana received $61k for her small share in the mining company. Her construction company was the only venture currently running at a loss. Her work building submarines, ships and designing the base were not enough to offset the huge expenditures getting the habitat started. Scott¡¯s dad approached the table. His mom and sister had also flown in for the event and they were sitting together at another table. ¡°Hey Scott! From the stunned look on your face, I guess you got a bonus too. I got $140k for completing my first run as captain! Your mom and I are going to make a down payment on a house and move down here. Your sister will be off to college, but I bet she won¡¯t mind visiting us down here! Oh, I didn¡¯t forget that I would help you pay off your student loans.¡± ¡°Um, that won¡¯t be necessary.¡± Scott mumbled. He showed them the check on the top of his small stack which was for $245k. ¡°Nice! Owner money is the best!¡± His dad was enthusiastic. ¡°Yeah, my loans won¡¯t be a problem. Maybe I can help you buy that house, but you might want to wait. There is some interesting real estate about to come on the market. Maybe you could wait and just rent a house this year?¡± ¡°Oh?¡± Scott¡¯s dad could tell there was a story here. ¡°Let¡¯s talk about it later.¡± ¡°Sure, well I hope you can show your mom around a bit. I¡¯m going to leave on another run. This time I¡¯m going to Savannah. They load up the ship quickly, so I don¡¯t get to stay here long. I¡¯ll probably be rotating with another crew so I can stay here about half the time. Can you imagine working six months a year and I¡¯ll probably earn more this year than I did the last ten at my old job.¡± ¡°That¡¯s great!¡± ¡°Right, well I¡¯m sure you don¡¯t want to hang out with your parents when there are lovely girls like Adriana who probably want to dance.¡± ¡°I have no idea how to dance.¡± Scott said, his eyes shifting around as he took a half step back. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll teach you.¡± Adriana said. Then she whispered, ¡°Well, I¡¯ll give you one lesson and then we have to hire you a dance instructor.¡± Preferably someone 60 years old and 300 pounds, Adriana thought. Sergio approached their group. He was wearing a tailored sports coat and lightweight slacks/ Sergio carried a metal briefcase with a handcuff chain, just like in the movies where they kept huge stacks of cash. ¡°Hold up. Melinda wanted me to hold the contents of your envelopes. We could reissue them if you lost them, but I thought it would be cool to have a suitcase with millions of dollars inside. Some people here might look at you funny if they saw how much money you guys are making.¡± Sergio said. ¡°I¡¯m already holding Angela and Dr. Springer¡¯s check from the old people''s table. Don¡¯t forget you all have rooms booked in the hotel so have a great time and don¡¯t try to leave the hotel until tomorrow!¡± With that complication sorted, the group drank too much, danced with a lot of people they didn¡¯t know and generally had an amazing time. At some point they all ended up in the pool with new friends and they had all had fuzzy memories of anything that happened after that. Chapter 39 - Hung Over She woke up with her mouth tasting sour and a throbbing headache. Looking around the room, there were an assortment of people in various stages of undress spread out around the hotel room. Various half-filled cups and room service trays littered every available surface. Moving aside an arm and a leg draped over her, Hallie dragged herself out of bed and to the bathroom, claiming the complimentary mouthwash before any of these other freeloaders could find it. It was just another Tuesday in Washington. Many of the members of congress would show up on Tuesday and receive briefings before putting in one whole day of work on Wednesday before flying home on Thursday. As a result, the younger staffers tended to party from Thursday through Monday. There were always some lobbyists who would pay the bills and organize various social activities to keep on good terms with the people who actually wrote the laws and talking points that would shape policy. Some of the congress members were more hands on and most of them were unpleasant to work with. Mostly they were concerned with how many favors they could work into the laws that would satisfy various donors or activists. They would often vent about constituents complaining about various issues or events, and the more talented staffers knew how to work in language that seemed like it was addressing these complaints. A lot of the staffers were idealistic and would add in items that advanced causes they believed in, but they knew it all boiled down to securing votes. Social functions tended to be a mix of self-justification and high-minded idealism, along with the occasional juicy scandal. Hallie had been a staffer once, but she realized she could make a lot more money hanging out with staffers and selling information to companies struggling to deal with the government. She was a lobbyist, but she was tied into the lower end of bureaucracy instead of the big names and power brokers who were on seven figure retainers with global conglomerates. She found a quiet spot on the balcony, with only one person passed out nearby. These younger types tended to have more access to agency heads and elected officials who like to be surrounded by young, attractive people. It was useful to keep these contacts, but exhausting. Hallie preferred dealing with the middle-aged staffers who handled a lot of the legal and technical minutiae that went into contract reviews. They tended to be detail oriented introverts with low self-esteem, so they really appreciated anyone who made an effort to be a friend. These mid-level bureaucrats could turn a thousand-page law into fifty thousand pages of rules, guidelines and forms, which kept the city''s growing population busy along with millions of government employees around the country. Checking her laptop, she spent about half an hour answering a detailed email from someone named Melinda White, who was paying $20k for about 40 hours of consulting services. She basically wanted help finding and winning government contracts related to construction projects. Hallie gave her a list of the certifications that were frequently requested in the requirements. Melinda sarcastically replied that she had the internet too and asked if Hallie had any way to get information on what prices were bid for different types of work. Hallie replied that bids were all considered public information, and information about specific bids could be retrieved just by asking for it. Her phone rang. ¡°Sorry, can you help me get access to all the data for bids in the past five years, or introduce me to someone who could help with this?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°I know a guy who works on some of the IT systems. You¡¯re asking for a lot of data. It¡¯s public but getting it to you is not something the system supports. Besides, you would have a hard time sorting through all that information or even tying it back to the data in the awarded contract system.¡± ¡°Yes, I didn¡¯t think it would be easy. Do you know someone who can expedite my request for information, or do you think I should file a lawsuit to get it?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°I¡¯ve heard a lot of the IT staff doesn¡¯t really do much all day. The trick is getting them motivated, and unfortunately you can¡¯t just bribe them to do their job.¡± Hallie replied. ¡°Any suggestions?¡± Melinda said. ¡°Well, they aren¡¯t afraid to lose their jobs but if a manager pesters them enough, they will get it done, just to avoid the hassle. Most employees there have 6 or more people who could be considered their manager, so we might be able to find someone. I¡¯ll make some calls, but I might need more consulting hours and expenses if I need to take someone to dinner or a sporting event.¡± Hallie wondered how deep Melinda''s pockets were. ¡°OK, you are authorized for another 40 hours of work if needed and up to $10k in expenses.¡± Hallie was very satisfied. She could milk this for $50k for two weeks of part-time work, and she wouldn¡¯t even have to do anything unethical.
¡°Good morning Scott!¡± Melinda said cheerfully over the phone. Scott was in a bed in the Merida Hyatt, waking up around 11AM after their epic celebration. He saw light green hair on one pillow, next to another girl with dark hair he recognized as the girl Carmen he had spoken with at the party. Unfortunately, Scott himself had been sleeping on the floor. Glancing around he saw a guy who looked like one of the Mariachi¡¯s asleep on a chair and for some reason there was a chicken investigating some crumbs on the floor. Scott remembered getting some large dividend checks, followed by dancing and possibly swimming? Whatever happened after that he had no idea, and at this point he didn¡¯t even care with the stabbing pain in his head. ¡°Uh, is it?¡± Scott moaned. ¡°Are we in trouble? I don¡¯t remember that much.¡± ¡°Oh Scott, make sure you drink some water and get some food. I have a project for you to work on, but you¡¯ll probably just want to recover today. From what I saw, things got a little wild once you and your little gang headed out to the pool.¡± ¡°How much did you see? I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve blanked out on a night like this since Freshman year.¡± Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°I went to bed a little after midnight, so I¡¯m sure I missed most of your antics. As far as I know, the only sober people were the bartenders and lifeguards. I¡¯m not really sure how sober they were, but I think the hotel manager would have told me if anyone drowned. We are going to overrun the budget a bit on cleaning charges, but I¡¯ll just send the bill to Barry. He can afford it!¡± ¡°Yeah, I forgot to thank you for those huge dividend checks. Getting Sergio to hold them for us was a smart move.¡± ¡°Wait! You gave your checks to Sergio? I haven¡¯t seen him since early last night.¡± Melinda said, sounding concerned. ¡°What?!!¡± Scott sat up, suddenly much more awake. The Mariachi guy grunted at him then went back to sleep. ¡°Just kidding!¡± Melinda laughed. ¡°I knew you idiots would be flashing those around and someone would kidnap your sister or something. Sergio doesn¡¯t drink anymore, and he¡¯s really reliable.¡± ¡°Right, thanks for almost giving me a heart attack.¡± Scott said, ¡°So can you tell me more about the reason for this early morning wake-up call?¡± ¡°Well, it¡¯s almost afternoon, but I have a job for you this week. I talked to my lobbyist in Washington, and she¡¯s going to get us a data dump of all the government contract bids for the last five years. I need you and some contract programmers to put together a system that will scan them and link to another database of awarded bids. We will need to mine the data for what makes a bid more likely to win and what ranges of prices are bid for various services.¡± ¡°Sounds interesting. What¡¯s the timeline?¡± ¡°I just said ¡®this week¡¯. Getting similar data for state and local government projects is harder since they are not standardized, and lobbyists might not even be available to help. I¡¯m working on this, but there will be even more opportunities in the local projects. The government is voting on a massive stimulus bill - over $5 trillion, so there is a huge opportunity. The economy is completely broken right now, so a lot of potential competitors are struggling with financing and supply chain issues. We need to act quickly. I¡¯m hearing rumors about civil unrest and outside Washington people have very little confidence that the government can fix their problems.¡± ¡°How bad is it?¡± Scott asked. He hadn¡¯t really been keeping up with current events, although he had heard a lot of people mention the bad economy. ¡°A lot of banks and financial firms have failed. They suspended foreclosures, so most banks that survived are only hanging on because the Federal Reserve went to negative interest rates. Most large city governments have also gone bankrupt. States are not allowed to go bankrupt, but several have defaulted on their debts, which is something we haven¡¯t seen since the great depression.¡± Melinda explained. ¡°That sounds bad.¡± ¡°It is getting serious. There is also talk of going to war with Russia, and I¡¯ve even heard some people in the press have picked up our story of the Russians attacking a US company in Mexico, although they have all the details wrong. The politicians need something to blame and distract the people, so who knows what they will do?¡± Melinda continued. ¡°I get that we want to make money, but is there anything we can do to help?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I think a lot of the contracts we bid for will be low-income housing. Building nicer places for less money can help people get through this. I¡¯m starting a new company and all our businesses are hiring. It¡¯s not much, but I¡¯m looking into other ways we can help.¡± Melinda said. ¡°Another company?¡± Scott said. Could even Melinda manage that much? ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m anticipating one of our biggest expenses building the habitats will be ordinary stuff like plumbing fixtures, electrical, appliances etc. We have cheap energy, raw materials and robot labor, so I think we can compete aggressively. It will also increase the value of our cargo shipments if we include some finished goods.¡± ¡°Sure, my dad will like that, and it could make a lot of money, but it sounds like a complicated business to run. Can you even handle that with everything else you are doing?¡± Scott asked, concerned. ¡°No, I couldn''t possibly handle it!¡± Melinda agreed. ¡°I¡¯m going to let someone else be the CEO. A guy named Trinidad Franco who lives in the Congo. He runs a local company that builds various hand made products sold locally or exported as high-end African themed designs.¡± ¡°Hey, I think I remember that guy. He was my second choice for CEO, but I picked you because he didn¡¯t speak English.¡± ¡°Right! He was the highest ranked potentially available and lowest cost person. Obviously, I¡¯m no longer low cost - you guys are going to have to pay me the big bucks after my first year is up.¡± ¡°Well, I''m not looking forward to that negotiation. Any chance Melinda and Melinda can just fight it out and leave me out of it?¡± ¡°Oh Scott, you are such a dear! Trinidad has a strong opinion about speaking English, so we are hiring a translator for him. He¡¯s going to merge his company into our new Genysis Consumer Products. You, Barry and Matt will of course have some equity since your various tech is essential and that¡¯s just how I run things. The rest will be split between me, Trinidad and Angela Stein and some of her Wall Street friends will again be providing start-up capital. She has been begging me for another company to invest in. I think she really enjoyed bragging about how her last investment just paid out a generous dividend despite only being six months old and surviving an attack by Russian commandos.¡± Melinda was on a roll now. ¡°How much equity are we keeping?¡± Scott asked. ¡°You get your standard 25% and Matt and Barry have 12.5. I get 5%, so our little group maintains control. Trinidad keeps 25% and the investors are putting in $10 million for 20%. I¡¯m sure you could handle the math if you weren¡¯t hungover, but your holdings are valued at $12.5 million.¡± ¡°You said Trinidad merged his company. Are we keeping his operations in Congo running?¡± ¡°Good question, Scott,¡± Melinda said encouragingly. ¡°We won¡¯t be manufacturing there, but most of his people will continue working on artistic design and prototyping of products. I¡¯m upgrading their equipment and facilities and encouraging them to use Glitch_HR skills training to grow into their new roles. I showed Franco your program, and he was very excited the interface could translate into Kituba. He was even more impressed with how it would help run his company. His current employees will be given target skill levels they need to reach to fill the roles needed, and they will get a good boost in pay and bonuses if they perform.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll get to meet Trinidad soon. He¡¯s coming here to help supervise getting some factories up and running. We¡¯ll probably start fairly small on a property inland. Traffic is becoming a real problem here. I spoke with the mayor last night, and he indicated that even if we pay for highway improvements the issues of land eminent domain, environmental protection and labor issues mean it could be a few years before we can get a road or elevated railway built. Which leads me to my next idea.¡± ¡°Aww, my head still hurts. Were you working the whole time during the party?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Of course! Anyway, I need you to work with Matt, Barry and Zaliha and come up with some freight vehicles that can handle vertical take-off and landing. It will be much easier to get tied into air traffic control compared to getting right of way on land.¡± ¡°Sure, let¡¯s just start another company because we don¡¯t want to wait 3 years for a road to be built,¡± Scott said sarcastically. Chapter 40 - Meeting Trinidad Scott was reading through a set of Articles of Organization. They had formed two more companies. Consumer Products and now Transportation. Transportation had spun off from the mining company, so they transferred the submarine designs in exchange for some ownership of the new company. The largest shareholder was Zaliha, who Melinda decided was most qualified to lead the design teams. Scott, Matt, Barry and Meinda had shares, and some more was reserved for whoever they picked as CEO. Melinda seemed to be enjoying being an owner and not a CEO for the new companies. Now they had money and resources, they didn¡¯t need to recruit from homeless shelters or prisons, but the best candidates were found from a variety of countries. In this case, the CEO they picked was a retired Japanese guy named Hisashi Kitano. He suffered from severe arthritis, which Melinda promised they could fix in exchange for him skipping salary for the first year. He still was given some equity to sweeten the deal, and he would start working in about a month. While Hisashi was going through some treatments in Dr. Chaikhot¡¯s lab, Melinda was acting as interim CEO. She had hired an aerospace engineer and some contractors to set up a new office. They had acquired a few acres of land about 30 miles inland from their main base. The two newest companies would be sharing the space, which would have some large metal buildings and a rail spur added to connect to the Ferrocarril de Chiapas y Mayab. Trinidad Franco was currently going on a tour of their facilities. Scott could not really tell his age, but he was energetic and intense. When talking with someone, they would have his full attention, he seemed to take in every detail. He supposedly did not understand English, but Scott believed Franco would not just spot any lies; he was probably dissecting your underlying motivations. Trinidad gave off an aura of diligence. Everyone in the room would feel the need to be really focused on whatever they were supposed to work on once his gaze swept over them. Maybe it was how his gaze would stick on the task or window they should be focusing on. He had observed the robotics lab with keen interest. His translator indicated to Matt that he was very impressed, then proceeded to make a couple suggestions about their floor layout and robot design that would improve efficiency by about 15%. After the tour, Trinidad had also been very complimentary to Scott about the Glitch_HR system. Scott was already getting used to looking at Trinidad while he talked and listening to his translator. ¡°Simply the most amazing software I have ever used.¡± Trinidad said with enthusiasm. ¡°Thanks, I had a lot of help building it.¡± ¡°Yes, I think the main area it needs improvement is in the skill training.¡± ¡°Say what now?¡± Scott asked. The skill training section was amazing. ¡°The content is excellent, but I feel the algorithm is guiding people without giving them a clear idea of their career path.¡± Trinidad continued. ¡°For example, you are clearly more skilled than almost any Junior programmer I could hire, but it has not pushed you to try and advance to a more suitable position. Your goal in the next few years should not be just to be the best Junior programmer in the world. It might not even be possible to achieve.¡± Huh, ¡°That¡¯s a good point. I¡¯ve actually been spending more time on combat training than computer skills, which could be a sign I¡¯ve stagnated in my current position.¡± Scott admitted. ¡°Well, I have to say your fitness regimen is working well for you!¡± Trinidad said agreeably. Melinda had not allowed him to tour the biotech floor, so Trinidad was not in the loop about why the security guards all looked like action figures or why the girls had odd hair colors. ¡°Um thanks.¡± Scott did not feel the need to whine about being an unwilling participant. He had mostly forgiven Melinda by now. ¡°So, I will send you a list of some suggestions on what I¡¯d like to see in the career path module, and you can work on it when you have time.¡± Trinidad said. Despite the casual way he made the comment, Scott felt compelled to make this a top priority. He would be interested to see what career path options Glitch_HR would choose for him and his friends. Scott had made a lot of minor changes to the software, and it often felt like the training recommendations gave him ideas for features to add. Sometimes it felt like the software was guiding him, which was kind of a scary thought. This was one of the few times a person was requesting a change. The paranoid voice in the back of Scott¡¯s mind noticed the suggestion was coming from a person the software had recommended. After the tour, Trinidad Franco had claimed a room to use as an office and had been a whirlwind of activity. He hired a local man who was experienced in industrial process optimization, and some contractors to start adding buildings. Within a few weeks they had some sparsely furnished offices on site and were nearly constantly installing equipment in a large metal building that had been quickly assembled. Matt had been very busy with his team getting the robotics set up, and there were a steady stream of vans and small trucks navigating undeveloped roads between their facilities carrying raw materials from the mining operation. By comparison, the transportation company that would share the property was lagging far behind. Melinda had been acting as interim CEO, but a fraction of her time and focus could not match Trinidad Franco¡¯s focused intensity. They had started to install electrical, HVAC and plumbing in a set of offices and the future factory was little more than a large metal barn. Zaliha, who was still working from the mining base, had come up with an initial design for an air-truck but was hashing out details with an aerospace engineer they had hired. They had not even started building a prototype. Scott had been trying to implement the career path module. Franco had sent him detailed notes and sketches on a potential user interface, and Scott had built the basic framework in code. He was currently struggling to understand some of the code in the Skill Training modules to leverage how it ranked people for various professions and training machine learning modules to build potential career paths. He could get the basics working and generate a lot of potential paths but determining what was a good fit for a specific person was a little beyond him. After a couple of days failing to come up with a solution, Scott decided to try and farm the problem out to contractors including the Algerian job-stealer, Theofanis Zervou. Trinidad Franco and Melinda had agreed on how they would split the cost of this between various companies. Scott had heard Melinda cursing frequently during her negotiations with Mr. Franco. He was worried that the two alpha dogs would not be able to play nice. ¡°Everything OK?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Every third word I heard in here was a curse.¡± Melinda¡¯s voice came over the intercom, while he heard her spewing obscenities mixed in with her babbling voice. ¡°Oh, hello dear. Lovely to see you.¡± Her words were pleasant, but her tone suggested Melinda was angry. ¡°Is everything OK between you and Mr. Franco?¡± Scott asked, concerned. He had been impressed with Trinidad Franco, but if they had to throw down, he was firmly on team Melinda. ¡°Oh yes, I just get a little hot and bothered talking to that delicious man.¡± Melinda said, her tone changing drastically. ¡°He is infuriating but brilliant! Trinidad saw through every trick and managed to get a fair cost split for the feature he requested. He even tried to get me to pay for the whole thing since it was his idea, and it would benefit us more as owners of the software. I had to get nasty with threats to order your boys not to help him, and even hinted that I¡¯d get my security people to rough him up before he agreed to a cost split. I am certain it was exactly what he wanted from the start!¡± ¡°Do you think it¡¯s wise to threaten our allies with physical violence?¡± Scott asked nervously. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. ¡°Oh please, Trinidad is not a baby! He knows I wouldn¡¯t use force unless we couldn¡¯t reach a mutually beneficial business deal. If you aren¡¯t willing to draw a line of acceptable behavior and back it up with force, people will walk all over you.¡± Melinda said. ¡°I can assure you that someday soon the Russians will learn that they should have tried a more peaceful approach.¡± After that disturbing conversation, Scott learned that he had been granted a generous budget to hire contractors to help finish his project. Theofanis had been charging a lot more recently, so Scott only used him for coding some of the core AI heuristics and found others to handle the bulk of testing, refining the UI, data structures and data mining. The remainder of the project was finished in about 10 days. According to the new Career Path screen, Scott was long overdue a promotion to HR Technology Specialist, and nearly qualified for HR Technology Manager. Melinda smirked when she approved his promotion. ¡°Long overdue, but I¡¯d be a fool to just hand out raises if people were happy without them!¡± she had cackled. Scott encouraged his friends to check out the new section, and they were granted new titles before the day was over. Franco had been quite pleased with the work and only requested some minor changes which Scott would be able to implement personally. Scott was proud he had finished the project using only about 70% of the budget granted. With his new role, Scott started getting more training suggestions about managing people and basic leadership skills. He wasn¡¯t excited about this but couldn¡¯t deny he had been leaning heavily on Melinda for this kind of thing in the past.
It had been three weeks since Trinidad arrived, so Scott decided to visit the new factory with Melinda. They were joined in the van by Carl and Sergio for security. This particular van had extra armor and some heavy weaponry that could be pulled out quickly if needed. Carl had insisted on participating in the construction, even though it was not really in his skill set. Carl was a big fan of a cheesy eighties TV show called ¡°The A-Team¡±, so he couldn¡¯t pass up on his lifelong dream of adding armor and weapons to an ordinary van. The ride past undeveloped Mexican jungle was uneventful, much to Carl¡¯s disappointment. There were a lot of vehicles parked near the new factory, but most of the workers seemed to be focused on the new offices and building assigned to the Transportation company. Melinda nodded to a couple of people working, then proceeded into Trinidad Franco¡¯s consumer goods factory. The sweltering heat of Southern Mexico in June had them all eager to get into the air-conditioned buildings. Inside there was a very modern looking factory with conveyor belts feeding in a stream of raw materials which were pressed, molded, extruded, rolled or cut into different shapes. A swarm of robot arms would grab parts and quickly assemble various lighting and plumbing fixtures, door handles, drawer pulls, electrical switches or lighting. There were at least a dozen different processes running in parallel, including packing the finished products into boxes and attaching pre-printed labels. All the activity was overwhelming, and it took several minutes for Scott to get his bearings and admire all the different moving parts. Melinda and Trinidad were busily talking - neither one of them were understandable to an observer. Scott could understand Trinidad¡¯s side of the conversation, as his translator was speaking in English. ¡°Yes, the cardboard is sourced in Merida. If you start producing pulp from algae, we can cut that expense further.¡± Scott overheard. ¡­ ¡°No, we¡¯ll be scheduling some events to launch the brand next month, but we have different packaging for the multi-unit contracts. The product is exactly the same, it doesn¡¯t save any money to make a low-end version.¡± Franco¡¯s translator seemed to be struggling to keep up with the conversation between the two CEOs. A little while later, a man identified as the industrial optimization specialist showed them how all the systems worked together and could shift to produce over a hundred different SKUs. Some changes required manually switching out molds or re-routing some workflows, but they planned to run in a specific configuration then run tests and make changes at the end of each shift. The factory required about three people per shift to monitor and handle routine operation, plus a small on-call crew to handle maintenance issues. Scott called Melinda. He felt more comfortable asking her questions than Trinidad, who he did not know very well. ¡°Hi Melinda, I overheard some of what you were saying. This is all pretty amazing, but could you fill us in on how we are selling these products.¡± ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll conference in the other owners, so I don¡¯t have to repeat myself.¡± Melinda added Barry, Matt, Angela Stein and Trinidad¡¯s translator, Lydia, to the call. ¡°Congratulations Trinidad on getting this factory running in just under a month!¡± Melinda started, ¡°I wanted to update the other the owners on what our plans are.¡± ¡°With the economy in a deep recession, we were able to pick up a lot of industrial machinery at a discount and deliver it here on the Dark Siren, which usually has its hold empty on the return trips. Some we had to repair or modify and other machines we mostly built from scratch, but it was quite an accomplishment.¡± Melinda explained. ¡°Thanks for the help I got from all of you.¡± Trinidad announced. ¡°I can¡¯t believe there are now two CEOs who ridiculously over perform.¡± Angela Stein announced. ¡±With Melinda involved, I figured you guys might start shipping products in about 3 months, but this is almost unbelievable! I¡¯ve seen the marketing materials and I think there will be some interest. Despite the economy, there are still rich people who are renovating or building homes and want a fresh new look.¡± ¡°Right, so as some of you know, we are demonstrating several product lines in design centers at major cities and some of the trade shows that are still planned. It has been easy to get booth space; a lot of the manufacturers are slashing production and firing most of their workers. It¡¯s not all good news, since demand will also be way down.¡± Melinda added. ¡°Excuse me, this is my company.¡± Lydia interrupted, translating for Trinidad. Mr. Franco was at a bit of a disadvantage in a phone conference, having to go through his translator and without the benefit of his imposing personal impact. Barry giggled. ¡°Right, so on that front, I don¡¯t expect a huge response from the trade shows, but several high-end builders will be installing our product in new houses that were in progress when the economy crashed. That program of Scott¡¯s picked up some very innovative salespeople. We sold at cost, so the builders were quite happy to make the change and the home buyers were persuaded they were getting a free upgrade due to opportunities in the current economy¡± Mr. Franco¡¯s translator finished. ¡°Exactly, so there is some awareness of the product as people have seen it going into some of the nicest new home builds,¡± Melinda continued. ¡°While almost everyone else is dropping prices, we are going with a high price point. We use very high quality and even somewhat exotic materials, and the designs are fresh. Our research is indicating that the demand will be strong.¡± ¡°That¡¯s great, but what is this I heard about three large orders at a lower price point.¡± Angela interrupted. ¡°Yes, Trinidad and I negotiated several ongoing arrangements as part of our deal. He gets a favorable price on metals, energy and robotics work, and we get to buy his goods at a fixed markup in bulk for various projects. Also, all the production companies will get favorable terms on facility space in the new habitat. We spent about two days hammering out the numbers of who gets what discount. I¡¯ll send you the details, but I believe it will be beneficial for all 5 companies involved. We will be using a lot of his products as we finish up the first section of the habitat, but we also have landed three government contracts for Adriana¡¯s construction company.¡± Melinda said. ¡°Nice, our little chat at the party paid off!¡± Angela said. ¡°Yes, so we are building three subsidized housing projects. Jacksonville, Philadelphia and Baltimore. They will have from 60, 80 and 160 apartment units respectively. They have easy access to ports for us to supply materials, and it should help us streamline the processes for living units in the Proteus Hab.¡± Melinda explained. ¡°Wait, I heard Baltimore was under martial law right now.¡± Matt interrupted. ¡°Yes, that is a complication since it will limit the hours our work crews can be active.¡± Melinda admitted. ¡°I mean, is it safe?¡± Matt asked. ¡°Of course. That¡¯s what martial law is for.¡± Melinda said, apparently without much sympathy. ¡°Last I heard, there are about six major cities in the U.S. under martial law, and it put a stop to the near constant rioting and looting that was happening.¡± ¡°Yeah, that is a pretty bad situation for the people living there, but I guess it¡¯s better the government stepped in.¡± Matt said. ¡°Right, well businesses are fleeing those cities, and I¡¯m sure a lot of people will leave too. Our project housing has some nice security features in the design, which probably helped us win the bid. Well also because there were so many projects up for grabs the big construction companies couldn¡¯t handle them all, and we bid on the low end.¡± Melinda said. ¡°Speaking of that, I don¡¯t have a stake in your construction company, but do you feel like sharing what the economics of the project look like?¡± Angela asked. ¡°Right, so our bids were averaging about $200k per unit. With economy of scale and some shared infrastructure, I¡¯m hoping to build them for a little over $50k each.¡± Melinda said smugly. Angela gave a low whistle. ¡°I guess Adriana will be getting one of those big dividend checks soon.¡± Scott said. Chapter 41 - Project Housing Adriana felt overwhelmed with the whirlwind of activity around starting construction on the Proteus habitat and the rush to build three mid-rise housing projects. The housing projects were relatively easy compared to Proteus. They didn¡¯t need to be airtight, so no airlocks or elaborate evacuation schemes. Environmental systems were simple HVAC and tying into city water, electricity, and gas. She received help on logistics from Melinda, and Matt¡¯s team had programmed robots to build the frame and run a lot of the wiring and plumbing. The design used oversized crawlspaces for easy maintenance access. Regular steel made up the structural frame, and the robots could carry heavy beams and weld a lot easier than a human crew without worrying about worker safety. There had been mixed local press about the robots. In Jacksonville, the local journalist had been excited about the efficiency of the robots assembling the building, and they had been eager for an interview with a Genysis representative. They reported favorably that this technology could lower building costs and might give new life to the construction industry. Low skill jobs would be replaced with highly paid robot technicians and design engineers, and this could lead to more innovative architectural designs. In Baltimore and Philadelphia, the press was unfavorable. The questioned why robots were given a job when so many people were out of work. When they learned that these buildings were part of a government contract, they started encouraging people to petition these projects with their congressmen and to make sure future contracts only hired people instead of robots. This had been picked up as a minor talking point on some national news networks. Adriana didn¡¯t have much time to worry about the politics. She was scrambling to finalize the process for installing the interior walls, fixtures, and finishes of their engineered living spaces. A real benefit of these housing projects was that they could test and streamline the process they would later use for over 10,000 units planned in the habitat. If something caused an issue in the housing projects, they could tear it out and reinstall much more easily than fixing a problem underwater. The project deadlines and materials had been padded enough that a few failed installations across the three sites would not cause them to run over on time or require an additional shipment. They had set up a test unit on the property shared by Trinidad Franco¡¯s group and the new Transportation company. They had already broken it down and re-installed everything three times and fixed the most glaring issues. At this point, a crew of four people could install the unit in a couple of days. They were busy making training videos including installation instructions that would be bundled with the Consumer goods products. Adriana thought she recognized one of the actors demonstrating the installation from a TV show she used to watch. How bad must the economy be if a vaguely familiar actor was filming an instruction manual for installing sinks and wall paneling? They made a couple changes to the process based on what some actors were struggling with. Her crews had avoided the issues, probably due to having more experience working on similar materials during base construction, but it was understandable that someone used to working with drywall and wooden studs might not grasp the importance of matching the numbered panels to the same number printed on the frame or notice what Adriana thought were clear markings about which way was up. To Adriana, the process was easy, but having people with different skill levels test the process gave them some ideas for how to avoid some common mistakes. After two days, they sent the finalized instruction videos to the work crews who were ready to go on the Jacksonville property. The other projects were still in construction. Philadelphia had a small group of protestors outside the site, but they had not caused serious problems. At Melinda¡¯s suggestion, the job foreman asked the Philadelphia protestors if any had construction experience or wanted to join the work crews they were forming. About half of them scattered, having no interest in any real work, but the rest were merged into a work crew and trained for the installation. The housing projects consisted of a mid-rise tower (or two towers for the Baltimore project) with 10 units per floor around a central courtyard, providing an average of 2200 square feet of living space per unit. They had 10ft ceilings and oversized crawl spaces between each floor and between walls separating the units. These provided easy access to plumbing, electrical and HVAC systems and also some insulation from noise. The interior walls were magnesium enamel, which gave the place a gleaming white appearance. It was easy to clean and could repair minor scratches, which saved the work crews a lot of time not having to repair when they accidentally caused damage during construction. Walls that did not border the crawl spaces had panels that could be removed in one piece to access conduits for electrical or plumbing. All the finishes were designed by Trinidad Franco¡¯s group and had a distinctive modern look. The toilets were self-cleaning, and Adriana briefly wondered why that design wasn¡¯t more popular in the U.S. The shower and tub were inside a single wet room, and it also had a self-cleaning mode. The Consumer goods company had a stove/oven combination with induction burners; gas burners used too much oxygen in a confined space, so they avoided them for the undersea design. They had not yet finished a design for dishwashers, or laundry machines. These were a big headache to procure in the tight timeline they had planned. As a result, there was a laundry room with connections, but machines were not included. Procuring dishwashers on their tight timeline was one of Melinda¡¯s biggest headaches. Flooring was another area they had not yet solved for Proteus, so they had to work around it for the housing projects. They had white granite tiles and slabs they produced in bulk from the deeper levels in their mine, so they used these in kitchens and bathrooms. They planned to engineer a compressed algae product for other floor surfaces, but this wasn¡¯t perfected yet. For now, they would have to buy laminate locally for the housing projects. Even though it was considered a cheap material, this was a significant expense compared to the materials they produced internally. Finding and scheduling work crews had been easy, and once trained, they were finishing units quickly. Scheduling Inspections had been a bottleneck, but they had easily passed the early inspections; the robots assembled the initial stages with inhuman precision. The first section of the Proteus Hab was also almost ready for cabin finishes. This section would contain housing for 5000 people plus environmental systems, recreational, retail and business spaces. Adriana had toured the facility several times and couldn¡¯t believe how impressive it was to walk through the huge spaces that had previously been drawings on her computer. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Adriana received a call from Melinda. ¡°Hello dear,¡± Melinda¡¯s typical greeting came through the phone. ¡°Hi boss, we were just finishing up the training videos. Any news on more housing projects?¡± Adriana asked. She knew Melinda had put in bids for about a dozen additional projects but had not yet been notified whether their bids were accepted. ¡°I think we will be selected on some of them, but have you been watching the news at all?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°Are we on it again? Robots stealing jobs?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°No, it¡¯s not that. I just get a feeling that things are about to get a lot worse for people. As you know, when the economy started to collapse, there were many politicians who very hostile to Wall Street. They let a lot of big investment firms and banks fail.¡± ¡°I think I heard about that. Aren¡¯t deposits insured?¡± Adriana had been focused on her work and hadn¡¯t spent much time worrying about some rich bankers. ¡°True, but a lot of businesses have large accounts and use lines of credit that were not covered. The initial panic that wiped out so many jobs was followed by even more companies unable to do business without access to financial services. As the unemployment rate kept rising, millions were getting their homes seized by banks who then went out of business.¡± ¡°I remember hearing something about the government not allowing people to be evicted.¡± Adriana said. It had seemed like a good idea to her; they didn¡¯t need to kick out millions of people when no one else could afford to buy their house. ¡°Well, a few states like Florida didn¡¯t participate, but most states did something like that.¡± Melinda continued, ¡°Anyway, it got to the point this Spring that about a third of houses were not paying their mortgages. The homes were bought up cheap by speculators when the banks failed. The people living in these homes had a roof over their heads and were getting by on government assistance for food and medical care. Typically, they had electricity and internet shut off.¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t sound good.¡± Adriana replied. She really had no idea things were so bad back home. She had a guilty realization that she hadn¡¯t talked to her parents in a few weeks and wondered if they were OK. ¡°Not good at all. When the temperatures started rising, there were actually a lot of deaths happening as people couldn¡¯t run their air conditioning and others were eating spoiled food. Some power plants failed as part of the financial collapse, and others have had trouble getting fuel. The collapse in demand hid the problem somewhat, but I¡¯ve heard there are a lot of blackouts and voltage issues. Renewables were less affected by fuel and financial issues, but they don¡¯t produce consistently or have enough transmission to handle the disruption.¡± Melinda said. ¡°This is a big mess. Can we help with fusion generation?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°I¡¯ve put in some bids for that, but they consider it nuclear power, so it wasn¡¯t included as an option in the current stimulus bill. We¡¯ve tried to get approval directly from the ISOs to build on our own without government funding. They were interested, but there are a lot of regulations and approvals that need to happen. It will be at least another year before we can build anywhere except in Texas. In that state, the grid is managed internally, so they can ignore a lot of the Federal regulations and approve projects more quickly.¡± Melinda continued. ¡°Right, I feel like I keep getting you sidetracked. What were you saying about how this affects our projects?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°A few issues. First, after a brief break due to the severe recession, prices for building materials have increased sharply. The supply for almost everything needed by the government contractors is very low since many of the producing companies have gone out of business or fired most of their workers. Dishwashers and flooring prices are double what we negotiated, and I¡¯m worried some of the companies will not honor their deals.¡± Melinda said. ¡°That¡¯s bad, but worst case, we just pay more and make a bit less money. Next project, we should have those issues solved on our end.¡± Adriana said, not particularly worried. ¡°Right, it might cost your company a million or so, but that¡¯s not much more than Barry spent on that wonderful party.¡± Melinda admitted. ¡°Other issues?¡± Adriana prompted. ¡°I¡¯m concerned about a lot of things. After this next round of bids, they will likely pass laws to prevent us from building the way we would like to. They will probably add something about no robotic labor, or no construction materials sourced in Mexico.¡± Melinda said. ¡°That¡¯s too bad, but I¡¯m fine with us focusing on our local projects. The infusion of cash will be nice, but I¡¯m hoping we can make money on Proteus. Do you think there will still be demand if there is so much cheap real estate in the U.S.?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not just the U.S. Similar problems in lots of other countries too. The recession has become global, although some countries have not been hit as hard yet. Anyway, the demand might still be strong. The situation is escalating in a way that some people will want to get away from the collapse.¡± Melinda said. ¡°Collapse?¡± Adriana asked. That sounded worse than just a bad recession. ¡°Yes, they are already calling it that. Those people living in homes without power made it obvious who was no longer paying the bills. People in nicer homes, but not paying their bills, have been getting attacked or robbed. Gangs to form up and take over what used to be nicer neighborhoods. The police sometimes help, but they are overwhelmed and technically the people living in the homes are no longer the owners. There is not really a clear argument which group has a greater right to live in a house owned by someone else.¡± Melinda explained, her tone serious. ¡°That sounds terrible.¡± Adriana thought about how scared people must be. She was now getting really worried about her family. ¡°This accelerated in the past month, and there have been a lot of houses burnt down. I¡¯ve heard about groups of displaced people forming up for safety and wandering around in rural areas. This has disrupted food supplies and other deliveries, as these groups have often taken up banditry.¡± Melinda said. ¡°Whoa, this is way worse than I thought! Can you help track down our families and help them get set up here?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°Yes, I¡¯ll look into it. We keep expanding our security forces. Some guys might enjoy going on missions instead of sitting around training and begging me for body modifications.¡± Melinda agreed. After hanging up, Adriana found a US news channel. It seemed to have round the clock coverage of some celebrity who was getting married and coverage of another school shooting. There was a mention of politicians talking about greedy power companies who valued profits over providing electricity. They were proposing a bill to guarantee free electricity for everyone. Adriana dug around and found some local reports with stories confirming what Melinda had been talking about, but it seemed like the major networks were busy trying to distract people. She wasn¡¯t even convinced this was a bad thing. If more people knew how serious the problem was, they would panic and make it worse. Maybe with a little more time, some people could make better plans to survive and help everyone else. She liked the idea that they what they were building could be a refuge for the people who would put the pieces back together. Chapter 42 - Back in Texas Part 1 Carl was excited; the day he had been waiting for had finally arrived. He had been training for months. He worked out every day with the security forces, and every evening he had read or watched videos on his online training software. They had even done some war games in the nearby jungle. At first, the superior experience of these veterans had made him a liability to whichever team he was assigned to. After many embarrassing mistakes, Carl started to hold his own as his reflexes were trained, and he improved his observational and tactical skills. It didn¡¯t hurt that his built-in computer allowed him to see in low lighting and had software designed to identify people. After three months, his teams were winning more often than not, and Sergio said he was ready for a real mission. In Carl¡¯s mind, he was picturing some kind of warzone. Flying into Hobby airport, Carl was a little disappointed that people seemed to be going about their business as usual. There were no soldiers patrolling the terminal or military vehicles outside as they took a shuttle to a rental car place. The van they rented wasn¡¯t nearly as good as the one back in Mexico. Carl had been so excited to help install armor plating and the concealed rail gun turret. The reality was that it was hours of hard work and not nearly as fun as it appeared on TV. He realized it wouldn¡¯t just be a two-minute montage, but Carl hadn¡¯t appreciated how much work it took to actually build things. He was determined to let Matt¡¯s robots do the work in the future. The other guys teased him a bit about whether he would try to add armor plating. Since this was a rental van, he could just relax and ride in the back. Most of the rental companies were out of business and the prices were a bit of a shock. Carl thought you could buy a used vehicle for a little more than the rental fee. Oddly enough, they still offered insurance at only slightly more than what it cost a year before. The government had bailed out insurance companies, so the companies offered insurance at fixed prices that didn¡¯t match the reality of current risk levels. Driving outside the city, Carl noticed a few military Humvees and regular traffic was light. There were hundreds of cars that had stalled and were pushed to the shoulders, probably after running out of fuel. The person at the rental place mentioned that filling up outside the city might be difficult. There had been stories of gas trucks hijacked and stolen, so stations farther away from refineries and ports had trouble keeping gasoline supplied, even with prices over $30 per gallon. Texas had not mandated a cap on prices, so they were better supplied than most states. In States that had passed laws against price gouging, the oil companies simply stopped sending gasoline there. This forced the government to buy and transport fuel using military infrastructure. Cities in these States were mostly under martial law now. Regardless of location, most people had abandoned or stopped driving their cars. An hour¡¯s drive Southwest of the city, they stopped at an old-fashioned diner. They met with a man who was selling them weapons. Carl confirmed with his heads up display that he was the ¡°Arms Dealer¡± they were supposed to meet. Instead of watching cat videos, Carl had enjoyed identifying people he saw walking around and browsing to see if they had hidden talents. The man they met had a nice selection of pistols and modified automatic rifles. He would not accept dollars, but they brought gold and silver ingots for this trade. Carl had brought ballistic armor in a checked bag and was already wearing it. Adding a pistol and rifle made it all feel real. Carl checked his weapons a few too many times and was scanning actively for the first hour. After another long drive, they reached Carl¡¯s former hometown of Spring Vale, which he didn¡¯t really remember. The trip was uneventful, but as they approached the suburbs, there was a roadblock with an armed man gesturing for them to stop. He was wearing police gear but completed the look with a cowboy hat. Carl identified him.
Name Rory Poole
Role Bandit
Seriously? Bandit? Carl sometimes wondered about this software. He warned Terrance and Sotera this guy would be trouble, but they probably had already figured it out. Carl remembered his training and scanned for other threats. He spotted two other guys in ambush positions and indicated their locations to his team. They pulled short about 100 feet away from the roadblock and Terrance got out with his gun pointed down. ¡°Hello Rory!¡± Terrance announced. The man looked startled to be addressed by name. ¡°We¡¯re aware of your little operation here, but it doesn¡¯t concern us. Why don¡¯t you let us drive on by, and we can both go about our day without any bullet holes.¡± Terrance seemed to imply they were on some kind of government business. ¡°The government has no business in Spring Vale. You should know this town is run by the Brewer gang. I¡¯m feeling generous, so I''ll let you just turn around and leave,¡± Rory declared. He seemed confident, like a guy who was pretty sure he had the drop on whoever was in the van. ¡°Carl, come on! Tell us about this guy¡¯s organization, so Terrance has something to work with.¡± Sotera muttered. Carl was already looking at this guy¡¯s org chart, but realized he wasn¡¯t sharing it verbally. The three of them had earpieces, so Terrance could hear as Carl rattled off the name of this guy¡¯s boss and how many were in their organization. He started listing a few of the top gang members. ¡°Right, so here¡¯s the thing, Mr. Poole. I¡¯m not with the government, but I have some goods I need to deliver to Lamont Gordon. He¡¯s going to be pissed at you if he finds out you attacked my organization.¡± Terrance said with a calm voice. ¡°You know Gordo? Is this like a food delivery or something?¡± Rory laughed. ¡°I can¡¯t tell you what it is. Ask your boss, Mr. Fisher if you¡¯re allowed to see what¡¯s in this van. Maybe he¡¯ll let you help unload it if you ask real nice.¡± Terrance said. ¡°No one calls him Mr. Fisher. Who are you guys?¡± Rory demanded. ¡°Well, I don¡¯t know him that well yet, but you aren¡¯t giving me a very good impression. We are with the Cortes Cartel, and we¡¯ve been moving into South Texas lately. There are a lot of opportunities right now. We can be good allies or bad enemies.¡± Terrance claimed. He was starting to think his bluffing was not going well and had planned how to take down this guy and one of the snipers. Hopefully, Sotera would take the hint when he said ¡°South¡± that he was going to hit the guy to the South. Terrance was counting on Sotera to take the sniper North of the road if he took the hint. He wasn¡¯t sure if Carl was quite up to speed on their codes, but the guy had already done a great job with his HR software locating the two snipers. They had tested this a lot during training, and it spotted all but the best camouflage using IR and visual cues. It seemed like the software worked better now than when they had first taken Carl on a mission. Terrance wasn¡¯t entirely sure if Scott had improved the code or if the machine was somehow learning based on feedback from Carl. ¡°Hold on a second.¡± Rory held up a hand and pulled out his phone. Terrance knew his story wouldn¡¯t hold up, so he readied himself to take the first shot. ¡°Yeah, some guys from the Cortes Cartel showed up. They seem to know Gordo and said they have a delivery.¡± Rory was saying. After a pause, ¡°No, I don''t think it¡¯s food.¡± Rory glanced around, seeming to feel the tension had increased a bit, ¡°Right, I¡¯ll tell them to wait until you can come out here to talk¡­¡± Stolen novel; please report. Terrance was running towards Rory while spraying bullets at the person trying to ambush them from south of the road. He saw a couple red sprays indicating a hit and dive rolled the last few feet. He ducked under some hasty shots by Rory, who had dropped his phone and pulled up his rifle. Carl had exited the passenger side door and was running at an angle to the man on the north side of the road. He was running to a flanking position instead of directly at the man and changed his speed slightly a few times to throw off the man¡¯s aim. It probably would have worked for a sniper looking through a scope, but the man had an automatic rifle. At least one bullet hit Carl, who fell to the ground. Sotera also stepped out of the car, firing a short burst at the man on the south side then taking cover behind the car as he shot the second man who had focused on Carl. The man went down quickly and stopped firing. Terrance had already knocked Rory down and disarmed him. He was tying him up with zip ties. ¡°Go check on Carl,¡± Terrance ordered. Sotera hustled over to where Carl was already trying to get up. He had taken a shot to one arm, and another hit his armored vest. Neither had done serious damage due to the ballistic protection in his clothing. ¡°Nice distraction Carl. Did you forget to shoot him while you were running?¡± Sotera teased. ¡°Ouch, yeah, I thought I¡¯d draw his attention so he wouldn¡¯t shoot Terrance. I guess I should have shot while running. It¡¯s harder to remember everything when the bullets are real.¡± Carl said, looking a bit embarrassed. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, you did great! Most people freeze up their first time, but your instinct was to protect your teammates. Trust me, your instincts are good and I¡¯m glad to have you on our team,¡± Sotera said. Carl wasn¡¯t pleased about his performance, but he appreciated the encouragement. He was already picturing in his mind how he could do better next time. Carl asked, ¡°So what now?¡± Terrance was heading back, carrying Rory over his shoulder. Terrance was strong even before their enhancement, but now he carried the 200-pound man with ease. He replied calmly, ¡°we¡¯re going to avoid the welcoming committee and ask Rory here a few questions about what is going on in town. Go check on the other two we shot. If they are alive, see if you can stabilize their condition. We don¡¯t kill unless we have to. You have two minutes before we move on.¡± Carl sprinted to the man who had shot him. It looked like one bullet had punctured his lung, and another went through his arm. The other attacker had taken at least five bullets, including a headshot, so he was already dead. Carl slapped a couple med patches on the man who had just shot him. He identified him as Joshua Watson. ¡°Hey Josh, those patches I put on you should seal up the wounds and fight off infections. You¡¯ll need to go to the hospital soon to take care of the punctured lung. Honestly, breathing is going to be a bit tough with fluid building up in your chest cavity. Um, I think some of your teammates are on their way, so hang in there,¡± Carl didn¡¯t really know what else to say to the guy. He hustled back to the van, where Terrance and Sotera were waiting. They drove into town and pulled into the parking lot of a nearby strip. They never saw whatever backup the Brewer gang sent. The stores in the area looked abandoned with broken or boarded up windows. ¡°This place has really gone downhill,¡± Sotera muttered. Terrance had gone to the back of the van and was talking to Rory. After a couple of minutes, he let the man out of the van and left him on the sidewalk, though he was still zip-tied. ¡°OK,¡± Terrance said, ¡°Rory didn¡¯t have a problem talking, since it was obvious we already knew a lot about his gang. He said they run their operation out of the police station and a couple were former police. They started with good intentions, trying to keep other bandits out of town. They weren¡¯t getting enough donations of food and supplies, so they started taking a ¡®tax¡¯ from people traveling through town. I think he feels bad about some of the stuff they have done, but he¡¯ll probably go right back to robbing people after this.¡± Terrance continued, ¡°The local cell towers were destroyed by a group called Apache Revenge who is roaming through Southeast Texas. They came through town a few months ago and caused a lot of damage. The group is well armed and have avoided the National Guard by killing cell towers and not staying in one location for more than a couple of days. The Guard and Texas Rangers also have their hands full dealing with hundreds of other incidents all over the State and have been ordered to focus on protecting the major cities. Rory said his group formed to try and protect the town from groups like that.¡± ¡°Mexico didn¡¯t seem this bad. Is the rest of the country like this?¡± Sotera asked. ¡°From what I¡¯ve heard, a lot of the country is like this in smaller cities. Ironically, Mexico is doing better because the cartels were well-equipped to put down rival groups, and they are keeping order. Shortages and unemployment are still a problem in Mexico, but they don¡¯t have the same problems with bandits hijacking trucks. People there are also used to getting by on items produced locally. The U.S. is heavily dependent on international supply chains and systems that were optimized for maximum profit. Break a few parts of the chain and these systems fall apart.¡± Terrance finished his lecture. ¡°How do we find our targets?¡± Carl asked. ¡°We¡¯ll start with last known addresses. There are a couple of government camps outside town where people gathered who lost their homes.¡± Terrance replied. They drove to a suburban neighborhood. Many of the houses had burned down, and others had heavy barricades. The team confirmed that Adriana, Matt and Barry¡¯s parents were no longer at their houses. Marta¡¯s parents had an impressive barricade of logs and abandoned cars around a medium-sized house that had boarded-up windows and a fair number of bullet holes. They stopped outside. ¡°Mr. and Mrs. Lopez. Are you here?¡± Terrance called out. ¡°Go away!¡± A voice answered. ¡°We work with your daughter in Mexico. We¡¯d really like to talk to you.¡± After a pause, a stocky man came out carrying a shotgun. He was staying behind partial cover, ¡°Which daughter are you talking about?¡± ¡°Marta, but you only have one daughter.¡± Terrance replied. He knew Marta had two brothers. He trained with Marta regularly, and they knew each other pretty well. The man lowered his shotgun, ¡°Is she all right?¡± ¡°Yes, we are doing better in Mexico. I have some pictures if you want to see. We are trying to round up family members of company employees to transport them back to a safe community we are building.¡± ¡°All right, do you mind setting down your rifle and showing me those pictures?¡± Terrance put the gun down and walked over. A woman and a young man also left the house to come look. Terrance showed them pictures of the house and base. They had a few shots of Marta, who had now lost a lot of weight. She was looking glamorous and happy in one picture of the company party. ¡°Is that really her? We¡¯ve all lost a lot of weight lately, but she looks great! Is there enough food where you are?¡± Marta¡¯s mother asked. ¡°Oh yeah, we eat really well! We still get most of our food locally, but they are starting to grow stuff at the new base.¡± Terrance showed them a picture of the cafeteria, complete with the huge windows looking out underwater. They talked some more and the family agreed to join them. Terrance¡¯s team still had to find the other families but promised they would check in on the Lopez family in a few days to arrange transportation. Elsa¡¯s family lived in a gated community that had so far avoided major attacks. They had clearly reinforced the security and had what looked like a 50-caliber gun and sandbags around the entrance. Terrance greeted a suspicious looking guard. ¡°Hi, can we visit the Pittman family?¡± Terrance asked. ¡°Armed visitors are not allowed.¡± The guard said. ¡°Can we get them a message? Or can I visit if I leave my weapons behind?¡± Terrance asked politely. ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll see if they have a phone available and if they want to talk to you.¡± Terrance gave them his information, and mentioned he worked with Elsa. After a brief discussion, he was allowed in. The Pittmans were surviving the apocalypse better than the Lopez family, but they were fully aware things were getting bad. Mrs. Pittman was a surgeon who was now helping at one of the government camps. She was given food, supplies and transportation. The community they were in had a lot of abandoned houses, but over half were still occupied and had power. Terrance was able to learn that Barry¡¯s family was staying at one of the camps. Mrs. Pittman knew Barry and Elsa were dating, so she had made an effort to contact his family once things started getting bad. She didn¡¯t know Adrianna or Matt¡¯s families. Elsa¡¯s family wanted to stay in town. Their situation was not terrible, and Mrs. Pittman thought it was important to stay and help. Mr. Pittman wanted to help the community rebuild and thought they would recover once the government could establish security and fix some of the infrastructure. Carl thought the Pittmans were making a mistake, but his group would not force anyone to leave their homes or communities. They moved on, heading out of town towards the camps. Chapter 43 - Back in Texas Part 2 Carl was apprehensive heading out of town. When they had entered town, he had been shot. Would the local gangs be guarding this road? He kept his eyes moving, sorting through the information about people he saw. There were more people walking around and hardly any cars. A lot of people were conspicuously armed, and a fair number seemed interested in their van as they drove by. Carl wished his software would highlight enemies. Maybe it could make their name show up in red. That was a good idea! He would tell Scott. It shouldn¡¯t be too hard to just change the color of some text. He opened up a built-in notepad and jotted down his great idea. Oh, it would be better if there was some kind of glow or highlight in case he didn¡¯t have time to look at the HR text. Maybe it could also change color when his gun was aimed at them. That would really help him in a fight! Another great idea went in his notepad. Wait, it would be even better if he could see where his bullets would hit. Like one of those mouse cursors on the computers Carl had seen people using. Carl was so excited about all his ideas, he barely noticed that they were approaching the camp. The camp was a mass of tents off the side of the road on what used to be a working farm. The farmhouse had been burned to the ground. There were temporary buildings set up surrounded by a chain link fence and the two entrances had several heavily armed guards that looked like soldiers. Carl was able to confirm that they were National Guard. At the entrance, Terrance left his weapons behind. People had to register here in order to get a tent and food rations. There was a long line to talk to the administrators. Carl and Sotera waited in the car. The people in the camp looked dirty and underfed. It reminded Carl of refugee camps he had seen when surfing the internet to get caught up on world events. ¡°Hey Sotera, do you mind if I walk around a bit. We have a list of secondary targets to contact. I think if any of them are here, they would consider going with us.¡± Carl said. ¡°Sure, just leave your weapons in the van. We don¡¯t want trouble with the soldiers.¡± Sotera replied. Carl walked around the camp scanning. A small boy was in his path, looking up at him. ¡°Are you a superhero?¡± The boy asked. Carl could see how a kid would think that, considering his awesome muscles and sweet body armor. ¡°Actually, I¡¯m a cyborg! I¡¯m on a mission, young Jeremy¡± Carl replied. He had found calling people by their name always left an impression. ¡°What¡¯s a cyburg?¡± The kid asked. ¡°I¡¯m half human, half robot.¡± Carl announced, disappointed in the kid¡¯s poor level of education in all things awesome. ¡°I¡¯m on an important secret mission, so please don¡¯t tell anyone.¡± ¡°My parents said that if a stranger tells me to keep a secret, they are a bad person.¡± The kid said. Carl made a hasty retreat. What kind of nonsense were they teaching kids these days? Carl spotted a man he identified as Matt¡¯s dad, Chris Stanton. He introduced himself and explained what they were doing. ¡°So, you want to get us out of here and take us to Mexico, where you are building somewhere we can all live? Will we be able to find jobs there?¡± Chris asked. ¡°Of course! We are expanding rapidly, and the boss said they could find work for anyone who wanted it. Everyone on my list has a sponsor who will either co-sign or help purchase a home for you. In your case, Matt said he would buy you a home outright. He¡¯s kind of a big deal in the company, so he can probably afford it.¡± Carl explained. ¡°Matt is a big deal?¡± Chris asked, surprised. ¡°I heard he had a job doing robotics and was starting a company with his friends, but they just started last year. I guess I have a lot to get caught up on. He hasn¡¯t shared that much, and we¡¯ve been out of touch since the cell phone towers were destroyed.¡± ¡°Matt is one of the owners of several companies, but he¡¯s a big shot in robotics. I haven¡¯t worked much with him, but I heard he got a lot of money when they handed out bonuses at the company party a few weeks ago. If you come with us, you can catch up on the details when we get back.¡± Carl explained. He filled them in on the transportation plans. Chris found his wife Vickie and explained what Carl had told him. ¡°I¡¯m happy to get out of here, but could we bring some of our friends? How big is the house we are getting? I think we could fit in a couple other families if it was a normal-sized apartment. How much would our food rations be?¡± Vickie had a lot of questions. ¡°I¡¯ll probably have to ask my team leader about some of that,¡± Carl admitted. ¡°We have a list of people who aren¡¯t fully sponsored, but they can get a loan to buy their house if they are willing to get a job. We¡¯re catching a ride back on our cargo ship, which means it won¡¯t be a luxury cruise. You¡¯ll be camping in one of the holds, but they have plenty of food and bedding for the trip, which is only about one day. There is probably room for a few extra people, but I¡¯ll need to confirm if we are allowed. I have satellite internet, so I¡¯ll ask about that and your other questions.¡± Carl opened up a chat application in his heads-up display. ¡°Hey Melinda,¡± he messaged. ¡°Hi Carl! How is Texas?¡± Melinda replied. They continued chatting for a couple of minutes. To Matt¡¯s parents, it looked like Carl was staring into space. ¡°Is he asleep?¡± Vickie whispered. ¡°I have no idea. Should we try to get his attention?¡± Chris waved his hand in front of Carl, getting no response. He wasn¡¯t quite brave enough to poke the over-muscled stranger. ¡°Oh, sorry about that!¡± Carl said. ¡°I¡¯m still getting used to this tech. I must have looked like a big dope standing there! I have a messaging app that shows up in my vision, but I sometimes forget what¡¯s going on around me.¡± ¡°OK¡­¡± Chris said, confused. ¡°Were you communicating with your boss somehow?¡± ¡°Yeah, Melinda said we could bring up to 100 people who weren¡¯t on the list if one of the primary families vouched for them. No one is buying them a home, so at least one person per family needs to take a job and get a loan. She said they would get the same discounted price.¡± ¡°Are the Yong¡¯s on the list?¡± Vickie asked. ¡°Barry¡¯s parents? Yeah, they are a primary family too. Would you mind passing on the information and maybe rounding up anyone else you think needs an invitation?¡± Carl asked. ¡°Also, do you happen to know if the Fosters are in this camp? Adriana¡¯s parents.¡± Carl explained. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°Sorry, we don¡¯t know them. I don¡¯t know a lot of the people in the camp, so they might be here.¡± Chris said with a shrug. ¡°OK, I guess I¡¯ll wait and see if Terrance finds them in the office records. It was nice to meet you, and we¡¯ll return to pick you up.¡± Carl left to go find his teammates. On his way back, Carl found a couple secondary targets and gave them the offer. A boy named Alvaro Ignacio and his family were interested. The boy had gone to school with the other young people and seemed desperate to go anywhere that would have electricity and internet. Terrance confirmed that the families Carl had already found were in the camp, and Adriana¡¯s parents were not there. They got back in the car and started driving towards another camp further South. Once again, Terrance went to the administrative office while Carl walked through the camp looking for people on their list. Halfway through the camp, Carl noticed a lot of people talking anxiously and looking at the road to the South. He glanced over and saw a line of cars and trucks heading towards the camp. They hadn¡¯t seen this much traffic since leaving Houston. Carl noticed some of the vehicles were pickup trucks and as they got closer, he could see armed men in the back. The people in the camp were getting very agitated, and many were scrambling to find family members and grab their meager possessions. This was not good! Carl thought. His guns were back at the van. He started sprinting back. Sotera had also spotted the group approaching and was telling Carl and Terrance to get back quickly. Their vehicle, guns and gasoline made them am obvious target to whoever these people were. Carl was quick, but he was the last to arrive. ¡°Carl, can you ID those guys?¡± Terrance asked. ¡°The ones in the trucks are Apache Revenge gunman.¡± Carl said. This was a group they had wanted to avoid. The guards at the camp had already started firing. Carl watched as one of the SUVs near the front of the group swerved off the road and rolled over. A couple other vehicles near the front pulled off on either side of the road and men with guns got out and returned fire at the camp security. Some bullets even hit their van as they were driving away. Sotera hit the gas and headed away on the road back to town. Carl leaned out the window and started firing. The distance and bumps in the road made it hard to tell if he had hit anything. That was another idea to give to Scott. They should add tracers to see where his bullets went when he shot. The Apache Revenge vehicles reached the camp guards, who by now had stopped firing. Carl assumed they were injured or dead. Four vehicles split from the main group and pursued Carl¡¯s van. He really missed his A-Team van. With armor and a rail gun they could have taken out this whole group, but now they just hoped they could get away in their unimpressive rental van. Carl¡¯s last burst had hit the windshield of the lead car, but the driver did not lose control. The passenger was firing a handgun through the front, and he came close to hitting Carl who was leaning out the window. One of their rear tires went flat and Sotera was clearly having trouble keeping the van from rolling. ¡°Put your helmets on!¡± Terrance yelled as their van was skidding to a stop. He handed Carl a tactical helmet. Sotera had somehow already put his on. As the van stopped, Terrance and Sotera leapt out and started firing from prone positions. Carl was fiddling with his helmet when he felt a powerful blow to his side knock the wind out of his lungs. He scrambled out the door and laid down, gasping for air. He scanned their attackers. A few of their attackers were already down, and the rest had taken cover, trying to avoid Sotera and Terrance¡¯s accurate fire. Carl identified one as a Lieutenant and took careful aim. When the guy poked his head around one of the vehicles, Carl managed to hit him with a burst. The guy dropped to the ground. Carl felt a sharp pain in his right leg. The armor on his arms and legs was thin Kevlar, which wouldn¡¯t stop a bullet from breaking bones or causing a huge contusion. The force turned his calf into a mess of crushed muscle and torn ligaments. Carl rolled into a shallow ditch on the side of the road with a groan but kept firing. These guns were garbage compared to the flechette rifles they used at home, but he fired like he had been trained in controlled bursts to conserve ammo. Carl saw Sotera was bleeding and Terrance had moved behind the van and was firing under the skid plate. Some of the gang members were yelling. ¡°You guys are dead!¡± ¡°Give up now, and we¡¯ll kill you quick!¡± This was a bad situation. Their van was shot up, and the gang members might get reinforcements soon. They were out of sight of the camp, so Carl didn¡¯t know how long they had before the main group finished what they were doing and headed this way. He scanned the group for any other guys with interesting titles. Also, Carl wanted their names so he could taunt them better. Most were just gunmen, but one was labeled a sharp-shooter, and a guy in one truck was a radio operator. He assumed that the guy was staying in the vehicle to talk to the main group. Carl lined up a shot and managed to hit the ''sharp-shooter'' in the foot. The man crawled back into one of the trucks. Nice! ¡°Nice shot,¡± Sotera grunted. He was starting to look a little pale. ¡°Hey Marshall!¡± Carl yelled, ¡°Your mom told me last night she was really ashamed of you!¡± ¡°Who are you?¡± The guy named Marshall yelled, sounding angry. ¡°I¡¯m your dad!¡± Carl announced. A couple of the goons chuckled too. ¡°Laugh it up, Corey!¡± Carl continued, ¡°Your mom begged me to go out with her too, but she was too ugly!¡± ¡°Do we know this guy?¡± One of the other thugs asked. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t remember me, Murray, but your mom will never forget!¡± Carl replied. Several people started firing at Carl. He had good cover in the ditch, so he thought it was worth distracting these idiots. Terrance was able to hit one of the men who had started walking towards Carl to get a better shot. ¡°We got what we came for.¡± The radio guy shouted. ¡°Let¡¯s go. We¡¯ll get these clowns some other time.¡± ¡°You should listen to Brad!¡± Carl announced. ¡°Running away is the best option when you''re a LOSER!¡± Most of the guys got back into their vehicles, but a couple were still taking shots, ignoring their orders. Terrance rolled out from behind the van and took them out with two shots. Three of the remaining vehicles drove away. Terrance quickly checked on Sotera and patched up a hole that had gone through his right hand. He had taken some other hits and was having trouble moving, but it didn¡¯t stop him from talking. Carl couldn¡¯t walk with the serious injury to his leg. Terrance injected him with some pain meds and a special healing cocktail, but he wouldn¡¯t be able to walk on it for several days. Sotera¡¯s hand would be useless until they got time in one of their medical labs. Still, he was in a good mood. ¡°Those millennials can¡¯t handle Carl¡¯s 1980s style trash talking! They are probably going to cry and call their mothers to see if any of it is true!¡± Sotera laughed. ¡°I can¡¯t believe those two guys stepped out of cover to try to get a better shot at Carl. Nice work!¡± Terrance said enthusiastically. ¡°Thanks. Too bad our van is pretty wrecked. It looks like some bullets went through the engine block.¡± Carl said. He enjoyed the praise, but they were still in a bad situation. ¡°Looks like they left a car for us.¡± Terrance pointed out. One of the cars, a Chevy Impala that looked at least 20 years old, was still idling by the road. The driver and passengers had not survived. ¡°Let¡¯s go see what¡¯s happening at the camp. Then we¡¯ll see if we can tow our van back to town.¡± Terrance ordered. He helped Carl get into the front passenger seat, and Terrance took the driver¡¯s seat. They drove slowly towards the camp, not wanting to rush in if the gang was still there. After they went over a small hill, they could see smoke from several fires. They saw a few of the gang¡¯s vehicles heading out on the other road. This had been a quick raid, although it seemed costly since the guards had destroyed one vehicle in addition to what Carl¡¯s group had done. Carl stayed in the car, but kept an eye on the road, scanning anyone who came nearby. Most people were staying clear of their vehicle, obviously wanting to avoid anyone with guns right now. After about 20 minutes, Terrance and Sotera returned accompanied by a middle-aged couple with a teenage boy who he identified as Adriana¡¯s family. They somehow squeezed into the car. ¡°The Fosters are ready to leave as soon as possible. The gang came through and kidnapped six young women. None were on our list, but I am not going to sit back and let them get away with that.¡± Terrance said. Normally calm or joking around, Terrance¡¯s eyes narrowed, and his mouth was fixed in a tight line. ¡°Before we leave this camp, we will find anyone with military training willing to volunteer. Then, we¡¯re towing the van back to town, and I¡¯m going to make some calls. The Dark Siren is not far away, and they have some special supplies they can drop off in an emergency. Carl, you have until tomorrow to fix that van and add any upgrades you can manage - hire some help if you need to and don¡¯t worry about the cost,¡± Terrance ordered. Even if it meant fixing up another van, Carl was eager to get to work. Chapter 44 - Texas Shootout Scott and his friends found it very hard to concentrate on their work. Melinda had given them an update on the situation in their hometown, and they were shocked things had gotten so bad in the past couple months. Adriana had mentioned her parents had stopped returning emails a few weeks ago, and she was ashamed to admit she was so absorbed in her work she hadn¡¯t really worried about it. ¡°I can¡¯t believe I didn¡¯t know about how bad it was! They mentioned that dad was looking for a new job, but mostly they seemed pleased that I was doing well. I just wish they would have told me things were so bad, and I could have brought them here sooner.¡± Adriana complained. ¡°I¡¯m so glad Carl¡¯s group found them, but it sounds unreal that they were living in a refugee camp.¡± Scott said. He had repeated something similar about four times now. ¡°Adriana, I know you¡¯re feeling bad right now, but is the Hab going to be ready when they arrive? Should we be looking for some more houses to rent?¡± Barry asked. He thought they had talked in circles long enough, and they should focus on things they could actually do to help. ¡°Uh right. We have the first four units getting finished tomorrow. Thanks for getting that flooring material.¡± Adriana said. ¡°No problem. Dr. Springer and Dave did most of the work on that,¡± Barry admitted, mentioning the odd guy they had hired to help in the material science lab. ¡°Dave loves working with seaweed for some reason. I¡¯m not sure if he works for my company or yours.¡± ¡°Trinidad is going to produce the flooring for us. He seemed excited to get another new product to sell. Melinda is working out a deal with him, so he won¡¯t gouge us too much - you can probably hear her cursing in the other room.¡± Adriana explained. Barry¡¯s distraction had at least temporarily worked. ¡°My dad was excited the Dark Siren got called in to help with a rescue mission.¡± Scott added. ¡°He¡¯s done five runs as captain, so I guess money isn¡¯t a big concern anymore. Well, at least until hyperinflation makes it all worthless.¡± ¡°No kidding,¡± Barry said. ¡°I thought once we got those dividends, I was set for life. When I heard what people were paying for food and gasoline back in the U.S. I¡¯m not so sure. Do you guys think we should keep our money in pesos or something else?¡± ¡°I read on a site that countries are dumping their dollar reserves, which is making the problem even worse, ¡°Matt added. ¡°China is hurting a bit since the U.S. has cut imports, but they are doing better. Europe and some Asian countries are worried because the U.S. is pulling out a lot of their military support to focus on domestic issues.¡± ¡°Should we put our money in Chinese currency or something? I don¡¯t even know what they use.¡± Scott said. ¡°Renminbi I think?¡± Matt said. ¡°Probably safer than the dollar or Euro right now, but I¡¯m not sure that I trust any of the currencies right now. I¡¯m starting to think canned goods and firearms are the way to go if you aren¡¯t living in our small corner of Mexico.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll send Melinda a memo to create a food company and a weapon manufacturer.¡± Scott said with a sigh. ¡°I can¡¯t even keep up with all our companies.¡± Barry complained. ¡°Speaking of, isn¡¯t that new CEO for the flying car company supposed to show up tomorrow?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a transportation company. We don¡¯t even have plans for a flying car!¡± Matt said, exasperated. ¡°Mr. Kitano will be here tomorrow afternoon. Zaliha is working hard to finish up the prototype of our air shipping vehicle. Hopefully it won¡¯t crash or explode.¡±
Carl had worked all night. They had picked up a couple former Marines in the camp and a guy who was an auto-mechanic. Their new friends rode with Carl in the van after replacing a tire. They were towing it slowly behind the Impala into town. The mechanic said his old shop had closed down once most people stopped driving, and they couldn¡¯t afford to keep the power on. Getting power again had taken a couple of hours after Melinda paid all the overdue bills and pre-paid several months. The power company was running on a skeleton crew and mostly just shut people off. They sounded happy to re-connect a paying customer. Terrance and Sotera had found some of the remaining stores that were still selling food. The prices were about 20 times what you would see on the same item in Houston. The store owners were probably selling food confiscated by the local Brewer gang, but it wasn¡¯t their concern at the moment. They put together enough to feed their guests from the camp, who were all very hungry from limited rations. Carl and the mechanic got to work. The mechanic worked on salvaging parts from abandoned vehicles to repair the engine damage. Carl was tasked with adding armor to the van. They heavily upgraded the suspension and added thick, spiked bumpers. Transparent aluminum glass was not available here, so they replaced the windows with metal plates and added some cameras for visibility. They also melted down some cheap plastic lawn furniture and used the polyethylene plastic to replace the air in the tires. Carl was able to message people back in Mexico, so he got a lot of advice on what to do. Early in the morning, Terrance arrived with a care package delivered using the mini submarine from the Dark Siren. They had received armor piercing flechette rifles, some extra suits of body armor, and one of Matt¡¯s tactical robots. They also had a couple recon drones. Carl had trouble staying awake in the back of the battle van as they drove out of town. He was an old dude and couldn¡¯t just pull an all-nighter without consequences. Terrance told him to take a nap, and they would wake him up once they located the Apache Revenge. Carl didn¡¯t argue and was soon asleep. He awoke later when one of the marines grabbed his shoulder. The guy was bald and a bit overweight, but he was now wearing body armor and a helmet. He was heavily armed with the weapons they had bought from the local arms dealer, keeping the high-tech rifles for Carl, Sotera and Terrance. Carl groaned and looked around. They watched a drone feed on a tablet. The gang had established their home base at a large farmhouse. They had generators and solar panels for power. Some dirty, sad looking people worked in the fields. Based on the two guards keeping an eye on them, Carl thought they might be slaves. Checking his clock, he realized he had slept for 6 hours, and it was now early afternoon. There were a couple vehicles patrolling around the area. Carl spotted a gas tanker truck on the property. It looked like they had hijacked it and were probably well supplied with fuel. Even with everything else going on, Carl found it hard to believe this gang was allowed to operate like this without some kind of authority stepping in to eliminate them. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it ¡°Not a criticism, but now that you found these guys, couldn¡¯t we just call the police or something?¡± Carl asked. ¡°We¡¯re pretty far away from any cities. Any local police are probably controlled by these guys. I bet some of those slaves are hostages. We tried calling the governor¡¯s office, but just got a message that their mailbox was full.¡± Terrance answered. ¡°So, even if they wanted to help, getting them the information is not possible?¡± Carl asked. ¡°I think we could eventually get through to someone, and maybe they could find people who could help. The problem is, we don¡¯t know how long it would take for them to get a team that could even handle this mess. I don¡¯t want the people they captured to suffer any more than necessary. Unless anyone has objections, I think we need to handle this ourselves.¡± Terrance said. ¡°Also, we¡¯re getting low on gas, so try not to blow up the tanker truck.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the plan?¡± Carl asked.
Carl job was driving the van. One of the gang¡¯s patrols had seen him coming and were already firing at him. All but one of them were just standing in the road, firing. Sotera popped up out of the hatch in the roof and mowed them down with high velocity rounds from his flechette. Even though a couple had body armor, they went down quickly. Only one guy who had taken cover behind his vehicle survived. He even managed to take out one of their cameras, but they didn¡¯t have anything that could hurt the van. Then the van crashed into the SUV with a loud shriek of twisting metal. The spikes on the bumper kept the SUV trapped in front of them as the tires blew out and sparks flew from the crushed vehicle. The last gang member had tried to dive out of the way, but Carl clipped him with one of the spikes. He was not getting up again. Carl hit the brakes, hoping the vehicle would go flying off. Instead, it stayed stuck on the front bumper. Crap, those spikes looked cool, but now I have a stupid SUV stuck on my van and I can¡¯t see out the front. Sotera got out of the van. ¡°Don¡¯t say it!¡± Carl warned. Sotera smirked, ¡°You seem to have a Ford stuck on your windshield.¡± ¡°Great.¡± The two men tried in vain to detach the crumpled SUV. ¡°Can you detach the bumper?¡± Sotera asked. ¡°No, it¡¯s welded on. Maybe if you could shoot the door hinges off, we could remove most of this mess?¡± Carl suggested. They managed to remove the side door hinges using a few bursts from the flechette gun. Some stray rounds set the leaking gas tank on fire. ¡°Oh crap!¡± Sotera started running away, and Carl put the van in full reverse. The doors popped off, leaving most of the wreckage behind. By this point, what remained was burning. Sotera walked over and entered the van. ¡°Can¡¯t you pull off that door that is blocking my view?¡± Carl asked. ¡°Nah, I got shot in the hand.¡± Sotera sat down, looking relaxed. ¡°I¡¯ve been shot four times this mission and I can¡¯t even walk!¡± Carl complained. But he hobbled out and managed to pull the door that was blocking his view off the bumper spikes. Being freakishly strong had advantages. ¡°I hope it¡¯s going better for the others.¡± Sotera said.
Joe had been terrified when the Apache Revenge had attacked the camp. He had been on a walk, trying to take a break from the squalor of the tents, when he first heard the gunfire. He was old and out of shape, but he raced back as fast as he could to see if his family was safe. Arriving too late to do anything, the group had already left, and Joe learned that his daughter had been taken. His wife had been injured trying to protect her. She had a black eye and some other bruises, but they were both more worried about their daughter. When Carl¡¯s group had arrived shortly afterwards, he had jumped at the chance to try and get his girl back. These unusually strong old men had dragged a shot up van back to town with a car they had captured from the gang. He wanted to go right away, but Joe realized they needed transportation, so he went along with their plan. The group had surprised him by upgrading the rental van into some kind of war machine and getting a delivery of some very advanced gear. They even had some kind of multi-armed robot. Even more shocking, Joe was assigned the job of controlling the robot. They had asked who enjoyed video games, and Joe had admitted to playing FPS games back before the collapse. The robot had limited range from the portable controller, so they said their robotics experts could not control it from their home base, which was somewhere in Mexico. Joe was nervous about the responsibility, but also a bit relieved. His military experience was limited, and he had not seen any real combat. Also, his physical conditioning was nowhere close to these guys. Even the two injured guys would probably be better in a fight. It had taken an hour to get used to the controls. The robot handled a lot of things automatically, but he got the hang of changing its configuration, and he beat up a few trees testing its attacks. Now he watched the screen as the robot advanced on the large farmhouse controlled by this gang. It was hard sitting there waiting for the signal. His daughter was in there, and he didn¡¯t want to think about what she was going through. Terrance had made him promise to follow the plan which was supposed to have the best chance of keeping the prisoners safe, but it was very hard to wait. His robot¡¯s sensors detected two men entering the house after silently taking out a guard in the back of the house. Scanning around, he saw the patrol on that side was also down; Joe had not heard anything, even though his robot was supposed to have good audio sensors. He forced himself to count slowly to 30, then charged towards the front of the house. Shortly after he started counting, he noticed several of the guards at the front were racing towards the vehicles parked in the front. Carl¡¯s van was supposed to be causing a distraction, and it seemed to have worked very well. He passed by one truck and lashed out with one of the robot¡¯s arms. The tire was pulled off and the whole wheel bent. Joe quickly marked targets as the robot moved to a position ten feet in front of the door. One gang member had spotted him and started firing. Without waiting to see if he would take any damage, Joe fired his main weapon. A swarm of small missiles shot out, heading towards all the vehicles and sentries he had targeted. His controls even recommended adding the guy shooting at him to the target list, and he quickly confirmed, even though the missiles were already in the air. One missile changed direction right before it hit a car, then looped back to slam into the shooter. A second missile continued on and hit the car. In less than four seconds, 12 vehicles and 4 unfortunate gang members were broken apart by the explosions. There wasn¡¯t anyone outside the front of the house who failed to see the source of all this destruction. There were now several people firing from different positions. Joe started the robot charging towards a group of three who had taken cover before firing. Leaping over a small tractor, Joe tore into them. He had no mercy for the men who had kidnapped his daughter. After a couple of minutes, the fight was over. Joe¡¯s robot was dragging two broken legs, and his sensors indicated 3 of 6 cameras were gone. A critical warning indicated the power supply was overheating and would soon melt down.
The Apache Revenge gang was destroyed. Only one of their patrol cars had escaped. Terrance and the ex-marine Doug had cleared the house and were leading a dozen women outside. The people who had been forced to farm were standing around in a daze. Carl¡¯s battle van had arrived after the fight was over. They refueled and were trying to sort out what to do with the former captives. Many of the workers were from a local town and wanted to return to see if any family or friends had survived. The group decided to tow some abandoned cars back, refuel them, and let the locals work out how to get back where they needed to go. The former captives picked up guns for protection and split up a fair amount of cash, jewelry, medicine and food. The people would at least have a fair shot at getting home and a start at putting their lives back together. As the sun was starting to set, the group loaded up in the battle van and drove away. Most of the group heading to Spring Vale would encourage their families to accept Terrance¡¯s offer to re-settle in the Proteus Hab. After a couple more days, everyone was collected and transported in tenders out to the Dark Siren. They would camp out in the cargo hold for a short cruise before starting their new life in Mexico. Carl, Sotera and Terrance flew back from Houston. The guy at the rental place had just stared blankly as they handed back the keys to the armored, blood splattered van. Chapter 45 - Settlement Scott was hanging out with his friends discussing the latest news. There had been a brief mention of the Apache Revenge gang getting destroyed by vigilantes in Texas. The governor had managed to replace the general in charge of the Texas National Guard. The new general had announced they were changing the strategy from defending the major cities to going on the offensive against the more organized gangs that had formed. In Baltimore, there had been a large and bloody riot as protestors claimed the government was wasting money on luxury housing while most people could not even afford a cheap mobile home. Someone had circulated pictures of Adriana¡¯s project, and people had pointed out the high-end fixtures were the same as what they used in some houses costing over $10 million dollars. Trinidad had mentioned that his designs were getting mentions in the press and his products were selling like crazy. The protestors were not going to let facts get in the way of a good looting session, so they didn¡¯t care that the housing project had one of the lowest unit costs of projects awarded. Also, the wealthy neighborhoods they were pillaging were nowhere near Adriana¡¯s project. In Washington, they were finalizing an even larger stimulus bill; this time close to $10 trillion. Inflation on necessities was getting out of control. It seemed likely the government was going to take over the electricity grid, build a lot more subsidized housing, and greatly expand Homeland Security. This department would become another branch of the military tasked with protecting internal infrastructure like roads, water, communication and electrical systems. It was similar to the National Guard or local police forces, but now it would be a huge new Federal responsibility. Most news channels applauded the government, while a few complained that this was effectively putting the whole country under martial law. They noted that this expanded the government¡¯s surveillance powers and gave broad new powers to silence opposition. It was not an election year, but anti-capitalist candidates seemed to be gaining support. People were ready to trade freedom for more security. Some politicians were even advocating the end of private property and that everything should be allocated fairly for the good of all. What used to be a radical opinion was getting more mainstream. A small minority claimed the government made the problems worse by bailing out selected companies and preventing evictions. They argued we would have had a tough correction, but deflation would have strengthened the dollar, which would have relieved shortages. Allowing evictions would have saved some of the banks and encouraged them to renegotiate terms, allowing more people to find a solution. Artificially cheap insurance encouraged people to allow facilities, homes and vehicles to get stolen or destroyed instead of spending money to protect their property. This position made sense to Scott, but it was widely unpopular and would soon be considered seditious in parts of the country. ¡°I predict the electrical grid will collapse before the end of the year if the government is taking it over.¡± Barry said. ¡°You just said you wanted complete control of electricity in Proteus! What makes you think you can do a better job?¡± Adriana asked with a glare. ¡°It¡¯s easier to handle power for one facility. I think that a system that complex needs either capitalism or advanced AI to run, unless you have a lot of surplus capacity. Right now, the capacity is tight because so many companies stopped doing regular maintenance. Also, congress screws everything up.¡± Barry with a smirk. ¡°At least it sounded like they are going to build a lot of housing projects. That should be good for your business, Adriana,¡± Scott added. ¡°No. We got the highest scores on quality of work, value for money and meeting deadlines, but they will make sure we don¡¯t get any more jobs.¡± Adriana complained. ¡°After the anti-robot protests in Philadelphia and the riots in Baltimore, they will make sure we can¡¯t get work with the federal government. They are talking about sending a big chunk of money to the states, so maybe some of them will work with us.¡± ¡°That¡¯s terrible! You do an amazing job, and they won¡¯t hire you again,¡± Scott shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m not worried. We have plenty going on with Proteus right now. Melinda said the projects we completed were only a little over budget, so I¡¯ll be getting a big check when the next round of dividends is released. Dollars are losing value so quickly, Melinda said she would issue the checks in pesos!¡± Adriana laughed. ¡°OK, Barry is predicting the electrical grid will fail. Any other predictions not from Barry?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I think Texas is going to secede, but it might not be this year.¡± Matt said. ¡°Really?¡± Scott asked. ¡°It sounded bad there, but how would that help them?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve talked to some of the families that moved here. Homeland is going to start taking guns from everyone. Outside the 4 biggest cities, the people with guns were the only ones able to keep their families safe. In the cities, the national guard was the only thing that prevented massive riots over food rationing. When the Guard hands this mess over to Homeland, there is no way they have the resources to handle it.¡± Matt explained. ¡°How are they even going to get a million people to work for Homeland with any kind of training?¡± Scott asked. ¡°They¡¯ll pull some people from local police, and probably fill in bodies with anyone who is willing to sit through a two-hour training video.¡± Matt predicted, ¡°when it blows up, they will just double down. That¡¯s why Texas will secede. I wonder if any other states will join them.¡± Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
All the families had started to settle into the first section of Proteus. They were not finished with enough units for everyone, so some people were camping out in the unfinished main house or crowded into the rental houses of any employees who had room. It would be a couple of weeks before everyone was moved in, but they were optimistic after touring the new space. The first section was closest to the sea floor. They called this level one, numbering as the levels went down. Housing units were arranged in groups of eight with large windows looking in on a square, uncovered central area. This underwater courtyard contained an artificial reef which had been seeded with coral and various fish. These were sparsely populated; it would take time and effort for these areas to grow into the undersea gardens that Adriana had envisaged. Each group of eight houses were surrounded by a corridor that allowed walking around the group. Each small block had a lifeboat unit and large pressure doors that could seal the area off from similar blocks. Individual housing units also sealed off from the outer corridor. Interior doors were more similar to what you would find in a house on land, though they were made from painted aluminum instead of wood. There were one or two oversized housing units for each grouping, claiming corner spaces that did not border the courtyard. This allowed space for larger families needing more than the three bedrooms in the typical unit, or if someone wanted to pay more for extra space. There were a few extra-large units with about 10,000 square feet that would take up a whole side of a courtyard plus 2 corners. These were reserved for people who could afford a large, custom space. None of these spaces had been occupied yet, but Melinda had claimed one, which she would use as both a house and a lab. 24 of the housing groups were arranged in a double ring around the edges of a larger square, which had hangers for submarines and elevators down to a lower level. The next level down had space arranged for recreation and retail. The large outer ring was arranged like a typical mall with a walkway and open front buildings that would contain stores, restaurants or other businesses. A central area had sunlamps that would imitate a day night cycle, and they had put down grass sod and were planting a variety of plants and trees to make a park. There was enough room for a single soccer or baseball field, plus a similar sized area intended to have paths through trees. This was currently a patch of dirt with a few small saplings. A small freshwater Koi pond was planned, but it did not yet have any water in it. The second level also contained a large gym, a shooting range, a church and a cafeteria. Scott remembered Glitch_HR had tried to assign ¡®cafeteria worker¡¯ to him from the start, but now they actually had a couple cafeterias, and some people were willing to take the job. Someone in Matt¡¯s group was working on robotic food preparation, and they were testing dishwashing and janitorial robots here. The cafeteria workers were a combination of chef and strategic food planner. They would try to build a menu based on available ingredients and troubleshoot issues with robotic preparation. Watching them work, Scott thought the job actually seemed interesting. The cafeteria was intended to be low cost with quick service. Melinda wanted it to be a benefit for residents and was running it like a non-profit. The third level down had large spaces intended for factories, with large airlocks that connected to the mining tunnels. They also had the power and environmental systems on this level. Barry¡¯s Nova reactor was located here, producing fuel for robots and vehicles and primary power for the whole section. Desalination boilers produced fresh water and dried salt, which was compressed. Most was packed into deep mine tunnels they reserved for solid waste disposal. A large sewage treatment area recycled water and extracted useful fertilizer for the agriculture systems. Air systems pulled CO2 from the air for use in the agriculture systems and pulled out dissolved oxygen from the seawater. They had moved the smelting machinery here along with Matt¡¯s robot factory, which was now twice the size of what they had on shore. The biotech labs were still in the original base, but there were plans to include a large area in the next section they completed. Above the sea floor, they had built an inverted gondola system which was constantly transporting people and materials between the base on shore and the growing Proteus habitat. The agriculture area was nearby, with various tubes connecting deep down to a monitoring station on level three. All the housing, retail and factory space would be treated as private property of individuals or companies. For now, the companies were all various Genysis branches, but it would be open for anyone to buy space. Certain critical safety and environmental systems were owned by Genysis construction and anyone owning space was charged a monthly fee based on square footage, but at different rates for each level. The factory level space was cheapest and the retail level the most expensive. Adriana didn¡¯t want this to be a company store system, so she made the maintenance budget and fee structure public. People could see that the construction company was not making any profit on allowing people to breathe. Power use was separately monitored, and the budget was also public, except for usage by individuals. They reserved space for Security and included it in the planning, but they hadn¡¯t decided how to pay for it or govern it. Initially it would be managed by the company, but they wanted to hand it over to some kind of government. Maintenance and utility fees could also be handled by a government, since they had not planned to run them as a profit center. Melinda decided that she didn¡¯t want to just make this decision for everyone, so they set up a meeting of the initial inhabitants and company employees to discuss what they wanted to do. It was not an easy decision. They were small enough that they could provide services, and it didn¡¯t make sense to have a lot of competition for basic utilities. Competition for security or safety services also did not seem to be a good idea. On the other hand, none of the partners wanted to create some socialist utopia where they controlled everything and held ultimate power. They ended up making a list of basic services and brainstormed on options for ownership and management. Scott even looked at Glitch_HR for people who might have skills in organizing a fledgling city state. They were kind of like a large condominium complex as far as Mexican law was concerned. Legally, they had all the powers granted to a Homeowners Association, backed up by killer robots and high-tech weaponry. Melinda said they should just do whatever they liked and not worry about Mexican law other than paying taxes. She claimed she had a plan to work with the government. They¡¯d either negotiate a special status like Disney World did with Florida, or else they could declare their independence. They weren¡¯t trying to avoid taxes or taking advantage of their neighbors, so Scott was optimistic they could settle things peacefully. Volume 2 - Chapter 1: Strategic Planning Theofanis Zervou was running on caffeine, staring at the same block of code for the fourth time. For the past three months, he had been over-booked on project work. It started when he finished a short AI controller project for an anonymous employer. It wasn¡¯t unusual to work for people who didn¡¯t want to be identified, so he hadn¡¯t bothered to dig further. Theo was a contract programmer who lived in Algeria. He was currently ranked the most talented programmer in the world by Glitch_HR, but there were several other organizations who had taken notice of his skill. A week after finishing what he considered an easy task, he had three job requests from the same source. Theofanis didn¡¯t really need more work; he enjoyed having some time off. He always thought his laziness was a big part of why he specialized in AI generated coding. Getting paid to set up a framework, then letting a computer write and optimize code was great. Naturally, it had taken a lot of work building the tools he used. He suspected not many others could even understand some of the algorithms he had invented to make it all work, but he had run into a few people who were coding projects at a similar level of sophistication. For example, the code he had seen in Scott Henderson¡¯s Human Resources project was amazing, and it even had inspired some ideas to improve his own tools. Theo thought Scott was talented, but still hindered by some traditional methodologies they taught in American colleges. He wondered who else had worked on that project. Some of the code was so convoluted he didn¡¯t even understand it, but it worked quite well. Even with his AI tools, the amount and complexity of work requested in these jobs looked painful. Theo did the sensible thing and doubled the rates he was charging. Scott had been willing to pay at this rate, so probably others would too. The mysterious anonymous source did not hesitate to pay his new rates, making Theo wonder if he was still undercharging. Inflation had picked up quite a bit, as the economic troubles in the U.S. seemed to be spreading. Theo finished the three projects, and they had requested four more. Theo doubled his rates again. This time he did some digging to identify the source of this work. Based on what he was coding, it seemed to be some kind of strategic planning software. He ran into some heavy security but was able to guess the source was DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Shortly after his investigation, he received a call. ¡°Hello Mr. Zervou, my name is Boris Fowler.¡± The voice on the line announced. ¡°How did you get this number?¡± Theo asked, although he wasn¡¯t really surprised. ¡°I think you know the answer to that. You were flagged for an attempted intrusion into our computer systems. As a foreign national, my bosses take this very seriously. Fortunately, one of them remembered that I had been bragging about my Algerian contractor, and they decided to check with me before hitting your home with a drone strike.¡± Mr. Fowler announced coldly. ¡°I was just trying to identify who was hiring me!¡± Theo protested. ¡°Yes, of course. I would have been very upset if such a valuable asset was destroyed due to overprotective security policies. I decided it was time to extend a more official employment offer. I am going to need at least 60 hours of your time per week until the project is finished. We are willing to pay your new rate, but you will not raise it anymore. We will need you to either relocate to our facility in New Mexico, or we will require an IT specialist to install keyloggers and VPN software on your machine, so you can meet the requirements of our top-secret classification. If you choose to continue working from your current location, we will also have a security guard onsite at all times to ensure your safety and a technician who will monitor your online activity to make sure you are not violating information security. Once the project is successfully complete, we will wipe your computer and any cloud accounts you are connected to. In exchange for this inconvenience, you will be granted $1 million USD in addition to payment for this job.¡± ¡°My life¡¯s work is on there!¡± Theo protested. ¡°No way I¡¯m going to work for you with those terms.¡± ¡°Your computer will be wiped regardless of whether you accept the job. The software you wrote for us is now classified, and you are in violation of U.S. law having a copy on your machine.¡± Fowler explained. ¡°I¡¯m not even a citizen of your country! How do I even know you won¡¯t just tie up loose ends and have me disappear after we are done?¡± Theo asked, starting to panic. ¡°The U.S. government doesn¡¯t do that,¡± Mr. Fowler replied, annoyed. ¡°Look, you are going to be rich after a few months of work. Just help us finish our project, and you can retire.¡± Theo took a slow breath to calm himself, ¡°Ignoring the fact that you literally threatened to hit me with a drone strike earlier in this conversation, $1 million USD is not that much anymore. Make it $10 million, half up front, and I¡¯ll help you finish your project.¡± Theo was not happy about this deal, but a flat-out refusal would lead to a bad outcome. At least working with them for a few months might give him a chance to escape, and it would be easier to run with some money available. A couple of months later, Theofanis was scrambling to finish the latest milestone for a project he was tired of working on. His employers in New Mexico monitored every keystroke, and a local ¡®bodyguard¡¯ followed him wherever he went. By his best estimate, there were at least ten people working in shifts to make sure he finished his work and did not escape. The project was building a strategic planning AI (SPAI) that was frightening. It would have access to a wide range of data that should not be legal - medical records, wiretaps from nearly every country, video surveillance feeds. That was not unusual from what he had heard, but it also contained all kinds of classified government documents and corporate data files from various cloud services. Even worse, they had given it authority to allocate a large budget and assign tasks to a wide assortment of government employees. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The code had a lot of safeguards programmed in, but within a couple of weeks Theo had found a number of scenarios which would have led to the program reaching an uncontrolled and possibly hostile state. Some of the ¡®safeguards¡¯ coded in involved hard coding authority for certain people. They had added code designed to limit the efficiency of the system if a certain political party was in charge. Other code was supposed to force the decision-making to avoid harming people or promote various policy goals, but it was easy to imagine scenarios where conflicting directives would lead to unpredictable results. In short, it was the kind of mess you would expect from a project with too much political involvement. The first month, Theo made an honest effort to explain scenarios where these design mistakes would cause serious issues. Instead of trying to escape, he was more worried about what would happen once this program was activated. Some of the other programmers were sympathetic to his concerns, and he was able to fix some of the more glaring issues. He even added a few safeguards which should reduce the chance of a hostile AI acting aggressively against people directly. There was quite a bit of pushback on this - his bosses thought the computer should act aggressively against enemies without humans slowing down the process. Theo gave them enough examples of how easily the system could decide his bosses were enemies, so they grudgingly allowed a weak version of his proposed restrictions. When he felt like the chances of a major disaster had been reduced, Theo focused on his plan to escape. He managed to achieve something considered nearly impossible - changing the weightings on deep neural networks to achieve a specific result. In this case, he managed to increase the weighting on the idea that the system programmers would be more productive with better communication tools. Since he wasn¡¯t changing actual code, his handlers did not have a clue what he had done. The next day, he saw a memo that the SPAI had ordered cell phones for all development employees, who were currently lacking. The orders had been canceled quickly, and management was demanding that anyone who knew about this report it immediately. Theo, whose phone had been destroyed the first day, was on the list of suspects. One strength of the SPAI system was that it could think outside the box. No one even knew the cell phone order had resulted from an artificially high prioritization on a directive. When they canceled the order, the system escalated resources allocated to the task. Phones were hidden in online food orders. When this didn¡¯t work, mercenaries were hired to cause distractions while couriers delivered a phone. In one case, a mid-level manager was bribed $200k to give his employee a phone. Theo received his phone three days after he had changed the prioritization. His ¡®bodyguard¡¯ had been hit with a tranquilizer, and a man wearing a mask had walked past the unconscious agent and handed him a brand-new cellphone. By this time, Theo knew the agency had tracked down the ¡®bug¡¯ causing the issue and were taking steps to fix the problem. He knew they would have a workaround before the end of the day. He sent out a brief message to everyone in his contact list, which included most of his former clients. Theo knew he¡¯d be dead if he talked about the project, but he sent out a cryptic message indicating he required assistance on a difficult project. It was a call for help, but hopefully it wasn¡¯t incriminating enough to get him killed. Theo suspected at least some of his former clients worked for organized crime or various intelligence agencies. Maybe someone would decide he was worth rescuing. Theo also tried to escape now that his guard was incapacitated. He hid supplies in a few locations before they picked him up at the airport. They would probably find everything, but it was worth a try. Theo resigned himself to trying to minimize the risks of the SPAI starting a war or attempting to exterminate all the humans. The release date loomed, so he worked harder than ever to fix as much of the flawed design as possible. Ready or not, the project would be declared complete soon.
A month after rescuing their families from Texas, Scott¡¯s friends had moved into Proteus. They had received another round of large dividend checks in August, but since then he hadn¡¯t seen much of Adriana. He decided to give her a call. ¡°Hey Scott, do you need something? I¡¯m busy designing the new resort area and luxury housing.¡± Adriana said, sounding distracted. ¡°Nothing work-related. I just wondered if you want to take a break and go to the beach?¡± Scott asked. The new beach they had added behind the property was a popular spot. ¡°Sounds fun, but I have so much work to get finished!¡± Adriana said. ¡°I don¡¯t think you have had a break in two months!¡± Scott protested. ¡°I have this neat tool that helps you hire people; maybe you could assign work to someone else?¡± He asked sarcastically. ¡°That¡¯s actually a good idea. Now my company has a lot of money, it doesn¡¯t make sense for me to do all the grunt work! I can¡¯t believe Melinda didn¡¯t suggest this.¡± Adriana complained. ¡°She¡¯s kind of happy to let employees kill themselves for less salary than they deserve. We can¡¯t really complain about money.¡± Scott admitted. ¡°No kidding. I know we were paid in pesos, but that was a lot of zeros on my check!¡± ¡°Yeah, your construction company paid off all its debt and still paid more than anyone except mining. You can afford some more employees! No point having money if you don¡¯t have time to enjoy it.¡± Scott said. ¡°You hardly have room to talk. I know you¡¯ve been working hard on Carl¡¯s feature requests.¡± Adriana said. ¡°Oh, I¡¯ve tried to farm most of that out too. Some of his ideas were just dumb. Some others were good but really hard to program. My best contract programmer has not taken any jobs recently and won¡¯t even answer my calls. Melinda said not to worry about it, but I¡¯m not even sure who is paying for this work. Biotech is the only company that didn¡¯t make money this quarter.¡± Scott said. ¡°I don¡¯t think you are hurting for money. You get paid from all the companies. Mining alone made so much that Angela got all her initial investment money back.¡± Adriana said. Scott sensed a trap at the mention of Angela¡¯s name. ¡°So, why don¡¯t I bring a laptop, and we can hire some people and unload all the jobs you don¡¯t want to do? You get a well-earned break and I get to hang out with you.¡± Scott said, avoiding the Angela trap with panache. ¡°Smooth. Have you been reading training articles on how to talk to women?¡± Adriana asked, laughing. ¡°Every chance I get! I was getting by on my amazing physique and huge¡­ bank account¡­ for too long,¡± Scott laughed. ¡°And now you ruined it!¡± Adriana said, but she was laughing too. Volume 2 - Chapter 2: Relaxed Management Matt and Zaliha were sharing lunch at the onshore cafeteria. Zaliha was still working from the onshore base, while Matt typically worked inside Proteus at the new factory. Matt frequently went inshore to work on the production line for the air trucks, so he would often stop to meet up with his girlfriend. The CEO Hisashi had a much more laid-back style than Trinidad, who shared the four-acre property. Where Trinidad was energetic and hyper-focused, Hisashi gave off a feeling of calm. He encouraged his workers to enjoy the process of designing and building. Meditation or even napping was allowed, but electronic distraction like surfing the web or playing on a phone was strongly discouraged. If you weren¡¯t completely engaged coming up with design or improving factory workflow, he would transfer employees to a different task. No one got in trouble for ideas they presented and there weren¡¯t deadlines, but if you were transferred too many times, Hisashi would fire you. When people couldn¡¯t find satisfaction in their work, he thought they would be better off working somewhere else. As a result of their perfectionism, Matt found it was taking several times as long to get the robotics working. For the first time he found himself changing designs because they disrupted the visual aesthetic, their motion was not ¡®smooth¡¯, or the sounds they made were too jarring. It was weird getting requirements that didn¡¯t directly translate to bottom line profitability, but Matt enjoyed that this was a different kind of challenge. Previously he had worried about burning out, but the days he worked at Hisashi¡¯s factory he came home feeling relaxed and content. ¡°I can¡¯t believe people just take a nap in the middle of the day and no one cares!¡± Zaliha exclaimed, raising her eyebrows. ¡°Well, usually people are meditating on their designs, but if you fall asleep it''s no problem unless you snore too much. Then they tell you to go to this conference room where people can¡¯t hear you.¡± Matt replied. He hadn¡¯t actually taken a nap there but had seen several people doing it. ¡°I can¡¯t believe Melinda is letting him run the company that way.¡± Zaliha still couldn¡¯t wrap her head around napping. ¡°Melinda said she was happy with Hisashi and thinks that some of the other companies should be more concerned with the mental health of employees.¡± Matt said. ¡°Anyway, we are going to start the initial production run next month. We will be sending vehicles to various places to get approvals to fly them. It will take longer to get approvals than we spent on the design and factory setup. Well, except in Yucat¨¢n. Melinda managed to get special approval for transport between our facilities from the governor. He¡¯s supposed to tour Proteus next week along with some other dignitaries.¡± Elsa had been listening in on the conversation from a couple tables over. She decided to join them at their table. ¡°Oh, I actually heard about that. Melinda has been really busy with Biotech; we are setting up a health spa. Rich, old people will come in and get illegal rejuvenation treatments. She said some important people were going to come in.¡± Elsa said, twirling a finger through her light blue hair. ¡°Illegal?¡± Zaliha asked, her eyes widening. ¡°Well, the treatments were tested illegally in Thailand. We are using medicines and genetic engineering that have not been approved by any government health organization.¡± Elsa explained, a smirk turning up the corner of her mouth. ¡°I hope you guys didn¡¯t kill anyone.¡± Matt said. ¡°No, that one security guy almost died when we tried to change his bone chemistry and Carl technically died a few times. Carl actually had his heart stop once and was brain dead twice! We had plenty of other mishaps, like Gabriel¡¯s hand and some lady who had tumors growing all over her face. ¡°Elsa explained. ¡°I think Gabriel seems to be enjoying his conspiracy crowd celebrity status. ¡°Zaliha added. She had watched some of his videos and found them entertaining. ¡°We had to do quite a bit of work on the tumor lady, but she looks fantastic now. I heard she¡¯s divorcing her husband. He got jealous about all the attention she is getting now,¡± Elsa continued. ¡°I¡¯m not even sure what to think about that.¡± Matt said. ¡°What kind of treatments are you guys going to sell?¡± ¡°Muscle fitness, but a weaker version of what we did to Scott and Carl. It should really help older people with mobility and energy. Bone density improvements and teeth regrowth will also help some people. We have a skin treatment which can knock off about 5-10 years of sun damage in the first round. It has diminishing returns on additional rounds of treatment, but you can do multiple rounds or target specific areas if you are really vain, like Melinda.¡± Elsa continued, ¡°We have a treatment for arthritis which worked pretty well for Hisashi. Also, we can regrow, refresh and permanently color hair. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve seen how Melinda¡¯s hair is shiny like a teenager.¡± ¡°Your hair looks pretty great too,¡± Zaliha commented. ¡°I was waiting to see if it would fall out, but I might want to get mine done too. Maybe Matt will give it a try!¡± ¡°Awesome! Barry already asked to get purple hair, but we can¡¯t do that color yet.¡± Elsa said before continuing. ¡°We have some other stuff we are testing for cardiovascular, digestive, and even brain health but those still have some problems.¡± Elsa¡¯s eyes looked away for that last part. Matt suspected they had a few other patients who were not currently enjoying being test subjects. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°Are you really sure this is all safe?¡± Matt asked. It would not be good if they had complications while treating the governor or his wife. ¡°Not really. I mean it all worked on at least one person. We can handle unintended issues much better than a typical hospital. We¡¯re still testing a couple dozen volunteers from the latest group of immigrants and paid volunteers we found locally. We should have at least ten tests for each procedure underway or finished before we start on the governor.¡± Elsa concluded before changing the subject. ¡°How is the air truck project going?¡± ¡°The prototype flew, but the control systems had problems, and we nearly crashed it into Trinidad¡¯s factory. He would have killed us all!¡± Zaliha said, her dark eyes widening. ¡°She¡¯s exaggerating a bit,¡± Matt said. ¡°We fixed the issues, and now we¡¯re keeping it in the air for a few days at a time to see which parts are wearing out the most. The next version, we will use more expensive materials or change the designs for parts that have issues.¡± ¡°Yeah, plus there is a tropical storm nearby. We want to fly around the edges to see how it handles in weather and if it can handle a lightning strike.¡± Zaliha shrugged. ¡°Who would be crazy enough to test that?¡± Elsa asked. ¡°Oh, I bet it¡¯s Jansen.¡± ¡°Got it in one!¡± Matt cheered.
Scott had a long list of projects, and they all seemed to keep stuck at about 80% complete. Whenever they made progress, more issues appeared, or they would come up with a feature that had to be included but required a rewrite of a large part of the code. He was managing over twenty people, and this was probably the source of his problem. When it was just him and maybe another couple people, he had a better grasp of the project and could just write whatever code was needed to patch it all together. It seemed like everyone preferred rewriting each other¡¯s code instead of understanding what it did or making a little effort changing their own code to make it work. Glitch_HR had suggested a number of techniques for managing programming teams remotely. He had tried to follow some of it, but it seemed beyond him how to make very intelligent coders accept that other people¡¯s code was acceptable even if it didn¡¯t meet their very specific standards. Not for the first time, Scott wondered if he was building his team wrong. Maybe they needed programmers with less technical skill, but who were more willing to work with others. His first project was to get the heads-up display software Carl was using to identify people with hostile intent. It was a common feature in video games to display aggro, but in real life it required very complex AI which needed to leverage their HR database and video recognition tools. Also, there was only a limited set of data showing people who turned aggressive and attacked others. There was a small set of videos used as evidence in criminal cases, but a lot of people intending violence tried to avoid cameras or were in a war zone where nothing was working. His programmers were all highly rated - at least as skilled as Scott or better according to Glitch_HR, but they had written the code and re-written it several times and the results were still not much better than a coin flip. Scott decided to let them keep working on it, but he would try building a different team using more emphasis on interpersonal skills and teamwork and less on raw programming talent. Maybe the new team would work better, or maybe competition would inspire the original team to perform better. He was already over budget on this project, so he called Melinda for approval to try this approach. ¡°Hey Scott,¡± Melinda answered. He explained his idea. ¡°Sure, you have my approval to try this. We¡¯re billing this to Biotech, which lost money this quarter, but I think they will be making a lot of money soon.¡± Melinda explained. ¡°I was wondering about that. I thought it would take years to get government approval for most of your treatments, even though they seem to be something a lot of people would want. I know my mom has been asking if you would let her get a few procedures.¡± Scott said. ¡°Scott! Why didn¡¯t you tell me your mother wanted to participate?¡± Melinda scolded. ¡°I¡¯ll give her the employee discount, but you can afford to pay for it!¡± ¡°Sure, I probably have enough money these days. Out of curiosity, how much will some of the treatments cost?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Most procedures are from $200k to $500k. I think your mom would want skin, muscular system, and skeletal repair. Probably some other systems when they are ready. With the employee discount, we could probably do the first round for $800k.¡± Melinda replied. ¡°That is dollars, not pesos, right?¡± Scott was shocked at the price tag, but on the other hand, he could see rich old people paying for it. ¡°Don¡¯t be cheap, Scott. You can afford it and your mother deserves it!¡± Melinda laughed. She knew perfectly well that Scott had received over $12 million in dividends for their third quarter of operations. Even after taxes, he could afford to spend the money for his mother. ¡°You¡¯re right. Just send me the bill, and I¡¯ll pay if dad wants anything too.¡± Scott agreed. ¡°This is why Biotech is about to become profitable. Rich people like you will spend a small fortune to look and feel young again. Someday we¡¯ll drop the prices, so more people can afford it, but for now I think there will be more demand than we can handle. The governor of Yucat¨¢n and his wife along with a few Deputies, Senators and their spouses who are visiting are currently recovering from the procedure in the Spa. We gave them the treatments for free, claiming it was part of our testing, but they are well aware of what it will cost for everyone going forward. We¡¯ll do a half price special for ¡®public servants¡¯ who work for the government.¡± Melinda explained. ¡°Sounds like the politicians will look the other way unless someone has a bad reaction to the treatments.¡± Scott said. ¡°Right. It¡¯s still too expensive for some of the more honest ones, but I think people will be reluctant to shut it down if they might be able to afford it someday. The biggest problem is we¡¯re worried about a flood of V.I.Ps showing up and getting disappointed we can¡¯t treat them quickly enough. We will have a waiting list, but this type of person is usually not willing to wait for anything. I can only guess what type of carrot and stick nonsense we will have to deal with.¡± Melinda sighed. ¡°Glad I won¡¯t have to deal with that. Good luck!¡± Scott ended the call. Without further delay, he searched Glitch_HR for AI and video processing programmers with good teamwork skills. Scott was pleasantly surprised to find himself in the top 50, well above his nemesis Theofanis Zervou! In pure programming skill, Scott had stagnated around 70,000 in the rankings. Filtering for availability and cost, he picked a small team and started contacting them to explain the project. Volume 2 - Chapter 3: The Spa Elsa was irritated by all the rich old people traipsing through her lab. She knew she had to play nice, so they would make a lot of money once they started selling this service. Still, she wished she didn¡¯t have to meet everyone. Melinda was excused because of her personality disorder, and Dr. Chaikhot was playing mad scientist on volunteers in Thailand. That left Elsa as the only option to give the tour. They had at least outsourced making an information video, so she could get a break from fake smiling while the customers watched the slick computer graphics explaining the processes and the obligatory before and after pictures. With irritation, she thought about how her best friend Adriana was probably hanging out drinking Margaritas at the new swimming pool. Scott had helped her find employees to handle almost all her grunt work, and now she only needed to work about 20 hours a week unless there was a fun new project. So unfair! Elsa called Scott. ¡°Hey Scott, I need your help on some HR stuff!¡± Elsa demanded. Scott agreed to head over. Once he arrived, Elsa started complaining. ¡°I have to keep giving tours to these V.I.P.s. It¡¯s super painful, and keeps interrupting my research. I had to restart three experiments today because some Senator or Governor wanted to pretend they understand what we do here. Two of those geezers hit on me, and one was offering suggestions about how I should open up a clinic in his home state.¡± ¡°Well, I can get one of the security guys here to give them the evil eye if they get handsy, but I don¡¯t think we can just toss them out.¡± Scott said. ¡°You aren¡¯t listening! I don¡¯t need security. I need someone else to give them the tour. Also, I want some lab assistants to run all my experiments, so I can hang out at the pool with Adrianna.¡± Elsa rolled her eyes and huffed at how dense Scott could be. ¡°Right, I can probably help with that. Shouldn¡¯t you have asked Melinda?¡± Scott said. It seemed like hiring people was a CEO decision. ¡°When I call her, Melinda always answers and wants to talk about some crazy new brain surgery she wants to try. Last time I talked to her, she was using a cell pattern from electric eels to work like a battery for implants. I made her promise not to test it on herself. Putting an electrical power supply inside your brain - what could go wrong?¡± Elsa groaned. ¡°I¡¯ll help you make a list, but I¡¯m not hiring them for you. Send Melinda a list and let her handle it.¡± Scott said. ¡°She¡¯s totally just going to assign it to you!¡± Elsa laughed. They worked together for about an hour. Elsa had picked three bilingual PR people who could work in shifts. Hopefully she would never, ever, have to talk to another politician. She was delighted to find 3 PhDs who published articles she was familiar with who were looking for work. Several schools had shut down due to security issues. There were also some highly rated lab technicians. Scott dreaded having to track down all these people, explain the company, and arrange transportation. So, he opened Glitch_HR and instead called someone who it recommended for recruiting and hiring. He sent an email updating Melinda, who called him shortly afterwards. ¡°So, Elsa wants to hire someone to do all her work, and you want someone to actually handle all the HR work?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°Yes. What¡¯s the point of making all this money if we don¡¯t have time to enjoy it?¡± Scott replied. ¡°Ooh, the new leadership training you¡¯ve been doing is working!¡± Melinda gushed. ¡°Thanks! Do you need any assistants?¡± Scott asked politely, remembering that Melinda worked harder than any of them. ¡°That¡¯s sweet of you to ask, but I¡¯d like to interview the new cabana boys myself.¡± Melinda cackled. Only Melinda would say something like that to the HR department! ¡°Gross,¡± Scott replied, making a face. ¡°Right, you can figure it out yourself and I want nothing to do with that!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Angela is here again, and she¡¯ll be happy to help me. I swear that girl spends most of her time here now. She doesn¡¯t want to give up her New York condo because it cost so much, but maybe she¡¯ll buy one of the condos in the new luxury section of Proteus when we finish it. She¡¯s getting a couple treatments at the Spa right now. Don¡¯t worry, she¡¯ll leave you alone.¡± Melinda laughed, enjoying how nervous Scott got when she mentioned her friend. ¡°Luxury section?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Yeah. So we¡¯re getting a lot of rich people coming through here for the Spa treatments. The first section of Proteus is nice, but it¡¯s not exactly going to wow these billionaires. Adriana hired some architects and people who designed nice hotels. The next section is going to target ultrarich visitors - people who can afford a $100 million vacation home.¡± ¡°Sounds like we aren¡¯t going to be low profile much longer.¡± Scott said with a sigh. ¡°It was bound to happen once we became successful. It will probably be another year before we open all that. There are a lot of other moving pieces to sort out first, so we can¡¯t just hand all our work off to new employees.¡± Melinda teased.
The next few weeks passed with the young Genysis owners spending more time by the pool or at the beach. Matt had already mastered using Glitch_HR to dump unwanted work on grateful new employees, and he had shared this immediately with Zaliha. Adriana grumbled a bit that Matt was a more thoughtful boyfriend, but she couldn¡¯t stay too mad, considering a year ago they were living in a dorm and attending boring classes all day. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Poor Barry was the last one working 50-60 hours a week, and he always looked stressed when he wasn¡¯t working. Eventually, Elsa took pity on her sometimes boyfriend, and he had finally managed to dump some of his work. This was the first day Barry had joined Scott hanging out at the pool. They were going to meet up with the girls later, and Scott had brought his laptop to keep up with some of his projects. The pool was a sprawling expanse of blue with an infinity edge, several hot tubs, and surrounded by small cabanas. A couple swim up bars were always popular. In the past month, there had been a large increase in good-looking young people hanging out here. There were also a number of people Barry called mummies who were often wrapped in bandages recovering from Spa treatments. These poor souls would stay in the shade of cabanas or under the deck below some large fans. Scott wondered why they would subject themselves to this, since they couldn¡¯t even get in the water. It became obvious they were watching the young people who had been hired by the Spa to take care of the rich visitors. Melinda could have found employees who gave them what they wanted, but instead she delighted in finding employees who could tease but still avoid the grabby senators and other entitled rich visitors. Scott idly watched one group flirt with a mummy while keeping just out of reach. Another person, who had been introduced as a US congressman, was passed out - probably someone drugged him when he became too needy. Scott usually avoided the pool. Too many women (and men) flirted shamelessly with him. He only came when his friends would be there. ¡°How come everyone smiles and bats their lashes at you? When they look at me, they turn away and giggle!¡± Barry complained. Barry could admit he understood the attention Scott was getting these days, but why was no one interested in him? ¡°Don¡¯t be stupid! You know they all work for Elsa, right?¡± Scott laughed. ¡°Oh!¡± Barry realized that Elsa probably thought it was funny to embarrass Scott, but she would make it clear to her employees that Barry was off limits. ¡°Well, that takes all the fun out of this place.¡± Scott rolled his eyes. ¡°Right. It¡¯s been nice taking it easy the past few weeks. I¡¯m glad most of my employees work remotely, so they can¡¯t see me lazing around.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve been working like crazy for almost a year. I think we deserve a break! ¡° Barry argued. ¡°I know what you mean, though. I¡¯m already thinking of five things I want to try in my lab. We¡¯ve got a project to turn limestone into marble. We want to put that stuff everywhere in the new luxury section.¡± ¡°That sounds good. Hopefully Adriana doesn¡¯t put it in the next round of project housing, or someone will get jealous and start rioting again.¡± Scott said, remembering how Trinidad¡¯s lighting and plumbing fixtures had been blamed for the Baltimore riots. ¡°Did she get more projects? I remember she thought they would pass laws to exclude us from participating.¡± Barry asked. ¡°Yeah, our lobbyist managed to get a couple staffers to remove the restriction on using robots. With our high rating from previous work, we got eight contracts this time and the price went up about 20%. Our costs only went up a little, so it should be a good profit margin.¡° Scott continued, then realized he was starting to sound like Melinda. ¡°Nice. Speaking of huge profits, I¡¯ve been wondering what to spend all my money on. Yeah, I know it¡¯s a tough problem to have,¡° Barry laughed. ¡°Naturally I bought a Ferrari, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve seen it in the garage. I can¡¯t afford a luxury yacht or a private jet yet. Anyway, I would probably want to wait until we start building them.¡± ¡°Right, you wouldn¡¯t want one that runs on gasoline when you can wait and get it fusion powered,¡° agreed Scott, but he couldn¡¯t resist rolling his eyes. ¡°Exactly! Also, I was kind of disappointed when I had to take my Ferrari to the gas station. I¡¯m Mr. Fusion, why am I driving a gas guzzler?¡± Barry said. ¡°Mr. Fusion? Isn¡¯t that what Doc Brown put in his time machine?¡± Scott was not going to allow Barry to pick his own nickname. ¡°Whatever. Anyway, I¡¯m going to get that Carl guy to help me convert my Ferrari. He loves working on cars, right?¡± Barry asked. ¡°I guess.¡± Scott agreed. He had heard the stories about Carl¡¯s battle vans. ¡°You should probably talk to Zaliha since she has already designed fusion powered vehicles. She¡¯s a mechanical engineer, while Carl is a former homeless guy with no training. Carl¡¯s ideas aren¡¯t even practical! He makes decisions based on what his 1980s brain thinks is cool, instead of understanding how much effort it would take.¡± ¡°Nah, it¡¯s too weird talking to Matt¡¯s girlfriend when he¡¯s not around. I¡¯m just going to wing it with Carl.¡± Barry shrugged.
The mysterious agency Theofanis worked with had been running a beta test of SPAI for a couple of days when one of the bosses sensibly decided that they needed more visibility into how the program was making decisions. They had added a lot of options to override certain actions and insert short term objectives, but the program¡¯s internal decision-making was a black box. The overall mission for the system was to improve the security and economic strength of the United States. Short term priorities could override the primary mission, so politicians could play games that would benefit their interests while still claiming the system was for the greater good. It was a terrible design. Theo had just finished a module that could decode some of the deep weightings in the neural networks, which allowed the controllers to get some visibility on what was going into the decisions the system was making. The core mission assigned tasks based on an internal ranking of threats, but until he finished this module, no one really knew what threats the system was targeting. It was a very tricky piece of code to decode this information, but he could hardly believe they almost activated the system without it. Theofanis looked at his screen and laughed. He looked at the report of what SPAI rated the top threats to the security and economic strength of the United States.
  1. Congress
  2. The President
  3. The Supreme Court
  4. Texas
  5. Russia
  6. Proteus Base, Mexico
Their list went on from there, but Theo was highly amused at the top three. The beta was already running, so he wondered what plans were already in place to topple the current government. When his handler saw the list, he had accused Theo of treason. Theo calmly explained he was only reporting the priorities, not setting them. The handler had sprinted away and was currently having a frantic call with his boss. SPAI¡¯s beta program was shut down after this. It would be a few more weeks at least before they could patch the core heuristics to exclude the current government as a threat to the country. Getting back to work, Theo idly wondered what Proteus Base was. Volume 2 - Chapter 4: New Beginnings It was late September and Scott had flown into Texas. The situation had settled down a lot over the past two months. The strategy of targeting the larger gangs instead of playing defense in the cities seemed to have paid off. To a large extent, once the Guard handled the more organized groups, local police and vigilantes solved some of the smaller problems. The newly expanded Homeland Security had been setting up bases and recruiting but had not had much visible impact. Genysis had two housing contracts in Texas, but Scott was here for a different reason. He was visiting because of Solomon Rhodes, who was finally getting released from prison. He had arranged a driver and a local bodyguard and was on his way to meet Solomon once he was released. Melinda had insisted on the bodyguard, and he had a satellite phone with instructions to call in immediately if he saw any signs of trouble. Scott¡¯s car pulled into the parking lot of the same prison he had visited roughly a year before. He entered the office and greeted Warden Davis, who seemed to recognize him. ¡°Thanks for calling ahead. After the incident last year, we wanted to make sure Solomon was not being coerced into leaving with you.¡± Davis said. Solomon had been kidnapped from the prison by Russians, from whom he had stolen a large intelligence network. Under duress, Solomon had told them about Scott¡¯s company, which led to a major attack on the Mexico base. Scott¡¯s company had rebuilt and recovered, but the Russian team had escaped with some very dangerous technology, and they had not heard anything else about it since then. ¡°I appreciate that you treat your prisoners fairly. I know Solomon is suing the prison system for what he went through, but he¡¯s had nothing but good things to say about you.¡± Scott said with a smile. ¡°We upgraded some of our security after that incident with Solomon. It actually came in handy a couple of months ago when one of those gangs tried to break someone out,¡° Davis explained. Scott thought that was probably quite an interesting story, but he knew the Warden wouldn¡¯t tell him anything more. ¡°Some people in my company had a run-in with one of the gangs. It sounded like the wild west here a few months ago. Do you think the trouble is over now?¡± Scott asked. He thought someone who dealt with law enforcement and criminals might know a bit more than what they heard on the news. ¡°Honestly, I think you guys are lucky to be getting out of here and going to Mexico. I have some friends who transferred into the new Homeland base near here. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on rooting out domestic extremists. Doesn¡¯t sound too bad on the surface, but they are defining extremists as anyone who owns a gun or is critical of Washington. They keep a database of people on a watch list who can have their phone and emails tapped without a warrant. Anyone with even an indirect link to suspected radicals goes on the list.¡± Davis said. ¡°That¡¯s pretty bad,¡° Scott agreed. ¡°I think most people assume their phone calls and emails are monitored already, but that¡¯s a pretty loose definition of extremists. My friend said he thinks Texas will secede. Do you think there is any chance of that?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t heard anything specific, but the governor is pretty popular right now for cleaning up the gangs, and he is very critical of Washington. Still, I don¡¯t see it happening. No one wants another civil war which Texas would lose. It would take some major stupidity for something like that to happen.¡± Davis said with a forced laugh. At noon, Solomon was released. Solomon¡¯s dark skin contrasted sharply with his brilliant smile. He was clearly pleased to see Scott and appreciated that they had arranged transportation. ¡°I can pay you back for the driver if you want. It must have cost a lot to get a ride all this way,¡° Solomon offered. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, ¡°Scott said. ¡°Our company has done really well this past year. Speaking of that, Melinda sent some papers for you with a new salary. I¡¯ve never heard of her offering someone a raise before, but obviously your work deserves more than the pittance we were paying you.¡± ¡°That¡¯s nice of you, but I¡¯m not worried about it! You¡¯ve probably heard I¡¯m pretty rich.¡± Solomon laughed. ¡°Right, I almost forgot! Several local politicians want to thank you for your charitable donations and probably shake you down for some more.¡± Scott smirked. ¡°Sounds good,¡° Solomon said agreeably. He was reading over a letter Melinda had added to his packet. After a few minutes of silence, Solomon spoke up. ¡°The boss wants me to help design a server farm for your HR software. She said I can share any information with you, so I¡¯ll go ahead and tell you that my firewalls have been attacked with increasing intensity the past month. Some zero-hour attacks, some brute force, and at least one attack that would have required physical access to the server farm. That combination indicates its government level. I know the Russians don¡¯t like us, but after what I did to them, I would be surprised if they could put together something like that so quickly. If I had to guess, I would say Americans or Chinese.¡± Solomon speculated. ¡°Did they get anything?¡± Scott was now quite concerned. ¡°I don¡¯t think so. I can¡¯t even get into the interior layer because I destroyed the access codes. That program has some nasty counterattacks set up, so it probably hacked them. The only way I know of to affect your system is to perform an update on your HR system. Hopefully you don¡¯t let too many contractors access it, but even if you did, they would have to be pretty sophisticated programmers to inject something that could open up the system.¡± Scott paled as he heard this. Great, I just hired a bunch of contractors who are genius programmers to work on the HR system. ¡°So, hypothetically, if some programmers had access to the system, could we add some more protection or make sure they didn¡¯t already do something malicious?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I think we have a lot of work to do,¡° Solomon sighed.
Matthew Stanton enjoyed his job. He designed robots and sometimes weapon systems. His co-workers were really smart, but also fun to work with. When his friends started hiring people and dumping their work, he had done the same, but now he was a little bored. Zaliha had teased him about it. She still worked about 60 hours a week and said her job was too fun to take a break right now. Zaliha¡¯s CEO emphasized work-life balance and had helped her narrow her focus to the more creative parts of the job, but this only made her want to work more. She had handed off the air truck project for others to finish and only occasionally sat in on meetings about the exploration submarine. She was working on several military vehicles now. Matt was a bit jealous hearing her talk about optimizing hard points, stealth systems, and shielding against electronic warfare. He could probably build some more combat robots. Aerial and underwater versions might be fun. Matt found himself intending to start a fun project, but instead he just wasted time reading or playing video games. Without a crisis or deadline, he found himself always putting off committing to something that would take a lot of work to finish. After a couple of weeks of procrastinating, Matt decided he needed to work on something other than robotics. Having made his decision, Matt assigned the underwater combat robot to Phillip and a flying robot to Rafael. They were both delighted with the assignment, and Matt felt a sense of relief. He called up Alvarro who had happily settled into Proteus. His friend had stopped gaming since his time at the refugee camps and seemed to be happy working through Glitch_HR skills training. Alvarro was officially a ¡®Programming Intern¡¯ reporting to Scott, but he hadn¡¯t actually been assigned anything important. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Hey Al, are you busy?¡± Matt asked. ¡°Not really. I¡¯m just studying. Hopefully Scott will assign me some work when he gets back. My rating is getting pretty good. Not at the level of those maniacs he usually hires, but I bet I could help out on some of the projects.¡± ¡°Actually, I was thinking we could start another company.¡± Matt said. ¡°Seriously?! Aren¡¯t you part owner of 5 or 6 already?¡± Alvarro asked, his voice raising an octave. ¡°That¡¯s true. I have quite a bit of money now, and Scott will probably let me use his software in exchange for a bit of ownership. I think it would be fun to build a gaming company!¡± ¡°That would be awesome!¡± Alvarro agreed, excited. ¡°I asked Melinda about it. She said it was great that I was trying something new, but she¡¯s not interested in running it. She has never even played a video game and doesn¡¯t understand the business, but she said she would file the incorporation if I paid her $1000.¡± Matt explained. ¡°I guess we just need to find a CEO and hire programmers, designers and artists?¡± Alvarro asked, ¡°Which would normally be really difficult, but with Scott¡¯s program we can do most of that in one afternoon.¡± ¡°Not so fast!¡± Matt laughed. ¡°I¡¯m putting up $6 million, and I want 55%. I also want to try being the CEO. You get 25%, Scott gets 10%, and we reserve the last 10% for employee bonuses.¡± ¡°OK, if you are putting up that much money, you can be the CEO. I¡¯m just happy to be invited!¡° Alvarro agreed. ¡°Right, so I want to build a VRMMORPG. They talk about them in lots of books I¡¯ve been reading, and I wondered if we could pull it off.¡± Matt explained. Matt continued, ¡°I¡¯ve done a little research. Full immersion pods are not something we can do with current technology. There are a few ideas out there how to make it work, but we could spend years on it with no guarantee,¡° Matt sounded a bit disappointed. ¡°I do think we could have nearly intelligent NPCs and do a lot with generated content.¡± ¡°Sounds awesome!¡± Alvarro said with a huge smile. ¡°We should talk with Scott before we finalize this deal since he¡¯ll be an owner too. I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll let us use his software, but he might have some ideas too.¡± The boys agreed to do a bit more planning and try to meet with Scott after he returned from his trip.
Adriana and Melinda were taking a quick tour of their second cargo ship. They had stuck with the theme of naming their ships after water spirits, so this was called the Moryana. Adriana had insisted they paint the ship a powder blue color with white highlights. The company now had three full ship crews to rotate between the two ships and would hire a fourth soon, so crews could rotate out and stay at the home base roughly half the year. ¡°The paint job was a waste of money, but I guess it looks pretty.¡± Melinda grumbled. ¡°We can afford it now. We will get less attention since it doesn¡¯t look like a warship.¡± Adriana countered. ¡°Attention can be a good thing since we¡¯re not a secret anymore. We do want our brand to be associated with a positive image, so I agreed to the paint job already!¡± Melinda reflected that her young friends had grown more assertive. She was proud of them, but it was also annoying sometimes. ¡°I handed off a lot of the design work for the Atlantic base.¡± Adriana admitted. ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve seen you hanging out at the pool more often. Good for you!¡± Melinda laughed. ¡°Right, you would know since you and Angela spend half the day ¡®meeting¡¯ there.¡± Adriana countered. ¡°Anyway, I had some ideas for our next ship. Zaliha is busy with aircraft design, but we are going to work together on a carrier ship.¡± ¡°Not a warship, I hope? I still haven¡¯t recruited the person I want for strategic planning. Building an aircraft carrier might upset some powerful people.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s a shipping carrier. We figured we could handle deliveries faster and more efficiently using air trucks that are based out of a specially designed ship.¡± Adriana explained. ¡°Sounds interesting. Give me some more details, so I can make a plan to work with the governments.¡± Melinda was giving Adriana at least three fifths of her attention. ¡°Our air trucks are designed to carry up to 12 tons in a standard shipping container. With ten air trucks on the ship, we could unload the entire ship in a couple of days directly to a rail or truck terminal, skipping the port. That assumes the location is within 5 miles of the ship at sea, but that is a common arrangement. We¡¯d also have flexibility to deliver directly to inland locations, though it will take longer to unload the ship depending on the distance to delivery. You could still use port facilities to unload bulk cargo.¡± Adriana explained. ¡°This will save us time and money if we are working on projects inland,¡± Melinda noted, but then frowned. ¡°Logistics is going to be a hundred times more complicated. I¡¯ll start looking for people to manage it. Other companies will want to rent space on the ships once they see how quickly we can deliver. It won¡¯t be as fast as pure air freight, but it could be several days, maybe even weeks, faster than standard cargo shipping if you skip the bottleneck at some ports. See if you can bump up the number of air trucks and the size of the ship. Aim for keeping the total unload time at two days, so it is competitive with the turnaround time for a traditional ship to unload at a port.¡± They exited the Moryana onto the dock platform which connected Proteus, deep underwater, to the surface. The platform currently consisted of two passenger elevators and two large freight elevators. The platform had a few small buildings and a large area which served as a port, including stacks of shipping containers and several cranes. The platform seemed to always be under construction as they expanded it to support the next sections of Proteus. Melinda spent a moment staring at a tower they were building. Adriana wasn¡¯t sure what the tower was for, but she was guessing radar, or something related to security. ¡°Do you have a plan to fix the traffic jam on land?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°Now that we have visitors and hundreds of people living in Proteus, the gondola cars always have long waits. The number of cars and trucks parked at the house and surrounding streets is ridiculous, even with the new garage.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been negotiating with the governor. He agreed to fast track some road upgrades. I think he¡¯s eager for all the property taxes our residents and businesses will start paying. His plans will not be nearly fast enough, so I¡¯m pitching a plan to add an underground road bypass. The eminent domain laws allow us to pretty much build a tunnel however we want as long as anyone with mineral rights is fairly compensated, and the government approves the plan. We¡¯ll need to avoid damaging cenotes, the water table, and certain cave systems. Environmental studies will take time, but I have a few people putting a plan together. We¡¯re looking to buy up land three miles south of Sisal along highway 281. The tunnel will be about seven miles long and going all the way to a big parking garage we will build at Proteus. Branches will connect our inland property and the beach house, with additional parking at both locations.¡± Melinda explained. ¡°That¡¯s a huge project. Are we supposed to pay for all that?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°I¡¯m still negotiating that. We can offset some of the cost with tolls and selling space underground near the road if we are granted rights. It¡¯s in the government¡¯s interest to develop here, since they will get a lot more taxes. Most of the surface land is an ecological reserve owned by the federal government, so we need their approval too. Lucky for us, some key politicians have used our Spa and indicated they could help with permitting.¡± Melinda grinned. ¡°Sounds kind of corrupt,¡± Adrian replied, pursing her lips. ¡°Not that voters should be too upset that a private company wants to improve infrastructure, pay more taxes and create jobs at almost no cost to the government. We should also be minimizing environmental damage with this, compared to expanding existing roads.¡± Adriana rationalized. ¡°The governor has already been bragging about how his economy will be growing next year, his carbon emissions are down, and how they are going to build several new shelters for the poor.¡± Melinda said. ¡°We helped with the first two, and the last one is Solomon Rhodes. The governor totally owes us a favor or three.¡± ¡°I think the governor has a bit of a crush on you.¡± Adriana teased. ¡°Victor probably doesn¡¯t realize I¡¯m older than him,¡± Melinda huffed. ¡°He¡¯s a superstitious fool, but I guess he is kind of charming. Don¡¯t worry, he¡¯s married. I am not going to date him.¡± ¡°Since when are you on a first name basis with Governor Conde?¡± Adriana asked, curiously. ¡°I call everyone by their first name because I¡¯m old, and rich, and I can do what I want!¡± Melinda responded with a huff. ¡°Also, what do you mean superstitious? I thought you liked religious people.¡± Adriana said, her forehead scrunching up. ¡°The security guys overheard Victor telling an aide that he thinks I¡¯m some Mixtec goddess reborn. Chicomec¨®¨¢tl, the seven-headed goddess of prosperity or fertility. No idea where he gets this nonsense!¡± Melinda said, annoyed. ¡°Ooh, you really busted out the accent to say the name of that goddess. Maybe the governor has figured out your secret!¡± Adriana laughed. Volume 2 - Chapter 5: Gaming and Spies When Scott returned, he dropped off his luggage and immediately called Matt. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you were starting a game company and didn¡¯t tell me,¡± Scott said, his voice a little too high-pitched for a man his age. ¡°Settle down!¡± Matt laughed, ¡°I was just discussing it with Alvaro. We¡¯re doing a bit of research and planning but haven¡¯t officially started.¡± ¡°Your email said you are funding it and keeping the majority ownership. No way! I¡¯m putting in some money too, and I want 20%. You can still have the biggest share, but I want to be involved. That sounds way more fun than trying to build new features for Carl.¡± Scott said, in a hurry. ¡°Do you even hear yourself talking? You are literally complaining about building combat upgrades for a cyborg. I¡¯m going to have to put you on nerd probation.¡± Matt teased. ¡°OK, I admit my job is pretty awesome,¡± Scott agreed. ¡°But your project is even better! I¡¯m good at programming AI systems, and I¡¯m getting better at managing teams of geniuses. Plus, I have money and you need my software, so you¡¯re just going to have to agree to my totally reasonable offer.¡± ¡°Sure, no problem. I¡¯m glad you want to help! I was worried you¡¯d be too busy with about six other projects you seem to be working on. Why don¡¯t you chip in $2 million, and we¡¯ll bump your share up to the typical 25% you seem to have in every company? If we can¡¯t get something up and running for $8 mil, then I¡¯ll step down as CEO and you can find someone better.¡± Matt replied. ¡°Oh, I think you will do great. Can we meet up and discuss what you have planned so far?¡± Scott asked. Matt agreed, and they met up in a conference room he used for his robotics company.
¡°So, full immersion pods are out.¡± Alvarro said. ¡°I was hoping we could still get your Biotech company to do research on it, but right now it¡¯s not possible. We agreed to target one year of development before at least having some kind of beta test running.¡± ¡°Yeah, I was hoping you¡¯d find something I missed, but I agree.¡± Matt replied. ¡°I know we all want input on game design, but we should hire someone early to make sure ideas are documented and tasks are getting finished on time.¡± Alvarro continued. ¡°Got it, I¡¯ll handle HR stuff unless you guys want to give it a try.¡± Scott replied. ¡°Right, so mobs. There is a lot of research going on with computer generated art. I think we should just get someone to sketch ideas and enter some parameters like size, attacks, habitat, name and get the computer to build the models, ¡°Matt said. ¡°That is totally beyond me, but I¡¯ll look for some computer art guys. I think we could code some genetic traits and allow the system to mutate the basic types to adapt to the environment. We could even run sims to see which ones thrived.¡± Scott said. ¡°It would need rules like larger creatures need to consume more food or magic and reproduce more slowly.¡± Alvaro added. ¡°OK, we¡¯ll brainstorm details on that later, but Scott can hire people to start designing a system like that and some artists to come up with initial sketches.¡± Matt said. Scott didn¡¯t really need to take notes with his memory tricks, but he was recording the meeting in case they had any disagreements later. ¡°Right, so we want NPCs that are as close to human intelligence as we can simulate. I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll have to use a lot of tricks to scale down resources when players aren¡¯t around or talking to them. I bet we can find people who have figured out part of the puzzle and get them to work together.¡± Scott said, remembering how many of their big inventions were based on work from several people who weren¡¯t aware of each other. ¡°I was actually looking into that. I have a few people in mind who seem to have solved part of the puzzle. I¡¯ll send you their names. They aren¡¯t all cheap or available for work, so you will need to figure out how to recruit them or replace them with someone else.¡± Matt said. ¡°See, you totally needed me for this company.¡± Scott said smugly. ¡°Right, because when I looked up HR recruiters, there was no one more qualified than you.¡± Matt snarked. ¡°In case you were wondering, you¡¯re not even in the top 10%. Maybe you should hire someone like that for Genysis companies.¡± ¡°Already hired Jessica, she¡¯s great at that. By the way, what did you want to call this company? Genysis Gaming? Something else?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine with that.¡± Matt said. Alvaro agreed. ¡°Right, next thing. Quests.¡± Matt said. ¡°I was thinking, there are websites with a bunch of stories like Royal Road. You can program a computer to scrape these, make some modifications, then plug them into the world. It can swap out names, locations, mobs, treasures etc. for things, so they fit in with the location and level of difficulty appropriate for the area.¡± Alvaro added. ¡°I have no idea how to program that, but we hire people to figure it out.¡± ¡°That should work as long as we make sure it changes or mixes things up enough so that it¡¯s not a straight copy. ¡°Matt grinned. He knew it would not be as easy as that, but it wasn¡¯t a bad starting point. ¡°We need to design the world, buildings, scenery etc. Some can be generated, but it would also help to start with some sketches for the computer to turn into models. That is not an easy task, and we¡¯ll need some really smart people to figure it out. Also, we need quite a few artists who can imagine and draw these things.¡± Scott added. How many people were they going to need to hire for all this? By his count, they had several dozen already. ¡°Yeah, we need to rig and animate a lot of the models. We can do motion capture and hire some actors for humanoids, but I don¡¯t know how that will work for all the generated mobs.¡± ¡°That¡¯s going to be a challenge.¡± Scott admitted. ¡°Maybe we could train the computer with a bunch of nature videos to show how different types of animals move. It could try to blend and fit the mobs to natural movement. Things with very unnatural movements won¡¯t work.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a good place to start.¡± Matt said, ¡°We should make rules for the magic system which will explain how things can act outside of natural modes. If the system is coherent, the computer could come up with unnatural systems that still make sense within the rules of the system.¡± If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°I guess.¡± Scott wasn¡¯t fully convinced. ¡°We can give it a try. If it doesn¡¯t work, we can add a bunch of code to handle special cases. That alternative would be messy and need a lot of people to work on it, so hopefully your idea will work.¡± ¡°I program a lot of robots with weird numbers of limbs and more power than natural creatures. We run into this type of problem a lot and have some shortcuts I worked out with Phillip. You¡¯ll probably have a hard time finding other people who could do this. I will borrow Phillip, and we can work on this problem.¡± Matt promised. ¡°That¡¯s great!¡± Alvaro exclaimed. ¡°What else do you think we need to get started?¡± ¡°We need some experts at server coding and people to set up the hardware and security. We can use some of the commercial engines for client-side graphics. Building our own won¡¯t be needed unless we were trying to do that full immersion stuff.¡± Matt said. ¡°Are you sure we want to use someone else¡¯s engine?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Not completely, but we can take a poll of the programmers we hire. I think it will save us time, and there isn¡¯t much benefit trying to build something new. Modern games already look great - we¡¯re not trying for perfection yet. We just want high-end graphics with more world building and advanced NPC AI.¡± Matt thought this would already be pushing what they could handle. As CEO, it was his job to decide where they needed to draw the line. ¡°Can we start designing the magic, combat and crafting systems?¡± Alvaro asked. ¡°Put some ideas together, and we can compare notes. Try to prioritize which things are really important to you and not just stuff you are adding just because other games have it. We¡¯ll need a few people we hire to be involved before we really start locking down the mechanics.¡± Matt finished, ¡°Let¡¯s meet up in a few days. I¡¯m going to get some space carved out in Proteus and see if I can rent housing for people who want to move here.¡± Scott thought they were looking to hire over 40 people, either part or full time. He spent a bit of time organizing which ones he needed right away and who might be needed after some other pieces were in place. He also spotted a few holes in the list, so the final number was closer to 60. Scott would totally hand this off to his recruiter, Jessica, who would help him convince all these people to work for an unknown company in a remote location without overpaying on salary. Scott thought they might run out of money well before the year was up, but that was a problem for Matt to worry about.
Alexey Lukina had escaped Mexico and turned over all that he found to his government contact Yusup Ismailov. His original plan to withhold some of the tech for his own use had failed due to the chaos of his escape. He was honestly grateful to have escaped with his life. Yusup did not contact Alexey for three months. Alexey assumed that they had divided up what he grabbed between various labs and were busy investigating or reverse engineering. Hopefully, they would build weapons that could restore the Soviet Union to its proper place in the world order. While he didn¡¯t get the vast wealth or power he personally had hoped for, Alexey was given resources to rebuild his spy network. It was a painful job, but his experience and existing contacts allowed him to put something back together that covered a bare minimum of government agencies. When Yusup eventually contacted him, it was to emphasize that he was disappointed. The crown jewel of his spy network would be an agent placed in the mysterious Yucat¨¢n facility. The Americans had rebuilt it bigger and better by all accounts, and in a timeframe that indicated the President himself must be giving it the highest priority and unlimited resources. Alexey had managed to get some intel on the facility. A government official that he had turned into an asset was given a tour. The tour was designed to convince the fools that this was a health spa instead of a top-secret military research base. The official had been far too interested in flirting with the attractive workers and did not even attempt to enter restricted areas. Five months after the attack, Alexey had failed to place even a single asset with access better than a groundskeeper. Even the families of key employees at Yucat¨¢n had been picked up by commandos during the chaos of the American economic collapse, so Alexey was denied his usual means of leverage. By his estimates, there were at least 100 people living in the base. The main house had been constructed quickly, but even if they had cleared the bunker, Alexey thought it must be cramped in there. Alexey¡¯s agents located a second facility inland that had less security. The most obvious activity was a factory building home products like dishwashers and lighting fixtures - clearly a cover for the activities on the other side of the property. They were testing fusion powered vehicles that used multiple shielded fans to minimize downdraft and noise and could lift a sizable payload. These would be excellent for moving commandos around, and his spies reported they were able to stay flying in the air for several days in a row without refueling. They were probably testing an early prototype for new mobile artillery platforms or drones, but Alexey would leave analysis to others, so he just forwarded the pictures to Yusup. Alexey wasn¡¯t an expert at aerial systems, but it didn¡¯t look like these vehicles would give the Americans any huge strategic advantage. He was confident that Russian scientists would be able to come up with something much better once they had a few months to catch up. In October, Alexey caught a break. A Russian computer scientist was hired by a Genysis Gaming company, which had the same address as the Yucat¨¢n facility. It was well known that the military used gaming technology for drone controllers, missile guidance systems and training software, so he didn¡¯t let the name fool him. The scientist in question specialized in generating realistic simulations of terrain, including complex models of geology, water cycles and natural biomes. It didn¡¯t matter what they were using this for, as long as the computers were inside the facility¡¯s firewall. The scientist was strongly encouraged to accept the job and visit the ¡°Gaming¡± company as soon as possible. His new asset would upload software which would compromise their security systems. Alexey finally had a way in.
¡°It happened again,¡± Solomon Rhodes reported with a sigh. He had called an emergency meeting with Scott and Melinda. ¡°Can you be more specific, dear?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°Yeah, the Russians hacked our servers and downloaded some of Scott¡¯s code. Somehow, they injected a worm into the gaming company¡¯s network.¡± ¡°Did they get anything important? Any chance they will accidentally finish my project?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Hah, that was tragically implausible the first time it happened! ¡°Solomon laughed. ¡°No, they did not finish your game. They grabbed some code running monster simulations, and something that is parsing a bunch of web novels. Our other companies are isolated behind different firewalls, so they didn¡¯t get much.¡± Melinda laughed, ¡°I hope they waste a lot of time trying to figure that out! Any chance this is the same group that attacked us before?¡± ¡°They used similar code, so it¡¯s probably the same group. Do we want to send them a virus or something?¡± Solomon asked. ¡°I¡¯d rather send a missile. Any chance you can track their physical location?¡± Melinda asked, sounding eager. ¡°Maybe. If they haven¡¯t improved their security since last time, I can inject code to reveal their IP address and narrow it down to a general location. There is a small chance they have GPS chips in a laptop or other device on their network. It seems absurd they would make that mistake, but you would be surprised at how often a boss will ignore security guidelines.¡± Solomon explained with a shrug, although he didn¡¯t sound hopeful. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t some of their computers have order history for food deliveries or something?¡± Scott asked. ¡°That would work if they were complete amateurs and did their hacking from the same computers they use for email and web surfing. I don¡¯t think they are that incompetent.¡± Solomon sighed. ¡°Let¡¯s hold off on retaliation for now. Try to find their location or get any information you can about their operation.¡± Melinda ordered. ¡°Gaming is Matt¡¯s company, so he should know about this.¡± Scott protested. ¡°I¡¯ll talk to him. This affects all of our security, so I¡¯m pulling rank.¡± Melinda said with a scowl. ¡°Solomon, please set up a different space for their gaming company to continue operations. We¡¯ll charge it to the security budget. Leave the spy in place for now and keep working on a way to locate this group. Anything you need, let me know.¡± ¡°This is personal for me,¡± Solomon said coldly, ¡°I will find them.¡± Volume 2 - Chapter 6: Unwanted Visitor and an Enemy Revealed Melinda and Angela were in a shaded cabana by the pool, where they could be found most afternoons. As usual, Melinda was on her phone having several conversations and Angela would alternate between her laptop and a trashy paperback book. An overheated man with a red face scowled as he approached them. He was American, and foolishly wearing an expensive dark suit and bright red tie, which matched the color of his sweat drenched face. To complete the look, he carried a briefcase and had a large Rolex watch. Angela noticed his approach and kept her head down in her book but couldn¡¯t help smirking while she watched the man approach through her oversized sunglasses. ¡°Excuse me,¡° the man started, ¡°I was told the CEO of Genysis energy, Melinda White, was here. Since today is not a holiday, I expect this is some kind of attempt to make me look like a fool.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry hon, you¡¯ve got that covered,¡° Angela responded with a snort. ¡°Yeah, Melinda is here.¡± The man glared at her for a second. ¡°I am Reginald Hawkins.¡± He paused, as if expecting some kind of reaction. ¡°Undersecretary of the Commerce Department.¡± Melinda glanced up then continued babbling on her phone. ¡°It¡¯s disrespectful to be on your phone when someone is talking to you, young lady!¡± Hawkins scolded, his bushy eyebrows scrunching together like two caterpillars trying to steal a kiss. ¡°Settle down guy!¡± Angela replied, her own voice getting a little louder. ¡°She has a mental condition and can¡¯t talk directly to people.¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t even make sense!¡± Hawkins squeaked. ¡°Do you even know who I work for?!¡± Angela could hear Barry laughing from two cabanas over. Barry¡¯s friends had gotten bored with being lazy after delegating all their work, but Barry had yet to start any new projects. ¡°Umm, I¡¯m guessing the Secretary of the Commerce Department. Oh wait, are we supposed to call them Office Managers now?¡° Angela replied, not quite keeping a straight face. ¡°I will not be mocked! My boss is a member of the president¡¯s cabinet. My father is a Senator!¡± Hawkins was fuming. Angela heard Barry loudly making some comment about ¡®This Young Master¡¯, but she didn¡¯t get the joke. Barry was a strange dude. Angela received a text from Melinda on her phone. ¡°As entertaining as this conversation has been, could you please tell us your business. Melinda says you get points for calling her a young lady, but apparently you are blocking the view of her favorite cabana boy.¡± Angela almost didn¡¯t make it through reading the text, snorting a laugh. ¡°Very well!¡± Hawkins said, his eyes were wide, and nostrils flared. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a bound stack of documents. ¡°I am giving you an official request, signed by the Secretary, that your company will hand over the following documents related to your patent application filed March 3rd this year.¡± Melinda knew this was the patent she had filed with a general description of their fusion technology after the Russian attack. They had filed this to protect them in case someone else filed a similar patent after stealing their technology. She accepted the stack of documents and flipped through a few pages. She then typed for a while on her phone. Angela read the message Melinda sent her. She also was cc''d another message to security that future visitors wearing a tie were required to wait outside in the sun for at least one hour before they were allowed inside. Angela relayed the first message, ¡°Melinda says she¡¯s not giving you our technology. If you want to negotiate a licensing deal, she is willing to set up a video conference, so she can talk directly to someone who has more authority.¡± Hawkins took a few short breaths and replied, ¡°You will hear from our lawyers soon. I will not forget your disrespectful and seditious attitude. Without the support of the Commerce department, your company will be ruined before the end of the year!¡± By this time Barry had walked over, ¡°Dude that was awesome! You are like a tiny gnat threatening a dragon!¡± Terrance from Security had also arrived at this point. He grabbed Hawkins by the arm and firmly led him towards the door. Hawkins fussed and tried to break out of Terrance¡¯s grip, only to be casually tossed over the big man¡¯s shoulder like a small child. ¡°Well, I guess that means your patent application will be rejected,¡° Angela laughed. ¡°I doubt that brat has any real power. He¡¯ll whine to his dad and his boss. They will probably be annoyed at us for upsetting him but won¡¯t bother doing anything.¡± Melinda said in a text, ¡°They¡¯ll probably send some lawyers at us trying to steal our tech. They might even demand I show up in some Washington court. Maybe his dad will even call me to testify in the Senate.¡± ¡°That might be amusing. They wouldn¡¯t be able to understand you!¡± Angela said, picturing Melinda babbling to a group of angry congressmen. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°I¡¯ll hire a lawyer and file a motion that I have a mental disability and cannot testify in person. That should allow me to do it over video, if it even goes that far,¡° Melinda sent. ¡°Who was that guy?¡± Barry asked, wondering what the excitement was about. ¡°Oh, we just pissed off some government nitwit,¡± Angela replied. ¡°Someone in the U.S. wants to get their hands on your fusion tech. It¡¯s not exactly a secret anymore.¡± ¡°Adriana said someone stole one of the construction robots. The power cell melted down when they tried to tamper with it. Police report said that it was found in an alley. We sent them the GPS logs that the device went to some government lab and then was returned to an alley. They haven¡¯t responded yet, but we asked the police to press charges.¡± Barry reported gleefully. ¡°That¡¯s going to really hurt their legal case.¡± Melinda sent. ¡°Probably not much. They¡¯ll file their request in a Washington court. You won¡¯t get a fair hearing until at least the second appeal,¡± Angela said. ¡°Is it really that bad?¡± Barry asked. ¡°No, I¡¯m exaggerating,¡± Angela admitted. ¡°They¡¯ll probably drop it to avoid embarrassment. There are still some news sites that would report on the government trying to steal technology from a private company.¡±
Scott was busy working on AI coding for their new game company. Their company had recruited 23 employees so far. The new HR recruiting specialist, Jessica, handled most of it. Scott, Matt or Alvaro still had to be involved in the initial interviews until they could assign department leads. Scott had to put aside his efforts implementing Carl¡¯s incredibly difficult and complex cybernetics requests. The new team he put together had worked well together and had come up with the best result. His lone wolf programmers had been paid, but they were a bit disgruntled to have their ¡®genius¡¯ work discarded. A couple flat out refused to work for him again. One was more polite, but mentioned he was taking a long-term job in New Mexico and wouldn¡¯t be accepting work for a few months. Scott was pretty sure Theofanis Zervou had also mentioned taking a job in New Mexico. He pulled up his most recent message. Scott had a rivalry going with the brilliant programmer, at least in his own mind. Theo always scored at the top of the list of programming talent, and Scott had learned a lot from him. Scott was frustrated that even with the Glitch_HR training, he could never get close to the productivity or elegance of Theofanis¡¯ code. Scott suspected if Theo was on the Carl projects, he would have made it work. The last message he had received was kind of weird. It indicated that Theo was in New Mexico and was asking Scott for help on a difficult project. Scott had replied, asking for more information, but never got a response. Scott decided to look Theofanis up on Glitch_HR. The screen showed he was now working for a government agency called DARPA. There was no contact information. Scott had not seen that before in his system. Now that he was living in an undersea base, Scott was brave enough to browse the org chart of government agencies. He found Theo and a couple other programmers he recognized. They reported to a man named Boris Fowler and were assigned to a group called ¡®Strategic Planning Artificial Intelligence¡¯. Mr. Fowler did not sound like a nice boss. His skills in interrogation, espionage, marksmanship, mixed martial arts and political strategy sounded like trouble. Scott browsed the organization a bit more, growing concerned. The government had put together an impressive team. Scott would be hard-pressed to find employees of similar quality. He had to worry about things like cost and availability; this organization seemed to just grab whoever they wanted. Scott was about to forward the information to Melinda, but instead he paused and called Solomon Rhodes. ¡°Hey Scott, I¡¯m enjoying the new location!¡± Solomon said. He seemed to be walking around on the second floor of Proteus. ¡°Great! I think it¡¯s going to look fantastic in a year or two.¡± Scott smiled. ¡°Anyway, I had a quick security question.¡± ¡°OK,¡± Solomon prompted. ¡°If this is about that game you are building, I told you I¡¯d look over the plan, but I am not doing grunt work.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s something else. If I email Melinda, is there any way someone else could see it? Like someone who had a system similar to the Russians?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Oh yeah, that probably got their attention!¡± Solomon laughed. ¡°Anyway, it¡¯s good you called. Let¡¯s meet up with company management, and I¡¯ll get you an encrypted email package. I know of a few that are pretty good. Not cheap, but I¡¯d recommend you buy one.¡± ¡°Second question. Can anyone see what I¡¯m looking at in Glitch_HR?¡± Scott asked. ¡°The security on that application is excellent. It seems to adapt quickly to attacks, and I¡¯ve even seen it build traps that reverse hack people who think they cracked part of it. Whoever programmed that was a maniac! As far as I can tell, the system has expanded past what the Russians originally had because these traps keep getting access to additional hacker networks. The Russians couldn¡¯t break it when it was sitting on their servers, so I think you are OK.¡± Solomon shrugged, ¡°Someone with high level Security access in your company could see what you were looking at because you granted them permission. The weakest point is if someone has physical access to your computer. I sweep for spyware regularly, and Segio¡¯s guys sweep for physical bugs every week. Nothing is perfect, but you would need a compromised person with high permissions to see anything useful.¡± Later they met with the other owners and Melinda. The ¡®not cheap¡¯ software turned out to be about $10k per person. Melinda agreed to the upgrade immediately, but asked Scott to stick around and tell her what prompted this. He pulled up Glitch_HR and showed her the SPAI org chart. He pointed out what he found. Melinda started talking rapidly on her phone. Scott¡¯s phone was one of her target calls. ¡°I don¡¯t know what they are planning, but we should assume with that team they can build something as powerful as your software. I¡¯m sure their goals will be different from ours, probably some kind of power grab,¡± Melinda explained. ¡°Do you think they are going to cause us problems?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I think they are going to cause everyone problems.¡± Melinda replied. ¡°We are long overdue that strategic planner I¡¯ve been wanting to hire. I feel like everyone expects me to anticipate all future problems and conflicts, but I don¡¯t even know where to start with something like that.¡± ¡°Jessica can help you recruit them. She¡¯s amazing at that.¡± Scott offered. ¡°No, this time I¡¯m pulling out the big guns! Scott, you are getting on a plane to Poland ASAP to recruit our new General.¡± Volume 2 - Chapter 7: Testing their defenses Melinda had agreed to let Scott have a few days in Mexico before heading out to Poland. Scott was not looking forward to another trip, but he was glad he could afford the lay-flat seats in Business class. He had even briefly considered leasing a private jet. It was amazing to think that a year ago, Scott would sometimes eat meals at Melinda¡¯s homeless shelter because he couldn¡¯t afford food. Scott used his time to catch up on a few projects. Carl¡¯s ¡®brilliant¡¯ ideas kept on coming, and Melinda seemed to think it was funny to assign them to him. Scott would quickly split these up into tasks he could farm out to others. Matt¡¯s gaming project was more interesting, and Scott enjoyed designing content generators. The programmers they had hired knew a lot more about this type of programming than Scott, but they respected his ability to break the problems down into smaller pieces. He was also skilled at using code generators to handle a lot of the more tedious parts, which his team appreciated. Scott found that his tricks for memory and mental organization helped him keep track of what everyone was working on, so he could minimize the coding overlap that would bloat a large project like this. After working on Carl¡¯s projects, Scott was a lot more confident picking programmers who could actually work well as a team, and he trusted Glitch_HR skill training to fill in any gaps in their knowledge. Scott was working with a Russian guy named Timur Delgova who had an amazing depth of knowledge about modeling natural systems. Mr. Delgova¡¯s productivity was so exceptional, it almost seemed like he had a team of experts helping him. The man seemed have odd questions about the game, and he had been eager to come visit Proteus. Scott wondered if this man was the spy. He hoped not, because the guy was so good at his job. His phone rang, showing a video call from Angela Stein. Scott was a bit nervous; the woman had flirted with him in the past, but he didn¡¯t want to be rude since she was Melinda¡¯s best friend. ¡°Hello,¡± Scott answered, his voice wavered a bit. ¡°Hi Scott. First off, I wanted to apologize for making you uncomfortable in our earlier meetings. I had too much to drink, and I¡¯m probably a bit too used to the aggressive work culture at my previous jobs. When I heard from others you were scared of me, I felt awful about it." Angela explained. ¡°OK, apology accepted,¡± Scott said. ¡°It wasn¡¯t the worst thing to have an attractive woman flirting with me, but I¡¯m still not used to that kind of attention. At first, I thought people were making fun of me. I¡¯m still not sure how to deal with it. Anyway, I hope I can get over my issues because I think we¡¯ll need to work together as long as you are good friends with Melinda.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve really enjoyed having her as a friend. She never had any real friends until you helped her communicate, so I think she likes having me around. Melinda is so funny and smart! I¡¯ve really enjoyed hanging out around here.¡± Angela smiled, looking away a bit. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m also calling because of some business.¡± ¡°Sure, what can I help you with?¡± Scott asked, puzzled. ¡°As you probably know, my investments in your businesses are doing well, and some other people have been begging me to get in on businesses related to your companies. We pulled a lot of money out before the big crash once I caught wind of some of what was going on at the investment funds. I¡¯ve been looking at a lot of investments in this part of Mexico. I¡¯m focused on encouraging locals who will provide services your companies will need with small loans or direct investment. I¡¯ve always taken pride in helping guide the companies I invest in to help grow their businesses. I think I can do even better with your help!¡± Angela said, getting more excited as she went on. ¡°Sounds like you want to use my HR software," Scott guessed. ¡°Exactly!¡± Angela agreed. ¡°I was thinking you could release a limited version. Melinda showed me some of what it does, and I am totally in awe of what you built! Oops, sorry, that probably sounded like I was flirting again,¡± Angela looked down in embarrassment. Scott attempted to ignore that last comment. ¡°There are reasons we can¡¯t just sell the software to other companies.¡± ¡°Right! Melinda explained that some of the data was not acquired legally. That¡¯s why we need a limited version. The program can still use your amazing AI algorithm to rank people and find suitable skill training. We would just hide information that is not public, free or legal to have. Skill training would be limited to public sources or items that could be purchased. You would link to the site where they are sold instead of the hacked dark web version.¡± ¡°This is a fair amount of work. Are you wanting to sell this to companies world-wide, or limit it to our local area? How much are you wanting to charge for the software?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Great questions!¡± Angela said, still excited. ¡°We sell the hiring module but limit how many jobs they can fill using the tool. Maybe we have a small, medium and large company pricing tier, and they pay a license fee per year whether they hire anyone or not. Skills training can be a yearly fee per employee. We¡¯ll need to see how well it works once you limit the sources. I think we could charge a yearly access fee of $50k for small companies, $250k for medium, and $2 million for large companies. Also, I think $1k per employee for access to skills training. I already have about 20 small companies lined up locally who I want to work with and using your software will be a requirement if they want my investment.¡± ¡°That¡¯s decent money, and I can see it growing quickly if most of those initial companies are a success," Scott admitted. ¡°Still, I¡¯m doing well on money now, and there are a lot of projects I need to work on. Assuming Melinda is OK with this, I can hire people to do some of the work, but it¡¯s a core asset for our companies, so it will take a lot of my effort to make sure I¡¯m not giving away the whole code base.¡± ¡°Right, I¡¯ll set up a company for this. You get 70%, I get 30%. I¡¯ll act as CEO and handle sales, accounting, legal and any hiring. I¡¯ll put up any money needed to hire the programmers you need to get this ready. You just need to get the software ready with the changes we discussed,¡± Angela offered cheerfully. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Scott knew it wouldn¡¯t cost much to make the changes. Angela already admitted her initial sales would be easy and benefit her directly, so he countered. ¡°It¡¯s my program. There needs to be language in the contract that this company does not own the software and is only selling it. Plus, I want 80%¡± Angela smiled, ¡°We have a deal! I¡¯m impressed you caught on about keeping ownership of the program. Melinda would never have let me slip that in.¡± Scott thought she agreed too quickly and realized he could have kept a larger share. Angela was mostly interested in how this would help the companies she was working with. ¡°You would have agreed to 90-10?¡± She winked, ¡°Possibly, but there should be enough money to go around. Let me know when you have a plan for getting the software ready. I¡¯ll send out a contract for our new partnership later today and make sure Melinda gets a copy.¡±
¡°Sir, we have a situation,¡± Anita Luciana had called Sergio Guerra, the head of security for the Genysis companies. Guerra was a former cartel enforcer who made a name for himself, crippling dozens of opponents instead of killing them. Anita was one of many new hires in his group. She was an engineer who had built a homemade sonar system they were using. Sergio took this announcement very seriously. They had been surprised by the intensity of the Russian attack, and he had spent most of his time since then attempting to anticipate and counter potential threats to the home base. ¡°We are getting a contact 80 clicks out. This is well inside Mexican waters, but they don¡¯t have any submarines that size. The active array picked up the contact, and then we sent out a big pulse to get a good look at it. Looks like it is about 350 ft in length, so probably an attack class sub from the U.S., Russia or China.¡± Sergio made a call to the robotics lab. ¡°Phillip, I hope that robot of yours is ready. We have a possible hostile contact heading our way,¡± Sergio explained. Phillip had been testing an underwater combat robot. It looked like a large metal snake, but it had turbine blades along its different segments. It could travel in a loud mode using the turbines at up to 50 knots, or in a silent mode where it moved like a snake at lower speed. Sergio thought Philip¡¯s robots were overly complicated, but he had to admit the fluid, organic movements of his creations were a bit terrifying. ¡°OK, I¡¯m ready to go. Just uploaded a new software package.¡± Phillip replied. ¡°Great, I really hope it works better this time,¡± Sergio replied. The last time they had tested the machine, it ended up swimming in circles for a few hours until they found nets strong enough to hold and retrieve it. ¡°Please send it out with the warning protocol.¡± Controlling an underwater robot was a challenge. On land or in the air, they could broadcast encrypted radio signals and control their machines from several miles away in real time. Underwater, they could use long wires if it was within a few hundred meters, but further away the robots had to rely mostly on programming. They had some codes that could be sent by sonar, but these could be easily intercepted and copied. The speed of transmission was too slow to handle an encryption handshake, so they used stream encryption. Stream encryption used a starting key that was agreed on at launch and generated a stream of new keys based on how much time had passed since the starting point. It was nearly impossible to break but was complicated by the time delay between when a signal was sent and received. You couldn¡¯t trust the signal to timestamp the code, so they had agreed on a system with time granularity of about 10 seconds and used relative position and the speed of sound in water to estimate the correct origin time. The system did not allow real time control, and the time delay would be a challenge, but the system allowed them to issue some basic commands like setting a new target, returning to base or changing the action mode. The robot had several modes - observation, warning or attack. Currently, the robot was approaching the submarine in warning mode. This meant it was moving quickly without attempting stealth. It was also broadcasting messages in four languages on a repeating loop. ¡°You are approaching Proteus Base in Mexican waters. This is a restricted area. Please return to international or home waters or move to a designated shipping lane.¡± Sergio hoped the submarine would not test their defenses. They currently only had the one robot prototype and a few inferior torpedoes that Matt¡¯s team had rigged up. They had a couple flying vehicles that could drop depth charges, but he didn¡¯t like their chances if the attack sub started firing at them. Sergio¡¯s group had worked hard to build up their defenses both underwater and above, but it would be a few more months before they could make a good showing against a determined attack from one of the major powers. Sergio looped Melinda into what was going on. They waited for a few tense minutes while the submarine continued to approach, despite the warning. ¡°They are probably just testing our defenses,¡± Melinda speculated. ¡°I bet they are wondering what that robot is and if it will be a threat.¡± ¡°The submarine has changed heading and put on speed. It is heading East, parallel to the coast, but not away from the base.¡± Anita announced, having received another pulse from the sonar. ¡°How is the Phillip¡¯s robot doing?¡± Sergio asked. ¡°It changed heading and is continuing towards the submarine at top speed. Still sending out the warning.¡± They all continued watching for about ten minutes. ¡°They launched some decoys. The robot is ignoring them and keeping distance in case they are mined. The sub is taking evasive maneuvers. I bet that turn shook them up a bit.¡± Anita announced. A few minutes later. ¡°They fired a couple ATTs¡± (anti-torpedo torpedoes). The robot evaded them. It looked like it just disappeared between the sonar pulse, then popped back up 300 meters away.¡± Anita continued the play-by-play. The robot was programmed to evade interception by turning off its turbines and then moving like a snake to change direction and move silently in a random direction. Lacking a large air pocket like a submarine, the small side profile of the robot was nearly invisible to active sonar outside a few hundred meters. ¡°The robot has latched onto their hull.¡± They could hear the message that it was broadcasting change. ¡°You have ignored our warning. You have 60 seconds to set a bearing away from Proteus Base or your vessel will be destroyed.¡± The robot repeated the message in four languages, counting down the time. ¡°Looks like they are leaving. Send the message for the robot to return home.¡± Sergio ordered as the group cheered. The submarine had been testing their defenses, and they had performed very well. Sergio would celebrate with his team, but he worried that they had drawn the attention of a more dangerous opponent. Volume 2 - Chapter 8: Business trip to Bialystock Scott was on another long trip, but he was grateful his company could afford the business class pods, so he could sleep comfortably. The food was pretty good and there were several movies he had not seen. He had been so busy with work the past year that he had missed out on the new television and movies that had been released. Even with the luxury seating, there were two layovers, one in Houston and another in Amsterdam, followed by a long drive from Warsaw to his destination south of Bialystock. The trip left him exhausted, and he wondered how much a private jet actually cost. During the trip, Scott managed to spend a few hours working on a project Melinda had assigned him. Scott¡¯s current assignment was working on a report tracking usage of various Glitch_HR training materials. They already had a system where users would mark when an article was helpful. This allowed the machine learning system to greatly improve the accuracy of its recommendations. Scott remembered when they first started that roughly half the articles were useless, but now he found it was uncanny how the system seemed to be guiding employees down career paths which matched their skills and interests. The report was designed to quantify useful page views or video minutes and allocate the minutes between their various companies. The woman Scott would be visiting here, Nadia Kucharska, was actually in the top three providers of useful training resources across their companies. Her articles on training your brain had really helped Scott and others improve their memory, perception and analytical skills. Scott still practiced several of the exercises daily, and he had an intellectual crush on the woman who had helped him so much. Melinda had declared that now the companies were making a profit, she wanted to pay a royalty to the authors of the articles and training videos which had helped their employees. Scott and his friends had talked about something like this when they were first getting started, but it hadn¡¯t been a priority as they focused on building their companies and avoiding various disasters. Melinda thought it was good business to reward people who had helped them, and she thought sending checks was an investment in goodwill with really smart people they might be working with later. They planned to pay out 10% of their profits in intellectual royalties based on the share of useful page views calculated in Scott¡¯s new report. Scott would issue the first check to Nadia when he met with her. The numbers were a bit fudged because they were based on Melinda¡¯s estimate of profit for the upcoming quarter. Scott still had trouble getting his head around the numbers. Between seven profitable companies, they were estimating about $370 million in profits. Nadia¡¯s intellectual royalty was about $140,000 out of a pool of $37 million they planned to pay out. Scott looked through the list of all the people who had unwittingly contributed to Glitch_HR training. Many would be getting checks less than $1000, but even a few hundred dollars before Christmas would be welcomed by most people. Scott¡¯s driver parked in front of an understated duplex home in the lower middle-class suburb south of Bialystock. He found himself growing nervous as he approached the door. This was someone he idolized, possibly the smartest woman in the world (in his opinion). A heavyset woman holding a toddler answered the door. She asked him something in Polish. Scott had even worked through an article by Nadia about tricks for picking up languages quickly. His Spanish was coming along nicely, but he had no idea what the woman had said. ¡°Sorry, my name is Scott Henderson. I work for Genysis companies, and I¡¯m looking for Nadia Kucharska.¡± ¡°An American,¡± the woman switched to heavily accented English. Scott heard a baby squalling in the background. She continued impatiently, glancing quickly over her shoulder. ¡°I¡¯m Nadia, what do you want?¡± The woman was not at all what Scott had pictured. He had pictured a distinguished gray-haired scientist instead of this frazzled looking housewife. Flustered, Scott continued. ¡°Um, I have an intellectual royalty check for you. Also, can I talk to you about something? Maybe we could meet up when you aren¡¯t so busy?¡± Scott stammered, fumbling with the packet Melinda had given him. The woman eyed him for a second, cocking her head. The toddler reached out, trying to grab the envelope. ¡°You are built like a thug, but your posture says you are scared of me. OK, you come in and help me, and I¡¯ll look at your envelope.¡± Nadia took the envelope and handed Scott her son, who seemed fascinated by the muscles on his arm. The boy poked him several times, curiously. Scott awkwardly followed Nadia into a small kitchen, where a baby was sitting in a highchair. The curly haired, red-faced girl had clearly not appreciated the interruption in her feeding. Her face was tear streaked, and she immediately started throwing cheerios off her tray. A small, scruffy brown dog sniffed the offerings. The dog did not seem impressed with the food or the intruder and went to lie down on a blanket. ¡°Scott, please feed Martyna,¡± Nadia ordered, pointing to a bowl of green mush on the table. With one hand occupied holding the toddler, he picked up the bowl and set it down on Martyna¡¯s tray, intending to switch over to hold the spoon. Martyna spotted the opportunity with glee and launched the bowl of mush onto Scott¡¯s shirt. The little hellion immediately stopped crying and laughed at him. ¡°Sorry!¡± Scott apologized. He looked around frantically for something to clean up the mess. Nadia laughed, ¡°Obviously you haven¡¯t been around small kids. There are towels in the drawer left of the sink. More mush in the fridge. I make it myself because the store-bought stuff is too expensive.¡± By this time, Nadia had opened the envelope and read the cover letter Melinda had written. Her mouth was hanging open slightly, and she didn¡¯t say anything for a few long seconds. ¡°Is this real?¡± was all the woman could manage. ¡°Oh yes! We are a huge fan of your work. The check is just a token of our appreciation to you and some others who shared valuable information.¡± Scott managed. He had practiced that line the night before and managed to get it out, despite being covered in green mush. The small boy he was holding decided that getting covered in goo was no fun, and he was squirming to get out of Scott¡¯s iron grip. ¡°Yeah, you can let him go.¡± Nadia pointed absently to the toddler, looking stunned. ¡°We¡¯re planning to send out checks like that every quarter. We calculated how popular your articles are and allocate a share of what our companies make based on employee usage of your materials. I expect since we are still growing, the checks will continue. To be clear, I¡¯m here because we want you to work for us, but the checks will keep coming even if you turn us down.¡± ¡°I was paid about $30k per year when I worked at the research institute when I wrote those articles. My husband makes about $40k working at the factory, and money has been tight since I quit to take care of the kids. I have four of them, but two of them are in school right now.¡± ¡°We¡¯d really like you to come work for us. My boss said we will buy you one of our housing units and pay for your move. You would have to move to Yucat¨¢n.¡± ¡°When you say ¡®buy¡¯, you mean I get to live there rent-free or that I would own it?¡± Nadia asked. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°You would own the property in full after you complete one year of employment. It¡¯s a new community we are building called Proteus. It is hard to explain, but I have a video I can show you.¡± Scott picked up the laptop he had set down after he cleaned up some of the mess. Martyna had quieted down now that her mom had returned. Even though no one was currently feeding her, she seemed content to watch their conversation. ¡°Ok, I¡¯ll watch your video. Please feed my daughter but keep the bowl out of her reach. If you can¡¯t handle that, I don¡¯t want to work for your company.¡± Nadia grinned. After a few minutes, Nadia had some questions. ¡°I didn¡¯t see anything about schools at this place. If I¡¯m going to work for you, I want a nanny who speaks Polish. My husband will also need a job - I¡¯m not going to have him sitting around the house living it up while I have to work.¡± Nadia continued. She was closely studying Scott¡¯s reactions. Nadia picked up that schools were an issue they hadn¡¯t figured out yet, but the other requirements were not a concern. ¡°We don¡¯t have a school set up yet,¡± Scott admitted. He assumed the people who moved in were concerned about it but didn¡¯t know who was handling things like that. Maybe Adriana would know more. ¡°I¡¯ll make sure it¡¯s a priority when I get back. The other items are no problem. I¡¯m good at finding employees with special skill requirements, and we have plenty of jobs available. I¡¯m sure I can find something for your husband.¡± Nadia paused for a few seconds, considering. The housing they were promising looked very nice, and these people obviously had money. ¡°I have many friends and family living in this area.¡± Nadia stated. She was also thinking that the money Genysis had already given her would allow her to get out of debt and live comfortably. Scott, seeing she wasn¡¯t convinced, thought about what he could offer. ¡°I can¡¯t offer to buy homes for all of your friends, but I am willing to offer loans if anyone wants to buy housing. We require that at least one family member accepts a job at one of our companies to get the discounted rate. It¡¯s the same offer we gave to our own friends in Texas.¡± This was the carrot. Now the stick. ¡°Also, you are probably aware of the new aggressiveness of Russia. They recently stole some advanced military technology from us, and we think they are going to step up their pressure on Europe within a year. We think this area is at a high risk, and you and your friends would be safer at Proteus.¡± ¡°Do you really have space and jobs for a several dozen immigrants?¡± Nadia asked. Scott¡¯s negotiating was a bit unsophisticated, but she could tell that he really wanted to make a deal that would benefit them both. ¡°Yes, our first section still has room for about 500 more families. We are starting work on two more sections. One will have a lower population with more luxury homes. Sorry, but I can¡¯t afford to offer you housing in that section.¡± Scott said. ¡°OK, you¡¯ve made a good case. I will talk to some people. I will need at least two weeks to make a decision. Will you be staying in town for long?¡± ¡°I¡¯m flying out tomorrow afternoon. If you know of any good restaurants nearby, I¡¯d be happy to take you and your family this evening. Please invite anyone else you think might be interested in moving.¡± Scott offered. Scott spent the evening with Nadia and her extended family, plus several of their other friends. They knew the owner of a local restaurant and reserved a large section. Scott enjoyed the Golabki cabbage rolls and some potato pancakes. He still had no idea if Nadia would be willing to move. He didn¡¯t think many people would just take a risk and move to another country because someone gave them a big check and asked nicely. The people at the dinner were interested in what Scott had to say about the city they were building in Mexico. Many of the people here were unemployed or struggling financially. Scott also had the impression that quite a few had picked up some of Nadia¡¯s mental tricks. This group looked like ordinary blue-collar workers, but they had a broad range of interests and strong foundational knowledge about many of the technologies Scott¡¯s companies had developed. He got the impression that they were frustrated with their current economic situation, and he thought many were willing to make the move if Nadia recommended it. Scott paid the bill, thinking idly that a year ago he had been worried about paying $20 for a Wedge pizza buffet. Now, it was no big deal to pay for 40 people to have a nice meal. The next day, as Scott was getting ready to leave for the airport, he received a text from Nadia. ¡°I¡¯m in. I¡¯ll still need two weeks for the final headcount. Your company will pay moving costs and make sure everyone can sell their homes at the average price from last year.¡± The economy must be causing people a lot of hardship if they were willing to move to another country after a short conversation with a stranger. He hadn¡¯t looked at the news in a while and did not really trust it, but he decided to catch up a bit while waiting for his plane. The tone seemed a bit more serious than what he was used to. There was some talk of food shortages and worries about famine over the winter. The big story was a domestic terrorist attack on Washington D.C. The attack had happened the day Scott was traveling. A coordinated attack hit five sets of electrical transformers surrounding the D.C. area. The power system in the area was designed with massive redundancy, with a ring of high voltage lines feeding power from all directions. Hitting any one of the electrical stations would not have caused major issues. However, the transformers were within sight of public roads and the attacks coordinated simultaneous handheld rocket launches that damaged the equipment at all five stations, synchronized within a minute. This caused power outages over the whole area including the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, the Pentagon and Quantico. These strategically important locations could all run from backup generators, but the city was in chaos as their staff and surrounding businesses were unable to function. Large utility transformers were difficult to replace, and Scott saw they estimated much of the city would be without power all through the winter. There was talk on the news that the attacks were organized by militants from Texas who wanted to secede. This didn¡¯t make sense to Scott, so he called Melinda to see if she knew anything about what was going on. ¡°Hi Scott, nice work recruiting Nadia. I think we are going to need someone like her more than ever.¡± Melinda said, after her usual pause while the software interpreted her. ¡°I saw the news about the attacks on the electrical system around Washington. They are saying some radical Texas secessionists did it,¡± Scott said skeptically. ¡°Right, I have more information than what they are saying on the news,¡± Melinda replied. They were using her heavily encrypted phone application, so Scott was hopeful it was safe to talk. He was currently in a lounge available to the first-class passengers, but he looked around to make sure no one appeared to be listening in on his conversation. ¡°I¡¯m listening, but I¡¯ll try to watch what I say since I¡¯m in a public place.¡± Scott replied cautiously. ¡°The attacks on the power system were just a distraction. Some guy had a nuclear warhead in a truck about one mile away from Congress. The attack was timed for the middle of the week when most of them would be in the building,¡± Melinda explained. ¡°His conscience got to him. Apparently, he ate at a diner on the way and a cute kid made him think twice about killing thousands of people. He drove the truck up to a police station and turned himself in!¡± ¡°Wow! How did they even organize an attack like that? How did they even have something like that?¡± Scott asked, trying hard to avoid saying words like nuke or bomb while at the airport. Melinda explained, ¡°When the gangs were causing all that trouble a few months back during the collapse, a few warheads went missing from a base in Texas. Some of the soldiers disappeared around that time and turned up later in one of the gangs that the National Guard put down. The nukes were never found. No surprise this wasn¡¯t announced on the news, but the real mystery is how they were able to crack the security codes to arm one of the devices. There are strong fail-safes that should destroy the device without detonating if someone tampers with it.¡± ¡°This doesn¡¯t sound like some random group of rednecks who don¡¯t want to pay taxes.¡± Scott agreed. ¡°Right! I was curious how hard it would be to override the security codes. Since you have an hour before your flight, would you research this a bit for me?¡± Melinda asked. Scott groaned. ¡°I am not going to search for that on the internet. Someone would probably arrest me before I left the airport. I¡¯ll poke around a bit in Glitch_HR, but I can¡¯t promise anything. I am not calling anyone it recommends.¡± His shoulders slumped a bit as he hung up. Scott pulled up a search for the best experts in cryptanalysis. It wasn¡¯t a surprise that many seemed to be employed in the NSA, or the equivalent in China, Russia and other countries. Scott noted that about four of the top twenty were working for Strategic Planning Artificial Intelligence in New Mexico. This was a big red flag. That group was the mysterious employer that he had learned about from tracking down a strange text from Theofanis Zervou (his sometimes employee and rival). Scott strongly suspected SPAI had launched a complex attack to cripple the US government and frame Texas. He noticed his hands were sweating, and his stomach churned as he started to think about how bad this could be. Before boarding his plane, Scott forwarded what he found to Melinda in an encrypted email. If their encryption was not enough to stop a hostile AI, Scott wondered if it would consider him a threat. Volume 2 - Chapter 9: Strategic Planning Scott returned to Mexico, and it was impossible to ignore how nervous his employees and partners were. Their productivity was down to almost nothing, as people spent most of their time watching news feeds and speculating. The US government was talking about temporary relocation. The White House would move to Philadelphia for the first time since 1800. Congress was setting up offices in Charlotte, and the Supreme Court would be operating out of Los Angeles. Two of the crews that had launched attacks on the power stations had been captured, and there was speculation on the news that the groups had ties to the Governor of Texas. He firmly condemned the attacks and denied any connection, but the FBI set up barricades around his home and were in a standoff with armed security forces at the Governor¡¯s mansion. The Governor refused to recognize the legitimacy of their arrest warrant, and his guards were loyal enough to support him, leading to an unprecedented standoff. Their new Strategic Planner, Nadia Kucharska, had called a meeting between the various owners and management of the Genysis companies, and Scott was eager to hear what she would recommend. Nadia looked like a middle-aged housewife dressed for a vacation, but everyone present gave her their full attention as she addressed them in her lightly accented English. ¡°We are all concerned with the situation of our Northern neighbors and how it might affect us. Everyone in this room has been briefed on the likely connection between a rogue AI called SPAI which was likely the cause of the attacks on Washington. In my estimation, it was acting against perceived threats, but someone in the program must have caught on and shut it down before it could finish what it started. We¡¯ve seen signs that it is still trying to influence the conflict between Texas and the US. I think Texas secession is now very likely. The US national news has been eliminated from local broadcasts, where they are focused on the siege of the governor¡¯s mansion and various raids by Homeland Security around the State. Outside Texas, the news has focused on all the ¡®evidence¡¯ tying the attacks to the governor.¡± Nadia paused briefly to let this sink in. ¡°This is crazy! People in Texas won¡¯t go to war just because the news is making it look like they are under attack,¡± Matt protested. ¡°Even if they are angry, no one is going to fight when the other side has all the soldiers and weapons.¡± Melinda¡¯s voice came through over the intercom system, ¡°Everyone save your comments until Nadia is finished.¡± She glared at Matt. ¡°You are correct that the moves we have seen so far will not start a new Civil War. We don¡¯t even know if that is the goal of this AI. I spoke with Scott, and we think that understanding SPAI¡¯s core directives is a top priority for predicting how it will behave. I have some guesses, but none of them fit perfectly with the behavior we have seen so far. I¡¯m recommending a few actions we should take immediately to try to prepare for the most likely scenarios. Also, we have to get better information about our potential opponent.¡± Nadia continued. ¡°First, I¡¯m recommending we re-task the new exploration submarine to send a commando mission to acquire Theofanis Zervou from his location in Algeria. This will set back our plans to find a site for the Atlantic Ridge base, but it¡¯s our best chance for good intel. Theofanis has indicated he wants our help, and he will have the best insight into the AI system we are up against.¡± ¡°Second, we will start our road bypass project immediately. We need to be able to expand quickly, and this is the largest bottleneck. Waiting for all the governmental approvals will take at least six months, even with hefty bribes. Building the infrastructure and then paying penalties will be less costly than the delay, and it will be critical to build up our power base soon enough to influence upcoming conflicts.¡± ¡°Finally, I think we need intelligence assets in Russia. With the technology they have stolen, I think they will be a huge threat to us within a year. I estimate a high probability they will challenge the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere using new systems that include our technology. I have a few scenarios here which I will share with you, and most of them include a bad outcome for us. I will send details after the meeting. That¡¯s it, you can ask questions or comment if you want.¡± Nadia finished. ¡°You ran all this by Melinda before the meeting, and she agreed?¡± Matt asked. ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve been working with her closely for the past week.¡± Nadia confirmed with a nod. ¡°Thanks for the update, and glad you are working for us.¡± Zaliha pitched in, ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking about what Russia will try next, and I don¡¯t think we have time to wait for intelligence reports.¡± Nadia cut him off, ¡°That is an excellent point. One of the possible scenarios is that they use the fusion power sources to build orbital energy weapons. I detailed this in my notes. In this scenario, they would destroy our onshore facility and the surface docks for Proteus, and it could overturn the current balance of power in the world. I estimate roughly a thirty percent chance they use this strategy, and if they do, we are a likely one of their first targets. Government buildings, Aircraft carriers or nuclear silos are less likely because they would start World War 3. They have already proven that hitting us does not start a war, but it would scare plenty of people. I included a contingency plan to evacuate these locations if they launch a mission, but it¡¯s critical we get intel, so we have some warning.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t we build a spaceship or something to blow up their satellites before they hit us?¡± Barry asked. ¡°I considered this, but even if we hired more NASA people, I don¡¯t think you could get a space program capable of destroying their weapons up and running in time,¡± Nadia sighed, looking away. ¡°Don¡¯t count us out just yet.¡± Melinda spoke up. ¡°Zaliha, how long would it take to build a basic spacecraft that could launch an unmanned satellite into orbit?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been working on plans for a space plane, but there is no way we could build it in less than six months, and it would not be safe. I guess if I didn¡¯t have to worry about life support and could remove some of the redundant safety features, we could try a launch in four months if I had help from Barry and Matt¡¯s teams nearly full time.¡± Zaliha¡¯s forehead wrinkled as she worked the problem. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°That is really fast, but it¡¯s likely the Russians will be ready in a similar timeframe,¡± Nadia argued. ¡°It¡¯s not their only option for attack, and if we commit all our resources it would delay the exploration sub and infrastructure projects. Those are also very important.¡± ¡°What if we stole a rocket?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°We have air trucks, cargo ships and commandos. SpaceX launches rockets from Texas. They are conveniently located in Brownsville, which is about as close as you can get to our location. We could even return it to them when it lands.¡± ¡°This could work. We¡¯ll need to build a defensive weapon system that we can launch, and facilities on the ground for fueling and ground control. It would be less of a burden on Matt and Barry¡¯s groups. We need to hire some people, but this could work. I¡¯ll work with Melinda to organize workloads and try to anticipate what we need to do to juggle all these projects.¡± Nadia replied. ¡°So just because there is a small chance the Russians are building an orbital weapon platform, we plan a spaceship heist?¡± Scott asked with a huge grin, ¡°That is kind of awesome!¡±
¡°This is terrible!¡± Scott complained. ¡°You were at the meeting and agreed to our plan,¡± Melinda replied patiently. ¡°You must realize that to pull off four major operations in such a short timeframe, we need to use every available resource.¡± ¡°But I¡¯m just a programmer!¡± Scott whined. Melinda had told him that he would be part of the team going to retrieve Theofanis from Algeria. He would be going with Terrance and Carl, while Sergio would be leading a larger team to steal the spaceship. ¡°You¡¯ve worked with Carl on his new upgrades, and you even train with the security guys. Don¡¯t tell me any of your other programmers could keep up with you physically or fix issues with Carl as quickly.¡± Melinda argued for the third time. ¡°What about all my projects here?¡± Scott argued, knowing perfectly well he had efficiently delegated most of his work already. ¡°Matt is working sixteen hours a day to help design the satellite and program the robots for our tunnel project. Barry is working nearly as hard designing energy weapon systems. Up until yesterday, you were spending most of your time on the game company. The fate of the world does not depend on you scanning web novels to steal quest ideas.¡± Melinda replied sharply. Scott¡¯s complaining was getting on her nerves. Melinda secretly plotted some upgrades to Scott¡¯s brain, so he wouldn¡¯t be such a baby. She had a list of procedures planned for the next time he ended up in the hospital. It was much easier to convince the mercenaries to try out risky, untested surgeries. Melinda secretly admitted to herself they only needed to send Scott because half their mercenaries were recovering from enhancement operations that went a little wrong. Sometimes, the first few tries didn¡¯t go as well as she had planned, and regrowing organs was painfully slow. ¡°Fine, but I am not going to help Carl if he has any more brilliant ideas. We spent half our IT budget on his ideas last quarter, and it only helps one person!¡± ¡°You know that¡¯s not true,¡± Melinda scolded. ¡°The hostile intent targeting will be very helpful for allowing our robots to operate independently. They have limited range now because we need to keep them near control signals, and this is one step to solving the problem. The weapon targeting code will not only help our drones, but also vehicles and armored suits if we ever finish building them.¡± ¡°Armored suits? When did we start working on those?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Phillip thought it would be a fun side project, so I gave him a couple million dollar budget to work on a prototype.¡± Melinda replied casually. ¡°You never bothered to mention a multi million dollar side project in our meetings. Anything else like that I should know about?¡± Scott asked with a bit of exasperation ¡°Clearly you aren¡¯t reading the memos I sent out. Besides the weapons business, Lata is starting up a new semiconductor business in India, and we¡¯re creating an educational software company based on a limited version of your skills training module but with a more kid friendly interface.¡± Melinda rattled off. She continued,¡± When I have some spare time, I¡¯ll start up a space company so we won¡¯t have to steal a rocket next time we need something in orbit.¡± ¡°Fine, I admit I¡¯ve been distracted with game programming. What intel do we have on Theofanis¡¯ location?¡± Scott asked, resigned to his fate. ¡°Intel? We¡¯re not some government spy agency. I looked at the area in Gargle maps. They use this weird squiggly writing to label stuff.¡± Melinda said. ¡°That is very unhelpful! Carl and I are supposed to fly in there with no intel, then locate and retrieve Theofanis from a location with an unknown level of security. What could go wrong?¡± Scott smirked. ¡°No, you weren¡¯t listening. Flying in might attract attention from our AI rival. You guys are going in on the new exploration sub. It¡¯s not finished, but the hull and engines work and you guys can bring sleeping bags and MREs. Jansen already tested it, and it stays airtight down to at least 1200 meters. It should be plenty deep to get you across the Atlantic without notice. Gibraltar is heavily monitored for submarines, so you will need to land near Rabat, Morocco and buy a car to get to your destination. ¡°Buy a car? We don¡¯t speak the language, have a license, insurance or whatever in that country! How are we supposed to handle that?¡± Scott asked. This spy stuff was way outside his skill set. ¡°Please think it through.¡± Melinda said patiently. Scott took a deep breath and thought for a minute. ¡°OK, so we can use Glitch_HR to find a black-market car seller who speaks English. We should land the sub as close as possible to that location, so we don¡¯t have to walk more than 10 miles or so. I can look up a few options in case the first falls through. We should work on our conditioning for long distance running and make sure we have plenty of the local currency and weapons that aren¡¯t visibly obvious.¡± ¡°See, you can handle this!¡± Melinda agreed. ¡°We don¡¯t have time for you to get your cardio fitness up that much, but I have a quick procedure I can do which will help. Carl is testing it now.¡± ¡°No thanks, I¡¯m in good shape already. I¡¯ll pass on another poorly tested medical procedure.¡± Scott said nervously. ¡°Carl ran a marathon in two and a half hours this morning. He has to keep eating food and drinking water the whole time, but his heart and lung capacity are fantastic. We¡¯ve tested this on three other people, and they are all doing well. Recovery time is about 5 days, but you¡¯ll be on the submarine that whole time. I have an operating room set up in Proteus now, so you don¡¯t even have to fly to Thailand anymore. We can do the procedure today, and you¡¯ll be unconscious for a couple of days.¡± Melinda seemed more excited than Scott thought was necessary. ¡°I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m agreeing to this.¡± Scott said, reluctantly. ¡°You whine a lot, but when something is really important, I know we can count on you.¡± Melinda said with a smile. Volume 2 - Chapter 10: Questionable Decisions Scott woke up in a dim room with metal walls on a small folding cot. A creaking sound seemed to indicate the structure he was in was under some kind of stress. He had a splitting headache, and there were tubes going in his nose and a ventilator in his mouth. This should have been a reason to panic, but instead he calmly looked around and inspected his condition. He had extensive bandages on his torso and more tubes going into his arm. There was some medical equipment monitoring his heartbeat and breathing. Feeling around, he found there were also bandages on his head. Melinda had performed some kind of brain surgery. Again, Scott noted that this should have caused him to panic, but instead he calmly started some of Nadia¡¯s mental exercises. His memory and observation skills seemed to be intact. Wondering if she had removed his emotions, Scott thought briefly about Adriana. He felt a slight thrill thinking about how amazing she had been at their last meeting when she made that suggestion to steal a rocket. At least some of his emotions were working. He noted a lack of his usual anxiety about whether he should have complimented her about the idea, or if he had sounded like an idiot with his own dumb comments. Melinda¡¯s surgery had dulled his social anxiety. He was a bit angry at her for yet another involuntary surgery, but he was able to switch it off quickly as he realized that this would help him perform better on this mission. Scott¡¯s anger returned, and he now felt a new stabbing pain in his head to go with the existing headache. A woman in scrubs quickly entered the room, she ran over and injected something into the IV near his arm, then removed the ventilator from his mouth. Scott''s headache eased up, and his perception grew fuzzy, but he tried to hold onto consciousness. ¡°Can you tell me what¡¯s going on with my medical condition?¡± Scott asked, slurring the words slightly. His mouth felt really dry. ¡°Oh, that should have knocked you out.¡± The woman said, looking in surprise at the syringe. ¡°Please don¡¯t give me more.¡± Scott grabbed at her arm quickly, noting that his coordination seemed to still be good. ¡°Interesting,¡± the woman started typing some notes on her tablet. She squirted some water into Scott¡¯s mouth, which he really appreciated. She then started asking some simple questions that were part of a cognitive assessment. ¡°We¡¯ll wait on the neurological assessment until after the drugs wear off, but your mental function is excellent.¡± ¡°I seem to have more control over my emotions.¡± Scott said. ¡°Yes, you now have some extra connections between your somatic and sympathetic nervous systems. In theory, this should allow you to dampen or enhance various emotions after you have a few seconds to process the response you want. Melinda also reduced some of your anxiety sensitivity.¡± The woman, who Scott remembered was named Beth, seemed to find the procedure fascinating, but he detected a hint of concern. ¡°I felt a stabbing pain at the base of my head earlier when I was trying to decide how angry I should be at Melinda.¡± Scott thought this might be important. The woman typed more on her tablet and seemed to be skimming through some notes. ¡°Right, that¡¯s a pretty common complaint from other test subjects who had this procedure. It should reduce over time. There are two paths you can take. If you suppress or enhance emotions frequently, your brain will reinforce the paths, and it will get easier over time. If you don¡¯t use it much, the paths will atrophy and the amount of control you have will reduce. Either way, the pain should ease up as your brain adjusts to how you use the process. The other subjects said it was no longer painful after a couple of months.¡± Beth said while her eyes skimmed over her tablet. She had dark hair and olive skin and seemed to be in her early thirties. Scott spotted signs that the woman had lost a large amount of weight recently. This was not uncommon for employees at Elsa¡¯s company. Getting to an ideal weight and fixing skin problems seemed to be a benefit that most of her employees took advantage of. He assumed this was an employment perk, since the services usually cost several hundred thousand dollars. Scott pulled from his memory that the woman had joined them from one of the refugee camps in Texas. ¡°What else did she do?¡± Scott asked. He started to feel a bit of panic thinking about what must have been a major surgery, but it went away almost immediately. The ensuing headache was mild thanks to the drugs. ¡°Standard heart and lung upgrades. We¡¯ve been testing those for a while and hardly ever get bad reactions, so she thought it was worth the risk.¡± Beth explained. ¡°What happens when it goes wrong?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Oh, the usual is a rapid and aggressive cancer. We then have to regrow the organs from scratch, which can take months.¡± Beth replied. ¡°Right, I guess I¡¯m glad that didn¡¯t happen. Has this happened much?¡± Scott felt his anxiety growing, and this time he made an effort not to suppress it. His anxiety was in part because he worried, he could no longer feel anxiety. It was a weird realization, but he felt the familiar dizziness as he thought about cancer in his heart, lungs or brain. What if they missed it? ¡°I see your heart rate has gone up. That¡¯s healthy for you to feel anxiety sometimes.¡± Beth took some more notes. ¡°We had a couple bad reactions early on, but we learned a lot about how to avoid some of the triggers. You might be surprised how many ways you can trigger cancer when you start modifying DNA in humans. Our whole genetic code is riddled with viral DNA and evolutionary dead ends that have been suppressed. It¡¯s amazing we can keep functioning with all the deadly junk in there.¡± Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Scott decided not to let himself panic about that. ¡°So what kind of benefits will I see?¡± ¡°Your resting heart rate is now about 30 beats per minute, so it¡¯s up there with world-class endurance athletes. Your lung capacity is now similar to an Olympic swimmer, but your muscles are also now producing myoglobin, which can store extra oxygen. It¡¯s something Melinda stole from dolphins, but it should let you hold your breath with a fair level of activity for about five minutes.¡± Beth explained. ¡°Did she change anything else?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Melinda considered adding a computer to your brain like Carl has, but the risks of memory loss and a long recovery were too high. She said she wants to test it on some more people before she tries it on you.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad she occasionally decides not to take risks with my health, but it is troubling that she¡¯s planning more brain surgery that I never agreed to.¡± Scott rolled his eyes. Not for the first time, he wondered if he should move somewhere away from Melinda and only deal with her on video calls. ¡°How long am I supposed to stay hooked up to these machines?¡± ¡°Your levels look good. I¡¯d say you can probably start some light exercise tomorrow and ramp up over the next few days. I¡¯ll need to keep monitoring you, but it looks like you are going to make a quick recovery. We are supposed to arrive near Morocco in five days.¡± Beth smiled and left the room.
Adriana rubbed her eyes after scanning through the maps and camera feeds for their tunnel building operation. The tunnel took a winding path from Proteus to a large farm plot they had purchased just south of the Reserva Ecol¨®gica Estatal El Palmar near highway 281. They had started calling this the Xibalba tunnel, named after the Mayan underworld. Another branch headed East roughly six miles towards the property along the Sierra Papacal road where they had built Trinidad¡¯s and Hisashi¡¯s factories. Despite not having permission, they had dozens of robots on all three ends pulling out rough limestone blocks. On the Proteus side, they were significantly adding to the large mounds of tailing from the mines. These underwater mounds now peaked at about 200 meters above the surrounding sea floor and extended in a line about half a kilometer. The inland portions of the tunnel had similar, but smaller mounds starting to form. At the factories, they were cutting the and smoothing the rocks to build a wall around the four-acre property. At the Xibalba tunnel entrance, they had started building a large Mayan style pyramid, although it had a corrosion resistant plassteel structure which supported a large open space inside. Also, it had windows and walkways going around the inside of each level. The tunnel itself would pass by four little known cenotes and a number of previously unmapped cave systems. The route was designed to go around these natural features, but they would build viewing windows so a good portion of the route you could enjoy a view of stalactites, columns, curtains and other flowstone features. Over the past year they had made several improvements in the mining robots, and they were able to tunnel at about six meters per hour. The primary improvements involved more robust directional drilling designs that would drill multiple holes at once, then go around a corner to drill channels in the back face. This was followed by the injection of water, which was explosively boiled to crack the faces and extract the blocks. Each layer had three robots working along the face and were followed by additional robots that would deepen and widen the tunnel. They had only been digging for about a week, but unbelievably had cleared out almost a quarter of the planned excavation. Melinda had reallocated some robots from the mine, claiming that they had huge piles of ore already waiting to be smelted and huge piles of iron and other metals they couldn¡¯t sell because of weak demand and shipping constraints. The repurposed robots needed to be modified to work out of water, but the conversion mostly involved adding some hoses, a large water tank, and some a software patch. They used a lot of this steel to reinforce the tunnel as they went. Adriana thought the project would probably cost over a billion dollars'' worth of metals and robot labor, but she would leave the accounting to Melinda. Aside from the impressive looking pyramid at the entrance, they were adding space for multiple rest stops or businesses. Anywhere there was a good cave or cenote view they would hollow out areas for restaurants, stores or gas stations on the opposite side which would allow businesses to enjoy the view. They were running power, water and sewage to these spots even though the property did not belong to their company. Since most of it was under the ecological reserve, they would have to wait and see what the government decided about underground land use before they could determine how it might be developed. For the pyramid, they had a security station, gas station, restaurant and a hotel planned. Various companies Angela had supported had already grabbed the rights to rent these areas, and they were busy planning construction. After the first pyramid was finished, Adriana expected they would have enough limestone blocks for several more. One would be a parking garage and a third would have apartments. The apartment pyramid was fun to design, with apartments around each step with large windows and gardens around the outside. The middle area was mostly open, with a huge swimming pool and some retail space facing inwards. These areas would be finished after the tunnel was complete, and they were not critical to the timeline so would be developed at a slower pace, probably opening late the following year. ¡°How is the project going?¡± Melinda had called her to check up. ¡°Really well. Those robots are making fast progress. We had a bit of an issue on tunnel C when they hit a small natural gas pocket. We shut it down quickly and avoided an explosion, but it will delay us a couple of days as we map it out and add a more permanent seal.¡± Adriana explained. ¡°Anything else you need?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°Well, I¡¯m hoping the cement facility in Proteus is up and running soon. We¡¯d like to start making concrete to level out the roadways on some sections we have finished. We¡¯re running utilities as we go. Barry has taken over designing the section we are building under Xibalba, and Zaliha has hired people to design the facilities we need for the spaceport.¡± Adriana touched on the various projects that overlapped her current area of interest. Barry was building a power plant and energy weapon lab underneath their property, near where they had planned the three pyramids. Naturally, it would have a secret entrance. Adriana suspected Barry had spent more time designing the secret entrance than he spent working on the layout for the lab. ¡°Sounds like everything important is moving along. We don¡¯t have an update from Scott yet, but he should be getting close to the Moroccan coast by now.¡± Adriana wondered what Melinda had been thinking when she decided to send Scott on a mission like that. He was a resourceful guy, but not someone who could keep his cool when bullets were flying. Carl was just an idiot. Who was supposed to be the adult on that mission? Volume 2 - Chapter 11: Travelling with Carl and Trouble at Home When Scott pulled off his rebreather and mask, he looked around for Carl. They had planned to swim to a beach in Morocco in the late afternoon to avoid crowds. They also wanted to be early enough to avoid extra attention for sneaking around at night. They left the submarine about one kilometer offshore with the plan to swim directly towards the shore. Right before leaving, Carl had announced ¡°Race you!¡± and took off before Scott had even finished checking his gear. Scott was still recovering from his medical procedures. They had some fitness equipment on the submarine, so he had recovered enough to handle the swim, but he was angry about Carl ditching him on a mission. Scott pulled out a GPS device from his waterproof bag after stowing his swimming gear. They had chosen to go without phones because of fear of SPAI being able to track their location. The old-fashioned GPS map device did not connect to the internet or cell phone services, so it should not be possible to track their position. Scott headed in towards the coordinates they had agreed to meet at. Near the target location, he found Carl talking to a small group of young women, who seemed to be impressed with whatever story he was telling. ¡°So then I knocked over their leader with my van, and we rescued the hostages.¡± Carl¡¯s story seemed to be wrapping up. ¡°Hey Scott! You really took your time on that swim¡­¡± ¡°Carl, I don¡¯t think we should be socializing right now,¡± Scott said. ¡°We need to get moving before it gets dark.¡± ¡°Just waiting on you. I¡¯m ready to go! Bye ladies,¡± Carl said with a cheesy wink. Scott rolled his eyes. They left the beach and put on better shoes for running, after cleaning up a bit using showers near the exit. ¡°Hey Carl! it¡¯s important we stick together in case something unexpected happens.¡± Scott said as they started walking along the busy roads. Their first stop was only three miles away, but they quickly decided that running there would attract more attention than simply walking along with the crowds. Scott thought about the other surprise he had received on the submarine after waking up. His skin was now a couple shades darker, and his hair was coming in with more curl. Scott didn¡¯t mind the new look, but he wondered if it would really help them avoid notice. Carl had received a similar change, and Scott thought it made Carl look about ten years younger. Scott thought they still looked obvious as foreigners due to their lack of understanding of the fashion, culture and language of the country. It wasn¡¯t a big problem here, because the area was full of foreign visitors. ¡°Hey Scott! It would be really cool if you could add something to my software to translate languages. It would be great to understand what these people are saying. It should be easy, right?¡± Carl said, eyes widening in excitement. Scott shook his head and groaned. ¡°I know you had trouble getting that program working where it decides if someone is hostile. It doesn¡¯t work great, but maybe you could hire some smarter programmers to help you fix it.¡± Carl added. Scott glared at him. ¡°Hey! Your aggro reading just turned yellow. That¡¯s a bug, right? Sometimes it does that when I¡¯m talking to people.¡± Carl continued. ¡°Can we just keep quiet and focus on finding this place?¡± Scott growled. ¡°Nah, I hardly ever get to talk to you in Mexico. Anyway, the aggro system kind of works, and I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll fix it eventually! It would be really cool if you add a way to check out if chicks were into me. It would be like the opposite of the aggro system. You just need to flip a switch on the code you already have. Don¡¯t tell Melinda. I would totally use it to get intel and help the company, but she thinks I just want to pick up more girls. ¡± Carl explained, nodding with a big dumb smile. Scott was wondering why he had agreed to go on this mission. ¡°Sorry, man. I was just having a little fun. I¡¯m kind of nervous about this mission and I cover it up with dumb comments,¡± Carl said as the smile slipped off his face. ¡°Usually I¡¯m with someone experienced like Terrance or Sergio on these missions. No offense. I know you¡¯re crazy smart and had to work really hard to get this computer in my head working. I get scared going into these situations where people are going to be shooting at you. I try to cope by spouting a bunch of nonsense to distract myself.¡± Huh, Scott thought. ¡°OK, I get it. The language translator is an excellent idea if we could get it working. I¡¯ve talked trash about your other ideas, but Melinda pointed out that they are helpful for other projects. When you keep saying how easy something will be, I felt like you were disrespecting the amount of effort we put into it. Maybe you could tone that down a bit?¡± ¡°Oh, I didn¡¯t mean it like that!¡± Carl protested. ¡°I forget how sensitive you guys are. Oops, I¡¯m doing it again. Sorry, dude. I can entertain a group of strangers with exaggerated stories, but I have trouble being around people longer term without pissing them off.¡± They walked a few minutes in silence. After this, they kept their conversion limited to comments about when to take a different street or how far they needed to go. They had walked for about an hour when they came to what looked like an auto repair shop surrounded by a wire fence in a lower income section of town. A couple guard dogs were chained up inside. Carl and Scott walked in. ¡°??????? ????????¡° The man inside asked. Carl looked puzzled, but Scott said, ¡°Do you speak English?¡± ¡°Ah yes. It is unusual to see tourists in this part of town. But you do not look like tourists. I do not want any trouble.¡± The man seemed to get more nervous as he looked at Carl and Scott. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°We just need a car,¡± Carl spoke up. He pulled out several large stacks of money, roughly 100 thousand Dirham. The man looked even more suspicious after seeing the money come out. Carl¡¯s hand started to move towards a weapon he had hidden in his clothes. ¡°I don¡¯t know how you found this place, but I don¡¯t do that kind of business. I just fix vehicles here.¡± The man protested. ¡°Look, we can also pay in gold if you want.¡± Scott said. ¡°If you don¡¯t have a working car to sell, we¡¯ll go somewhere else.¡± He put a hand on Carl¡¯s shoulder, trying to signal that he should quit scaring this guy. Carl took the hint and put his hand down. ¡°No, I just remembered I have a car I fixed up that was broken in an accident. The owners got insurance and sold it to me for scrap. It¡¯s old, but it works. That money there is fine, just hold up until I can find the keys.¡± The man started heading out a door in the back. ¡°He¡¯s totally red on aggro,¡± Carl whispered. ¡°Can you disable him without injuring him?¡± Scott whispered back. He was looking around for cover and started to crouch behind a cabinet that held tools. The owner of the store burst through the door holding a shotgun. Scott hid behind the cabinet while Carl dived to the side, firing a small weapon. The blast from the shotgun shattered the front window of the building, and Scott saw some blood spray from Carl. The store owner was lining up a second shot, but Carl popped up and pulled the gun from his hand. Shortly after, the man slumped to the ground. ¡°Well, it took about three seconds for the tranq to put him down. That is not ideal when they are shooting at you.¡± Carl said. He was checking his arm where his shirt had been torn, and some blood was trickling down. Scott took out a med kit they had. He gave Carl a shot that helped with the pain. They pulled out some buckshot from his arm and used glue to seal up the small holes. Another needle injected some medicine that was supposed to speed up healing. They split the injection between four places where he had been hit. ¡°Well that sucked.¡± Carl said. ¡°He went red while we were talking. That¡¯s why I was reaching for my gun. Your software worked great, but I should have just shot him once it signaled he was hostile.¡± ¡°Probably. Sorry, I¡¯m not used to this kind of thing.¡± Scott said. He was starting to freak out now that the fight was over, but the feeling eased up as he focused on suppressing it. I¡¯m probably about to get another major headache. ¡°Let¡¯s find the keys and take a car. We¡¯ll leave the money. The last thing the guy said to us was he was selling us the car, so maybe he¡¯ll decide to forget about the tussle at the end. Also, you need to drive. I¡¯m probably going to have a headache and a panic attack in a few minutes.¡± They were able to find keys and a car that looked like it might be the one the man had described. They moved him to a small chair, so it looked like he was taking a nap, and left the money next to him. Scott and Carl got in the car and headed down the road towards the border.
Matthew Stanton had a bad headache. He had worked long hours for the past week helping his team setup the dig plan for the Xibalba tunnel. It was a complicated puzzle keeping several hundred robots working without running into each other, staying idle too long, and getting regular maintenance and replacement of parts. On top of this, his girlfriend Zaliha had needed his help several times a day to establish what his robots could do to help build their spaceport. They were capable of a variety of jobs, but each different activity required a lot of engineering and programming time, and his team was stretched thin. They could hire more people, but then they would need to spend time training and integrating them into the company. On top of this, his gaming company was struggling. They had some parts of the code working, but everyone complained when they spent more than a few minutes testing. The experience seemed to cause motion sickness. No matter how great they made the game, people wouldn¡¯t want to pay a subscription fee for something that made them feel like throwing up. Even aside from that, every task was taking longer and costing more than his initial estimate. He would burn through the initial investment in five months, and there was no way they would be finished before then. Matt and Scott were busy with more important things, so he didn¡¯t even see how they could take steps to solve the problem. He took a moment to call Melinda and vent about what he was struggling with. ¡°Hi dear, I was wondering when you would call for help.¡± Melinda answered cheerfully. ¡°Yeah, we have so many projects on short timelines, I don¡¯t know how to handle it.¡± Matt said, while fidgeting with his hands. ¡°OK, so let¡¯s talk about priorities and what is taking up all your time.¡± Melinda said gently. ¡°Right, so keeping the tunnel robots working efficiently is most of my time. Second is Zaliha needs help on the spaceport. Finally, my game company is a mess. I¡¯m not spending much time on it, but it¡¯s a source of stress. I¡¯m worried it will fail, but I can¡¯t justify spending time trying to fix it.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t Phillip and Rafael handle most of the programming for the tunnel? You have a few other people who could do some of the work too.¡± Melinda questioned. ¡°They are already spending a lot of hours on it, but Rafael is working on our weapons satellite and Phillip is spending time making some kind of powered armor.¡± Matt explained. ¡°I¡¯ll tell Phillip to put his side project on hold and take over as the team lead for the tunnel project. We¡¯ll tell Adriana we need to slow down a bit on the digging. She can focus more on getting plans for the infrastructure and buildings and see if we can start more of that before the tunnel is complete. Is there a reason she can¡¯t focus on finishing the pyramids before the digging is complete?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°Well, the robots are constantly moving around in there with heavy loads of rock. Construction crews would get in their way and might risk injury. But¡­ maybe if we dug a short bypass tunnel instead of using the main entrance, we could re-route the robots hauling out materials.¡± Matt realized he had been too focused on finishing his tasks as quickly as possible. This small change would allow Adriana to start on the next phase weeks earlier, and it would only cost him a couple of days. The overall project would be finished faster, and he might even be able to slow down a bit. ¡°Well, that¡¯s one problem addressed. Tell me about your game company. It¡¯s not my problem, but if it is causing you stress, I¡¯d like to know more about it.¡± Melinda encouraged Matt to keep talking. ¡°Everything is taking longer than we thought. I¡¯m going to spend all the money we budgeted long before we have anything to sell. Also, the VR experience is making people feel sick. I¡¯m worried that even if we throw in more money, it will still fail.¡± Matt felt a little better after admitting what was upsetting him. ¡°I remember when Elsa was struggling with Genysis Biotech, and we pulled in everyone to brainstorm. You guys helped her take a better approach and look how great it turned out! I don¡¯t understand video games, but I bet your friends can help you figure out what to do next.¡± Melinda was making a bit of an angry face, which did not match her words. Matt wondered who else she was talking to and if it was something he should be worried about. ¡°Sorry, got to go,¡± Melinda announced abruptly and hung up on him. Volume 2 - Chapter 12: Rescuing Friends Scott and Carl drove well into the night before they arrived at Relizane, Algeria, where they believed Theofanis would be located. Carl drove the first few hours as Scott was recovering from a bad headache which he had triggered when struggling to keep calm after their short gun fight with the Moroccan auto mechanic. Later, while Scott was driving, Carl had used his built-in version of Glitch_HR to try to locate Theofanis. Theo had been listed as offline, but they had been able to guess his approximate location by searching through the org chart of SPAI. There were several mercenary contractors located in Relizane which gave them a likely address to start at. These men were probably not living in the location Theofanis worked, but Scott was hopeful they could do a stakeout and follow the men to wherever he was held. With help from Carl¡¯s software, they identified one of the men leaving an apartment block for food and returning to the same location. Scott thought they might have found a place in the same building as Theofanis. They stayed nearby in a hotel that accepted cash. Instead of loitering around the outside of the building, Scott pulled out a micro-drone and flew around taking pictures of the inhabitants. The drone was able to enter the complex and attach itself to the ceiling of an internal hallway to get a look at residents of the first floor. By the end of the day, they had identities of all the first-floor residents. The next day, they spotted one of Theo¡¯s guards leaving one apartment and entering another. They watched for a few more hours and eventually a different guard replaced the first, so they felt confident which apartment was the one they were guarding. Carl and Scott entered the complex separately and met up at the stairwell. They had agreed on a plan. Carl dropped an insect-like robot outside the apartment where the guards lived. Another design from Phillip, this creature was roughly 18 inches tall with an eight-inch diameter spherical body and six sharply pointed legs. The bottom segments of the legs were sharpened like knives, and the little monster could slash and stab a target rapidly. He set it into an area defense mode. Anyone getting within five feet of the little beast would be attacked with an intent to incapacitate. The robot would focus on slashing tendons in legs and arms. It could easily become lethal if arteries were severed, but the machine would stop attacking if its opponent was on the ground and had empty hands. The robot acted without the need for manual controls, but it could be guided by a simple remote that allowed the user to move it around, set it to attack marked targets, area defense or standby modes. This was a battery powered machine. It was too small for their fusion reactor, and it would quickly run out of energy if it was actively moving or attacking. At the door to Theo¡¯s apartment, Carl used a breach tube to blow open the door and Scott threw in a flash bang. They went in, and Carl shot a tranquilizer into the stunned guard, then disarmed him. Theo had fallen out of his chair and was curled into a ball, covering his ears. Scott knew he was probably temporarily blinded, and his ears must be ringing. They heard several doors open in the hallway, followed by gunfire and screaming. Scott peeked outside and saw the other guard was on his back on the ground with the robot sitting on his chest. It had two little arms hovering over the guard¡¯s eyes. That was one scary device. Carl was helping Theo move. Scott sent the sleep code to the robot and grabbed the gun the guard had dropped. When he picked it up, Scott noticed the robot swiveled to watch him. He almost dropped it. The robot was on standby but was still tracking Scott when he entered the five-foot radius. He flipped the injured guard over and zip tied him, before picking him up and pushing him into the apartment. The cuts on his arms and legs looked shallow but painful. They also moved the sleeping guard into this room. Scott was pleased with how easy it was to pick up these 200-pound men and throw them around. ¡°We need to clear out quickly. Some of the other residents looked out their doors and saw us.¡± Carl said, ¡°Police response time is probably not great here, but let¡¯s not risk it.¡± Within a minute, they had started driving away. Theofanis recovered and seemed frantic about not leaving behind his computer servers. ¡°Turn the car around and go get anything that looks like a computer or server,¡± Scott ordered. Carl looked at him in surprise. Since when was Scott in charge of this mission? Still, he decided that Scott was technically his boss somehow, so Carl sprinted back in and returned shortly cradling a small rack of computers. The wiring looked like he had ripped it out of the wall. There were chunks of drywall still clinging to the wires trailing behind him. ¡°Careful, that¡¯s expensive gear!¡± Theo cried out with his eyes bulging, seeing Carl get into the back seat holding the rack on his lap. It was a very tight fit. They heard some sirens and headed out. ¡°You left some expensive gear behind.¡± Theofanis complained loudly. ¡°My desktop and monitors were really high end. Probably ten thousand dollars'' worth of gear.¡± ¡°Hey, less volume on your voice, please. Your ears are still recovering from the flash bang.¡± Scott said, at a normal volume. ¡°Who are you guys and what do you want with me?¡± Theofanis asked, his voice closer to normal volume. ¡°Oh, sorry. I¡¯m Scott Henderson. I¡¯ve hired you for a few jobs in the past, and we had the impression you were working for an organization causing a lot of trouble right now.¡± Scott explained. ¡°Huh. I pictured you as a scrawny white kid, but you look scarier than those thugs who were guarding me.¡± Theo said. ¡°That¡¯s kind of racist,¡± Scott wasn¡¯t even sure why he said that. Just because his skin was dark was no excuse to get offended by imaginary racism. ¡°Hah,¡± Carl laughed. ¡°You millennials don¡¯t even know why you are offended. Hey Theo! I¡¯m Carl and I¡¯m a cyborg. I heard you were a better programmer than Scott here, so maybe you can help me with some upgrades later.¡± Scott covered his face with a hand before remembering that he was the driver. ¡°Is this guy serious?¡± Theo asked. Carl did seem freakishly strong. ¡°Unfortunately, yes. Or at least to the extent his programming allows him to be serious.¡± Scott muttered. ¡°Good one Scott! I didn¡¯t know you had a sense of humor.¡± Carl laughed. ¡°Yeah, I have a computer in my brain and some other top-secret upgrades that Scott here doesn¡¯t know about. He helped code some of my tech, but according to my database, you are a much better programmer. I have some ideas, maybe you could help me with¡­¡± It was going to be a long car ride.
A few days later, Scott returned to Mexico and spent a full day recovering from his trip. When he eventually turned his phone on, he found out Matt was trying to schedule a meeting about their game company. Oddly, he had invited Barry, Elsa and Adrianna in addition to Scott and Alvarro. Scott replied he was available, and they met up later that afternoon. The group met on the second level of Proteus in a new caf¨¦ that overlooked the park. There was now sod put down in the park, and they were watering it heavily, so it would take root. Scott could see dozens of trees planted, but they were only a few feet tall. It would be years before the park really looked impressive, but the landscapers were working on adding some tropical flowering plants around the central pond. He expected these would grow quickly with year-round artificial sunlight and carefully controlled temperature, water and soil nutrients. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Welcome back, Scott,¡± Matt opened the discussion after they had greeted each other and ordered some drinks. He continued, ¡°I¡¯m worried about our gaming company, and I was advised to get advice from our friends. Melinda will bill us for consulting, probably a large amount, if anything useful comes out of this. We did the same thing for Biotech when Elsa was struggling with the protein synthesis chip, and that worked out great.¡± ¡°Yes, I thought it was going to take me years to get that working, but you guys really had some great ideas and I figured out more on my own just talking about it.¡± Elsa agreed. Scott thought her light blue hair made her look like an Anime character. Her eyes used to be blue, but now they had a violet shade. ¡°Right, so the content generators are coming along well. We have artists designing some awesome cities, the genetic engine is building a lot of creatures, and the NPC AI engine is coming along nicely.¡± Matt began, highlighting some of the projects that were still nearly on schedule. ¡°The quest generation engine isn¡¯t working yet, but we have the code in place skimming content, and we are testing the logic to start digesting it.¡± Scott added after finishing a mouthful of chips. It had been a high priority to establish a proper Tex-Mex restaurant in Proteus with all the Texas immigrants here. ¡°If everything is going great, what¡¯s the problem?¡± Barry asked, sipping his drink. Matt replied, ¡°Right. When we are testing features, people are complaining about nausea and don¡¯t like to spend more than about half an hour using the VR. It¡¯s a pretty common problem getting motion sickness with this kind of device, but it¡¯s worse for this style of game where you travel around a lot. A lot of skills give speed or travel boosts, which will only make it worse as you level up. Also, we¡¯re burning through money quickly. When we started, I just threw in what I could easily afford, and it sounded like a lot of money. Now we hired about 60 people, bought a lot of equipment and software, and I¡¯m going to run out of money in a few months. I know we can issue more equity or borrow money, but I¡¯m worried if this game will be a failure, and we shouldn¡¯t keep spending.¡± ¡°Have you tried medicine for motion sickness?¡± Elsa asked. ¡°Yes, it helps. A lot of the developers and testing team use it regularly, but I don¡¯t think requiring people to use scopolamine patches is going to help our sales,¡± Matt replied, moving food around his plate without eating much. ¡°Could you build a version that doesn¡¯t use VR?¡± Adrianna asked. She was wearing a sundress with vine patterns that went nicely with her hair color. Her straight green hair was in a crown braid today. Alvarro answered this one. ¡°It shouldn¡¯t be hard. Some of the guys have a version of the graphics engine and user interface running on desktops because they didn¡¯t want to mess with the VR for testing. I just don¡¯t want to give up on VR completely.¡± Elsa looked thoughtful as she sipped on her drink. ¡°We could add a biochip to synthesize compounds that could be released in the air or through the skin. I think we could come up with something to eliminate motion sickness. It would also let you add the sense of smell to the immersion. We could do a lot more, like affecting mood and emotions, but that would never be approved for US consumers. Even suppressing motion sickness would need a prescription in the US for standard medications and years to get approval for an improved version.¡± ¡°Adding smells sounds great, even if some people would prefer not to have it,¡± Matt said. ¡°Do you think anyone would have an allergic reaction or other issues?¡± ¡°Possibly. We¡¯ve been working on a process that diagnoses a wide panel of allergies and interactions with medicines automatically from a small blood sample. I think we could build something like that in. We could actually use it to diagnose and treat a lot of issues that don¡¯t get picked up in standard tests they use at the urgent cares or hospitals outside of Proteus. It might hurt your game sales if people try out the hardware and learn about a few dozen medical conditions, but it would probably save some lives. The average person has multiple undiagnosed issues.¡± Elsa seemed to be getting more interested in their company, her food forgotten on her plate. ¡°I think your medical scanner would be a more profitable business than our gaming company,¡± Matt groaned. ¡°So I¡¯ll trade you some equity in your company for my help building improving your VR headsets. They will include a medical scanner, production of programmable smells, and release of drugs that can be absorbed by inhalation or skin contact. Someone else needs to deal with the pesky legal issues.¡± Elsa said. ¡°Also, you¡¯ll need my help if we want to start building full immersion pods. Melinda and I have been talking about methods to induce a lucid dream state where we can influence what people experience. We won¡¯t have something like that for a few years, but it might fit in nicely with a gaming or entertainment company.¡± ¡°That would be great!¡± Alvarro exclaimed. ¡°I know it means my share will be less, but that¡¯s exactly where we wanted to go with the company.¡± ¡°OK, I think this might work.¡± Matt said hopefully. ¡°Now I just need to raise another 20 million, so we can build a new headset and finish the game. Does anyone know how much our dividend will be? I don¡¯t want to dilute my ownership more, so it would be nice if I could just lend the money personally at a normal interest rate.¡± ¡°Based on how many robots we bought for the Xibalba project, and the two new sections of Proteus, I think you are going to have enough. My check might be smaller this quarter since we¡¯re paying for all the infrastructure. Robotics, Energy, Mining are making big profits so far.¡± Adrianna added, cleaning her plate. Scott wondered how she could eat that much and stay thin. ¡°My company is doing well too,¡± Elsa added. ¡°We had several hundred VIPs come through here. Most of them received the political discount price, but we still had plenty of people paying full price.¡± ¡°Adrianna, don¡¯t you have all those government projects finished? That should be a lot of money, even with all your costs.¡± Scott asked. ¡°I¡¯m kind of embarrassed to admit I delegated those and haven¡¯t looked at the PNL numbers. I¡¯ve been so busy designing Xibalba, I might have skimmed over some of the accounting emails,¡± Adrianna said with a flush. She pulled out her phone and started swiping through some screens. ¡°OK, never mind. We¡¯re doing better this quarter than last, even with our expenses going up to nearly $200 million.¡± ¡°Do we all get an email like that?¡± Matt asked sheepishly. ¡°I¡¯ve been so focused on work tasks, I never really check the accounting folder.¡± ¡°Dude, am I the only one here who reads the emails?¡± Barry asked with a huge grin. There was a pause as everyone else dug out their phones and found the accounting folder. ¡°This is ridiculous,¡± Scott said. He got accounting reports from eight companies. Melinda, Trinidad, Angela and Hisashi must have worked together to standardize their reporting. There was a quick summary followed by a lot of detail he didn¡¯t feel like drilling into. The numbers were more than he had expected. ¡°I need to ask Melinda how they set up their system. I feel like they all know how to manage a company, and I¡¯m just some dumb college kid with too much money.¡± Matt said, rubbing his face with both hands. ¡°You could hire a CEO, but we¡¯ve already grabbed the cheap ones. What is your CEO score anyway?¡± Scott asked his friend. ¡°Ugh, I don¡¯t want to know. I did some training when we started, but I¡¯ve been so buried in work I haven¡¯t done anything recently. My ranking was pretty bad last time I checked.¡± Scott pulled up a mobile version of Glitch_HR. Barry leaned over to look. ¡°Hah! You aren¡¯t qualified to manage a dog walking business.¡± Barry cackled. Matt¡¯s CEO ranking indicated that nearly 500 million people were better qualified. Technically, that put him at the 92nd percentile, but it was not great. ¡°Let me see!¡± Adrianna grabbed Scott¡¯s phone. He wondered if the mobile version might have been a bad idea, given what Solomon had said about the program¡¯s biggest security weakness. Someone could just grab his phone and look up whatever they wanted if they could get around his phone login screen. He decided to set up a meeting with Solomon as soon as possible to secure this. ¡°Hah, he¡¯s not even the most qualified at this table.¡± Adrianna laughed, ¡°Barry is like 50 million higher. Wow, is your program broken? Who would put Barry in charge of anything?¡± ¡°No fair! I actually read my emails and my golf game is solid. Also, a good CEO has people skills, so that rules out you nerds!¡± Barry laughed. ¡°OK. I¡¯m going to let Elsa have 20% and dilute the company, so I can let her worry about improving the immersion. I¡¯ll lend $20 million at 5% interest to the company after we get the next round of dividends in December,¡± Matt tried to regain control of the conversation. ¡°Scott, I need you to step up and help manage the programming teams. I¡¯m delegating Xibabla robot programming to Phillip. That should give me enough time to sleep, exercise and study how to be a CEO, so I can at least score higher than Barry.¡± With a plan in place, the friends enjoyed a few more drinks, deeply satisfied about their situation. Volume 2, Chapter 13: A Dangerous Heist Nadia Kucharska was nearly in a state of panic. When she had accepted this job, she thought it would be nice to earn a big paycheck battling wits with corporate competitors and government bureaucrats. After she realized she was matched against hostile governments and a deadly AI the pressure seemed overwhelming. If it was just the Russians, they might have a chance, but this enemy outmatched them in every way. She had taken over a large room on the third floor of Proteus and had filled one of the walls with a mind map of various events and reports. There were three other people in the room helping to scan newsfeeds and cross-reference with Glitch_HR org charts to find connections between seemingly unrelated events. Testimony from Theofanis, who Scott had rescued, filled in some details that were missing. The picture they had put together was not good. The Strategic Planning AI had an incredible scope of operations and for the past couple months had been undermining and attacking on multiple fronts. She found a disturbing level of influence across multiple government agencies, media organizations and corporations. Worse, this program seemed to have no restraint. As far as she could tell, the program¡¯s core directive was to prioritize threats and eliminate them. There was no attempt to coexist, or to turn enemies into allies. The attack on Washington DC was almost certainly arranged by SPAI and most of it proceeded even after Theofanis identified the issue with threat prioritization. It was known that the potential bomber had a crisis of conscience, but Nadia learned that there were two backup teams that could have radioed in an early detonation. The timing indicated that shutting down SPAI to fix the prioritization bug probably saved a million lives and the destruction of the US government. As troubling as the near miss, it didn¡¯t escape her notice that Theo mentioned Proteus was high up on the threat list. In her estimation, they might have moved up after Theo¡¯s retrieval. Nadia knew that SPAI was targeting Texas, Russia and Proteus. There were probably a number of targets lower on the list who would also be attacked soon. She didn¡¯t know how many plans it could manage at once, but given the resources available, dozens of people and organizations would be targeted. Nadia had a grasp on the situation in Texas. The media was giving a skewed picture of events. Outside the state, they were making the state look like a lawless group of gun-toting terrorists. In Texas, the narrative was a government trying to crush them in retaliation for an attack they had nothing to do with. Even some independent media has commented on how the press seemed to be fanning the fires of conflict. But Nadia had found a lot more going on. Homeland Security was cracking down hard on people for speaking up about the overreach of the government, while ignoring groups that were actually arming for rebellion. In rural areas, groups of militants were receiving financial support, intelligence and weapons to give them the courage to act. Nadia managed to trace the financing back to a shell corporation run by SPAI. Three convoys of heavy weapons that were hijacked heading to supply Homeland Security compounds after receiving a tip about the contents and timing. The rebels thought they had an ally in Washington, but Nadia could see this was all designed to incite a doomed attack. It would cause destruction and chaos that SPAI could exploit to put the right people in charge. It wasn¡¯t just Texas under attack. Nadia noted a lot of press focused on Proteus the past couple weeks. Gabriel, the conspiracy theory celebrity, was doing a full media tour explaining how the mysterious lab in Mexico was developing weapons technology for Texas. There was regular speculation about genetically engineering soldiers, and a video of Scott & Carl¡¯s raid to rescue Theofanis was shown several times a day as proof. Melinda had been upset and had to abruptly end a conversation with Matt the day before as Nadia had broken the news about how multiple branches of their businesses were under attack in the US. A judge in Pennsylvania ruled that one of their housing projects was using machinery powered by dangerous nuclear power sources, unapproved by the Department of Energy. Melinda had managed to slow this up in court enough that they were able to finish up the initial building phase of their other ongoing projects. They would be using regular human labor for the finishes, so she expected they would finish on schedule. It was unlikely they would get any more projects in the US going forward if the ruling was upheld. Nadia found multiple incidents where politicians, who were supporters of Proteus (due to receiving treatments at the Spa), were severely damaged by scandals. Some who might have been neutral, became strong opponents when they learned secret information could be exposed if they picked the wrong side. Trinidad¡¯s consumer products were swamped with bad reviews, and an investigation was planned based on allegations that he was stealing fixtures from project housing and re-selling it as a luxury brand. It didn¡¯t even make sense, but Nadia saw several news and talk shows discussing the ¡®scandal¡¯. Scott¡¯s dad, Bill Henderson, was stuck in port in Mobile, Alabama after the coast guard and DEA detained him for a potential drug running operation. They cut open his safe, triggered the fail safes on his engines, and confiscated their weaponry. The ship was crippled until it could be towed back for a repair. Their lawyers managed to get him released, but their lawsuit for damages was thrown out. They would not be sending any more deliveries to the US in the near future. SPAI was quickly ruining their companies. Nadia could see the threats and even anticipate what might happen next, but they were at a huge disadvantage against the overwhelming variety of attacks the program was launching. Nadia expected the next phase would be more pressure from Mexico. SPAI did not have as much influence outside the US, but with global communications it wouldn¡¯t be hard for their enemy to bribe or blackmail important people and cause major problems. As Nadia listed potential attacks they would likely have to deal with, she wondered how they would survive.
  • Mexico revoking their mineral rights
  • Sending inspectors and officials to suspend construction of their base and infrastructure projects.
  • Interfering with towing their ship.
  • Labeling them as terrorists to encourage an attack by the US or Mexican military.
  • Denial of Service attack on their internet infrastructure.
  • Investigation and shutting down the medical spa.
  • Accelerating Russia¡¯s development of orbital weapons. This could wipe out their surface facilities and would give the US an excuse to escalate hostility.
That last point made her think that SPAI must have a plan for handling whatever Russia was planning. Nadia took a couple deep breaths and called Melinda. ¡°How are you settling in? Are your family and friends having any trouble?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°No, it¡¯s going well so far. There aren¡¯t a lot of shops or restaurants set up, but I can see that is changing quickly. Your friend Angela seems to have supported a dozen businesses that will help us get what we need to be comfortable.¡± Nadia replied. The change of topic helped her get control of the spiraling panic. ¡°I¡¯m not sure if I can handle this job. We seem outmatched by this enemy AI.¡± The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.¡°I can see how you would feel that way. It is hitting all our business hard now, and it only seems to be escalating. For now, we are physically secure against most attacks and have a lot of resources. You want to talk about what you are thinking?¡± Melinda''s odd speech came through the phone app. The application had labeled her today, which seemed at odds with the gentle tone of her voice. ¡°They are acting quickly, and I expect it will soon escalate to violence against us,¡± Nadia began after taking a shaky breath. ¡°This is not an enemy that can be intimidated. It will keep pursuing its programmed goals until it wins, unless all copies of the code are eliminated. After talking to Theo, I think SPAI has taken steps to distribute itself across multiple server farms and is using blockchain to preserve the core programming. They managed to reprogram it to avoid wiping out the US government, but further changes might now be impossible.¡± ¡°So how do we eliminate it? Leaving this program to grow and keep attacking us is not an option. I don¡¯t have a problem killing some of the idiots responsible if we have to. They are putting the whole world at risk here.¡± Melinda said with a glare. ¡°It might be too late now that the software is spreading on its own. The initial project had large, secure server farms built to handle the massive compute power the system needs. I¡¯ve been able to use Glitch_HR to track down where these are located but hitting them is a challenge.¡± Nadia explained. ¡°Our biggest strength is that we can find great people that can solve problems,¡± Melinda prompted. ¡°If you can¡¯t think of any way around a problem, just tell me who we need to hire, and we¡¯ll get them to handle it.¡± Nadia paused for about twenty seconds, putting together her thoughts. She had moved past her panic and had a number of ideas spinning through her mind. ¡°I have some ideas, but they have a high level of risk.¡± Nadia finally admitted. Melinda was right, she didn¡¯t need to do this all on her own. ¡°OK, first we need to hire someone qualified to lead a rebellion in Texas¡­¡±
Sergio Guerra, leader of the Proteus security forces, looked out over the Las Palomas Wildlife Park just north of the Mexican border near Boca Chica. The grasses of the wetlands were still a lush green, as cold weather had not reached the area to turn it brown for winter. He gazed out from about 200 feet above the ground, riding in one of their flying air trucks. They were in the second generation of the vehicles, which could carry a load of up to 20 tons. The vehicles had been stripped of extra weight besides the passenger car, a small fusion unit, and the heavy shielded fans that provided lift around the circumference of the cargo beds, which were empty except for spools of heavy steel cable. Their formation of 20 vehicles had launched from the new carrier ship, which was still in Mexican waters near the Bagdad Lighthouse which marked the border. Normally, Sergio would have launched a mission like this at night, but their timing was dictated by the fueling cycle of the rocket they planned to steal. The rocket weighed 330 tons empty, but more than ten times that when fully fueled. It was essential they grab the rocket before it had significantly refueled. A couple remote drones were programmed to cut any connections and attach their lifting cables. This part of the operation was actually the easy part. The real challenge was that Sergio had to lead a team into mission control and steal some of their computer systems. They had managed to hire one former employee for their own space program, but it had been a challenge getting the information they needed without giving away their plans. Sergio tried not to dwell on how many things could go wrong on this mission. One of their vehicles carried a high-powered laser prototype. It had been impressive in tests, but they had never used it in combat conditions. Shortly after they had crossed the border, the men cheered as the pulsed laser destroyed a patrolling predator drone. This started the clock. The US would respond quickly to an attack on their border surveillance. It only took a couple of minutes for his team to arrive on the roof of the mission control building near the middle of the Starport. The rest of his vehicles raced over to the launch pad and drones began unspooling thick steel cables to attach at various points. His team shot tranquilizers into a couple security guards before they could fire more than a few shots from their handguns. The security here intended to handle unruly tourists, but not really equipped to stop a raid by heavily armored commandos. Though it was unlikely they could do much damage, a lucky shot taking out an air truck would make lifting the rocket more difficult. Sergio¡¯s small team had their own concerns. They had quickly overpowered the guards and a couple of his men were herding people out into the parking lot. They planned to leave by air from the roof, so local police were not a large concern. The real timer was how quickly the military would respond. Their laser armed air truck patrolled, scanning for predator drones or missile attacks, but manned aircraft were a more serious concern. The Naval Air Base nearby controlled the drones, but their aircraft were mostly for training. San Antonio could launch fighters which would pose a serious threat, and he hoped to avoid a conflict which would put people at risk and expose their full capabilities. In five minutes, they managed to break into the server room, and he had his team carrying large racks up to the roof. All the team selected had muscle enhancement, but the server racks weighed about 2000 pounds. They used dollies and the freight elevator to get this equipment to the top floor. The hard part was the final step, where they needed four people to carry the equipment up onto the roof. The operation went well until one of his men¡¯s feet punched through a weak spot on the roof of the building. The weight of the full server rack broke his leg and pinned him until other members were able to pull the load off him. After this, they marked the location of roof beams with chalk and managed to load five racks of servers without further incident. The delay added nearly five minutes, but his team was up in the air and heading back to Mexico. The computer servers and one large rocket were delivered to their cargo ship. This part of the operation had finished in less than one hour, but there was radio chatter from the air force demanding they return the rocket and submit to a coast guard ship speeding towards them, although it was still far away on the US side of the border. Sergio answered the radio after their cargo was secure, and the ship was speeding back towards Proteus. ¡°This is Sergio Guerra, leader of Proteus security forces,¡± he announced. He didn¡¯t see any reason to lie about his identity. The team would be on a lot of cameras, and they were well past the point of keeping the operation secret. ¡°Mr. Guerra, the United States does not tolerate acts of piracy. We are authorized to use lethal force if you don¡¯t submit to arrest immediately.¡± ¡°We are just borrowing the rocket. We¡¯ll send it back when we are done and pay for any damages. SpaceX company secrets are not protected by US patents, so you aren¡¯t actually obligated to protect their intellectual property.¡± Sergio replied. ¡°We have three F-16s in missile range which can destroy you at will. We would prefer not to damage the property you have stolen, but we will not hesitate if you fail to submit within the next two minutes.¡± The voice on the line demanded. ¡°We¡¯d prefer not to destroy your planes. They look expensive. I think you should already know that we have an underwater drone rapidly approaching your coast guard ship. It¡¯s not subtle.¡± Segio replied. The drone was the same design they used to chase off a submarine a few weeks earlier. He thought they could disable the ship without risking the lives of the crew. The planes would be a challenge. Sergio noted another predator drone had entered the range of their laser, and he didn¡¯t hesitate to destroy it. ¡°That¡¯s two of your drones down. We have that big laser pointing at your jets, but I really don¡¯t want to kill your pilots. I don¡¯t think you are even allowed in Mexico, so turn around and go home. Feel free to shoot a missile at us if you want to see how good our targeting is.¡± Sergio was bluffing here. He had no idea if they could hit one or more missiles in time. There was a long pause on the line. This was clearly not a situation the coast guard had planned for. Eventually, the aircraft turned around and headed back North. The coast guard ship also pulled to a stop at the edge of US waters. ¡°You have destroyed US military property and stolen critical civilian assets. We know where your base is located. Your organization is now considered a terrorist group. You will face severe consequences for your actions today.¡± the angry radio operator announced. Sergio cut the connection. He really hoped Nadia and Melinda knew what they were doing. Volume 2 - Chapter 14: Nadia鈥檚 Counter Part 1 Scott had spent two weeks after returning from Algeria catching up on various projects. Mainly, he just broke down tasks and assigned the work to others. About half his day was spent in one on one discussions with the programmers who worked for him. Scott hadn¡¯t been able to focus much on the game company, since everything else going on seemed much more important. Mexico had so far been unable to cut off their internet access due to some hidden fiber cables they had run, so Scott handled a few video meetings with team leads. They seemed to be freaked out that Scott was one of the commandos on the news, not to mention his company stealing a spaceship and the news saying they were a terrorist organization. He had the impression they were afraid Scott would send assassins or kidnappers if they complained or didn¡¯t finish their work. Scott never wanted to rule his company through fear, he had to admit it was effective. His managers all nervously denied wanting to quit and seemed eager to promise they would catch up on various deadlines. Scott rubbed his forehead, and tried to explain, ¡°You don¡¯t need to work overtime. Please, if working here is too stressful now, you are welcome to leave the company with no hard feelings.¡± Somehow, that made his employees even more nervous. This day was off to a rough start, but Scott powered through and decided to catch up with the employees who were onsite in the office. If anyone was scared, it should probably be the people who had moved to Proteus. Scott was curious how people here were reacting to the news that they had stolen a rocket and were now basically at war with the United States and Mexico. Surprisingly, the people living here seemed more calm about the situation than the remote employees. They were not bombarded with US news, and mostly were confident that the current situation would be resolved. Scott wondered where they found this confidence, but he tried not to act nervous and ruin it. He spent half an hour with a group of artists who had made some amazing concept art of locations that would be in the game. It was a relief that at least some people were still enjoying working for him. Maybe artists weren¡¯t as accustomed to getting a steady, generous paycheck, and could overlook the whole inconvenience of working for a terrorist organization. Or maybe their minds were so buried in the fantasy world they were creating, they were oblivious to the outside world. Scott complimented them on their work, and he couldn¡¯t wait to see what it looked like in their game engine after their content generators converted these into 3D models and populated the finer details. They were still training the tools and sometimes had weird results, so human interaction was required to fine tune the process. Training the content generator involved creating multiple iterations with different seeds, settings and code versions. The design leads would then rate the results in various categories. The algorithm took the feedback, made adjustments and then created more options focusing on the areas that received low scores. After multiple iterations, the designer signed off of the content and a version of the generator was archived as a candidate for future tasks. The output quality of the tools had improved a lot in a few weeks, but their processing time increased as they improved. They were running into bottlenecks with server resources. The company had planned to add about $3 million more of additional hardware, but the blockade effectively canceled their order. This was a problem for many of their projects, as they were cut off from a wide variety of supplies that they didn¡¯t manufacture internally. The Mexican Army had surrounded their beach house and factories with soldiers. On land, no traffic was allowed to bring supplies. By sea, the Mexican navy had set up a loose blockade. Their underwater drones managed to warn off the ships to keep a fair distance, but they could not get a cargo ship out for trade or supplies. Scott¡¯s dad at least had made it home with his disabled ship towed by the Moryana (their second cargo ship). Their carrier ship was getting an overhaul to have a more military focus. Their exploration submarine was able to arrive or leave at will, so they had some capacity to interact with the outside world. Mexico seemed unaware of their activity at Xibalba despite the extensive construction. Scott wondered if the oversight was because permits had not been granted. Since they did not expect any work had been started, no one had come by to investigate. Even though they were building pyramids a few hundred yards from the main road the soldiers used to get to their beach house, the jungle hid the view and anyone who might have spotted the work from the air had not made the connection that they owned this property. Trinidad and Hisashi had locked up their facilities on the other inland location, and they managed to get all their employees and some equipment out on air trucks. They were busy setting up new facilities in one of the new sections of Proteus. Scott had been worried that these men would be angry that their businesses had been shut down, and they were labeled as leadership in a terrorist organization. Trinidad did not seem worried and was focused on building an even larger factory and expanding what he would produce. He seemed delighted to be adding weapons to his list of manufactured goods, but he also seemed unfazed by a potential war, claiming that the destruction would cause an increase in demand for his products. Hisashi was outwardly calm as usual. Zaliha and Matt worked with him the most and claimed he seemed excited about building a space program. Scott wasn¡¯t sure excitement would look any different from anger or boredom on the man¡¯s face. He would never play poker with that guy. Scott thought he must be the only one freaking out. Adriana had told him they wouldn¡¯t starve. The first large scale harvest of saltwater rice would come in soon, and they had plenty of seafood, including huge tanks of mutant fish that tasted almost like beef or chicken. The variety of food would not be great, but they could survive. She had also mentioned starting a large hydroponic farm to grow food that they hadn¡¯t adapted to underwater conditions. So they could survive indefinitely under the current conditions. Scott decided that the blockade was not his problem to solve, but he could spend a few hours adjusting the content generator code to place value on code efficiency when it was scoring results. He figured they should at least try to choose iterations that had similar quality results using less server resources. While Scott was working, he received an odd request from Nadia. He was supposed to talk to a certain employee in the gaming office, then help Matt with a ¡®special¡¯ project. She emphasized that he should pretend to know what Matt was talking about when he was approached. Scott was a huge fan of her work, but he admitted that he was struggling to understand Nadia¡¯s strategy. Stealing the rocket had been very public, and they had angered their main neighbors and customers. What worried Scott was what the next attack would be, especially now that SPAI had them high on the list of enemies. Scott had listened in on the debrief with Theofanis, and he had nightmares about an army of robots swarming their base. On top of this, their initial plan to build a space program to counter a Russian attack had been complicated by their inland property getting seized. Their new plan was to use a swarm of robots to assemble an artificial island near the underwater mountain of mine tailings. The tailings were mostly large blocks of stone, so they would build a foundation as a series of large stacked arches reinforced with their plassteel. Their stolen rocket was sitting in the floating port area, but once they had the island built, they would build a launch pad and refueling facility there. Scott wasn¡¯t involved in analyzing the software for launching and landing rockets, but he heard that it would be ready at least a month before they could finish the new spaceport. Scott went over to their terrain and natural systems expert, Timur Delgova, who he thought might be the Russian spy. Nadia had indicated he should talk to him, but hadn¡¯t told Scott what to expect. He decided to play it safe and check out what Timur was working on. Mr. Delgova described to Scott the weather and water cycle improvements he was working on, and Scott once again found himself really hoping they didn¡¯t have to execute this guy. The man seemed very excited about how he captured the full water cycle and handled variables of terrain, atmosphere and plant cover. It might have been boring, but Scott was able to watch examples of the effects produced in their game engine. He had spent a couple of minutes just staring at an amazing looking waterfall. ¡°Hey Scott!¡± Matt greeted him. Scott pulled off the VR helmet he was wearing. ¡°Oh, hi Matt. I was just checking out Timur¡¯s awesome work.¡± Scott replied. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s really great. You should see the hurricane effect,¡± Matt closed his eyes for a second and had an odd smile. ¡°Um, anyway, I needed to get your help on our other project.¡± ¡°Other project?¡± Scott asked dumbly. Oh wait, is this what Nadia warned him about? ¡°Oh! Yes, of course. I¡¯ll just follow you then.¡± Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Right, just follow me to the other servers we are setting up.¡± Matt headed away towards the room they had set aside for the new servers that never arrived. To Scott''s surprise, they had a couple racks of equipment installed. He closed the door. ¡°Did we get some of our new servers?¡± Matt explained, ¡°No, we recycled these from our SpaceX heist. They had a bunch of mission log data from an earlier generation rocket. We didn¡¯t need them for our space program since we just wanted to launch a satellite quickly, so we just dumped it onto old-fashioned tape drives. After this emergency launch, we plan to make our own spaceship design for future missions.¡± ¡°So are we using these servers to speed up the content generator learning cycles?¡± Scott asked, puzzled. ¡°Wow, you are clueless! Solomon and Theofanis built something that looks like a simplified version of SPAI, although it isn¡¯t programmed to go murder hobo on all our enemies. We¡¯re hoping our Russian spy takes the bait and uploads his hacking program. Nadia¡¯s plan is to help the Russian¡¯s learn about the real SPAI program. We¡¯re giving them a ¡®big secret¡¯ that this is a forward satellite branch of SPAI operations, then point them to where the main locations are. We also added some hints about missions they are launching that will hurt Russia. We don¡¯t know what SPAI has planned, but Nadia is very imaginative. If she really wanted to overthrow a government, I wouldn¡¯t bet against her.¡± Matt explained. Scott wondered why no one told him about any of this. ¡°Are you wondering why I know this and you don¡¯t? It¡¯s because you¡¯re a terrible actor!¡± Matt laughed. ¡°You would have been telling Timur to avoid the secret server room, ¡®wink¡¯. He would have figured out instantly you were feeding him a line.¡± ¡°Hey, I¡¯m not that bad!¡± Scott protested. ¡°Also, I¡¯m sad Timur is the spy. He¡¯s the only team lead ahead of schedule and his work is amazing.¡± ¡°Well, you should stay away from him. Better yet, don¡¯t hang out in the office at all until we finish this.¡± Matt said, concerned that all his hard work would go to waste if Scott gave away their secrets. ¡°OK, I won¡¯t risk it.¡± Scott agreed. Honestly, I¡¯m not the one who gives away all our secrets. That was Barry!
Scott followed Matt¡¯s advice and left the gaming office. He asked Adriana out to dinner, but she once again told him she was too busy with work. Scott still had a crush, but he was starting to wonder if he should find someone with more spare time to focus his attention on. He went back to work on some gaming projects. It helped take his mind off the blockade and impending attacks. After talking with the teams, he was actually getting pretty excited about what they were building, and he wanted to play with the NPC AI code. He spent about two hours having conversations with AI characters, occasionally sending ratings on various features to improve the training. Their odd statements were amusing, like when an NPC farmer insistently offered to plough his field. After a few iterations, Scott was able to convince the farmer he didn¡¯t have a field, so the man asked if he wanted to smell his tomatoes. Scott was still chuckling when he received a call from Timur Delgova. The Russian Spy. ¡°Hello?¡± Scott answered. ¡°Um hi Scott. Can we meet in person?¡± Timur asked nervously. Scott suddenly wondered if he was safe being alone with this guy. He took a peek at Glitch_HR. Timur had incredible programming and simulation skills, but his assassination rating was very low. ¡°Are you still there?¡± ¡°Oh, sorry. I was in the middle of something.¡± Scott realized he hadn¡¯t said anything for nearly a minute. ¡°Yeah, we can meet up.¡± A few minutes later, they were in a small conference room. Scott had grabbed his light Kevlar clothing and a hidden tranq gun. Just in case. Timur looked pale and his eyes darted around, then spoke rapidly. ¡°I¡¯m just going to say it. I uploaded spyware on your servers. I¡¯m really sorry if I caused you problems. They are threatening my family back home,¡± he continued in a rush. ¡°I heard from other people here that you were able to rescue people and their families from some bad situations. Maybe I could help you feed bad information to my country, so you could undo some of the damage, and you could help get my family out of there.¡± Scott took a moment to collect his thoughts. ¡°I think I need to talk about this with some people here. I¡¯m sorry, but I just got back from a rescue run and honestly, I don¡¯t think I can handle another one.¡± He set up a quick video conference with Melinda and Solomon Rhodes, while Matt joined them in person. After explaining that Timur had confessed and was asking for help getting his family out, Scott was happy to leave decisions to others. ¡°First of all, we knew you were the spy after the first time you uploaded spyware,¡± Solomon announced. ¡°We¡¯ve been watching your activity ever since.¡± ¡°I wanted to use this to get some revenge on the Russians, but Nadia convinced me that it was more important that they focus on the real enemy instead of escalating things with us.¡± Melinda added. ¡°Real enemy?¡± Timur asked, confused. Scott wondered why she was telling a confessed spy about one of their plans. It seemed like something Barry would do. ¡°Yes, Nadia and I figured out the Russians learned of a project called Strategic Planning Artificial Intelligence several years ago. They seem to have made a mistake thinking Scott¡¯s HR software was actually part of this top-secret project, and they spent a lot of money trying to reverse engineer it. They actually wrote a lot of the code which we used to build our companies. They were trying to replace what they thought were missing or encrypted sections of the code, when in fact it was just gibberish pulled from random code samples. Their group hired some very talented contract programmers like Theo, who replaced my garbage code with something that actually worked, leveraging their extensive data collection network. Their activity triggered a chain of events including several attacks on their network, a kidnapping, and a military attack on our base. Anyway, at this point we have a nasty feud ongoing with the Russians, but their real target should have been SPAI.¡± Melinda explained. ¡°We pointed them at the real SPAI. They¡¯ll still try to blow us up again, but we¡¯re hoping they first focus on the program that is actually a real threat to their country.¡± Matt added. Timur watched all this with obvious confusion. ¡°I¡¯m very confused. You are not really a US military research project?¡± Timur asked. He obviously didn¡¯t watch the news, or he¡¯d know the US was busy telling everyone that Genysis was a terrorist organization. ¡°Right, so I¡¯m telling you this, so you can understand a bit more about us. That whole unlikely chain of events starting with the Russians panicking about a US artificial intelligence project was the foundation of the successful companies we built,¡± Melinda summarized. Timur had tilted his head a bit in confusion, but she continued. ¡°Anyway, Nadia convinced me that giving Russia the real information they wanted from the start would get two of our biggest enemies fighting each other. I¡¯m telling you all this because we might need you to say certain things next time your handler contacts you. In exchange for your help, I¡¯m sending a small team to retrieve your family. Sotera ¡®Gorrila¡¯ Chapa nearly finished his rehab from a surgery that went a little bit wrong, and he¡¯s eager to go on a mission against the Russians. We can¡¯t act too soon, or they will know we discovered you were spying, but he will be ready when the time is right.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t seen Sotera around for a few months. What did you do to him?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything,¡± Melinda replied. ¡°A certain mad doctor who works for us might have had to regrow a small part of his brain and two kidneys when he had a reaction to some upgrades.¡± ¡°That mad was you! You don¡¯t even take responsibility for what your other personalities are doing?¡± Scott asked, shaking his head. ¡°Regardless of your accusations, that woman is a genius, and you can hardly complain about her testing things on others before trying it out on you.¡± Melinda answered. ¡°Anyway, we are getting off-topic here, and Timur looks like his head is going to explode.¡± ¡°Yes, please, let¡¯s get through this,¡± Matt said. ¡°Timur, Scott or I can answer your questions later about our company. For now, we have a list of things we need you to mention next time you talk to your handler. This should be very helpful to the people holding your family. This is intel they spent millions trying and failing to acquire, so it should keep them happy. There is only one small fact in that list which is not true. This one lie points to the conclusion that the whole chain of events was put in motion by the actions of an advanced AI, instead of a group of college kids and a disabled homeless lady. It¡¯s actually much more believable than the real story!¡± Scott thought about this, remembering all the times Glitch_HR guided the people they hired and the skills they focused on. Are we sure an advanced AI didn¡¯t build our companies? ¡°I¡¯m terrible at lying. It¡¯s kind of the reason I confessed everything to you today,¡± Timur said. He was reading the list Matt had given him. ¡°So, can you guess which statement is not true?¡± Matt asked. ¡°Not really. I¡¯m just worried that I¡¯ll get nervous knowing something is wrong, and they will think I¡¯m lying.¡± Timur said. ¡°That¡¯s easy enough. You just say you heard a meeting between company executives discussing this list. This is completely true. You admit you don¡¯t know how much of it is accurate and recommend they check the facts. Everything important can be verified, so you don¡¯t have to lie at all.¡± Melinda explained. Timur looked relieved. ¡°Yes, I think I can do that.¡± Melinda thought with satisfaction that the first step of Nadia¡¯s counterattack was in place. Volume 2 - Chapter 15: Nadia鈥檚 Counter Part 2 Terrance Givens, former Navy SEAL, and second in command of Proteus security forces was back in Texas. The base at home was surrounded by the Mexican Army on land and the Navy had a loose blockade stopping their cargo ships. Naturally, he had taken their submarine to avoid all this. He felt a little sad that the vehicle that had been intended for deep sea exploration had only been used for shuttling troops and weapons around. His mission was a strange one. First, he would pick up a large U Haul and fill it with weapons and combat drones dropped off from the submarine. This part was easy, except that he had to get the truck in Louisiana and get around military checkpoints along the major highways entering Texas. He had plans to travel on a dirt road on a farmer¡¯s private property in the northern part of the state. Management had identified a man willing to let people smuggle trucks around checkpoints for a fee, and he probably didn¡¯t want to know who else used this service. He then had to pick up a forty-year old hardware store manager outside San Antonio who Glitch_HR had flagged as the best choice to lead a rebellion in Texas. Finally, he had to bring the weapons and leader to a group of loosely organized malcontents who had been organizing in rural East Texas and help train them into an effective force. Terrance had been briefed that this was a group that was currently getting aid and guidance from SPAI. It was odd that both sides were working towards the same goal, but with hopes of a different outcome. SPAI intended for the rebellious groups to get the confidence to attack a Homeland Security detention center and justify a brutal crackdown on the ¡®domestic terrorists¡¯. This would ultimately allow the agency to arrest the governor and any other politicians who had been critical of the new policies. Nadia¡¯s plan was to arm them and provide better leadership, so the group would actually have a successful rebellion and win concessions, instead of just an easy target that could be blamed for all the trouble. The first step had been easy. Terrance had a U Haul filled with advanced weaponry and was heading to the San Antonio suburbs. His teammate on this mission was Marta Lopez, one of the college acquaintances of the company owners, who happened to be one of the more impressive recruits he had ever worked with. When they met, he had been somewhat surprised with the overweight girl who became obsessed with weightlifting and participating in any training exercise available. Marta was still stocky, but it was all muscle now. The shapeless clothes hid what he knew was an attractive, though somewhat over muscled, physique. With how she dressed, someone might get the impression she was still overweight, but the girl could move with explosive speed, and her balance and flexibility were phenomenal. Terrance was hard-pressed when they sparred. He lost as many as he won, relying on his ridiculous strength to sometimes land a blow or hold that could end the fight. Without the improvements to his physique from the Biotech procedures, Marta would probably beat him every time. Terrance thought adding her to the team would help convince would-be soldiers that they needed more training. Entering the hardware store, Terrance identified their target, Marcus Ortega. ¡°Excuse me, Marcus. This is going to sound a bit weird, but do you have a moment to talk about the current situation in Texas.¡± Terrance really had no idea how to just recruit a stranger for the job of rebellion leadership. He had faith in Scott¡¯s program, but he thought they should have sent in an HR expert like Jessica or Scott to handle this sort of job. They had scoped the man for a few minutes before approaching. He seemed to know many customers by name, as well as enough details to strike up a short conversation. The man at least seemed to have social skills, even if his appearance wasn¡¯t inspiring. Marcus was a balding, slightly overweight man with graying dark hair. He was wearing a blue plaid shirt under a red overall with the store¡¯s logo, and jeans that looked like he had used for several painting projects. Marcus had been checking inventory in an aisle with assorted screws, nails and other metal bits when they found him. ¡°That¡¯s an odd question,¡± Marcus replied. He stared at them, giving Terrance his full attention. Most people¡¯s eyes would drift a bit when interrupted by a stranger, thinking about other tasks or projects. This guy gave the impression that what you were saying was the most important thing in the world. Terrance had heard of this kind of focus in leadership training but was impressed to see it in action. It was the opposite of talking to Melinda, who was clearly juggling multiple things. Even the fraction of attention she gave you seemed distracted. ¡°Well, I admit I¡¯m not sure how to approach this,¡± Terrance said. ¡°We think Texas is in a lot of trouble right now, and my company thinks you might be able to help.¡± ¡°I agree, Texas is in trouble. It seems like someone is trying to encourage us to rebel, so they can justify making an example of us. Homeland has already locked up enough people to ensure the election will go in their favor and the governor will be removed. If they can push some groups into an armed rebellion, they can get rid of all pretenses of restraint.¡± Marcus replied while stroking the stubble on his chin. ¡°So, you don¡¯t think a rebellion has any chance to succeed?¡± Terrance asked, interested in the opinion of the potential leader. Terrance believed a leader should project confidence, inspiring troops that winning was almost a certainty. ¡°No chance at all. It wouldn¡¯t surprise me if these groups are getting financial support from the same people planning to crush them.¡± Marcus answered, crushing Terrance¡¯s hopes. ¡°I probably sound like some kind of conspiracy buff, but it¡¯s what I would do if I wanted to replace the governor and flip the political structure of the state. Now, that group which stole the SpaceX rocket has a much better chance of success in Mexico. I won¡¯t be surprised to hear Yucat¨¢n declaring independence in the next few weeks.¡± Terrance was caught a bit off balance by the change of topic to Sergio¡¯s recent raid. Also, Yucat¨¢n independence? ¡°That¡¯s interesting. The US labeled that group terrorists. Don¡¯t you think they are going to get crushed if the US and Mexico are teaming up to wipe them out?¡± ¡°First, that word ¡®terrorist¡¯ is just dumb in this situation. The word describes an action that makes ordinary people think something horrible could happen to them, with the goal of creating political pressure that will have a favorable effect for the terrorist. How is stealing a rocket a terrorist act? Are people around the country going to be scared that someone will drop from the sky and steal their multi-billion dollar spacecraft? Plus, they didn¡¯t even kill any of the employees. A group that can pull off something like that without killing is impressive.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think they said anything in the news about them not killing people.¡± Marta added. She had been one of the people on that mission, so she was interested to hear a thoughtful opinion on the subject. ¡°Yeah, well it¡¯s not about what they said, but they would be screaming about ruthless bloodshed if anyone got so much as a paper cut during the incident.¡± Marcus explained. ¡°The media has a long, proud history of government propaganda, but I find it lazy and irritating when they use the same words to describe everything. Nazis, Terrorists, Racists. That Yucat¨¢n group embarrassed the US with superior technology and a truly unexpected heist.¡± ¡°Can you explain why you think stealing a rocket means Yucat¨¢n will secede? That seems like a bit of a stretch.¡± Terrance asked. He found the conversation interesting, even if they couldn¡¯t hire the man. Terrance had done his homework on Marcus before approaching him. Marcus had been an officer in the Army, possibly in military intelligence, based on the locations he was posted. Glitch_HR didn¡¯t have job history visible going back much before the software was created. That might be a good feature to ask Scott about. Marcus spent some time in the Reserve, but he had retired about ten years ago. According to social media, he played some strategy games online and was middle of the pack in the elite groups for several games, but he never made it to the top. Marcus paused for a bit, perhaps wondering how their conversation had gone down this path. ¡°I¡¯m going to make a wild guess here that you two are somehow involved with this group in Mexico. I had you both pegged as special forces, and having a woman to be on your team narrows things down to Israel or the mysterious Proteus group. A black dude and Hispanic girl make Proteus the most likely, plus you guys seemed really interested in my opinion about the rocket theft.¡± ¡°For the record, we¡¯re planning to give it back and pay for damages. I probably shouldn¡¯t say more about why we had to do something so drastic.¡± Terrance added, a bit defensive that Marcus seemed to have figured them out. ¡°Everyone thinks they are the good guys, right?¡± Marcus said with a wink. ¡°Sorry, but I have to get back to work soon. Can you tell me why you wanted to talk to me? I¡¯m too old to be on a team like yours, and you already seem to have good leadership.¡± If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.¡°You¡¯d be surprised about the age thing,¡± Marta laughed. ¡°I bet Terrance is ten years older than you.¡± Terrance glared at her, then tried to play it off. ¡°Black doesn¡¯t wrinkle!¡± ¡°Yeah, right,¡± Marta laughed. ¡°Terrance spent six months of hazard pay and testing bonuses to get the Vanity Package.¡± ¡°Hey, it was worth it. I look good!¡± Terrance defended himself. ¡°You spent $80k just to get rid of the gray in your hair. Did you know they sell dye kits for less than $20?¡± Marta laughed. ¡°I was balding and gray. I had to shave my head every couple days, or it would have looked ridiculous with how pretty my face is now.¡± Terrance privately agreed it might have been stupid to spend so much money on his hair, but there was no way he¡¯d admit that to the other security guys. ¡°No, seriously, you¡¯re older than me?¡± Marcus seemed a little stunned. ¡°I mean, you look like a late twenties professional athlete.¡± ¡°OK, I¡¯ll just explain that part then,¡± Terrance groaned. ¡°You¡¯ve probably seen on the news about how we are creating mutant super soldiers and other outrageous claims. They had that video of Carl ripping a 500-pound server rack out of a wall and then running with it. Also, they keep showing the clip of the killer robot and Scott tossing some guy like he was a small child.¡± ¡°I thought that was some weird fake. You¡¯re serious? Are you like those guys?¡± Marcus was glancing between them, his mouth hanging open a bit. ¡°That¡¯s one of the perks if you work with us. We can get you a few treatments at the Spa, and you¡¯ll be in better shape than the guys you used to be jealous of back in college. They give those packages out free for security guys willing to sign up for testing the new stuff. They were charging several hundred thousand for similar operations if you are some random billionaire walk-in. That Carl guy is at least 55 years old. He doesn¡¯t really remember his age because of some massive brain tumor our boss fixed for him. I¡¯m 52, so I¡¯m probably not really ten years older than you. Marta thinks everyone over 30 is old. This isn¡¯t really what I wanted to talk about, but it helps prove the point that we have great tech, which gives an advantage over the US and other world powers right now. They can still crush us with numbers and the size of their economies, so we stayed under the radar until recently.¡± ¡°What changed? Seems like stealing a rocket really kicked the hornet¡¯s nest.¡± Marcus seemed to have forgotten that he needed to get back to work. ¡°Right, we¡¯re kind of up against this Skynet wannabe AI called SPAI that put us near the top of its kill list. We¡¯re right behind the state of Texas and Russia on this insane robot¡¯s target list. We rescued one of their programmers and found out that the attack on Washington DC was caused because of a bug in their software. They fixed it at the last minute, so only the first part of the plan was completed.¡± ¡°I heard rumors that there was a nuclear weapon that went missing and was almost used in the attack.¡± Marcus added. ¡°The nuke was on the way, but the driver ended up having a conscience and turned himself in. The official news didn¡¯t report it because it would have been very implausible for some Texas militia to have cracked the security on a nuclear weapon.¡± Terrance explained. ¡°I already thought it was unlikely those Texas militia groups could have coordinated such a sophisticated attack. Those guys can¡¯t even agree on what to chant when they protest gun control in Austin.¡± Marcus started pacing a bit. ¡°If I had to guess, you are probably trying to form some kind of alliance with Texas to counterattack this SPAI. Why do you think I can help? I don¡¯t have connections with militias. I¡¯m just a store manager!¡± ¡°Our management makes odd decisions sometimes, but they are really great at finding skilled people who are undervalued in their current jobs. I¡¯m starting to see why they picked you. We want you to help organize the rebellion in Texas. Before you laugh, I have a U Haul full of advanced weapons and I spent years training special forces. I think you understand what could happen if no one stands up to these guys.¡± Terrance finally got around to making the pitch. ¡°We can provide some funding, and we have a safe place to evacuate family or friends you might be worried about.¡± ¡°This is not how I was expecting my day to go.¡± Marcus slumped a bit. ¡°Can I think about it for a day?¡± ¡°Sure. We¡¯ve been traveling for hours, so we¡¯re going to get hotel rooms. We need to be careful talking on cell phones, even if you have an encryption package. An encoded message puts a target on us even if they can¡¯t decrypt it. How about we meet you for lunch tomorrow, and you can give me your answer. Even if you aren¡¯t interested in the job, I¡¯d be happy to listen to your advice for a bit.¡± Terrance left it at that. Later that evening, Marta and Terrance were eating barbecue. They had fish that tasted like beef at home, but it was just not the same as a properly smoked brisket. Terrance wondered if the problem was the meat or because they didn¡¯t have someone who knew how to cook it correctly. How had they managed to rescue a hundred people from Texas, and no one wanted to start up a decent smokehouse? At least the Tex-Mex restaurant was good, but he missed some of the chains you could find here. Hopefully someone would open franchise restaurants in Proteus once they handled the Mexican blockade and the population increased. Marcus called him while he was finishing his second heaping plate. Terrance needed to eat a lot with the extra muscle mass. ¡°Hey Terrance, this is Marcus. Let''s meet up." Later, Marcus showed up where they were having drinks. "I spent all afternoon thinking about how stupid it would be to quit my job and go train up an army to fight the United States military.¡± ¡°Since you can¡¯t stop thinking about it, I guess you¡¯re interested.¡± Terrance replied with a grin. ¡°See, I¡¯m addicted to strategy games. I play a bunch of them online. I never make the top of the leader boards, but the people who are serious know I¡¯m a dangerous opponent. I have to admit, going up against unknown AIs is scary. Some games you can¡¯t beat them. When the options are limited, and they can evaluate all possibilities, you lose. Also, in games where micromanaging a hundred things at once gives an advantage, a human player can¡¯t win. This situation involves real people, and there are too many variables for a computer to have perfect understanding, so it might be possible for human intuition to compete. It¡¯s a dumb risk, but I can¡¯t help wanting to challenge myself.¡± Marcus was talking fast and seemed excited. ¡°What about the risk to family and friends?¡± Terrance asked. This was usually the biggest challenge. ¡°I¡¯m divorced, so I don¡¯t care much about my ex. I have a lot of acquaintances, but not close friends. My daughter¡¯s family is the main issue. I talked to her, and she thinks I¡¯m crazy.¡± Marcus said, his voice a bit sad. ¡°Tell me more about her family.¡± Terrance prompted. ¡°She lives near Austin and was laid off recently from her job at a company that made microchips for computers or phones. Not really sure exactly what she did, but it was some kind of engineering. Her husband did some kind of programming for a game company that went bankrupt a few years ago. Last I heard, he was working in food delivery, and they are struggling.¡± Marcus lost some of the excitement in his voice. He knew his daughter¡¯s family had been through a lot recently, and he helped when they would let him. ¡°We can probably find better jobs for them. Do you have any grandkids?¡± Terrance asked. ¡°Not yet. They put that on hold when Susan lost her job,¡± Marcus replied sadly. ¡°Well, we have tons of jobs at Proteus. At least we did before the US and Mexico attacked all our businesses. That slowed down a few companies, but you¡¯d never guess based on all the construction going on.¡± Terrance''s brow wrinkled. When he was at Proteus and the beach house a few days ago, it seemed like business as usual. The Spa was still full, construction crews were coming and going from the new sections of Proteus, and extra factories were getting added to Section One. Were all the workers just living onsite now? ¡°I assume you can get around the blockade?¡± Marcus asked. The whole idea of blockading an underwater city with surface ships seemed dumb. ¡°We have a large submarine we planned to use for exploration, but recently it is transportation for security teams, and we can import some supplies we can¡¯t produce for ourselves. I think after they dropped me off, they were picked up a large amount of coffee, chocolate, and electronics. There is a funny story with that. The US and Mexico froze all our bank accounts, but one of the billionaires who is at the spa placed the order for us in exchange for some vanity treatments for his family. The politicians don¡¯t want to lose out on his campaign contributions, so he got away with a sternly worded warning.¡± Terrance explained. ¡°Figures,¡± Marcus said. ¡°I should probably pull out as much cash as possible after we talk. Actually, we should create our own banks and currency for Texas, so they can¡¯t pull this stunt on the regular people who don¡¯t have billionaires backing them.¡± ¡°We were talking about something similar in Proteus.¡± Marta pitched in. She had been content to listen until now. ¡°Melinda didn¡¯t want to run a bank, but with the US attacking us, we needed to be able to keep doing business. They are going to issue notes backed by platinum coins.¡± ¡°Oh, I hadn¡¯t heard about that.¡± Terrance replied, surprised. ¡°Yeah, they have a few hundred pounds of it sitting in a warehouse. I¡¯m on the guard shift sometimes, and one of the guys was talking about his friend working for the new bank.¡± Marta explained. ¡°Right, I have a lot to process, and I¡¯ll need you to help connect me with anyone organizing resistance. I can think of so many ways the US can crush us, but we can keep a low profile and cause them some problems. I need to see this tech you brought, but I have a few ideas how we can build up an organization and misdirect an AI.¡± Terrance sighed. They had a leader, but they were a long way from anything resembling a rebellion. Volume 2 - Chapter 16: Nadia鈥檚 Counter Part 3 Melinda looked fantastic. She was wearing a custom dress from a local designer who had been trapped in their base when the military surrounded them. They had given the woman a place to live and space to open a shop, and she had been very busy since then. With over thirty customers trapped at the Spa, these wealthy guests would have been very unhappy wearing the same outfits during their extended stay. The designer had a brisk business with customers willing to pay far more than she would have dreamed of charging, and she had recruited a couple of teenage assistants who were children of some of the construction workers. Melinda¡¯s dress was on the house. The Genysis leadership all had their bank accounts frozen, but it didn¡¯t stop any of the owners from writing IOUs, and the Proteus businesses passed these around as a form of alternate currency. In addition to the dress, Melinda had spent over an hour getting her hair and makeup perfect. She had an ageless beauty thanks to multiple rounds of skin smoothing and facial structuring. Objectively, she could be compared to a woman in her twenties, but it was hard to miss the confidence that usually only came from decades of experience. She didn¡¯t need much makeup, but she wore a wide brimmed hat to cover up a patch of missing hair on the back of her head. A recent surgery had allowed Melinda the ability to override a symptom of her unique mental condition and speak normally, at least for a few minutes, before a headache would build. It worked like an internal democracy. If most of her personalities were willing to give up control, one could dominate the part of her brain which controlled speech. She could even last for more than a few minutes if she switched between her aspects, and she had hopes that over time the headaches would lessen. Melinda retained her capacity to effortlessly multitask by phone or computer when she reverted to her natural behavior and allowed the computer to unscramble her rapid switching. The effort to look good was not purely vanity. Today she was meeting with Yucat¨¢n¡¯s Governor Conde. Melinda had insisted since the beginning of the standoff that he was the only Mexican government official she would talk with. The government in Mexico City had not been pleased and thought they could bully her into surrendering weeks ago. Mexico¡¯s plan had failed badly so far. The Mexican Navy had received stern warnings followed by minor holes added to their hulls whenever they got too close. Anyone could tell that the blockade could be broken easily if Proteus stopped showing restraint. On land, the army had surrounded their walled beach house property, but artillery and tanks had been dismantled by robots which sprang from the jungle whenever they came within five miles of the house. The army spent most of their time facing away from the property as several large camps of hopeful immigrants waited outside wanting to get in. Social media from inside Proteus had made it clear the residents had housing, jobs and were eating quite well. A number of people, who would have normally migrated to the US, had decided this looked like a better option. It was kind of embarrassing to the Mexican military that they were effectively performing border control duties for Proteus. The tunnel to Xibalba was passable now, and the military had not yet bothered to add the new pyramids they were building to the blockade. Some of the employees even made a game of going outside and handing out food to the hopeful immigrants waiting outside the military cordon. One little brat had rolled a taco cart through and sold lunches to the soldiers before returning the long way to Proteus. There were six miles of winding, unfinished tunnel, but the kid was now a legend among the teenagers who lived in the base. The little snots would probably try to outdo each other until the military caught on, so Melinda hoped her meeting today would be able to settle things. The Governor met with Melinda on one of the covered patios overlooking the pool. They had to clear out some disgruntled Spa clients, but most people understood that this was important. ¡°You look amazing!¡± Victor Conde, Governor of Yucat¨¢n, gushed. ¡°I almost didn¡¯t recognize you. My wife has been begging me to sort this mess out, so she can get back to your Spa. She will be so jealous when I tell her how gorgeous you are.¡± ¡°Oh, it¡¯s a shame you didn¡¯t bring Claudia. Please give her my compliments and tell her the next treatment is no charge if she can talk you into ending this silly blockade.¡± Victor frowned. ¡°You know perfectly well I am strongly opposed to this foolishness. Those idiots in Mexico City are trying to ruin the best thing that happened to our country since independence.¡± They switched to small talk for a bit while waiting on their food. The meal was prepared personally by Chef Ludwig, a last minute addition to the group that emigrated from Poland once he realized his best customers were leaving. Since arriving, he had found a willing business partner with Angela and had improved his skills significantly with Glitch_HR. Teaming up with one of the cafeteria workers, they had managed to program robots to prep ingredients and wash dishes. His food was a mix of Polish and French cooking styles, and his restaurant was usually overrun by the rich Spa foodies. Once a week, he¡¯d kick out the rich people and only serve his fellow immigrants from Bialystock at a heavily discounted price. Victor moaned softly after taking a bite of herb crusted meat. ¡°This is exceptional. You are under siege and eating better than I do in the city.¡± ¡°Yes, our agriculture is coming along nicely. The chef will be happy to hear you enjoyed the dish. Our chefs were worried about running out of ingredients, but we¡¯re pretty well stocked again now.¡± Melinda had been in charge for the past couple minutes, but she switched over to to discuss politics. ¡°I assume your government sent you here with a list of demands, so why don¡¯t you tell me.¡± ¡°Ah, I was hoping to delay that unpleasantness. Again, I personally find their treatment of you disgusting,¡± Governor Conde stalled. Melinda gestured for him to get on with it. ¡°Right, so they demand that you hand over control of all your robots and grant inspectors full access to your property. Furthermore, your employees will mostly be sentenced to serve a short time in jail, but the owners will be deported to the United States to face treason charges. My understanding is that it means the death penalty if you are convicted.¡± Victor looked very uncomfortable having to pass on this news. ¡°Well, their opening offer is terrible.¡± Melinda laughed, ¡°They are clearly detached from reality. I¡¯ll give you a counteroffer. I want to be Queen of my own underwater country, and I¡¯d be happy to help Yucat¨¢n get their independence, and you can be President. Our properties on land will pay taxes and follow your rules. Underwater or on any artificial islands we build are in my domain.¡± Governor Conde was stunned. He had expected Melinda to be defiant when presented with the ridiculous demands, but she was going so much further. ¡°Before you answer, you probably want to look at this.¡± Melinda had stalled a bit before dropping the bomb, then she handed a tablet to the Governor. On screen, a camera showed a line of robots flanking the Mexican troops surrounding their beach house. These were modified mining robots with heavy flechette rifles and railguns standing over seven feet tall and with obvious armor plating. Around their feet were hundreds of the wicked insect robots. These were roughly the size of a dog but bristling with bladed legs and stared with sinister intent. A few soldiers opened fire ineffectively. The big robots announced a warning that soldiers should put their weapons down. Conde could hear an order from someone to open fire. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The insects swarmed with rapid movement, limbs flashing and spraying blood as soldiers were knocked to the ground. The big robots opened fire and rows of soldiers went down. ¡°Our robots are firing rubber coated pellets. It took us several days to get those working with the flechettes or else we would have cleared you guys out earlier. Hopefully most of your soldiers survive, but that was really dumb of them to attack. Oh yeah, this one is good too.¡± Melinda switched to a different tab, which showed several naval ships running low in the water as the crew exited in lifeboats. Victor Conde had suspected the blockade was not actually holding Melinda¡¯s people in. The national government had not shared details of why they were keeping their distance, but his people had told him about the broken tanks and artillery. He realized Melinda could have crushed their forces at any time but were likely just taking their time to coordinate with other plans. ¡°So, I guess I am your prisoner now?¡± Victor asked. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t be silly,¡± Melinda laughed, but she couldn¡¯t hold his gaze and looked down at her empty plate. ¡°I wanted us to be partners.¡± ¡°This is just very surprising to me. Can I just leave and go discuss this with my family and some advisers?¡± Victor blushed a bit. Had he been secretly excited about being a prisoner here? ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll have someone walk you out. I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll be busy for a few hours after this display of force.¡± Victor was escorted outside the walled compound. Once the gates opened, he heard sounds of scattered weapons fire and a fair number of moans and screams. The soldier walking him out was wearing some kind of ceramic armor and seemed unconcerned about the battle going on outside. ¡°Sorry sir, we¡¯ll return the car you came in once the situation is secured. We can give you a lift to Merida in an air truck, but figured you¡¯d want to talk to your troops before you left.¡± ¡°They aren¡¯t my troops.¡± Conde said, feeling a bit sick. He saw a group of people going around giving medical aid to the fallen soldiers. Many were being loaded onto those flying air trucks and transported out to sea, where he knew Proteus was located. The Colonel in charge of the Mexican soldiers was sitting in a folding chair with a robot insect about three feet away standing still, but staring right at him. ¡°Sir, these rebels are going to pay for this!¡± The man said. Victor recognized his voice as the idiot who had ordered the troops to open fire. ¡°Colonel, you caused a lot of suffering here today for no reason!¡± Victor was clenching his fists. ¡°You are suspended until further notice. Who is the next highest officer?¡± A skinny man in his twenties spoke up. ¡°Captain Lazaro here, sir. They are taking all the injured soldiers prisoner. Some of our men escaped into the jungle.¡± He looked nervously at the armored soldier standing casually next to the Governor. ¡°Can I ask you how you feel about this operation, Captain?¡± Conde asked. ¡°Please be honest.¡± The Captain¡¯s eyes darted nervously, looking like he might also want to make a break for the jungle. ¡°Um, sorry sir. My job is to follow the Colonel¡¯s orders, sir.¡± ¡°Listen, I understand you were just doing your job. This was a complete disaster, but what would you have done differently?¡± the Governor asked. ¡°Well sir, when those robots tore apart our tanks and artillery, it was pretty clear they could have killed us all. They seemed to be taking care to minimize casualties. I¡¯ve gone up against some cartels, and they would have just butchered us if they had that kind of advantage.¡± Captain Lazaro looked pale, and Conde worried he would pass out. ¡°Did they tell you this was a cartel? I¡¯m personal friends with the owners of this property and was a vocal opponent of this stupidity.¡± Governor Conde was losing a bit of control of his anger now. ¡°Yes sir. They said this cartel was stealing our resources and using our citizens as slaves.¡± Captain Lazaro answered nervously. ¡°So, did you believe this?¡± ¡°No sir. The robot attacks and immigrants begging to get inside made that story seem very unlikely. There is crazy stuff on the internet about this place, so I didn¡¯t know what to believe. Sir¡± Captain Lazaro seemed to be relaxing a little bit now that the Governor wasn¡¯t blaming him personally for this mess. ¡°Thank you. Why don¡¯t you take your men back to whatever base is home and wait for further orders.¡±
¡°Hey, was there some kind of battle outside?¡± Matt asked. He was in Proteus reading through status updates for his game company. He split his time between CEO training and keeping all the groups working in the same direction, but the project had made good progress since meeting with his friends. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I heard Melinda had a date with Governor Conde today,¡± Scott answered. ¡°Why would they attack when he was here? I¡¯d call her, but she can hold a conversation now and probably wouldn¡¯t want me to interrupt her. I¡¯ll give Carl a call.¡± ¡°You talk to Carl now? I thought you said he was a jerk and an idiot.¡± Matt looked surprised. ¡°Yeah, I guess we bonded on the last mission. He is a jerk, but I think it¡¯s how he copes with tense situations. Carl¡¯s kind of funny sometimes, and now he pesters Theofanis for his upgrade ideas.¡± Scott explained. He dialed Carl¡¯s number. ¡°Hey Scott! Crazy battle right?¡± Carl answered. ¡°What happened? Are we getting attacked?¡± Scott sat up straight, alarmed. ¡°Nah, we attacked them. Battle was over in about a minute. I just spent fifteen minutes hauling dummies into the hospital.¡± Carl said, blowing out a breath. ¡°Was anyone I know injured?¡± Scott asked. Anything short of death they could probably fix, right? ¡°Just their guys. We only attacked with robots. Hah! You guys are really out of it, playing around with video games while World War 3 is starting outside.¡± Carl teased. Scott decided to check his phone to see what the news was saying. There was a breaking story about a group of Texans declaring independence and taking over a small town. Nothing yet about this part of Mexico. He took a trip to the medical center. There were makeshift cots all the way out into the hall and in a storage area next door. Hundreds of injured soldiers, heavily bandaged and many had IVs attached. He saw Elsa and some other Spa workers moving quickly, checking people and occasionally injecting something or spraying glue on wounds. Scott made a quick retreat, not wanting to get in their way. He received a call from his dad. ¡°Hey Scott, that was crazy, right?¡± Bill Henderson said. ¡°How did everyone know about this war except me? I¡¯m supposed to be an owner around here.¡± Scott complained. ¡°Um, I don¡¯t know,¡± Mr. Henderson sounded puzzled. ¡°Well, I was on standby ready to help anyone who was trapped on those Navy ships or if they had trouble with lifeboats. It went pretty well, but their Navy is down a Destroyer, two Frigates and some patrol boats. They are going to go nuts when they hear about it.¡± ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re safe. I guess they didn¡¯t fire on us?¡± ¡°Well sort of. They shot a few missiles, but the point defense lasers hit them before they could damage our docks. I¡¯m loading up cargo right now. We¡¯re delivering a full shipment to Cuba, and the other ship is going to Venezuela. It¡¯s weird being on the same side as those communists. I guess we need the business, so I¡¯m just going to captain my ship and leave the decisions to the boss.¡± Scott¡¯s dad seemed amused that he was finally able to work again, even if it was trading with countries they had been taught were enemies. ¡°Hey Dad, please stay safe. The US might attack your ship.¡± Scott said, suddenly worried. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s possible. We added a lot of weapons and robots, so they¡¯ll have to come at us hard, or we¡¯ll send them running.¡± Bill seemed happy about the thought of getting attacked. ¡°Besides, it¡¯s a really quick trip. Much easier than going to the States. Hey, I know you¡¯re worried. It seems completely crazy to go to war against these huge countries, but I think that Nadia lady knows what she¡¯s doing. Your software picked her, so have a little faith.¡± Now that was a scary thought. Scott knew better than anyone that his software sometimes made mistakes. Volume 2 - Chapter 17: Escalation Over the next few weeks, Scott paid more attention to the news and tried to spend time with the Security guys, hoping they would know more how the current conflict was going. This meant he had to participate in more combat training, so he also found himself spending more time in the hospital after taking his daily beatings. Scott initially wondered if the guys were feeling sorry for him because it seemed like he was lasting much longer in the fights. To his surprise, he actually won a few spars. Whatever Melinda had done to his brain kept him calm during fights, and it even seemed like his opponents were moving just a little slower. Today was not a day he was going to win. His opponent was Carl, who was currently ranked number three in their informal fight club. To Scott¡¯s surprise, he landed a few hits before Carl knocked him senseless. ¡°Hey Scott, you are getting better!¡± Carl grinned, for once skipping the trash talk. ¡°Ouch. I can¡¯t believe anyone can still beat you!¡± Scott complained. ¡°I think I¡¯m going to beat the old man this week,¡± Carl bragged. In this case, the ¡®old man¡¯ was Sergio, the leader of the security forces. Carl was actually older by a couple of years, but Carl had received cosmetic improvements, so he looked much younger. ¡°Carl, are you going on any missions soon?¡± ¡°Well, I skipped a couple. I¡¯ve been working with Barry on converting his Ferrari into a fusion powered, flying car. I¡¯m not sure why I agreed to help. It was a ton of work, and we ended up with an expensive pile of junk that we can¡¯t put back together.¡± Carl¡¯s brow wrinkled. ¡°Hah, no wonder he hasn¡¯t bragged about his car recently.¡± Scott laughed, ¡°So where were those missions?¡± ¡°You could just ask Melinda. She¡¯d tell you what¡¯s going on.¡± Carl teased, then drank deeply from his water bottle. He swished around a bit before spitting out some blood into the water fountain. ¡°I¡¯m a little scared of her since she declared herself Queen of the Sea or whatever.¡± Scott said, while limping painfully towards the medical station. He had been a bit slow on his feet, and Carl had kicked him in the side of his knee shortly before the end of their spar. Even at less than full power, Carl hit as hard as a baseball bat. ¡°Oh, she was just taunting Victor. Mexico doesn¡¯t really know what to do about us,¡± Carl explained. ¡°I thought they¡¯d be gung-ho throwing everything at us, but it seems the President is pissed at the military for listening to the Americans. Also, Nadia called a bunch of politicians, and they are still supporting us.¡± ¡°I thought the Americans were threatening to release all this information that would cause scandals.¡± Scott waved over the medical technician, then pointed to the worst of his injuries. It was annoying how Carl almost never needed medical care. Between various upgrades to his skeletal system and his freakish speed, Carl rarely needed more than an injection to speed up healing a few bruises. The hit Scott landed on his jaw would have knocked out most people, but Carl just laughed it off. Scott thought he may have broken another bone in his hand. He had actually considered getting the skeletal upgrade, despite the high risk of organ failure and long recovery time. Scott was tired of breaking bones every time he fought these monsters. ¡°Nadia convinced them that if one person was tagged with a scandal, they¡¯d lose their election. If they were all tagged with scandals at once, people would get bored with it, and most would only take a minor hit. They were already angry at the Americans for pushing them to attack us, so the government is not decisively against us. There is also a large distraction with what is happening in Texas right now.¡± Carl was relaxing while Scott was treated for various injuries. ¡°I heard the governor was in prison, and the US news says that one small town controlled by rebels will soon be crushed. Do you know more about that?¡± Scott asked, wincing as they stuck a robotic surgery device into his knee joint. It looked like a big needle, but he knew there were tiny arms that extended from the end once it was under the skin. The technician had numbed the area, but the cold pressure always made him cringe. ¡°Oh yeah, Terrance¡¯s group took over that town a few weeks ago and the US press is still saying it¡¯s a small town that will soon be crushed. They fortified an iron mine in Cass County, north of Longview, in the Northeast part of the state. One of Matt¡¯s robot factories is cranking out drones, and so far, they crushed everything sent at them. The best thing is, they are running it all remotely. They are building up supplies to make a big push before the end of the year, unless SPAI drops a nuke first.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a scary thought,¡± Scott paused. Could that really happen? ¡°Yeah, Nadia says it¡¯s a low chance. All their press downplays the threat, and then they drop a nuke? They would tell the story that we were trying to build a device, and something went wrong. It might fool some people. All the equipment is deep underground, so they would only destroy some surface structures, and the robots would just rebuild in a month. The government would look really dumb if they had to nuke the same location twice.¡± ¡°So, we¡¯re assuming SPAI doesn¡¯t do something that dumb. What is their next move?¡± ¡°Good question. I just hope Nadia is ready for it.¡±
Adriana walked through the latest section of Proteus. They had started the luxury area shortly after the first section, but it was taking much more time to complete. It was already two months past her original schedule. So many small details depended on imports, which had been shut down. The products sourced from Trinidad¡¯s factories had also been delayed, as he had been forced to relocate his whole factory. With a sigh, Adriana admitted that she couldn¡¯t blame most of the delays on the blockade. It was just so much pressure, designing an underwater city center that would impress billionaires. She found herself making design changes almost every day after reading training articles on architecture. Halfway through, she decided the whole mermaid city look was too on the nose and scrapped most of the plans. Similarly, she discarded the pirate hideout theme, and more reluctantly a Jules Verne steampunk look. Attempting to try something original, Adriana hired some artists to compete for a design, with the goal that it would not be too clich¨¦. The winning design was a set of structures made up of tall towers anchoring to the sea floor. As the towers approached the surface, they spread out in a gentle curve into wide flat circular structures a few meters below the surface. The top sections were over a hundred meters in diameter and had several floors with windows all around which could enjoy the view of sea life, buildings, and various submarines moving around. On the roof were lifeboats for emergency exits, but also extensive artificial reefs seeded with live coral. Several points extended to the surface where residents could exit for snorkeling or electric jet skis. The interior spaces had elevators, a cafeteria, fitness center and spa in each tower. They also had space for conventions or large events in several towers. Taking the central elevator down below the seafloor allowed access to what would be an extensive underground retail space, a casino, a nine-hole golf course, and an indoor ski slope. The larger spaces were being excavated by hundreds of mining robots. Adriana expected they could finish these features within a few months of the first residents moving in. Deeper down, they were carving out additional factory and office spaces, plus an underground rail system connecting to the other sections of Proteus. To accommodate the large amount of rock that was removed, they kept large sections flooded and used angled shafts leading to the sea floor, where the robots could dump materials. These were sent on a conveyor belt to the site where the artificial island was rising from the seafloor. The structure of four of these towers had been built and pressurized, so crews of workers were busy finishing the interiors. Condominiums in the towers were expected to sell for over a million dollars for smaller units, up to ten million for the largest units. Despite the blockade and potential war, units in the first four towers had buyers lined up with significant deposits. Adriana thought the first spaces would be ready in the new year, but it would depend on the political situation if anyone outside their company would be able to move in. She decided to give Melinda a call to get an update. ¡°Hello dear,¡° Melinda greeted. ¡°Are you having any trouble with your project?¡± ¡°As you know, we have to rely more on Trinidad for finishes thanks to the blockade. He has his new factory nearly ready and promised he¡¯d get my orders done first. I think he¡¯s excited about living there. With all the equipment they abandoned when the Army showed up, he''s only going to be running at a quarter of prior capacity for several months, but it will be enough to keep up with our internal requirements.¡± Adriana was impressed they had managed to save even a fraction of their factory equipment when the Army made their move. ¡°Our ships have been able to reach Cuba and Venezuela without getting attacked. We are still negotiating but should have substitutes for some of the supplies we needed.¡± Melinda looked distracted. Even getting one fifth of her attention was apparently too much to ask. ¡°How is it going with Mexico right now?¡± Adriana asked. ¡°Eh, not really sure.¡± Melinda admitted. ¡°We have a long line of suits waiting to talk to us about various government stuff and lawsuits. Unfortunately, the weather is cloudy today and in the seventies. There is a nice breeze, so those tie wearing idiots are fairly comfortable.¡± ¡°You really have a problem with people wearing ties!¡± Adriana laughed. ¡°It¡¯s a relic of patriarchal society. Plus, anyone stupid enough to wear that in Southern Mexico is almost guaranteed to be a waste of my time.¡± Melinda said harshly. ¡°So were you serious about us declaring Yucat¨¢n independent?¡± Adriana asked, eyebrows raised. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ¡°Not really,¡± Melinda admitted. ¡°They came at us with an offer that we surrender and get executed, so I just spouted out something equally absurd. I have too much on my plate already to worry about governing a new country that doesn¡¯t even want independence. I wanted to see how they would react. So far, it seems like they are sending a small army of lawyers.¡± ¡°You should probably at least find out what they want.¡± Adrianna chided. ¡°Oh, you too? I already got this advice from Scott and Angela.¡° Melinda sighed and hung up without another word.
Melinda eyed the line of annoying, overdressed intruders. She enviously thought that a cartel boss would just throw these guys down a mine shaft. Reluctantly, she indicated the first man waiting could enter to speak with her. would handle most of these conversations, the rest of her personalities happy to gossip in the background of her consciousness instead of dealing with this chore. The first man was an aide to some Mexican politician, serving her an arrest warrant, which she tore up and had him carried out. The man protested that he was willing to go in peace, but it was simply too much fun to have Sotero walk out with him in front of the others waiting their turn, carrying him over his shoulder. Next in line was a lawyer representing SpaceX. The man surprisingly offered to drop any charges if the spaceship was returned intact as soon as possible. Melinda countered, offering to pay for damages from their attack and return the ship, but only after they used it for one mission. She said she would also pay the usual fee for a satellite launch, plus any missions that would have been scheduled during the current month which could not be handled. In exchange, they would drop charges and send technical advisors to help make sure the launch was successful. The lawyer seemed surprised but agreed to pass this back to his employers. Melinda looked outside and groaned at how many were still waiting to speak. She perked up a bit seeing a man dressed in military uniform arrive with a couple bodyguards. The man looked fit and appeared to be in his fifties. She admired his dark, gray streaked hair and rugged features. seemed eager to take over, but shoved that personality back down. She was not going to flirt with a potential enemy. Well, at least not until she figured out what he wanted. Melinda sent a message to her security that they should let the General cut the line, much to the dismay of others who thought themselves more important. ¡°Greetings, I am General de Divisi¨®n Eduardo Quintanilla,¡± the man announced in accented English. ¡°Can you direct me to your leader?¡± ¡°Melinda White, I¡¯m in charge.¡± Melinda smiled. She barely refrained asking if he was here to discuss terms of his surrender. ¡°My apologies, I expected you to be older,¡± the General appeared surprised for a second, before quickly getting control. ¡°I wonder how much more of my information is inaccurate. Regardless, I was pleased that you allowed me to speak with you, despite the situation we have been forced into.¡± ¡°Honestly, I didn¡¯t know you were coming here. I had my messages turned off after I kept getting pinged with notes about various officials showing up,¡± Melinda admitted. ¡°Regardless, I¡¯m happy you are here. I lost my temper a bit with the Governor coming here and demanding my execution. I hope we can have a more reasonable discussion of how to end this pointless conflict.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m glad to hear that,¡± the General replied cautiously. ¡°You are currently holding one hundred and twenty-three of our soldiers prisoner and have declared independence for Yucat¨¢n. This conflict has caused billions of pesos in damage to our Naval ships and Army vehicles.¡± ¡°First of all, we are giving your soldiers excellent medical care and will release them soon,¡± Melinda countered. ¡°Sorry, it¡¯s only one hundred nineteen. Unfortunately, four didn¡¯t survive their injuries. Sorry, we are not going to pay damages to your equipment. You sent it at us with hostile intent, so it¡¯s your fault it got wrecked. Up until that point, we were following your laws and paying taxes, so I don¡¯t want to hear this whining about the consequences of your poor decisions.¡± ¡°Hold on now!¡± The General protested, ¡°This conflict was not my decision. I spoke up against it from the start. This disaster has strengthened my position. There is a strong minority coalition in the government who also believe this conflict was the result of American manipulation.¡± ¡°OK, I¡¯m listening.¡± Melinda replied. ¡°I read the accounts of the skirmish and I think my country would be better served buying technology from you instead of trying to intimidate and steal. What tipped the scales against you in public perception was when you stole that spaceship. Frankly, this was an embarrassment to my country and turned a lot of moderates against you. Can you at least explain why you thought this was necessary?¡± the General asked intently. ¡°You probably know that the Russians hit us with a cruise missile and attacked our base early this year. The technology they stole will allow them to build orbital weapons that could shift the balance of power in the world, but also will likely lead to further attacks against us. We just wanted to be left alone, but the threat was too large to ignore. We came up with a desperate plan to get our own space program to the point where we could defend ourselves. My strategic planner thinks that it is going to be a close race, but it was our only chance to survive.¡± Melinda admitted. ¡°Surely the Americans would have worked with you. Now they want to destroy you and have made it very difficult for us to stay neutral or support you,¡¯ the General protested. Melinda shook her head, ¡°No, the United States is a mess right now. An AI project is quietly taking control of their bureaucracies and media. They almost destroyed their own government! We were already on their kill list before we stole the spaceship. My group rescued a programmer that was forced to work for them, and he had proof of what was going on. Reports from that system, some of the source code, internal emails and his own testimony. I¡¯ll share some of this information with you so you can verify.¡± ¡°This meeting took a strange turn that I didn¡¯t expect,¡± General Qunitanilla seemed to be at a loss. ¡°I¡¯ll need some time to look at all this. If what you are saying is true, what do you think Mexico should be doing right now?¡± ¡°Hold on a second. Let me get my strategic advisor in here.¡± Melinda called and waited until Nadia joined them. After introductions, Melinda asked Nadia to answer the General¡¯s question. Nadia thought about how to answer for about twenty seconds, then replied. ¡°Mexico should support the Texas rebellion once they have a bit more success. SPAI is currently attacking multiple enemies. In Texas, they tried propping up a doomed rebellion, intending to sabotage and pull support at a critical time. This would crush the rebellion and justify removal of political opponents. Along with some other moves, this would help them control almost the entire power structure after the next election. So we need Texas to succeed,¡± Nadia explained before continuing. ¡°In Mexico, they are pitting your government against us while guiding the Russians to destroy us. The AI¡¯s programming seems to be defective. Its actions have created adversaries where they could have had allies. As far as we can tell, it places too much weight on control and gathering power instead of developing good will or finding mutually beneficial compromises.¡± ¡°I¡¯m having a hard time believing this, but I agreed to look at your evidence and share it with others if it is convincing,¡± the General seemed to have reached his limit and was looking at the exit. ¡°General, if you end up believing us, we could really use your help.¡± Nadia pleaded. After the General left, Melinda commented, ¡°So, things must be going badly if we are begging our enemies for help.¡± ¡°Sort of. As I expected, the US military brought in multiple artillery units and destroyed the surface facilities at Cass County. We damaged some of their equipment, but they buried the place and have a unit sifting through the wreckage.¡± Nadia had just received the bad news while Melinda was in meetings. ¡°What about Marcus Ortega¡¯s group?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°They set a trap. Made it look like they were living in a town near the Cass County facility, but it was rigged with explosives and robots around the perimeter. They routed a mobile infantry unit. There are many more casualties than our conflict here. We don¡¯t have the luxury of trying to minimize damages when we are outgunned and outnumbered a hundred to one.¡± Nadia explained. ¡°I don¡¯t like that so many people are getting killed,¡± Melinda admitted. ¡°Yes, I know that if we fail here that a nuclear war is almost inevitable and many millions will die, but it¡¯s still hard to make these decisions based on probabilities.¡± ¡°In other bad news, the Russians are likely to launch their first orbital weapon in five weeks. We are at least three weeks behind.¡± ¡°If SpaceX sends experts to help us, and if Mexico lets us launch from inland, we could cut the time down by a couple of weeks.¡± Melinda offered, then added. ¡°Why is SPAI letting them build up space weapons? Seems like it would be a big threat to them if Russia takes out some internet hubs and data centers.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been trying to figure out what SPAI is doing in Russia this whole time. We don¡¯t have very good visibility there, but we can still track people¡¯s employment with Glitch_HR and correlate it with social media and news. As far as I can tell, SPAI has left some fingerprints on the orbital weapons program, but no signs of sabotage.¡± Nadia admitted. ¡°There have been various politicians and military leaders shuffled around, but we haven¡¯t figured out the pattern.¡± ¡°Remind me what we think their weapon can accomplish?¡± ¡°We think that they are still limited to our first-generation tech which allows the larger scale units and has a lot of excess heat. We don¡¯t think they have the advanced thermocouples needed to make the small-scale units. The Russians will need a heavy lift rocket, and the device they build will have trouble radiating enough heat to avoid melting down. Everyone thinks Space is cold, but vacuum is a great insulator. It¡¯s a common SciFi misconception that you would freeze quickly in space. It¡¯s actually a larger problem getting rid of excess heat, especially if you are exposed to solar radiation. Their satellite will probably have a short lifespan unless their engineers are much smarter than Glitch_HR has been ranking them. We figure it will stay active for a few days at most, and it can only fire roughly once per hour during this time.¡± Melinda thought ten or twenty blasts from a high-powered space weapon could cause plenty of problems, especially since some of it would be targeted at her property. As she started to get a headache, another unpleasant thought occurred. ¡°Has SPAI gained access to our fusion tech?¡± ¡°Unfortunately, the answer to that is yes. They are building a deuterium refining plant and have hired some people that make it likely they will catch up with the Russians soon. They have the wreckage of some of our robots now from the Texas fighting, so they will be able to determine elemental composition, which will help them to reverse engineer our second-generation designs. The Americans might have something working that could power a robot or vehicle in less than six months. They will be limited by how much iridium is available. We have been hoarding it since our first shipment, and it is only available in very limited quantities outside of Proteus. I have some plans to delay their progress, but our best chance is if Russia hits them or if we can get an orbital weapon up.¡± Nadia explained. ¡°Will our satellite have a longer life than the Russian¡¯s design?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°Yes, our second-generation reactors are smaller and have less waste heat, so we can use more of the satellite¡¯s mass for heat dispersion and shielding. Our attacks will be much lower power, but we should theoretically be able to go for years assuming no collisions or external attacks.¡± Nadia replied. ¡°We can also fire much more rapidly. Our platform is designed for defense against other satellites and spacecraft. Using it against ground targets will be ineffective.¡± ¡°Thanks. Keep me informed if we need to make any other risky moves.¡± Melinda dismissed Nadia. With a groan, she returned to meeting with the suits waiting impatiently outside. Volume 2, Chapter 18: Billions Nadia Kucharska realized that all her planning and contingencies sometimes mattered less than simple luck. In this case, the weather the day before had been cool, overcast and with a pleasant breeze. Melinda¡¯s bias against people in suits had ended up harmless. The various people needing to talk with them had been comfortable waiting and open to negotiation, instead of overheated and hostile. Today, their guests were waiting comfortably in a lounge. Staff served them cool drinks and walked around with plates of snacks. Some guests had removed their ties after rumors had spread that Melinda considered them offensive, and there was a higher percentage of women among those sent to negotiate. Nadia had frantically arranged this reception after explaining to Melinda how precarious their situation was and how important even a few allies might be for their survival. Melinda was chastised and agreed to politely speak with everyone. If they came respectfully with words instead of guns, Melinda agreed to give them a chance. There were still a few people who tried to bully Melinda forcibly escorted out the door, but most of their guests had a better experience. Surprisingly, after addressing concerns of several moderate Mexican politicians, they had negotiated a favorable settlement that was awaiting ratification. Part of the deal included the immediate unfreezing of their Mexican bank accounts as a show of good faith. This put everyone in a good mood. The terms proposed left Proteus as an autonomous region. Residents were subject to Mexican income taxes, but other taxes and local laws were at the discretion of Proteus management. Land based properties would pay property taxes and were subject to the rules of the Yucat¨¢n government. Retroactive permits were granted for their Xibalba Tunnel infrastructure projects. The Genysis companies would waive claims of damages on their land-based factory properties and release all prisoners. They were obligated to re-float the Navy ships they had sunk but had no further obligations to repair damaged military property. Several of the ¡°suits¡± Melinda had been reluctant to meet were actually politicians who preferred a peaceful solution instead of a prolonged conflict that would punish both sides. The pleasant weather had probably been exactly what was needed to keep everyone¡¯s temper cool enough to make this deal. SpaceX had also surprised them by responding favorably. They had sent down a few top executives the next day. They were quite impressed with the air trucks and Spa tour, and Nadia had eagerly jumped on the opportunity this presented. Melinda looked a bit exhausted from all her morning meetings, but she made the time to speak with Nadia shortly after having lunch with some of the SpaceX executives. ¡°We will have to give them some ownership of our transportation and mining companies, but I think we are getting a fair deal,¡± Melinda said, slumping a bit in her chair. ¡°Tell me about it,¡± Nadia prompted. ¡°They will get 10% of our mining and transportation starting next year. We get 5% of their owner¡¯s car company, and they get a five-year exclusive deal to buy second or third generation fusion reactors. They claim that deal is worth over $50 billion and will be worth more when they announce fusion powered cars. More important is that they are sending a team and equipment down to help finish our spaceport. They tried to get us to bring their rocket back and offered to launch our satellite, but I insisted that shipping it through US waters was too risky right now. They are motivated to help us launch quickly and safely so they can have it returned as soon as possible,¡± Melinda explained, looking more relaxed now and taking a sip of a non-alcoholic drink. ¡°That¡¯s great! With our accounts unfrozen and their experts available to help, we might just get our launch time down to four weeks. Nearly the same time window as the Russians¡¯ first expected launch. It will be a race, but we have a chance now,¡± Nadia was very pleased. They would still offload people and supplies from their surface facilities over the next weeks, but if they could launch, then the whole rocket heist would not have been a complete failure. ¡°How is the situation in Texas?¡± Melinda asked. Nadia had updated her the day before and not much had changed, but she could understand Melinda¡¯s concern. ¡°Marcus¡¯ group is still avoiding capture. We have a couple robot factories seeded in East Texas, building up capacity before they launch any operations. The facility they hit is swarming with US troops, and they brought in digging equipment. We have programming in place to handle when the surface structures are destroyed. I think they will get a nasty surprise when they break in.¡± Nadia reported. None of this was new information, so she added. ¡°Oh, we¡¯re seeing armed groups of people entering Texas from other states. There has been an uptick in non-mainstream media favorable to the rebellion. SPAI seems to control the news channels and a lot of the entertainment services, but a few smaller sites have resisted their influence and taken a strong anti-government position.¡± ¡°Most of our money was in pesos, so we have access to funds again. Do you think there is anything besides finishing our current projects I should be spending money on?¡± Melinda asked. ¡°Well, I heard you had a large Christmas party last year. It¡¯s short notice, but it would be good for morale and show our allies that we are still strong.¡± Nadia said with a nod. ¡°Hah, my master strategist recommends we throw a party. Isn¡¯t that tempting fate a bit?¡± Melinda said with a laugh. Still, everyone seemed stressed for the past month, and it would be good to have something positive and normal to look forward to. She went back into multitask mode and started making some calls. Nadia wondered if she was making a mistake. She was confident that if they just pushed everyone harder, their productivity would fall. A quick break would boost morale and energy levels. Her best estimate was that they might shave a few days overall off their launch program if people could de-stress before the home stretch. It was a calculated risk, but she thought the race was close enough that even one day could make all the difference.
The next week passed in a blur of activity for the company leaders. Barry Yong was focused on a third-generation fusion generator that could be cold-started from capacitors and lithium batteries. It took nearly twenty seconds to ramp up to full power, but the batteries were sized to make up the difference during this time. They had tested something similar in the past, but the new design used six reactor channels which could individually start and stop, allowing the power output to adjust to match load. Individual channels already scaled their output based on fuel injection, but with this design allowed them to reduce the overhead of keeping magnets and synchrotrons capacity powered up. Overall, the design was about 20% more efficient than the previous generation of their mining robots. Even better, it would solve the problem of variable load applications like vehicles, powered armor, or other devices that were active only a few hours a day. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡ª------------------------- Adrianna Foster worked long hours getting Tower One of the luxury section finished. They were going to use the grand ballroom for their Christmas party, and the living units would serve as hotel rooms for VIP guests. Between redirecting resources to help finish the spaceport and getting everything ready for the party, the rest of her projects were on hold. Adrianna didn¡¯t really care. The unfinished shells of three other towers would be lighted up, creating an impressive view for the party guests. Show-casing Tower One to an impressive list of millionaires, billionaires, politicians and celebrities would probably double the price she could charge for the remaining housing units. Adrianna realized she was considered one of those billionaires now. Based on the valuation for their stock swap, her stake in just the mining company was worth more than $10 billion. In her opinion, Genysis Construction was worth as much as mining, and her share was ten times larger. She would have to ask Angela if others valued her company as much as Adrianna did, but her profits were growing fast and beating all their other groups. Adrianna wondered if she should sell some of her shares to support a charity. She had often thought rich people should help the poor more, but now that she was someone with money, she wasn¡¯t exactly sure what to do. Adrianna was proud that her money was made honestly, building a great place to live for thousands of people. She employed hundreds, and by regional standards her employees were near the top of the income curve. Still, she wondered if there was something more, she should be doing with all this wealth? She decided to speak to Solomon Rhodes sometime. His money came from rather questionable insider trading while serving time in jail, but he had also given away hundreds of millions.
Matthew Stanton was pleased to find out he was a billionaire, but it hadn¡¯t caused him any angst. His share of the stock trade and the unfreezing of his Mexican accounts solved his cash problems. He immediately made some large orders out of pocket for computer hardware. What troubled Matt was that of all the companies their group had started, his gaming company seemed to be the only one struggling. The new headsets were over budget, and they had put several people in medical comas after Elsa¡¯s initial experiments went poorly. She had assured him that a lot of their Biotech procedures had run into initial difficulties, but Matt could read between the lines that they were failing a lot more than Biotech¡¯s other recent projects. On the software side, Matt had exactly one team on schedule, and it was run by their self-confessed Russian spy. Scott seemed to have scared some other developers into putting in long hours, but their work quality actually decreased. Matt managed to convince everyone to limit themselves to regular hours, but project tasks were taking twice as long as budgeted, and the quality was disappointing. Even when they managed to finish a task, integrating a project with other systems would often break them both and require extensive rework. In short, Matt wondered if he was terrible at managing a software company. Matt tried to spend about half his time on management training, and his rating was now respectable. More importantly, his score was finally higher than Barry. Unfortunately, this didn¡¯t seem to translate into development progress. Matt¡¯s partners didn¡¯t seem too worried. Alvarro told him he should just double any time estimates for a complex project. He didn¡¯t agree with this, but Matt realized he had been setting the schedule based on when his original budget would run out, instead of unbiased projections. With their accounts unfrozen plus billions of dollars available from the stock trade, he could just loan the company money and extend the timeline. Scott was spending most of his time managing the team, coding NPC AIs. Scott seemed unconcerned about Matt¡¯s timeline. Theofanis had given Scott some interesting advice about AI coding. Theofanis avoided using almost all commercial tools for building his code. Scott learned he had dropped out of high school and spent several years understanding and reworking open-source programming languages and artificial intelligence packages. Eventually, Theo had built his own tools, customized to writing code quickly in a way that matched how he expected it should run. For the first few years, Theo would have been useless to hire as a programmer, since he couldn¡¯t run standard tools or work with others. Later, he had a deep understanding and a unique custom tool set which moved him to the top of the programming rankings. Scott¡¯s own ranking had plateaued months earlier, but he started focusing on building his own tools. Glitch_HR guided him, and he even started reworking larger sections of the code as an exercise to improve his understanding of the program. The more he dug into the code, the more shocking it was that the program actually worked, but Scott was able to improve performance and reduce the code size by about 50% for sections that were not part of the deep learning core. Scott considered this a success and then moved further into understanding the core. After about a week of frustration and experimentation, he managed to understand one subsystem of this convoluted code. Glancing at his programming ranking, he noticed he had moved up about 20,000 spots over the past week. He had been stuck for months, but Scott was excited to see he was once again making progress. Matt pestered Scott about how the NPC code was coming. ¡°Hey Scott, where are we with your project? It¡¯s one of the main goals we had for this company.¡± ¡°Well, we¡¯re still at the first milestone. We have generators for appearance, attributes, and some backstory elements. Basically, anything you can put in a weighted lookup table,¡± Scott admitted. ¡°So no progress for the past month? What exactly have you been doing?¡± Matt seemed more frustrated than usual today. ¡°Oh, I took a step back and was working on my tools and programming skills.¡± Scott admitted. ¡°My team is still trying, but the results have not been good so far. The good news is, my ranking is going up again!¡± Scott said with some excitement. Matt rolled his eyes, ¡°I¡¯m glad you are getting something out of this. Alvarro convinced me my project estimates were too aggressive, and now we are rich, I shouldn¡¯t worry about running a few million over budget. Do you at least have an estimate of when you¡¯ll hit the next milestone?¡± Scott exhaled slowly, ¡°The next milestone is passing the Turing test. You do know that people have worked on systems like that for years, mostly without success. Am I allowed to estimate a year?¡± ¡°Ugh,¡± Matt groaned. ¡°Elsa told me something similar about the headset. Is it even worth keeping this company going?¡± ¡°Hey Matt, take a deep breath and relax. Angela told me today she estimates I¡¯m one of the top ten richest people on the planet now. I know you aren¡¯t far behind me. We don¡¯t actually need this company to succeed financially. You are taking setbacks way too personally. Find some part of this job you enjoy and just focus on that. Even if it takes five years, do you still want to build this game?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Well, I want to play the game. Not sure if I want five years of this stress,¡± Matt admitted. ¡°Exactly my point! You need to find a way to enjoy what you are doing. If you can¡¯t, then let¡¯s hire someone else. There is no way anyone is going to look at you as a failure when you made billions of dollars in less than two years. Anyone successful has failures and setbacks. I don¡¯t even think this will be a failure!¡± Scott argued. ¡°Mmm, you¡¯re right. I¡¯m just going to get rid of all our deadlines!¡± Matt thought it would sound stupid, but it actually felt good. ¡°OK, so I¡¯m just going to stop by the different groups every few days to see if I can help with anything. I¡¯ll play around with some animation code and read some training articles, but I will not worry about timelines or budget.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the spirit!¡± Scott agreed, ¡°You should probably hire someone else to keep track of our spending, for tax purposes. Have them send the reports to Alvarro. When we need more money, I¡¯ll loan enough to operate another year. If that runs out, you can get the next one.¡± Matt could feel his tension easing. ¡°I think I¡¯m going to take the rest of the day off. Maybe visit the Spa. You want to go?¡± ¡°No way I¡¯m getting near that place!¡± Scott replied quickly. ¡° Melinda will have me drugged and start upgrading me. Why does she always pick on me?¡± ¡°Aww! I think it¡¯s because you turned her whole life around, and she wants to return the favor. Or maybe she just thinks it¡¯s funny how you complain so much.¡± Volume 2, Chapter 19: Morale Boost The Christmas party was larger and more elaborate than the prior year. After a rather heated discussion about elitism, they had settled on a three tier arrangement for the party. Tower One would showcase the luxury section, and guests who were likely to be able to afford to live there were issued a pass to enter this section of the party. A second set of guests were able to enter the park area in the original Proteus level two. These guests consisted of employees of the core Genysis companies and their families. The overlap between these guest lists were the owners and management. The final group invited were contractors, and employees of various companies Angela had started in the area. They were taking over the main house and large tents had been set up outside to accommodate dinner tables, buffets and open bars. Since parking for this many guests was impossible, they had converted twenty air trucks to shuttle guests from several locations. For most of these vehicles, they added rows of seats in the cargo sections, but a couple had been equipped as flying limousines. They had comfortable couches and tables with a server offering drinks or snacks. Scheduling all this was a challenge, but the logistics managers for their carrier ship worked out a plan to avoid any VIPs having to ride in the regular air bus. With some VIPs sharing the ride for each trip, their scheduler had to avoid putting political enemies or business rivals in the same group. Instead of complaining about this chore, their head of logistics seemed to delight in potential matchmaking and business partnerships that could be encouraged. The air transport would arrive at either the main house or the floating docks. Core employees would take the underwater gondola, while the VIPs had a short submarine ride from the docks to Tower One. Several submarines were available that they used for tours, These were mostly a transparent aluminum bubble with seats and a small engine. A single pilot, trained as a tour guide, would guide the submarines on a short tour before arriving at one of the Tower One airlocks. Adrianna had complained the most about how much effort and money they were spending on VIP guests. Ironically, her company would benefit the most if they impressed these people, but she felt guilty about the excess. Scott didn¡¯t really understand her feelings. They had built all this luxury from basically nothing, so why not enjoy it? Their employees were well paid and excited about the party. Even the servers they had hired seemed happy to be part of such an unusual event. They were also making more here for one night of work than they could make in a month working at a local hotel or restaurant. Despite the happy atmosphere, Scott noticed that some of the guests were rude to the servers. He wondered why some people thought that money and power entitled them to treat people poorly. Scott hesitated. Should he do something about it, or let it slide? Angering an important politician might endanger their business. Melinda had also noticed the behavior. ¡°Excuse me Deputy,¡± Melinda gave the corpulent man a stern look, the Mexican equivalent of a national congressman. Looking puzzled, the man answered, ¡°Do I know you, young lady?¡±. By pure luck, he had accidentally stumbled on Melinda¡¯s weakness, her vanity. What might have been a disrespectful comment to another woman disarmed what would likely have been a brutal tongue lashing. ¡°Um, yeah. Anyway, I would like you to speak with more respect to the people serving us. If you can¡¯t behave, I¡¯m going to have to ask you to leave.¡± Melinda¡¯s initial anger had calmed, but she still spoke with natural authority. The man almost snapped a response, but just in time he realized who he was talking to. As his face drained of color, he stammered ¡°Are you Melinda White?¡±. A small crowd was now watching the conversation. ¡°Yes. Look, I was advised not to have everyone who annoyed me dragged out of here, so I¡¯m giving you a warning. Please be respectful to my employees or else we will have a problem.¡± Melinda had raised her voice a bit so half the room could hear her. The Deputy had sharp enough political instincts to read the room at this point. ¡°Yes, of course. I apologize. I must remember that not all servants are trained to the same standards as my own. I will be sure to be more forgiving going forward.¡± His apology sounded like a backhanded insult. Melinda¡¯s eyes narrowed. She paused and the Deputy seemed to realize he might have gone too far. Then she sighed. Scott had the impression she had switched from to . ¡°Fine. I can accept that you will control your behavior.¡± She quickly turned and struck up a conversation with an elegant woman a few feet away. The message was clear that he was not worth any more of her notice. Scott was relieved and a bit impressed how the situation was handled. They had probably made another enemy, but the man had lost a good deal of influence and respect with others at the party. ¡°Hello, are you Scott Henderson?¡± A middle aged man asked. Scott found himself drawn into a series of conversations with business leaders and a few politicians. They seemed interested in his opinions about how the local economy would develop and the political situation in the United States. One middle aged woman seemed very excited about meeting him. She had seen a video that circulated after his mission in Algeria. To the embarrassment of her husband she shamelessly gushed about how strong he was. At this point, Scott excused himself, heading over to the employee party. Matt saw him leaving and called out. ¡°Hey Scott! Are you heading to the next party?¡± Matt worked his way towards him. He bumped into people, apologizing along the way. A few heads turned towards them. With a couple billionaires leaving for another party, they might have suffered from a case of FOMO. No doubt they wondered if there was an even more VIP party somewhere. ¡°Yeah, I wanted to visit the Security guys at the employee section and say hi to my family.¡± Scott said, keeping his voice low but noticing several guests nearby were listening. Scott glanced around before leaving. Melinda was happy chatting with Governor Conde and his wife. She had one hand on the shoulder of a man in military dress uniform, possibly a General. Nadia was having an intense discussion with a group of three serious looking men Scott didn¡¯t recognize. Nadia¡¯s husband stood a little to the side looking out of place. Scott could sympathize. Nadia had lost at least twenty pounds since Scott had met her and she looked very different from the frazzled housewife with squalling kids he first met. Hair, makeup and a very expensive gown gave her the graceful look of an old money diplomat. Her husband must have caught Scott staring, but he seemed amused and gave Scott a grin. ¡°Are you going without Adriana?¡± Matt asked, interrupting Scott¡¯s thoughts. Scott looked a bit guilty. ¡°Um, she needs to stay here because she¡¯s selling this place. I guess we¡¯re kind of broken up now. Not that we were ever really together.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Matt said. Matt¡¯s girlfriend Zaliha had joined them at a slower pace. She didn¡¯t seem as surprised by this news as Matt. Scott tried to change the subject. He noticed an actress he vaguely recognized seemed to be paying attention to their conversation. Scott hadn¡¯t watched many movies or TV shows over the past year so he couldn¡¯t recall her name. ¡°I guess Barry and Elsa never bothered to show up at this party?¡± ¡°Professor Springer is here, but I guess Barry decided this party would be too tame.¡± Matt answered. ¡°Might have been a good choice. If he acted like a complete idiot, it might start another war.¡± Scott nodded. Zaliha spoke up, ¡°Elsa said they were at the non-employee section. She sent a text saying Barry wanted to meet some people who weren¡¯t ¡®rich and boring¡¯. Also, they have the pool bar there.¡± Matt groaned. Scott didn¡¯t fully remember the last Christmas party, but he knew that many people had ended up in the pool before the end. ¡°Excuse me, did I hear there was another party here?¡± An attractive brunette asked. It was the actress who was eavesdropping on their conversation. Scott¡¯s memory finally managed to pull out the name Tracy Grey. Matt seemed more impressed than Scott. ¡°Oh wow, hi. Are they going to have another season of¡­¡± Zaliha interrupted him with an annoyed glance and a sharp elbow. Matt blushed and looked a bit embarrassed. Zaliha answered, ¡°Yes. There is a party for employees in another section of Proteus which Barry labeled the ¡®Reindeer¡¯ party. One is mainly for business clients at our beach house, Barry calls this the ¡®Elf¡¯ party.¡± ¡°So this must be the ¡®Santa¡¯ party. Which one are you heading to?¡± Tracy asked. Matt and Scott exchanged glances. ¡°Elf¡±. ¡°Reindeer¡±. Zaliha giggled a bit. ¡°I think Matt is tolerant of our friend Barry¡¯s antics. I guess we¡¯re going to the party at the house. Maybe you could keep Scott company at the employee party, so he doesn¡¯t show up alone like a loser?¡± Scott gave her the evil eye but didn¡¯t argue. ¡°Sure!¡± Tracy smiled. Scott wondered if he should be worried.
Scott and Tracy were the only passengers in the small submarine heading towards the original section of Proteus. Their pilot kept quiet with a nod to Scott. ¡°This place is amazing! I can¡¯t believe you guys built all this in a year.¡± Tracy gushed, her eyes wide admiring the towers, elevators and farms illuminated by the decorative lights and the soft glow of hangar entrances on the seafloor. ¡°It is hard to believe. Having the right people let us get farther than I would have ever imagined when we started all this.¡± Scott said, taking a moment to appreciate just how much his life had changed from the socially awkward nerd with no money and average grades. Now he was in a submarine with a famous actress, and she seemed impressed with him. ¡°I have to admit, I saw that video of you throwing some soldier through a doorway. It kind of blew up on Social. All these people were speculating about whether it was a fake and other nonsense. I hate to admit this, but I had a bit of a crush on that other guy in the video.¡± Tracy admitted with a slight blush. ¡°Dammit! Carl always gets the girls,¡° Scott protested, but he was in a good mood and laughed it off. ¡°Yeah, well it died down until a week ago someone connected this 50 billion dollar deal with a mysterious company in Mexico. People matched your name and picture between both stories. I got a bit caught up in the whole thing, as people were making up stories about you and guessing how many billions you had. There are at least a few ladies on the internet who want to know more about the action hero billionaire. When I was invited to your party, my agent begged me to get my picture taken with you.¡± Tracy explained. Scott was disappointed, realizing Tracy¡¯s interest was likely just for publicity. ¡°Oh, I guess that¡¯s not a problem. I can get you a picture with Carl too, if you want.¡± Scott said, his tone cooling. ¡°Um, no! That''s not why I wanted to come here,¡± Tracy explained, noticing his reaction. ¡°Look, you don¡¯t know me, but I¡¯m honestly just excited to see all this. I¡¯m not some gold digger or anything. You don¡¯t seem to know who I am, but I have my own money and don¡¯t have a problem getting boyfriends. Yuck, that sounded like bragging. I¡¯m a bit nervous. I meet all these famous people, but it still happens sometimes.¡± Tracy¡¯s words came out a bit quickly. Scott realized he had been unfair. ¡°Right, sorry. I can¡¯t really get my head around the idea that I¡¯m famous now, and then immediately assuming the worst. I¡¯m not very good at normal social interaction,¡± Scott explained. Even saying this he noticed the lack of the usual nerves and weirdness that crippled him when talking to attractive women. Was this another effect of Melinda¡¯s brain surgery? ¡°Not sure if I believe that, but OK. I saw you talking with a couple US Senators, the CEO of a tech company, and an Oscar winning actress. You looked completely confident the whole time!¡± Tracy laughed. That was who he had just talked to at the party? They had seemed so interested in asking him questions, he never really learned much about them. ¡°OK, maybe I didn¡¯t know who they were. All the social skills were on their end!¡± Scott protested, but he didn¡¯t hate that she had been watching him. ¡°Sure¡­ so I have to ask.¡± Tracy began. ¡°Yes?¡± Scott prompted. ¡°Melinda White is CEO of all these companies, and you are one of the main owners. You must work with her a lot. She sounds totally amazing, and she is gorgeous! Is there anything going on between the two of you?¡± ¡°Ewwww!¡± Scott replied, ¡°She¡¯s more like a grandmother to me.¡± Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. OK, there was ONE time Scott had admired a woman from across the pool until she turned around, and it was Melinda with a new hairstyle and bathing suit. He had nearly thrown up his lunch. Stupid hormones, and stupid Spa treatments making old ladies look hot! Tracy tilted her head to the side. ¡°Huh? She only looks a few years older than you. That¡¯s a weird thing to say.¡± ¡°Right, sorry. I met her a while ago. Kind of a long story, but I can¡¯t forget how she looked when I first met her. She¡¯s older than my parents, and used to look rough. She¡¯s also a bit crazy.¡± Scott began to explain. ¡°Seems like you are being too hard on her. Are you guys in some kind of power struggle?¡± Tracy asked. ¡°Oh gosh no! Melinda is the best! Now I sound crazy.¡± Scott said frantically, realizing he didn¡¯t want this girl thinking he was a jerk. ¡°Right, so she¡¯s a genius and looks great now because of medical treatments she invented with our friend, Elsa Pittman. Melinda and I have a weird relationship. I love her like family, but she¡¯s always trying to kidnap me for strange medical procedures. I don''t even know why I¡¯m telling you all this!¡± Scott trailed off nervously. Tracy¡¯s lips curled into a smile, ¡°I can tell there is a long story here, but maybe you can tell me later. I think we are nearly there.¡± She pointed to an airlock hangar opening in front of them. Taking the elevator from the hangar, the couple entered the large open space of the second level of the original Proteus section. Hundreds of people were spread out in small groups while a large cluster was damaging the grass in the park with energetic dancing around a small stage with dueling DJs. The entertainers had elaborate outfits and one looked familiar. With half his face covered in a robotic mask and two extra robot arms flipping records, it was Phillip, one of the robotics experts that worked with Matt. The party was livelier than the dignified event in luxury Tower One. The average age looked younger, although Scott knew that was deceptive with all the Spa employees who had taken advantage of heavy employee discounts. ¡°This place is amazing!¡± Tracy looked around, breathless. The area was in nighttime mode, with various shops and businesses lit up around the edge of the park. The sky had an ultrahigh resolution projection of the night sky, but it looked like the sky would appear without light pollution. They had finished the pond earlier that month, and more than a few people were already swimming in various stages of undress. The park had fast-growing tropical plants and flowers, defining a number of paths throughout. The trees were unimpressive, but Scott could tell they were growing quickly. ¡°It¡¯s coming along nicely. I live on the level above, and my offices are below. I usually eat on this level a few times a week,¡± Scott explained. ¡°When I heard people lived underwater, I was picturing some drab cabins like you have on the inner parts of cruise ships. This place is nice! Do you mind if I take some pictures?¡± Tracy asked. ¡°Sure, that¡¯s great. You already warned me your publicist wanted you to be seen with me.¡± Scott replied. He figured he should try to get used to being a celebrity. ¡°Oh, I didn¡¯t mean you needed to be in them. That would be great if you wanted, but I just figured I¡¯d take a few selfies to prove I was actually here.¡± Tracy looked embarrassed, but also excited. Scott was about to respond, but he noticed Angela Stein approaching. She was a successful venture capitalist and Melinda¡¯s best friend. Their relationship had become more relaxed and friendly the past few months, so Scott greeted her with a smile. ¡°Hi Scott! Sorry to interrupt, but I¡¯m a fan of Ms. Grey. Melinda and I watch her show together every week. I¡¯m Angela Stein, I¡¯m one of Scott¡¯s business partners.¡± Angela flashed a dazzling smile at Tracy. ¡°Nice to meet you!¡± Tracy said graciously. She might have inched a little closer to Scott, perhaps feeling threatened by Angela¡¯s dark beauty. ¡°Scott, are all your co-workers gorgeous?¡± Tracy asked. ¡°Umm sort of. Elsa¡¯s Spa does great work, but Angela has always looked good.¡± Scott awkwardly answered the question, but the look Angela gave him indicated he hadn¡¯t completely screwed up. ¡°Scott¡¯s right about that Spa. Tracy, you can get by on your looks now, but there will be a lot more competition soon for acting jobs. You might want to consider another career in the next ten years.¡± Angela said. Scott wondered if Tracy would be offended, but she seemed to brush it off. ¡°I see what you mean. There are so many pretty people here, and so exotic with their hair, eyes and skin colors. It reminds me of some of the Hollywood parties I¡¯ve been to, except without all the creepy old dudes.¡± Tracy was staring around, taking it all in. Angela laughed, ¡°The creepy old dudes are still here. They just look better.¡± She gave a pointed look at Carl who was entertaining several young ladies with another of his exaggerated stories. Tracy followed Angela¡¯s gaze and her face lit up. ¡°Oh my god, it¡¯s that guy! He¡¯s in a bunch of memes. I¡¯ve even seen people wearing them on tee shirts.¡± She pulled out her phone and after a few clicks showed the screen to Scott and Angela. There was a picture of an incident Scott remembered well. Carl, muscles bulging, was running while carrying five hundred pounds of Theo¡¯s computer servers. The caption said ¡®I work in I.T.¡¯ Angela giggled a bit and Scott rolled his eyes. ¡°You¡¯ve got to be kidding me! I really hope they don¡¯t have any of those with me.¡± Seeing Tracy¡¯s look, he sighed. ¡°They do, right?¡± She laughed, ¡°Of course. You¡¯re famous now, but Carl¡¯s are better. Sorry!¡± Tracy blushed a bit and looked away. ¡°Can I meet him?¡± Scott groaned but laughed. ¡°Sure, why not?¡± They walked over. Scott could hear Carl¡¯s story winding down. ¡°Then I punched the Mexican general in the face and all the troops surrendered.¡± That wasn¡¯t even close to what happened! Scott thought Carl must have grown tired telling his usual stories, and now he was just making stuff up. ¡°Oh hey Scotty!¡± Carl greeted him, without a hint of shame. ¡°Who is your lovely friend?¡± ¡°Hi Carl, I¡¯m sure we¡¯ve met before,¡± Angela interrupted with a laugh. ¡°I¡¯m kidding, this is Tracy Grey, the actress.¡± ¡°Nice!¡± Carl said. ¡°I¡¯m still working my way through all the 90s movies, so I probably haven¡¯t seen your work. I didn¡¯t want to skip ahead.¡± Tracy looked puzzled at the odd comment, but she was amused at the chance to talk to such an odd character. ¡°It¡¯s nice to meet you, Carl. There are some wild stories going around about you, but it sounds like the truth is even more interesting.¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m not even allowed to talk about half of it!¡± Carl looked like he was about to start. ¡°Did you know I¡¯m actually a cyborg?¡± Scott groaned, ¡°Tracy, I¡¯m going to go walk around a bit. I¡¯ll see you later.¡± Scott had spent enough time with Carl that he realized their friendship worked better in small doses. Tracy seemed conflicted, but Angela followed him. As the left, Angela added, ¡°Tracy, come find us later. I had business I wanted to discuss with Scott.¡± They walked away from the Carl fan club. Scott waved to a few other security guys and some of his game company employees, but he didn¡¯t intrude on their conversations. Instead, he asked Angela, ¡°I thought you would be at the beach house party with your small business partners. Or else at the VIP tower hanging out with Melinda. Can I ask why you are hanging out here?¡± ¡°Sure, I started out at the house. A lot of the people there see me as their boss, so I made an appearance, but didn¡¯t want to ruin their fun. People are just more relaxed at a party if management leaves early. As for the VIP group, I have no interest in getting hit on by a bunch of dirty old politicians. Melinda and Nadia can handle it.¡± Angela explained. ¡°So, I noticed you weren¡¯t hanging out with Adriana. Tracy seems interested. I¡¯m curious if she is more than just a pretty face.¡± Angela pulled up the limited version of Glitch_HR she used, which was a product of a company that she started as a partnership with Scott. Angela had insisted that Glitch_HR was not a professional sounding name, so their HR software company had been branded as Hirys. The software avoided the obvious use of illegally gathered data, but it was still powerful. Solomon had shut down the mobile version of Glitch_HR, explaining it was a major security risk, but they kept the platform for Hirys which had extra code limiting the information shared. Angela was looking at Tracy Grey¡¯s skill ratings. ¡°She¡¯s got potential in marketing and publicity. She could also make a decent politician. Her acting skills are good, as expected. She can also sing, but not well enough to make a career of it.¡± ¡°Are you really running a background check on my date?¡± Scott asked. ¡°She¡¯s your date now?¡± Angela replied with a smirk. ¡°She didn¡¯t mind ditching you for Carl.¡± ¡°Anyway, you said you had business to talk about?¡± Scott prompted. He snuck a glance at the group of women listening to Carl and made eye contact with Tracy. She looked at Carl and rolled her eyes, which gave him a warm feeling. ¡°Right, so I came to this section of the party to poach some of your employees.¡± Angela admitted. ¡°There are so many here that want to take a piece of your technology and use it to start businesses in other locations. Some Spa workers who want to try and get government approval for one or more procedures here, so they could set up clinics in Mexico City. One of your construction workers wants to buy robots and start a quick service restaurant chain. One woman explained that she wants to program a line of robots that collect, sort and fold laundry. Another man wants to license some of our aquatic plants and start an underwater farm near his family¡¯s town on the Pacific coast.¡± ¡°How did you hear about all this in one evening?¡± Scott was impressed. He didn¡¯t know so many of their workers were so entrepreneurial. A number had started local businesses in Proteus, but it sounded like a lot more had interest. ¡°Oh, I¡¯ve been talking to people for months. You know I¡¯m helping several dozen local businesses, but they are just normal businesses using Hirys. Most are doing pretty well and selling a lot of goods and services to Proteus and Merida, but we haven¡¯t scratched the surface of licensing other Genysis tech.¡± Angela grew animated, waving her hands and speaking more quickly. ¡°Well, I¡¯m not really the person to talk to about licensing. Did Melinda turn you down?¡± Scott asked cautiously. ¡°Oh no. I¡¯m not trying to go around Melinda. She¡¯s in favor of all this. I can¡¯t believe you think I¡¯d go behind my best friend¡¯s back!¡± Angela glared, ¡°No, now I¡¯m not sure if I want to talk to you about this.¡± ¡°Hey, sorry!¡± Scott apologized. ¡°I don¡¯t really know you as well as Melinda, and just wanted to make sure I wasn¡¯t undermining her.¡± ¡°Ok I guess. Right, so most of my capital is already deployed, and I need some more investors. I thought I¡¯d offer you a chance to participate now that you are rich. I¡¯m offering a 20% interest in my new fund for $2 billion. I wanted to give you the first option because I thought it would motivate you to support the new companies if you had a stake.¡± Angela explained. ¡°That¡¯s a lot of money. I guess I could sell some of my car company shares,¡± Scott was having trouble getting his head around being rich enough that someone would just ask him for two billion at a party. ¡°Don¡¯t be silly. You¡¯d be crazy to sell those shares now. They are going to buy Hirys software and have a deal for fusion powered cars. That stock will double in six months. Just borrow the money from a bank. You can put up the shares as collateral if you want, but based on your income and assets, you shouldn¡¯t need to.¡± Angela was looking at Scott like he was an idiot. ¡°Didn¡¯t the banks just freeze our accounts because the US said we were terrorists? Why would they loan me money?¡± Scott couldn¡¯t wrap his head around the idea. ¡°So, that was all cleared up, and it¡¯s easy to show that $2 billion is small change for you, so they¡¯ll loan the money. Banks are quick to freeze assets when you deposit a few million, but if you owe them billions, they will fight hard to keep your accounts open. I guess that sounds strange to you, but it¡¯s how they think. Also, I happen to know what the dividend checks Melinda is handing out this quarter will look like, so I think the bank will not be worried about your ability to pay back the loan.¡± Angela had calmed down, but now she had a predatory look watching Scott. ¡°I thought between the blockade and the US banning trade with us, we wouldn¡¯t have made much this quarter.¡± Scott protested, ¡°Shouldn¡¯t Melinda be saving any profits in case our companies need reserves?¡± ¡°First, you guys made a ton in the first half. If she doesn¡¯t pay out profits, the company just pays more in taxes. Most of your US contracts were still finished and paid. Technically, they didn¡¯t have an official complaint about Adrianna¡¯s company, just some of the owners and employees. The bureaucracy just rolled onwards, despite all the political posturing and drama.¡± Angela continued, ¡°The Spa took a hit, but you probably don¡¯t understand just how much business they did before the blockade. Also, since a lot of their customers were trapped here, they just went ahead and cut the line for additional work. The biggest hit was Trinidad''s company, but they should be up and running full speed next quarter with their new factory inside Proteus. Even with their factory destroyed and the expense of rebuilding, they still turned a small profit. Your companies have crazy profit margins to shrug off all the crap that happens around here.¡± ¡°OK, so you¡¯re saying we¡¯re getting some more big checks. Melinda handed out envelopes and gift baskets at the last Christmas party. I guess this time she had something else in mind?¡± Scott asked. He wasn¡¯t worried about money anymore, but it was always nice to get a big check or five. ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s been too busy to deal with party favors and planning all this was rushed. Sometimes I wish Melinda had more flair for the dramatic, but I think she just sent the amounts through payroll and had an assistant send everyone in the company an email with their bonus. Pretty lame, but I don¡¯t think people will complain much when they see the amount.¡± Scott decided to check his email. There was an email from Melinda simply titled ¡®Bonus¡¯. She really phoned it in. A link to his pay stub gave itemized numbers and taxes withheld. All boring except¡­ ¡°1.5 billion pesos?!¡± Scott eyed the total. At the current exchange rate and after a large amount of taxes, this was still over $70 million dollars. A group nearby seemed to have overheard part of the conversations, and before long, many people were pulling out phones and checking emails. The mood at the party seemed to be getting very excited. ¡°You probably shouldn¡¯t be saying things like that too loud,¡± Angela laughed. ¡°I mean, everyone here knows you make the big bucks, but most people here aren¡¯t even millionaires.¡± ¡°Hey Scott!¡± Tracy had walked back over. ¡°Everyone started checking their phones, and then they looked pretty happy. What¡¯s going on?¡± ¡°Oh, Melinda sent out quarter bonuses and I guess people just heard about it.¡± Scott answered, wondering how much the girl had heard. ¡°That¡¯s great! Are you guys done talking about business?¡± Tracy asked. ¡°I guess,¡± Scott said. ¡°Angela, I¡¯ll talk to the bank, but I¡¯m interested in investing in your fund. Please send me the details.¡± Tracy looked between the two business partners. ¡°So, are you just business partners or maybe something else too?¡± ¡°I wish,¡± Angela said, causing Scott to blush, ¡°No, Scott has a hangup about dating aggressive, older women.¡± Tracy looked between the two for a second, then shrugged. ¡°OK, I must be missing something here.¡± They walked off, finding a quieter spot on the other side of the pond. ¡°So is Angela like sixty years old or something? I can¡¯t tell at all with people around here!¡± Scott laughed, ¡°No, I think she¡¯s early forties. I probably would have gone on a date with her, but I was hung up on some other girl at the time. At this point, I¡¯m pretty happy just being business partners.¡± ¡°OK, I¡¯m going to try and find out how to get back to my hotel. It was really nice meeting you, Scott.¡± Tracy said. Scott¡¯s experience with women was extremely limited, so he wasn¡¯t sure if she was brushing him off or making an invitation. Did he just screw things up, mentioning he had been interested in another woman? ¡°Right, I guess you live in California, and I probably won¡¯t see you except on television. I¡¯d like to, but I would probably get arrested if I tried to visit.¡± Scott realized how pathetic he sounded. Tracy leaned forward and kissed him. It was over quickly, and Scott was too surprised to really enjoy it. ¡°That¡¯s OK. I had fun! Maybe I¡¯ll visit sometime.¡± She smiled and walked off, Scott¡¯s stomach fluttering. Whatever upgrades Melinda had made to his brain did not make him immune to this. Volume 2 - Chapter 20: Terrible After-party Alexey Lukina had been invited to the Vostochny Cosmodrome to witness the culmination of his efforts to restore his country as the premier world power. Russian scientists had improved the fusion design the Lukina had stolen. The device was 20% smaller but had nearly 50% more power input. They had made tradeoffs. It had greatly reduced durability and efficiency, but these factors were not important. The reduced weight allowed more flexibility with the cooling system, which allowed the first phase of the project to be completed a month ahead of schedule. He was proud of what Russian engineers had accomplished in such a short time. Alexey had heard an unknown young genius was promoted to run the project, skipping over a half dozen more senior and respected members of their special projects group. Though it was a surprise in the strongly conservative organization, most of the critics had been quieted when the results exceeded their expectations. Not only was the project delivered ahead of schedule, but they produced two functional weapons instead of just one prototype. This would allow them to attack aggressively from the start and provide some defense against counterattacks. Their weapon would be short-lived. It could fire in ten-minute intervals for about one hour before needing twice as long to radiate excess heat. The magnets were expected to fail after about a week if they followed the recommended rate of fire. If they shortened the cooling times, it would reduce the lifespan to as little as two days. Their target list included some spy satellites, Nato air bases, missile silos (or missiles in the air if needed). They even planned to hit the President and the Pentagon with the first two shots, assuming the launch went as planned. This would cause the confusion needed to rapidly overwhelm the US strategic response, and they could overrun most of Europe in weeks. In two days, the world order would be overturned and his life¡¯s work complete. Alexey watched with joy as the first rocket launched. Everything was working as designed. The weapon detached from their rocket as it entered the carefully planned orbit that would take it over their enemy. As the second rocket launched, the excited atmosphere grew a bit strained. The trajectory of the second rocket was diverging from the plan. Alexey had admitted there was a chance one of their launches or devices could fail. They had contingencies in place, but the overwhelming strike would lose some of its impact, and their dreams of a quick victory faded. The reality would now be a more challenging path. His irritation was compounded by a lot of yelling that could be heard throughout the room. The General in charge of their grand strategy was pointing out the implication of this failure to the Cosmodrome Director. ¡°Sir, the second weapon is charging to fire.¡± A technician spoke up. ¡°What? The first target is in Germany. It¡¯s 8000 miles away. What is it firing at?!¡± The General, his face red, paled a bit. Their weapon was over the far Eastern part of Russia, closer to Japan and China than Europe. Alexey had a sinking feeling. Then, with a bright flash, the control center was gone.
Scott was pleased the next day to wake up without a hangover. He checked his phone and saw that there were missed calls and a text from Melinda that he should contact her as soon as possible. As he was dialing, a loud knocking started at his door. Alarmed, Scott got up and checked the camera to see one of the Security personnel outside. ¡°Hello, what¡¯s going on?¡± Scott asked, opening the door. ¡°We¡¯re spread thin right now. A lot of people are hung over, so I¡¯m going door to door,¡± the guard announced, speaking quickly. ¡°Since you are up, please call your boss and get ready quickly. We were notified of a Russian space launch less than an hour ago.¡± The man announced, then quickly left and started banging on the next door. Scott rushed inside, took a few minutes to get ready, then called Melinda. ¡°Are we under attack?¡± Scott asked immediately. ¡°I¡¯m too busy to talk long,¡± Melinda replied, sounding stressed. ¡°We¡¯re evacuating the surface facilities. We don¡¯t know their orbital path, but they could be in range right now or in several hours. Nadia thinks they took a slightly higher orbit, so they could hit more targets in the Eastern Hemisphere. We don¡¯t have good data, but contacts in the US said the military is going on high alert. I have to go, so please don¡¯t go anywhere until we know more.¡± With that, Melinda hung up on him. Scott decided to check up on his friends. Most had stayed out late for the parties. He was especially concerned that Barry and Elsa had been at the beach house and spent the night there. He was unable to contact either of them. Most of his other friends were in Proteus. He went to the transportation hub and saw the gondola cars were filled with people he didn¡¯t recognize, moving over from the main house. He saw Angela nearby talking on her phone. When she saw him, she held up a finger. A few seconds later, she had finished her call and came to talk with him. ¡°Scott! We had a lot of guests sleeping off hangovers at the house, and it¡¯s been slow-going getting them out. We only had four guards over there. The robots are not programmed for evacuating drunks, and our robotics programmers were passed out and difficult to wake up this morning. The guards have just been hauling people into the gondola cars. Some guests are not cooperating, and we don¡¯t know how much time is left.¡± ¡°Do you know if they evacuated Barry and Elsa?¡± Scott asked about his friends. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen them come in. We just started having people arrive. There are probably two hundred they need to move.¡± Scott paused for a second. In theory, if everyone was awake and cooperative, they could evacuate the house in about fifteen minutes. The first few cars would include the people who had not drunk too much or could function hungover. Once they had to start hauling people who were refusing to move or fighting against them, the guards would only be able to load a few people per car. It could take an hour to clear out. Scott had a suspicion that Barry would be one of the difficult drunks. Scott made what he hoped was not a stupid decision and entered one of the touring submarines. ¡°Scott! You need to stay here. It¡¯s too dangerous to go back there.¡± Angela called frantically. He ignored her, shut the hatch and sped towards the shore. His hands were sweaty, but he was not as terrified as he should be. It was the stupid brain adjustments. Scott¡¯s normal fear response would have made sure he avoided something this dumb, but Melinda¡¯s surgery had reduced it just enough that he was about to get himself killed. Scott almost turned around right away when he realized why he had made the decision. Still, there is a certain momentum to bad decisions. Before Scott could convince himself to turn around and admit his mistake, he was nearly to the underground submarine dock near the beach house. Not knowing if he had one minute or an hour, Scott looked around. The gondola cars were nearby and a few people boarding looked at him in surprise. A security guard, looking exhausted, ran in from outside carrying a man who must have weighed 250 pounds and was struggling. The guard shoved the man into the car, and some of the other passengers helped hold him in as the door shut and the car accelerated. The inverted gondola had a clever system where the cars never stopped moving, but at the loading and unloading point they rose above the water and slowed down to about one mile per hour or less. As the cars reached neutral buoyancy on the surface, the cable no longer gripped the hooked arm below the cabin. At this point, they were moved slowly around a semicircular loading area by pumped water currents. A platform alongside allowed passengers to walk along and step into the slowly moving cars. Once the doors closed, they would re-engage the cable and get pulled beneath the water and accelerate quickly to roughly eight times their speed on the loading platform. The guard, breathing hard, yelled at Scott, ¡°What are you doing? We need to get people out of here!¡± The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Scott started up the ramp to the outside, yelling. ¡°I¡¯m here to help evacuate. I¡¯ll leave soon.¡± The last thing he needed was the guard trying to wrestle him into one of the cars. Scott might lose most of his sparring matches with the guards, but there was no way they could force him in their current state. ¡°Fine!¡± the guard Caesaro must have come to the same conclusion. ¡°We have cleared out most of the cooperative people who heard us yelling. There are stragglers passed out by the pool, in the yard, and locked in some of the rooms who we need to carry out.¡± ¡°Have you seen Barry?¡± Scott asked. He didn¡¯t even feel guilty prioritizing his friend over a bunch of people he didn¡¯t know. ¡°Sorry, not yet.¡± Caesaro, went over to a man curled up under a table on the patio and started dragging him out. Scott didn¡¯t wait and charged into the house. His guess was that Barry would have passed out early and probably was moved to one of the rooms with Elsa there to keep an eye on him. Scott saw a guard banging on locked doors, yelling for people to open up. ¡°We don¡¯t have time for that!¡± Scott growled. He kicked the door as hard as he could, and his foot went right through the painted aluminum. In the movies they always flew open, but now he was standing on one foot with his other stuck through a door, looking like a fool. He painfully pulled his leg out, getting a large gash from a jagged piece of the metal. The guard looked at him, torn between concern and trying not to laugh. Scott reached through the hole and unlocked the door. There were four people inside, two in a bed and two with blankets on the floor. He didn¡¯t recognize them. One woman was awake with headphones on, playing with her phone. When she saw them enter, she gave a little scream. ¡°Not the people I¡¯m looking for,¡± Scott said to the guard. ¡°Please get them out.¡± Scott realized this was taking too long and once again considered leaving. He thought, I¡¯ll just check one more room. The next closed door, he kicked again. This time he aimed for the thicker part near the handle and lock. The door bent in, not opening, but at least his foot wasn¡¯t stuck. He slammed into the warped door with his shoulder, and it opened with a squeal. The door struck someone on the floor, who had been lying nearby. ¡°Ow!¡± the man complained. It was Barry! Looking around the room, Scott saw a disgusting pile of plates with half-eaten food, and dozens of partially filled cups and bottles. There were five other people in the room. Three were awake, holding their heads and complaining bitterly. Two sleepers looked like they had ear plugs, including Elsa. The sleepers were in better shape, and they managed to get the group moving. Scott was frustrated by the slow pace, eyeing the sky nervously. He almost lost it when a girl started walking the other direction, claiming she had to pee. Scott started shoving people. He was half carrying Barry with one arm and dragging the complaining bathroom break girl with the other. It took about five minutes before they arrived at the dock. While he was gone, someone had entered his sub and was curled up on the floor, passed out. There was a nasty smell inside, and a small puddle of something he didn¡¯t want to identify. This caused the bathroom break girl to freak out and start fighting his attempt to get her in the sub. Scott was tempted to just let her leave, but instead punched her in the jaw, knocking her out before tossing her inside. The others looked at him in shock, but he didn¡¯t care. He had just hit a woman, and she would probably sue him for a few million, but Scott was more concerned they were about to be flash fried by an orbital laser. He shoved everyone else in, probably more violently than necessary, as a couple bickered about which one would have to sit near the smelly guy. Finally, the hatch closed on an angry group of people, some of whom were piled uncomfortably on the floor. Scott shoved his way to the pilot''s seat, then headed out at maximum speed. After five more minutes, the passengers had sorted themselves out and were now mostly organized enough to complain to Scott about his rough treatment. Elsa tried to calm them down and prevent them from interfering with his driving. They pressed her hard until Scott heard a few thumps and the sound of fists smacking into flesh rapidly. ¡°Idiots!¡± Elsa complained. The complaints had been replaced with a few moans, and one guy complaining about how she had broken his arm. Scott should have known Elsa would have upgrades. She didn¡¯t look bulky and over-muscled like him, but the improvements she had were more than enough to overpower a few angry drunks. She sat down in the seat next to him. ¡°I probably shouldn¡¯t admit that was fun.¡± Elsa glared back at the subdued passengers. She didn¡¯t have any martial arts training, but their passengers had made a mistake challenging the boss of a company that created super soldiers. As they approached the Proteus hangar, there was a bright flash from above. The submarine was slammed into the sea floor. Scott was dazed for a few seconds. Elsa had not been wearing a seatbelt and slammed into the ceiling with the impact. Their passengers were in worse condition. Several had not been strapped in and were flung around with the impact. Unlike Elsa, they did not have an upgraded bone structure. Scott could see arms and legs bent at odd angles. One passenger had blood coming from an ear and he wasn¡¯t moving. Four passengers including Barry had been strapped in. They had taken only minor injuries from the shockwave and others flying around. The submarine still functioned, but the hanger had been sealed from the inside with an emergency pressure door. Scott knew those doors would shut if there was damage that caused a leak. Regaining his focus, Scott looked around and saw a large chunk of metal narrowly miss the submarine before slamming into the ground. The water was cloudy with silt and sand that had been stirred up. Their dock platform had been destroyed, and it was collapsing to one side along with a crumpled elevator shaft. This in turn destroyed a good chunk of their farming lattice as it fell. The luxury towers looked unharmed. Scott took a breath while trying to decide his next move. He was eager to learn what was going on, but getting his passengers medical care was the first priority. Scott turned the sub around and headed towards a different entrance that was near the offshore Spa facilities. After a five-minute trip, he found the hangar airlock functional and entered inside. Several Spa employees helped take his passengers to the medical center. ¡°Scott, you probably saved our lives. I¡¯ll make sure they know these idiots know that.¡± Elsa said, clasping her hands. ¡°We made a big mistake trying to get back to normal. The Russians were much further along than we thought, and I have no idea what our other enemies are up to.¡± Scott looked away. The party had been Nadia¡¯s idea, although no one had protested much. They had been under so much pressure; everyone was desperate to think they could go back to normal. In hindsight, he wondered what she had been thinking. Scott called Melinda. ¡°Hello Scott, I was worried about you.¡± Melinda answered. ¡°We were in a submarine when something hit the docks right above us. Barry and Elsa are OK, but some other people were injured. I don¡¯t really know what happened and how many people were hurt.¡± ¡°The Russians managed to launch two weeks earlier than expected,¡± Melinda growled. ¡°Our communications with the outside world are down now, but we learned they first struck multiple targets in Russia and China.¡± ¡°How much did they destroy here? Do you know the details?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Yes. You saw they blew up our floating docks. They also hit our beach house. Again! They must not have known about the location of the artificial island or spaceport. The SpaceX rocket was unharmed. We just moved the rocket to the new island, and they must not have known about it. Seems like they have been operating from old information and satellite pictures.¡± Melinda paused, seeming to be waiting on another conversation. Melinda continued, ¡°I don¡¯t know if they hit our farm or the Xibalba tunnel pyramids. Our communications outside the base are fried. We¡¯re running an antenna, so hopefully we can get information soon. There are other people trying to talk to me now, so I¡¯m going to let you go.¡± Melinda hung up on Scott. Scott helped where he could, then was kicked out of the facility to let the doctors and nurses do their work. He eventually found Barry sitting outside their security office. ¡°Man, our party last year was so much better,¡± Barry said with a lame attempt at humor. ¡°Do we know if everyone made it out of the house?¡± Scott asked, not in the mood for Barry¡¯s nonsense. ¡°Yeah, I haven¡¯t heard much. The gondola cable snapped, and the cars floated to the surface. Some people already went out to rescue them. They should have a better idea if any of the people were still there. I feel bad about our complaining and fighting when you were rescuing us.¡± Barry said. ¡°No one likes to get dragged out of bed after a party. I lost my patience a bit there but hope anyone I hurt will forgive me.¡± Scott admitted. ¡°Are you kidding? You saved our lives. If anyone gives you crap, I¡¯ll send Elsa to beat them up.¡± Barry chuckled darkly. Apparently, he had seen what his girlfriend did on the submarine. As the day went on, Scott learned that the floating dock had been hit first and was already fully evacuated. The large explosion provided warning for the people evacuating the beach house. There were about ten minutes between blasts. The Russian weapon required time to charge up as expected. The guards never made it to the gondola before the second strike. Eventually, when communications were up, they learned that the guards had kicked and dragged ten people out of the house and made it far enough that they only suffered some bruises and ruptured eardrums. Much later, when digging through the wreckage, they learned three people never made it out. Volume 2 - Chapter 21: New Plans Over the next few days, the world was in turmoil in the aftermath of the Russian attacks. All day, the news feeds were obsessed with speculation about the confusing events. While the Russians had built and launched the orbital weapon, the first targets had included their president¡¯s residence in Novo-Ogaryovo and the Moscow Senate. They had even destroyed their own mission control center. The satellite had proceeded to hit a range of sites in Russia and China. These weren¡¯t officially reported, but satellite pictures were leaked, and it was widely speculated that ICBM silos from both countries had been hit. Combined with strikes against an isolated area in East Texas and three strikes on the Yucat¨¢n had the media scrambling for a plausible explanation. The other Yucat¨¢n strike had targeted their abandoned inland factory. There were no casualties here. The equipment had already been destroyed or removed in advance of the Mexican army moving in, which indicated the attacks had acted on outdated intelligence. For the leaders of the Genysis companies, the explanation was clear. SPAI had accelerated the Russian weapons program and taken over the controls. This had allowed them to hit Russia, Genysis and the Texas rebellion. As an added bonus, they hit China in a way that pushed them towards conflict with Russia, but regardless weakened their nuclear arsenal as a deterrent. Scott doubted China¡¯s leadership would be fooled, but it was troubling that another world power was now involved in the conflict. SPAI¡¯s playbook seemed to be causing chaos, then promoting leaders it could manipulate to grab power. The Texas rebellion now had a second robotics facility buried and out of action for weeks. One facility was unharmed, but they didn¡¯t have assets in place to prevent a second artillery attack. In the Yucat¨¢n, they were limited to underwater exits and the Xibalba tunnel. They could finish paving the tunnel, but the secret was exposed, as they had used it to evacuate some of the VIP guests. Without port facilities, finishing their own spaceport would also be delayed. The only good news was that Russia was unlikely to launch another satellite. Their military had arrested anyone involved with the project who survived the orbital strike. SPAI would be sure to soon create improved orbital weapons launched by NASA, starting from the plans the Russians had developed. Nadia might have guessed this was months away, but after her previous mistake, she was hesitant to make a prediction. She was avoiding meetings, upset that her miscalculation had resulted in the deaths of three people, and probably feeling outmatched by the ruthless AI. Scott had asked everyone to meet up to discuss their situation. ¡°I don¡¯t understand why no one is blaming the Americans for all this!¡± Adrianna complained. ¡°Not true. There are some European and Middle Eastern news agencies speculating the US is involved. Also, some of the internet news sites that are labeled as fringe have a reasonably accurate guess about what is happening. One US journalist speculated about who would benefit from these attacks, and the next day she was in the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia.¡± Matt added. He had been scanning the new sites nearly constantly since they regained internet access. ¡°So Nadia is depressed, and Melinda is overwhelmed trying to rebuild and dealing with various business and political contacts who are freaking out. We can¡¯t count on them to come up with our next move. Any ideas?¡± Scott asked. ¡°What can we even do? Our docks are destroyed, so we can¡¯t ship in the equipment to finish our spaceport. Marcus has his hands full in Texas just surviving, and we can¡¯t contact him for advice. What can we even do?¡± Zaliha asked, clearly disappointed they had lost the space race. ¡°Let¡¯s list our resources, maybe we can still do something,¡± Elsa said, spreading her hands and gesturing while she spoke. ¡°We have two submarines and some decent security forces intact. Most of our mining and construction robots were unharmed. We have 2 small cargo ships and a medium-sized carrier cargo ship. Let¡¯s not forget we have this underwater base and great technology. There has to be something we can do with all that!¡± ¡°We have talented people, and some allies. We also have money. If people woke up, they wouldn¡¯t want a demented AI running their country.¡± Barry added. Scott decided to speak up, ¡°I think we still need to get our space program running. Can we ship in equipment somewhere else and move it through Xibalba? We need to hit SPAI somehow. It needs internet and server farms. Surely there are locations we can attack that would cause it trouble. Finally, we are always struggling against bad media coverage. Can¡¯t we just buy a media company and get our own story out?¡± Several people replied at once to Scott¡¯s suggestions. He reluctantly shouted everyone down. Since when was he supposed to be a leader? Scott tried very hard to hire other people to handle this kind of thing. Pointing to Matt, he indicated, ¡°You first.¡± ¡°We have Rafael¡¯s aerial drones and our laser mount air trucks. If we start cranking out drones, we can expand the area we control. Our mid-range control signals and paired encryption should be nearly impossible for SPAI to hack. If we build up for a week, we might be able to challenge US Air power and defenses in a few regions near the Gulf coast. We would have to pause construction projects to reserve time on the parts printers and robot factories. Zaliha can help get the vehicle factory up and running for the air trucks.¡± Matt offered. Adriana responded, ¡°I think we¡¯re OK with slowing down on mining and housing projects, but we need to finish the roads to Xibalba. I would also recommend we finish the alternate exit near our destroyed factory.¡± Matt answered, ¡°We can repurpose some of the existing mining robots. We have a large stockpile of metals already. Our mining and foundries have stayed far ahead of our ability to transport and sell.¡± Scott spoke up, ¡°OK, you three work that out and give Melinda a recommendation. Elsa, did you have something to add?¡± ¡°Um. I¡¯m assuming you guys don¡¯t want to use bioweapons?¡± Several people responded with a strong negative. ¡°Right, I mean, I think we can do some quick upgrades to the Texas people. We could set up a facility on one of our ships and park it off the coast. If you could protect it from attacks, we could upgrade a few hundred troops in a couple of weeks. We could also deliver a shipment of armor and weapons.¡± ¡°Would making them stronger really matter that much?¡± Scott asked skeptically. He knew that his upgrades helped, but two weeks and a risky mission didn¡¯t seem worthwhile. ¡°Just a thought. I have a new reflex package. Enhanced muscles and lung capacity can be finished in a short turn around with our new equipment. Enhanced eyesight takes longer unless you have some tissue samples in advance.¡± Elsa seemed distracted, thinking. ¡°I¡¯ve got some other stuff that would help, but it is not well tested or would take too long.¡± Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°What¡¯s this about reflexes?¡± Scott asked, interested. ¡°Oh, yeah. We figured out why Sergio is always beating everyone. Well, Carl was pretty much a tie last time they fought because he can take hits all day long.¡± Elsa remembered the bruised state both men were after their last spar. The fight had lasted for about 45 minutes before they declared it a draw. She read the medical reports after her test subjects fought, interested in how well various factors worked. Elsa usually only allowed certain versions of upgrades to different soldiers, so she could compare effectiveness. It was a limited sample size, but better than nothing. ¡°So¡­ besides decades of experience, why is he so good?¡± Scott asked, sensing Elsa¡¯s mind was already wandering. ¡°Oh, he has a mutation that makes his nerve signals travel about 5% faster. It was causing a heart condition that probably would have killed him in a few years. We played around in the lab and got it about 10% faster, but it killed our test animals when we introduced it through mRNA injections.¡± Elsa explained. ¡°That sounds terrible.¡± Adrianna protested. ¡°Right, well that was just an early attempt. Now we stop their heart, put them on artificial circulation, then inject smaller doses at the muscular, optic and auditory nerves. Keeping the heart alive was tricky, but we had already figured it out for another procedure. Anyway, our third test subject reported that it felt like everything around him was moving just a little slower. He¡¯s a few weeks into rehab, but reports say he is now beating everyone at ping pong.¡± Elsa explained proudly. ¡°OK, there is so much wrong with that.¡± Scott said, rubbing his forehead. ¡°I probably don¡¯t want to know what happened to the first and second test subjects. Also, you have one potential success and want to do this risky procedure on potentially dozens of people who aren¡¯t even working for us?¡± Barry interrupted, ¡°Dude, we don¡¯t have time for years of FDA approval or whatever. Elsa¡¯s tech works great, and if she thinks it¡¯s safe, I¡¯ll volunteer to test it. We need an advantage, and that sounds like it would help.¡± Naturally, Barry would defend his girlfriend. Also, he had a much higher tolerance for crazy. ¡°Actually, Scott is right. It¡¯s too time-consuming to do on the Texas recruits,¡± Elsa admitted. ¡°We have automation for some of the other treatments and could operate several times per hour, but this new process is still too manual and risky. I just mentioned it off because I¡¯m excited about it. ¡°Take a vote on upgrading with the relatively safe procedures?¡± Scott asked. Adrianna, Scott and Zaliha were against Elsa¡¯s plan. Barry and Matt were in favor. Barry jumped up, ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s a tie, so we win! You know mad Melinda is going to vote in favor.¡± Scott groaned, but he conceded. Barry had something else to add, ¡°So, my latest power unit will be perfect for powered armor. I can work with Phillip, and we can finish our prototypes. We put it on hold, but I think it would help if we really need to trash some tanks or artillery. It will protect a soldier out in the field who can give orders to a group of robots. You would have a huge mobility advantage in forest or urban terrain, and near immunity to small arms fire.¡± ¡°That would be helpful. How soon will it be ready to test?¡± Scott asked. ¡°We could have a version in a week if we skip the control software. Phillip said we can just plug it into Carl and patch his software. For normal people to use, it will be a few more months.¡± Barry explained. ¡°Sure, that could help.¡± Scott agreed. Once again, he realized everyone else had something important to do. No one needed his gaming or HR expertise right now. He would see if he could get Nadia to pull herself together and help them. Scott sometimes felt his job was mainly dealing with the messy, undefined tasks no one else wanted to deal with. At least it paid well.
Melinda had observed the meeting of the young owners but decided to let them work the problem without her interference. She was already working long hours just trying to keep things running in the aftermath of the attacks. Melinda had an idea for another brain surgery that would allow parts of her brain to sleep in different cycles. She could be active round the clock at reduced capacity, while one or two sections were always in a sleep cycle. It would help in situations where they needed to act quickly, but the surgery was dangerous even by her standards. The last thing they needed was for her to have a month-long coma and memory wipe during a crisis. Reluctantly, she had convinced herself to hold off on this. If only they could have a year or two without getting attacked by Russians living in the past or an insane AI. Her dream of setting up a base on the Atlantic ridge and a society that could ignore the idiocy of land bound governments seemed perpetually delayed. Plans to add cybernetic chips to core employees, also delayed. Even the underground golf course and artificial ski slope were now on hold. Melinda had never gone skiing or played golf. She intended to be awesome at both, even if she needed to borrow DNA from professional athletes. Would SPAI keep attacking if they all just sold off their companies and lived the billionaire life? With a sigh, she returned to work. The crazed AI might stop attacking them for a while, but it would just bump up others on the kill list until it controlled the entire world. Melinda wondered if that would even be so bad. There would be a massive loss of life initially, followed by world peace. Could a defective AI do a better job governing than the current defective human governments? Melinda snorted. She didn¡¯t want some psychopathic robot telling her what to do, any more than she wanted a well-meaning but incompetent government. She would still be a poor old homeless lady if she followed all their rules and regulations. Melinda and her friends had built everything around them, and she wasn¡¯t going to hand it over to anyone without a fight. She called Nadia. ¡°Hello?¡± the woman replied. ¡°Right, you need to snap out of it and stop moping. My kids are planning some harebrained schemes to recover from the latest attacks, so unless you want to have Scott fumbling around with a lame pep talk, I need you to take charge and make sure they don¡¯t mess everything up.¡± Melinda snapped. ¡°I just needed time to adjust my strategy. I wasn¡¯t moping.¡± Nadia said defensively. ¡°Exactly! Fake it till you make it!¡± Melinda said enthusiastically before continuing. ¡°I¡¯ll send you the video of their meeting. They had a couple decent ideas.¡± She hung up and called Scott. ¡°Hey Scott, don¡¯t bother Nadia right now. She¡¯s working on our strategy. I already passed on what you kids were planning.¡± ¡°OK. You could have just joined the meeting instead of spying.¡± Scott stammered. ¡°Nah, I like making people think I could be watching at any time. Keeps them on their toes. Plus, I am watching most of the time. I thought your little date with Tracy was sweet. Anyway, before you start moping about how everyone has more important jobs, I¡¯m just going to send you out in the field again.¡± ¡°What? Why do you keep sending me on these dangerous missions?¡± Scott complained. ¡°I never said it was dangerous, but you get points for your deductive skills.¡± Melinda gave a small evil laugh. ¡°Fine, what hellhole are you sending me to?¡± Scott asked with a sigh. ¡°Eventually Los Angeles, but first a quick trip to Thailand.¡± ¡°Oh crap.¡± Scott looked around and thought about making a run for it. He felt a sharp sting in his right gluteus maximus, followed by a familiar woozy feeling. Not. Again. Volume 2 - Chapter 22: A Few Upgrades Scott woke up in a pleasant hospital room that looked more like an expensive hotel suite in a tropical resort. It was a few seconds before he realized he was in the infamous Thailand facility where Melinda performed horrible experiments on human test subjects. He sat up in a panic, noticing he wasn¡¯t in any pain. A transparent human shape popped up in his vision with various areas highlighted. Scott rubbed his eyes hard, but the display had already disappeared. Noting that he could suppress his panic, Scott took a moment to process the idea that they had added some kind of computer to his brain, once again without his permission. While the old Scott would have freaked out, his new control of his fear and anger response allowed him to react calmly and rationally to the situation. ¡°MELINDA! GET THIS OUT OF MY HEAD!¡± OK, maybe not so calm. Scott was seeing red, but he also gained a massive headache as he had quickly overwhelmed his emotional restraints. The human shape popped up again, then zoomed in on his head. A transparent 3D image of a brain rotated to show a section highlighted in red. Scott realized it was warning him he was in danger of causing damage to several systems he didn¡¯t understand. There were small dots indicating devices embedded in various locations. He wasn¡¯t familiar with names like Left Amygdala Anterior Narthex, but he was sure he didn¡¯t like the idea of it getting fried. A nurse entered the room. Scott did a double take because she had a strong resemblance to a famous singer, except with an unnatural shade of yellow hair. The woman reached for him with a syringe in one hand. Her movements seemed to slow down slightly as Scott¡¯s had whipped out and caught her wrist. ¡°Scott, you are having a dangerous feedback effect. You need to let me give you this or there will be even more brain damage.¡± Scott did not like the sound of that at all. Even more brain damage? How much did he already have? However, Scott suffered from a common male weakness of letting attractive women persuade him too easily. He released her arm and presented his own. ¡°I¡¯m still angry about all this, but I don¡¯t want to fry my brain.¡± ¡°Please turn away and look at that picture on the wall.¡± The woman ordered. Scott looked to where she was pointing. Why did she want him to look away? Then he felt a sharp pain in the base of his neck. At this point, he would have flung the woman through the window, but he realized he could no longer control his arms or feel anything below his neck. Internally, he started to panic as his head drifted down to the pillow, the nurse seemed to be guiding him down with practiced ease. ¡°What are you doing¡­?¡± He started to ask but was asleep before he could finish.
Waking again, Scott felt a swaying motion and realized he was in a ship¡¯s cabin. This cabin was plainly furnished, with no exterior windows. A quick thought pulled up the strange screen which had an overview of various systems in his body. This time he didn¡¯t panic at the sight, but it was disturbing to see sections highlighted as he focused on them, with notes or sometimes various charts or graphs appearing nearby. Instead of yelling and risking another attack from a pop star nurse, Scott decided to look for his phone. Another window popped up in his view with a list of contacts. So he had a phone in his head now. It wasn¡¯t the worst feature. Scott realized he could send text messages, but not call people. His first message, ¡°Melinda, you¡¯ve gone too far this time. I¡¯m not sure how, but I will get you back for this.¡± Second, he sent a message to his dad. Scott wasn¡¯t sure which of his friends he could trust, so he would stick to family. ¡°Dad, I¡¯ve been kidnapped, and Melinda has done some kind of freakish experiment on me. I want to get away from this crazy company and maybe find somewhere to hide for a while.¡± Melinda responded first, ¡°Hey Scott, glad to hear you are awake again. We had some minor calibration issues, but we¡¯re past the dangerous part. You might need a few weeks to get used to the changes, but the operation was a success. You¡¯re angry with me, but that is good because I was worried we had damaged that part. Anyway, I promise no more upgrades to your brain without your consent. I worried I went too far that time, but we¡¯re kind of in a bad situation now, so I made a hard decision. Hope you will forgive me someday. After this mission, I¡¯ll do my best to make sure you can retire or take whatever vacation you need.¡± That sounded like Professor or Socialite Melinda. Scott could almost forgive her, but he didn¡¯t believe she could really speak for the more ruthless flavors. Next came a text from his dad. ¡°Burt¡± Burt? Scott sometimes wondered about his dad¡¯s inability to text. Melinda had replied with a whole paragraph, while his dad managed one nonsense word in twice the time. Melinda was older than his dad, so that wasn¡¯t even an excuse. The door opened, and his dad walked in. ¡°Stupid autocorrect. I meant to say BRT, ¡®Be Right There¡¯¡±. Scott realized they must be on his dad¡¯s ship. Was this a rescue? ¡°Dad, did you rescue me from that awful place?¡± Scott¡¯s irritation faded into a warm regard for his loyal father. ¡°Huh? Um no, I¡¯m taking you to your mission. I wish we could have stayed in Thailand longer. That place is nicer than any hotel I ever stayed at, even better than the beach house at Proteus. Well, I guess that¡¯s not saying much since the beach house is a smoking crater again.¡± Mr. Henderson looked uncomfortable remembering the recent destruction. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you were just enjoying yourself while I was getting dissected!¡± Scott protested, the pleasant feelings boiling away. His dad paused, looking away. ¡°Yeah, well they didn¡¯t tell me much, but I heard they were worried you wouldn¡¯t pull through at one point. I tried to bust you out, but I¡¯m not some over-muscled action hero like you. They let me see a monitor showing a surgery they were doing, and I fainted. I don¡¯t ever want to see someone getting their head opened up again.¡± The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Scott felt his anger drain away. Their organization was much more powerful than just one person. He couldn¡¯t expect his dad to overpower genetically enhanced guards or robots, let alone force surgeons to undo a complex surgery. He sighed, ¡°I guess I¡¯m the one who partnered up with a certifiably crazy person. I even put her in charge, so maybe I shouldn¡¯t blame anyone but myself. How long was I out, and what is going on now?¡± ¡°You were out for about three weeks. I heard that things went wrong, and it took longer than they intended, but the doctor told me you are healthy now and shouldn¡¯t have much memory loss. Your friend Theofanis wasn¡¯t getting much sleep for about a week, but when we left he looked relieved. I¡¯m not sure what that was all about, but he was in charge of the software for that neuroprocessor thing in your head. It looked like a small box with a bunch of wires¡­ ugh don¡¯t want to really think about it.¡± Scott¡¯s dad went a bit pale. An image of a transparent brain floated up into his vision, with several parts matching his dad¡¯s description. He skimmed over some of the notes. ¡°It has some basic internet and communication features. Visual interface attached to my optic nerves, and some other connections I¡¯m not sure I understand. A newer version of the HR software we put in Carl, plus something called predictive kinetics. Also, there is a weird mass that looks like a tumor called a bioelectric power supply.¡± Scott skimmed over some high-level descriptions. He could drill in later or even pull up his own source code. That was weird and troubling. Reprogramming software in his own brain? He was not going to touch that any time soon. ¡°Yeah, you¡¯ll have to talk to Theo or that programming guy Sebahat who works for Elsa. Anyway, your other question is harder to answer. The highlights of the past three weeks are that we launched our own satellite, and the United States declared war on Mexico. Russia and China have massed troops, and they seem to be negotiating instead of fighting for now. Oh yeah, we destroyed a bunch of internet hubs and cell phone towers across the Gulf coast, plus blew up a NASA facility in Florida. So yeah, a few things have happened while you were sleeping.¡± It was a lot to take in, and Scott suspected his dad only knew a fraction of what was going on. They talked more, but his dad told him to get more rest and left after a while. Scott contacted Nadia next. ¡°Hey, this is Scott.¡± Scott wasn¡¯t sure if caller ID worked when calling from a cybernetic brain. ¡°Hello Scott, it is a relief that you are recovering. For the record, I told Melinda it was too risky. I¡¯m glad her gamble paid off because now we might have a chance to survive a bit longer.¡± Nadia said ominously. She continued by explaining their current situation. ¡°Our security forces are stretched thin. We have people training with the Texas resistance and now the Mexican armed forces. Mexico was a pleasant surprise. They agreed to defend us in exchange for help modernizing some units of their military. If they had stayed hostile, we would be in bad shape now. The United States unveiled a few secret projects that limited our naval superiority in the gulf. They now have two carrier groups, submarines and a new naval drone carrier that is pressing us hard. If Russia hadn¡¯t already destroyed our surface structures, the US would have done it by now. They managed to get some amphibious cruise missiles, and various bombs through our defenses, though it cost them. We¡¯ve wiped out dozens of their planes and smaller ships, but they destroyed some of our underwater facilities near the coast. We have to keep digging new tunnels and reconnecting our communications, but the equipment we used to build mining robots was destroyed. Basically, we¡¯re losing. Matt is trying to build some new fabrication printers from scratch. He¡¯s trying to repurpose equipment in one of Trinidad¡¯s factories, plus a lot of hand assembly. The whole team is exhausted, and I have a bad feeling they are not going to get it working in time.¡± ¡°Sounds bad. What kind of casualties have we had?¡± ¡°A few dozen people died from various hits on our base and a bomb that managed to hit a few housing units at Proteus. Our allies have taken more damage. Several of the cells in Texas were hit. The Americans didn¡¯t hesitate to carpet bomb civilians who they labeled as collaborators after the fact. We have footage of things like schools and neighborhoods getting destroyed, but we can¡¯t get the news to show it. Even in Europe, Australia and Canada they seem to have increased editorial control limiting unfavorable news getting out. We¡¯ve seen a large increase in the accidental deaths of journalists, and some emergency ¡®media freedom¡¯ bills have been passed around the world which do the exact opposite. Their playbook is to accuse us, Russia or China of everything they are doing. We are accused of killing journalists, hacking elections, and blanketing the internet with false stories, yet they are the ones doing it. Then they passed a law claiming it would solve the problem, but really just provides a legal justification for what they are doing. It¡¯s quite effective. Now they don¡¯t actually need to kill journalists because they can veto anything critical. They can stop killing journalists and argue their laws were a success.¡± ¡°I wake up, and we¡¯re losing at everything?¡± Scott asked, disappointed. ¡°Not everything. Our robot factories in Texas dug their way out and cleared out all the heavy artillery and tanks in the area. We control the roads and are patrolling hundreds of miles of East Texas border. We destroyed all the Texas based aircraft and have enough anti-air that they only bomb the less populated areas. Our carrier drones disabled internet and cell service on most of the Gulf Coast before the US Navy was able to sink our ship.¡± ¡°They sunk our carrier?¡± Scott asked, concerned. ¡°Yes. They heavily mined the shallow waters off Florida with popup torpedoes. We¡¯re back to a stalemate in the Gulf. They can¡¯t get near Proteus, and we can¡¯t get near the US coast. Mexico and Texas waters are contested. Mexico¡¯s Navy is staying close to their capital, but we¡¯ve sent enough drones that the US has been afraid to attack directly. We¡¯ve also destroyed several Homeland bases in Texas and a server farm near San Antonio. It was running about a quarter of SPAI¡¯s processing power, but we haven¡¯t seen the effects yet.¡± Nadia said, a bit more upbeat after listing their small victories. ¡°OK, please send me any reports you have, and I¡¯ll read them when I have a chance to get caught up.¡± Scott ordered, a little surprised at his own assertiveness. ¡°Last I heard, I was heading to Los Angeles. Can you tell me what I¡¯m supposed to be doing, and why Melinda thought I needed all these upgrades first?¡± ¡°Right, I¡¯ll send you the details. The short version is that you are going deep in enemy territory to start up or take over a media company outside SPAI¡¯s control. We needed someone who is a public figure, but it will be dangerous. Your Security training and upgrades will help. You have full Glitch_HR capabilities, but without the risk of it falling into enemy hands. We decided the cybernetic version is nearly impossible to steal.¡± ¡°Who else is on my team?¡± Scott asked. ¡°We were going to send a couple of the new guys, but when your surgery went poorly, we reassigned them to help on a mission in New Mexico.¡± ¡°New Mexico? Are you hitting DARPA?¡± Scott asked, interested. He was disappointed they were sending him on a dangerous mission alone, but it would be worth it if they could hit the labs where SPAI was invented. ¡°Sort of. SPAI will see us coming, but we can pin down a lot of their forces in a remote location if we present a credible threat. Our chances of doing real damage are small, but Marcus recommended it. He believes that if we threaten a lot of locations, SPAI will waste resources overbuilding its defenses.¡± Nadia explained. Scott wasn¡¯t really convinced. SPAI building up defenses meant they would be harder to destroy later with a surprise attack. Out of curiosity, he flipped up Glitch_HR¡¯s rating of military strategy and found himself ranked lower than roughly a billion people. Marcus and Nadia were both quite high on the list, so he kept his doubts to himself. ¡°Any advice for my mission?¡± Scott asked, deciding to focus where he could actually make a difference. ¡°Stick to what you¡¯re good at. Hire other people to do the work and try not to get killed.¡± Volume 2 - Chapter 23: Cancun Carl Scott spent the next week on his father¡¯s ship as they traveled across the Pacific. He learned that the US Third Fleet was preventing shipping in or out of Mexico¡¯s West coast with two Carrier Strike Groups. Another group was off the California coast. The Dark Siren shot down a few drones tracking their progress and scared off a submarine, presumably American. Roughly twice a day, they received updates of the positions of various ships. Their satellite had excellent cameras which combined wide angle scans with AI to isolate and focus on areas of interest with detail. The US likely had better technology for satellite imaging, but the Genysis satellite had fusion powered lasers. They had destroyed a number of US satellites, but mostly avoided destroying satellites owned by private companies or US allies. Scott assumed that their position was known. Exploring their ship, Scott noticed a number of modifications since the last time he had toured the Dark Siren. Cargo spaces were smaller and separated by heavy bulkheads. Several elevators allowed raising or lowering shipping container sized payloads up from inside to the deck. One elevator brought up a drone which launched into the air and took off heading East. The drone consisted of several short arms with mounted engines that could swivel in various directions, allowing vertical takeoff and landing. Two small turrets on each side and a long central fixed multi-barrel weapon indicated this device was intended for combat. Their ship now had swivel turrets, including a couple of the larger railguns and smaller devices he assumed were defensive lasers. Several small turrets sprang into motion, swiveling to the South East and Scott heard a sound like puffs of air, roughly every second for about two minutes. There was no beam of light or jet of flame to indicate they were firing. Scott headed to the bridge, wanting to know what was going on. His dad and the crew were busy, calling out targets and headings. Scott didn¡¯t want to interrupt, so he waited quietly. Looking out the window, he could see the front rail gun had aimed to the East, and he could hear a loud buzzing sound as it fired. ¡°Hey Scott, things heated up a bit. Grab a seat and strap in.¡± His dad ordered, more calmly than Scott was feeling at the moment. Scott quickly did as he was told. When he sat down, a monitor extended from the wall and gave him a view of a map with a mix of green and red dots. Without wanting to mess anything up, he studied the screen for a minute. His dad continued, ¡°That¡¯s our latest tactical map. You can zoom in or touch items to get details. Don¡¯t worry, we don¡¯t have any ship or weapon controls active on that station.¡± Scott zoomed in on some of the red dots. ¡°Are we really fighting a carrier group?¡± Scott asked, concerned. ¡°Just a small skirmish. They waited until our satellite was heading away and then started testing us. A few cruise missiles launched and planes firing missiles from long range. They tried to jam our radar with a Growler, but we took it out. Our air defenses mostly use AI enhanced UV scanning, so their jamming was pointless.¡± ¡°You shot down a plane?¡± Scott asked. ¡°We hit it and fried something, but the pilot turned around and headed for the coast. I assume he¡¯ll land in San Diego instead of trying a carrier landing. I shot down several planes at the start of this conflict. It was tricky getting around South America to come pick you up. They¡¯ve learned to keep their distance. At this range, we usually cause damage instead of blowing them up.¡± ¡°What about the railgun?¡± Scott asked. His father did not seem too concerned with the current skirmish, so he was curious. ¡°Just potshots at their ships. They are moving, so we aren¡¯t expecting to hit anything. We could shell the air base or Los Angeles from here, but we don¡¯t want to cause mass casualties. At this point, we¡¯re just taunting them. They keep wasting missiles that cost over a million dollars each, while we shoot free lasers and a few dollars'' worth of railgun slugs.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you are going to bankrupt the US military, dad¡± Scott rolled his eyes. ¡°Nah, but we are going to injure their pride when I sail ten miles outside of Los Angeles.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you think you should be more careful? They destroyed our carrier ship while I was recovering.¡± Scott asked, wringing hands nervously. ¡°True, we were overconfident there. They put hundreds of mines and popup torpedoes in the shallow waters off the Florida coast. They just sit on the ground and shoot upwards when something moves over. Those defenses will be a serious hazard to the boats that normally go through the area. Even deactivated, they are dangerous to people dragging fishing nets. Our defenses have been great for aerial threats and submarines, but mines popping up from the seafloor are a weakness.¡± ¡°Could they have those near LA too?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Not likely. Florida has wide shallows off the coast, but California seafloor drops off like a cliff. Seafloor mines would be so deep they either couldn¡¯t see us or would take so long to catch us that we could use countermeasures. Also, they have so many civilian ships packed in the shallow areas; they can¡¯t use mines.¡± Captain Henderson explained. ¡°It¡¯s the surprise we don¡¯t know about that will get us.¡± Scott said. ¡°Maybe. Anyway, while we are getting their full attention, you are going to take the submarine to get close to the shore. You¡¯ll get out in scuba gear and exit the water at night near Redondo Beach. People like to Scuba there at night, so you won¡¯t attract much attention when you just show up.¡± ¡°You really think people will be out when there are warships trading shots a few miles off the coast?¡± Scott asked. ¡°If they were smart, they would stay home, but some people are just oblivious to danger and will do whatever unless something blows up right next to them. The Army and police will be watching the coast, but it¡¯s hard for them to cover everything. Worst case, we have alternate locations. They aren¡¯t set up to defend against a single person showing up on a thousand miles of coastline, plus they shouldn¡¯t have a clue what we are doing besides testing their navy. I¡¯ll keep moving from LA down to Baja and see what kind of defense they put up. We hope to clear them out of Mexican water in the Pacific and break the blockade. I¡¯m hoping they see our approach to LA as a feint to force them to move forces away from the border.¡± ¡°So my part is only a small piece?¡± Scott asked. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s right. I¡¯m sure whatever you are doing is important, but there are a lot of moving pieces. Just focus on your mission and trust the rest of us are doing the same.¡±
Two days later, Scott was ready to start his trip to the coast. Their running skirmish had heated up as two carrier groups engaged, along with aircraft and artillery from the coast. Their satellite made several passes during the trip. This time, it wasn¡¯t just taking pictures. They didn¡¯t have a tenth of the firepower of the Russian satellite, but they could shoot rapidly with four smaller weapons. They caused minor damage to dozens of ships, and a few lucky hits forced their targets out of the fight until they could get repaired. More dangerous to the Americans, the satellite gave them accurate targeting and their railgun took several heavy ships out of the fight, including two carriers. The artillery on the coast was a dangerous challenge, shooting shells and rockets that kept their defensive turrets busy and forced them to stay at a distance. Their air drones destroyed dozens of the mobile artillery vehicles. They managed to avoid using the railgun against coastal targets to minimize collateral damage. As the running battle moved down the coast, the submarine dropped Scott off, and he was able to exit as planned. As predicted, there were some people still swimming or diving, though it was not crowded. Most people were staying home, with distant sounds of artillery firing and occasional explosions nearby. Scott ditched his Scuba gear and pulled out a phone. He didn¡¯t really need a phone, but he wanted to use a rideshare app, which they had set up with fake credentials. Scott tried to keep his distance from people. The medical center had made some more changes to his appearance. Scott had grown used to his darker skin and hair, which they used in Algeria, but now he had blond hair and a short beard. His skin was tan but white. His eyes were a normal blue instead of the bright, unnatural colors most people in Proteus chose. Scott assumed if someone was actually willing to pay ten thousand dollars for eye coloring, they wanted something unusual. For California, his physical appearance was above average, but not unusual in a place filled with fitness obsessed young people. ¡°So, I guess the Mexicans are invading now. Did you hear the guns?¡± His driver started up a conversation. ¡°I¡¯m surprised you are still working. Aren¡¯t you worried?¡± Scott asked politely. ¡°I kind of thought this whole thing was a joke. Even the news people seemed to be struggling not to laugh when they said we should take the threat of Mexico seriously,¡± the driver gave a high-pitched nervous laugh. ¡°I don¡¯t really follow the news,¡± Scott lied. ¡°Why would they attack us?¡± ¡°The story is that they were attacked by the Russians and are blaming us. Like, why is it our job to protect everyone?¡± The driver seemed to be about Scott¡¯s age. He was a second or third generation Asian immigrant, but clearly spoke English with no accent. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°That¡¯s messed up,¡° Scott agreed, wondering how he could shut down the conversation. He had seen the news stories twisting in knots trying to explain the war. There also seemed to be an uptick in journalists getting fired or deciding to spend more time with their families. SPAI must be having trouble keeping the media reporting the correct spin on events. ¡°Dude, you kind of look familiar.¡± Uh oh. Scott was hoping this wouldn¡¯t happen so soon, but he tried to deflect. ¡°Nice! I¡¯ve done a few commercials and some non-speaking parts. I¡¯m hoping if I keep at it, I¡¯ll get bigger parts soon.¡± Scott internally groaned at his bad acting. ¡°No, that¡¯s not it. I got it! You look like that guy in the video. With Cancun Carl!¡± Cancun Carl?!! Scott was speechless. They didn¡¯t live in Cancun, plus it was a really stupid superhero name. On the other hand, maybe it was appropriate for Carl to have a stupid name. ¡°Yeah, that guy is like a real-life Mexican superhero. I follow this girl who streams video games, Alyssa Yates. You¡¯ve heard of her, right? Everyone thinks she¡¯s just a hot girl who streams games, but she¡¯s actually really smart too. She was super excited because someone invited her to this party at Carl¡¯s secret base and actually got to meet him! That is insane!¡± The driver almost hit another car. ¡°Hey, watch the road, OK?¡± Scott did not like where this was going. ¡°Anyway, you look just like his sidekick if he was a white dude. You could probably play that guy when they make the movie!¡± The driver¡¯s excitement seemed to be getting worse. The last thing Scott wanted was to be recognized on his first day, so he just kept silent, burying his face in his hands. Scott had never been more grateful when they arrived at his hotel. He wished he could tip a negative amount, but instead left it at the recommended amount. The front desk had a large package for him with clothes, supplies and a note wishing him luck. Though the US and Mexico were officially at war, they had not yet completely shut down the borders. Despite his mission going well, Scott was now in a terrible mood. With a sense of dread, Scott decided to see what the internet was saying about Carl.
Meanwhile, Carl was driving a van on highway 80 in Utah. It was an ordinary van, not one of his customized, armored vehicles. He did have some toys in the back, including a 180 pound multibarreled railgun, several large crates. One of these had an item he couldn¡¯t wait to try out. His equipment had been dropped off by an air truck. With control of a large part of the airspace over Texas, they could get supplies into the US using the vehicles. While the roads were patrolled and military units covered most of the highways, the border was so large that there were many gaps on the Northern and Western edge of the state where you could make a quick drop over the border. The US military relied on drones and satellites to detect any larger troop movements, but they weren¡¯t cracking down on individuals fleeing Texas. A few police checkpoints were easily avoided with help from his cybernetics and a few small robotic drones. He had been traveling for three days before arriving West of Salt Lake City. Finally, near his destination, Carl pulled his truck to the side of the road. This was a nice spot, with the Great Salt Lake to the north and mountains to the south. Entering the back of the truck, he admired the massive gun then started to unpack the largest crate. Their organization had many missions going on, and Carl thought it was a shame he had to operate solo. No one would be able to see how awesome he was. Inside the crate was a rough looking suit of powered armor. Phillip, the designer, had been reluctant to give up his prototype, insisting that he wanted to rework and reinforce the joints. From different angles, you could see holes in the suit. Carl knew that someone had taken Philip¡¯s unfinished project and welded on extra armor plates, giving it a crude appearance. Management had decided that it would be better to just use what they had, instead of waiting months for Phillip¡¯s team to finish the complex design. Having a suit that could survive underwater or in space was not a concern. An airtight design would help if he was hit with a large explosion, but Carl expected the heavy armor would be much better than nothing. Another drawback of using an unfinished suit was that it was difficult getting into the thing and closing up all the sections. Carl¡¯s implant gave helpful hints about the procedure, so at least he didn¡¯t have to fumble with an instruction manual. Once again, having another teammate would have really helped. Carl spent nearly an hour fumbling and trying to reach latches that were behind his back. It would have been tough with just his large muscles in the way, but with the heavy armor it was impossible. Without closing the latches, the back armor and power pack would flop around like an open door. Even worse, a power connection to his upper body was unplugged, so he¡¯d have to lug around the heavy gun, vambraces and gauntlets without assistance. He considered just taking the gun and ditching the armor, but the gun could not function without the armor¡¯s power source. Frustrated, Carl considered how this whole mission was going to fail because they couldn¡¯t spare one person to help him out. After yelling a bit in frustration, a brilliant idea occurred to him. He just needed one person to help, but they didn¡¯t need any special training. He only needed an extra set of hands. He could pull a car over and force someone to help him. Or¡­ a better idea occurred to him as he pulled up Glitch_HR on his internal computer. He set the search parameters to people within half a mile. What did you call someone who would help put on armor? A squire! Carl climbed out of the armor and got back into the truck. He could force someone to help him, but having a willing assistant would be even better. Not for the first time, Carl decided he was a genius. He drove a mile down the road to the Lake Point trailer park. He approached a single trailer surrounded by weeds, complete with a rusted car on blocks in the front. Knocking on the door, Carl was greeted by a middle-aged man wearing boxer shorts and a dirty undershirt. The man had a couple of days of beard going and smelled like beer and something worse, but Carl gave him a huge grin. ¡°Hello! Are you Gary Chaney?¡± Carl could tell from his implants that this was his target, but he usually got a better response from people when he talked to them by name. ¡°Uh, yeah. What do you want?¡± the man grunted, but then his eyes widened as he recognized Carl. ¡°Wait! You¡¯re that guy on the internet!¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. I¡¯m on the internet all the time!¡± Carl agreed. He loved those animal videos and lately had been working his way through memes and Chuck Norris lists. Some of the memes featured him, which was even more awesome! ¡°So, what are you doing here?¡± Gary asked slowly. The grumpy look on his face had melted away and his posture straightened. ¡°I¡¯m on a very important mission and I need your help.¡± Unlike that whiny Scott guy, Carl thought recruiting people was easy. You just needed to tell them what you needed, and they would be excited at the opportunity. ¡°OK! What should I wear?¡± Gary was practically bouncing on his fungus infected toes. ¡°Some pants and shoes would be appreciated!¡± Carl pointed out helpfully. ¡°The important thing is what I am going to wear. Let me show you.¡± Gary threw on some ripped up jeans and pulled boots over his bare feet. The two men walked around to the back of the truck. ¡°Holy crap!¡± Gary nearly fell over in amazement at Carl¡¯s awesome armor suit. ¡°Right, I need to put this thing on, and you are going to help me close it up in the back. Then you can drop me off near the mountains. After that, you will take the truck away and then meet me when I call you.¡± Carl explained. ¡°Uh, can I have a bit of gas money?¡± Gary asked. Carl approved of his initiative. ¡°Here¡¯s $100 dollars. Try not to drink too much while you are waiting for me!¡± Carl had a few thousand dollars in his mission kit to use as needed. Paying his squire was a completely reasonable expense. Before driving to the drop-off site, the two men managed to get the suit on and properly closed up. Carl waited in the back until they arrived. He found it easy to keep his balance as the truck accelerated or went around turns. The suit had some kind of gyroscopic system to keep upright. Carl didn¡¯t really understand or care how it worked, but it felt natural moving around, and he couldn¡¯t wait to start running through the mountains. At the edge of some snow dusted hills, Carl hopped out and said goodbye to his Squire. Gary wanted to take a selfie with him, but Carl was too disciplined to put his mission at risk with something like that. They could take pictures after he returned. With bounding strides, Carl ran over the hills. He only slowed a little, moving through the mountains. It was easy to jump twenty feet or six feet vertically. Some of the rocks shifted when he landed with over a half ton of weight. He could also pull himself up with powerful arms, but the weight distribution made this impractical. The balance skewed too much towards the rear, with the powerpack and heavy gun magnetically latched behind his shoulders. Carl fell a few times as he got the feel of what the suit could handle. The first time he fell about thirty feet. It was terrifying, but his legs easily absorbed the shock, cracking stone under his feet. Carl took a mental note that they needed to add some kind of grappling hook or jetpack to the suit. He briefly wondered how they ever built anything without his great ideas. The AI was flashing some kind of message, while a small transparent overlay of the suit appeared. Tempted to swipe away the annoyance, Carl instead read what the annoying computer in his brain was trying to tell him. Oh, the suit had cables with a grappling system for climbing. Hah! Great minds thought alike. He¡¯d have to share a drink with Phillip once he returned to Proteus. That guy was way more talented than Scott. OK, Carl admitted he was being unfair. Scott¡¯s software had been pretty awesome for helping him find Gary. It was great having a team of eggheads working to make him look good, even if some were annoying. Carl made his way through the mountains for four hours. Even with the suit, a lesser man might have been tired, but Carl was still going strong. He was grateful that the weather was cold, and his suit had some ventilation, or he¡¯d be overheating from all the effort. Climbing over a final ridge, Carl looked down at his target. The massive data center spread out in a valley below his position. The facility consisted mainly of large, box-like buildings without windows. Half a mile away, precision shooting was out of the question. Carl first opened fire on the generators, which were destroyed with a satisfying explosion. He then waited a minute, watching as security scurried around trying to figure out what had happened. They were probably calling in help. Carl saw several groups of people exit the buildings, following the standard bomb threat procedures. One group of security seemed to have spotted his position, and they were spreading out, heading his way. Carl opened fire. His gun shot projectiles the size of a small nail at roughly three times the velocity of a normal bullet. This could deliver around ten times the kinetic energy of a normal bullet, and the osmium tip was excellent at piercing through other metals. His rate of fire was on the low end of self-loading weapons at about 300 rounds per minute, but his suit allowed him to carry an ammo pack weighing 80 pounds holding 6,000 rounds. Able to fire continuously for about 20 minutes, the system was excellent for longer missions. After about three minutes of fire, the entire facility was shredded and on fire, and two security teams had been destroyed. His internal computer helped his aim, and hiding behind rocks or small trees was little use with his sensors and armor piercing rounds. Carl did change his position a few times just in case they had some kind of antitank weapon, but the return fire had been small arms and all but a few shots missed widely. One lucky shot managed to bang into the armor on his right abdomen. It sparked a bit, and he heard it ping, but didn¡¯t even feel the impact. Thinking this had almost been too easy, Carl was launched sideways from a massive explosion. Volume 2 - Chapter 24: Media Startup Scott¡¯s fake identification showed the name Lionel Cole. He still was having trouble remembering this when someone called out to him. ¡°Mr. Cole!¡± announced a middle-aged woman with dark straight hair wearing a tailored suit. He turned around. ¡°Ah yes. I was just picturing how the layout would work,¡± Scott held up his hands like a rectangular frame. Didn¡¯t cheesy Hollywood people always do that? He thought the woman nearly rolled her eyes, but she caught herself and smiled. ¡°That¡¯s great. Is this what you had in mind, or perhaps something a bit smaller?¡± the woman asked. Scott knew this was code for thinking he couldn¡¯t afford the rent. ¡°Actually, I¡¯m worried about whether there will be room for expansion. Also, don¡¯t any of these buildings have a landing pad for a helicopter? Traffic is horrible here.¡± Scott smirked at her open-mouthed expression. Maybe he should have dressed nicer for this meeting. He had gone with jeans and a baggy sweatshirt in an attempt to hide his physique. Also, it was mid-winter and colder here than Scott was used to. ¡°Mr. Cole, where did you say you were from again?¡± The woman seemed interested now. He could picture the gears turning as she wondered if he was a scion of some rich family. ¡°Also, let me answer your questions,¡± the woman switched gears smoothly when he didn¡¯t immediately answer. Maybe she had come to the conclusion that if he had wealth, it came from some criminal enterprise. It was not unusual for people to start businesses in this town to funnel dirty money through entertainment projects. ¡°Yes, this building has helicopter access, but you¡¯ll need permits, and it¡¯s currently booked indefinitely by OnScreen who rent the top two floors of this building. As far as expansion, this space is 12,000 square feet, but there is often turnover in the offices. You might be surprised at how many people decide to start a television or film company around here and run out of money before they have a big hit.¡± Scott smiled ruefully, ¡°I imagine you aren¡¯t impressed with me coming in here wanting to start a company.I haven¡¯t even come up with a company name. I think you can take any word in the English language and add media, entertainment or studio to the end, and someone has already claimed it. I can believe it when you say a lot of people fail in this business, since there are thousands of companies registered who have never made anything.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t even have a company started, and you are worried about running out of space?¡± The property manager was skeptical. ¡°I guess most of my companies have expanded quickly. Any advice on coming up with a name?¡± Scott asked. ¡°I¡¯d go with names of stars. It fits the Hollywood theme, and they must have come up with thousands.¡± the manager suggested helpfully. Scott paused for a minute, scanning through some web results and cross-checking with company registrations. It was nice having a heads-up web browser, so he could pretend to be examining the empty office space while he worked. ¡°OK, I guess my company is Arcalis Media. Named after a random star that hasn¡¯t already been used. I just registered it.¡± Scott replied. The woman stared at him for a second, wondering what kind of crazy he was. Scott realized doing things like that with his implants when talking to strangers might be perceived as odd behavior. ¡°Right, sorry. I was on my phone with my assistant. I apologize, and you have my full attention now.¡± Scott hoped that was believable, tapping a non-existent receiver in his ear. ¡°Anyway, I guess I don¡¯t really need the helicopter pad right now. I¡¯ll just get a room in a hotel near here. Hopefully they have something nice I can reserve for a few months.¡± ¡°Great. Well, how much of the space did you want? We require you to reserve for a minimum of six months and pay half up front.¡± Scott didn¡¯t think that sounded like a standard deal. She was probably demanding this to scare him off. Maybe they had a lot of people around here walking around this town acting like big shots who couldn¡¯t actually pay the bills? Scott did a quick calculation. ¡°You are $5 per square foot per month, right? I¡¯ll just go get a cashier¡¯s check for $180,000.¡± At this point, it wasn¡¯t really that much money. ¡°Well, there are a few other fees, and we need to approve any renovations. The square footage I gave you isn¡¯t exact.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure the price you quoted also isn¡¯t fixed. I¡¯m going to get the money, and after that we can handle additional expenses with normal monthly billing. I¡¯ll hire a manager to deal with it in the next few days.¡± Scott was eager to wrap this up. Renting office space and filling out paperwork was not how he wanted to spend the whole day. The manager at the bank met him personally. Scott supposed it wasn¡¯t every day someone used a fake ID to open an account with $20 million dollars. The size of the transaction would put them on the government¡¯s financial tracking and money laundering radar. The money was actually clean in Mexico, but they were breaking laws, putting it under a false name. An expert money launderer, borrowed from a Mexican cartel, had set it all up. Scott was sure that had been a fun recruiting conversation, but Melinda had handled it instead of sending him. ¡°Welcome to Los Angeles, Mr. Cole. I¡¯m happy to get you the cashier check, but I must warn you that any transaction of this amount will be reported.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a bit offended that you are implying I am using this money for criminal activity!¡± Scott was breaking plenty of laws using a false ID to open an account, but their money launderer had been dismissive of their chances of the government taking action. Every transaction basically added you to a watch list, but they only took action if they connected you to another crime. Through some questionable contacts in the Mexican government, the Lionel Cole identity was as official as any other Mexican citizen and not yet tied to anything interesting. His acting skills were likely not up to local standards, but he knew that rich people acting offended tended to get what they wanted. The banker¡¯s mouth hung open a bit, before he recovered. ¡°No, of course not! I¡¯m just required to tell you that. It¡¯s bank policy. If there is anything else I can help with, please let me know.¡± The man was flustered, but he remembered his training, ¡°Also you may be interested in moving some of that money to an investment account. We don¡¯t usually see such a large amount in a business checking account.¡± ¡°No thanks!¡± Scott replied. ¡°I need to set it up for payroll. I¡¯ll be hiring people, buying furniture and equipment, so I need the funds available.¡± Scott thought about his account in Mexico, where he had over $100 million dollars sitting around. Instead of letting a financial adviser manage his money, he was setting it aside to cover loan payments once he invested in Angela¡¯s fund. A smart hedge fund could return 20% per year on a large sum like that, but Scott planned to reserve it for payments on a $2 billion loan he would use to buy equity in Angela¡¯s fund. Using financial leverage to invest in a startup might seem crazy, but Scott was comfortable with the risk and was convinced it would be a huge benefit to the economy. He had a video call with the president of a large Mexican bank scheduled later that week to discuss the terms. Scott was relieved Angela had offered to be on the call because asking to borrow billions was not something he was comfortable about. After his trip to the bank, Scott went on a hiring spree. He noticed many people in the area were chasing jobs that were perceived as high paying or prestigious, but it was harder to find people willing to do accounting, IT or other behind the scenes jobs. There were plenty of people in the area, but the more skilled in those fields tended to be employed. Scott could afford to pay signing bonuses, so he ended up offering a large premium to the typical salary and started poaching the highly rated people. Conversely, journalists with integrity were easy to find since most were currently unemployed. They fit in two groups, idealists with little work experience, and a group that were older than the average TV personalities. Most in this second group had been bumped out of jobs because they were considered unproductive - either spending too long checking facts, or wasting time researching stories that the management would just discard for political reasons. Often they had just been replaced by younger, cheaper alternatives. Scott had wondered about the choice to come to LA to start this business, given that it was behind enemy lines. Still, the sheer quantity of people around with the right support skills was more than they could match almost anywhere else. Trying to start something like this near Proteus would have required a bunch of remote workers, and Melinda had mentioned that this would not be a good idea. Part of their grand strategy was to cut off a large chunk of the Western United States from the internet. They had attacked satellites, routing hubs, underwater fiber cables, and some key server farms. This was currently manifesting as serious lag and frequent dropped connections, but they were getting to the point where a few major lines through Mexico and Canada were the only access points to the broader internet. Scott wondered how SPAI would react to losing access to nearly a third of the United States. Scott returned his focus to hiring. Finding a qualified business manager was easy, although his first-choice candidate almost walked when she saw his aging talent pool. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Mr. Cole. I¡¯m not sure what you are planning here. Some of these names are recognizable, but I¡¯m not sure how you expect to get ratings from another news network. Which angle are you targeting? There might be space for a far-right network, but these journalists aren¡¯t going to buy into that! ¡°Lena Patterson, an energetic woman in her early thirties, seemed to be looking for the exit. ¡°I¡¯m not aiming for a far-right news network. We expect to make a name covering the current conflicts in a way the other networks are not able to. I also want to start producing television shows and movies. You probably think I¡¯m making a mess of things but give me a few minutes to explain myself.¡± Scott hurried to defend what must look like insanity. ¡°First, I wanted people who have a reputation for integrity, who were willing to spend the time on stories that other networks aren¡¯t covering,¡° he paused, pulling up a website on a laptop he had brought to the meeting. ¡°The coverage of the conflicts with Texas and Mexico are getting wildly incomplete coverage, and I think people want to know more about what is really going on. I have contacts with the other side of the conflict. Almost everyone can tell the official story is inconsistent and incomplete. They are afraid, and I think they will tune in when we give them embedded video from the actual conflict, plus interviews with key people that our press won¡¯t talk to.¡± ¡°OK, I can believe some of that. But these journalists are a bit past their prime. Sadly, most people will tune out if the TV personality doesn¡¯t look young and energetic. Also, hardly anyone watches network channels anymore, so I¡¯m wondering how you plan to deliver news on an unknown channel.¡± Ms. Patterson counted off objections. Before she got to three, Scott interrupted her. ¡°First, I¡¯m going to start with the younger reporters while we send the more experienced crew to the Proteus Spa in Mexico. I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve heard of it, but it¡¯s real, and I can get us a large discount. Our over the hill talent can get a fresh new look.¡± He flipped through some before and after pictures. ¡°This seems like a hoax.¡± Ms. Patterson frowned. ¡°No, I assure you it is real. The treatments are illegal in most countries, probably even Mexico, but they work! Here is a picture of my mother before and after three rounds of skin treatment and the metabolic adjustment. Also, they did her hair and fixed a few teeth.¡± Scott continued before she could interrupt. ¡°They also have a metabolic adjustment, which does something with the chemical signals in your brain related to appetite. It¡¯s pretty amazing! The lead scientist explained to me that the human body evolved over thousands of years while struggling for food, so it places too much emphasis on fat and sugars. They can make a few minor tweaks which I don¡¯t really understand, but then your body craves more fiber, protein and nutrient rich foods. Sweets, carbs and fats still taste good, but you feel full really quickly when eating too much. Patients usually lose and maintain a healthy weight within months. They can even tweak it for slimmer or more muscular builds as desired.¡± Scott realized he was sounding like a Spa brochure. This wasn¡¯t a coincidence because he had pulled it up in his heads-up browser display and was reading it while they talked. ¡°You¡¯re not lying? This is really your mother? It barely looks like the same person. She looks great. Also, where did she get that dress?¡± Ms. Patterson talked quickly while she tried to process all this. ¡°Yes, mom looks good now. I¡¯ve almost needed to punch a few people drooling over her when dad is out on his ship,¡° Scott almost growled, but regained his composure quickly. ¡°The dress is from a designer who moved to Proteus. Sorry, I don¡¯t recall her name, but I think she makes everything from seaweed fiber.¡± Lena laughed, ¡°Curious, how much does that hair procedure cost?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not cheap. I think it was close to 100k for the hair. We spent over 600 thousand on all of mom¡¯s procedures.¡° ¡°Your parents must do pretty well to afford that. What line of work are they in?¡± Lena couldn¡¯t resist fishing for information. She didn¡¯t want to work for someone who made their money in a drug cartel. ¡°Imports and Exports,¡± Scott said, then laughed, knowing this was code for drug smuggling. ¡°Dad is a captain on a ship. He gets a percent commission on the cargo, and does high value runs around the Gulf. And once again, that makes it sound like drug running. Seriously, it¡¯s mostly boring stuff like metals, flooring and dishwashers.¡± Scott neglected to mention the gun running and tussles with the US Navy. If he was being honest, his dad was actually more dangerous than the average cartel. Scott also decided not to explain that his cheapskate dad had made him pay for the procedures for Scott¡¯s mother. His dad claimed his mother was already beautiful and didn¡¯t need anything. Whether his dad actually believed this, it was a brilliant move to charm his wife and save himself a huge amount. ¡°I¡¯m still not convinced, but are you just going to hire people and send them away for a few months to get millions of dollars of sketchy medical procedures? I don¡¯t understand this business plan.¡± Ms. Patterson was curious now, but still skeptical. ¡°I thought we¡¯d pick a few reporters willing to go investigate the mysterious Proteus base and check out the Spa. They will get treatments while reporting on what is going on there. I have permission to send journalists there from Melinda White, the CEO. They can alternate between investigating and getting procedures. I can probably arrange interviews with a number of members of the Mexican government and military while they are there. It used to be easy to get them to visit until the beach house was blown up again. They should have it up and running in a few more months, at least enough to have visitors again.¡± Scott explained, staring off into space a bit as he reviewed some of their building plans. He continued, ¡°I can also get reporters embedded with the Texas rebellion if anyone is brave enough to take that assignment. We get the official US story about the war on the other channels, but this is a unique opportunity to learn the other side that is not getting reported. Also, we will have better videos of the actual conflicts.¡± ¡°I¡¯m interested, but I have to say I¡¯m suspicious about who you really are. You seem to have very close ties with people at war with my country. I¡¯m not going to put out propaganda against the US. The journalists you hired will report the facts or else I don¡¯t want anything to do with this job.¡± Ms. Patterson glared at Scott as if daring him to challenge this. ¡°Great! Please tell me if anyone is putting pressure on the journalists. It won¡¯t be me. I¡¯m going to be working on the entertainment side of the business.¡± Scott explained, looking towards the exit. ¡°How will you make money reporting the news? Especially if you don¡¯t want to let sponsors influence your content.¡± the new business manager asked. ¡°Yeah, I didn¡¯t really cover that. I want to have a free streaming service with advertisements or a premium option with no ads. Naturally, you can also get it on a website or phone app. I have some pretty good programmers getting it set up. Our lawyers will make it easy to re-broadcast our news clips if people leave the segments unedited, and it will keep our name and logo on screen. We already have great video footage of various battles and celebrities at Proteus, which should get some publicity once we release it. I already have companies lined up who want to buy ads.¡± Scott was confident between the guest list from his Christmas party, former Spa customers and Angela¡¯s contacts that they could drum up advertising for at least six months. Even without all that, the Genysis companies and their billionaire owners could buy up ad space to fund a news network almost indefinitely. Lena had many doubts, but with the signing bonus and salary she was offered, she decided to give this job a try. ¡ª-------------------------- Carl brushed off dirt and broken rocks after the explosion flung him into a cliff face twenty feet to the side of where he had been running. His suit managed to keep him upright despite the blast. There was a burning pain across the left side of his chest, and damage warnings showed on his internal display. Overhead, a jet flew past him, and Carl saw another strafing his location with gunfire. Carl pushed off the rock face and moved quickly, making leaps from side to side as he zigzagged deeper into the mountains. His targeting system helped take shots at one of the retreating jets, but there was no indication he hit his target. As he moved, the rough terrain worked to his advantage, limiting the angles the planes could attack. Carl took some hits from the 25 mm cannons, but mostly avoided the slower moving missiles. He finally managed to hit a plane, which left the area trailing smoke. This left one plane, that had run out of missiles and probably ammunition, circling around and shadowing his position. Likely it was keeping watch until other forces arrived. Carl made a call to his squire Gary. ¡°Hey Carl! Are you ready for pickup?¡± Gary asked. ¡°No, they are still following me. Can you open up the truck and pull out the unopened crate?¡± Carl instructed. ¡°Sure, am I going to get my own suit?¡± Gary asked hopefully. ¡°Not this mission Gary. Only a cyborg can handle this thing.¡± Carl waited while Gary grunted and heaved. ¡°Sorry, I¡¯m not strong enough to move it,¡± Garry apologized breathlessly. ¡°Oh, I forgot. We¡¯ll have to fix that when we get to Mexico. Just stand back, I guess.¡± Carl said. Carl activated the aerial drone, instructing it to briefly fire the point defense lasers. ¡°Holy crap!¡± Gary shrieked over the phone. ¡°The crate exploded, and this robot thing flew out. I have a burning piece of wood stuck in my leg. It¡¯s awesome!¡± Carl was busy giving the drone instructions, but he chuckled at his squire¡¯s antics. ¡°Take a picture before you pull it out.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s going to leave a mark! Do you have a med kit somewhere here?¡± Gary¡¯s voice now sounded more concerned than excited. ¡°Just make a tourniquet out of your belt or something. I have med supplies, but I¡¯m busy fighting the Air Force right now.¡± Within ten minutes, the drone arrived and targeted the plane with several invisible laser blasts. The plane started smoking before crashing into a nearby mountain. Carl saw the pilot eject, so he waved to him before running back towards his truck. He kept the drone patrolling. It gave away his general position, but he wasn¡¯t sure where the next attack might come from. Sergio had explained all the nearby air bases and likely response vectors, but Carl had found the mission briefing boring, and he had kind of tuned out after the first thirty minutes. Shouldn¡¯t his brain computer process all the boring stuff so he didn¡¯t have to? Carl wanted to ask Scott about that, but remembered he now had Theofanis to work on upgrades. He sent a quick text explaining his latest brilliant feature request. Theo: I need the computer to listen to boring lectures and tell me when I need to know something. That should be easy enough for the egghead to understand. Carl returned focus to what he was doing, leaping across a large gorge and jumping up a ridge in a few hops. He could see the road and sent Gary directions about where to pick him up. Finally, he was getting out of here.