“Great! You guys already know each other,” Brian said “Let’s get everyone else introduced.”
Shepherding Julia ahead of him to the front of the room, Brian addressed the group, “Thank you all for coming on such short notice. Some of you know each other already from prior DARPA initiatives and it’s good to see you again. At my side is Agent Cacerek from the CIA who will be working closely with us on our new initiative. We have been given an extremely time sensitive, top secret issue. Let’s go around with some quick introductions and then get right to it. I’ll warn in advance this is going to be a long night. We are required to report to the President and Cabinet tomorrow on our initial findings.”
Going clockwise around the table Susan Reynolds introduced herself as a practicing psychiatrist, professor and leader of a research team focused on schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder.
Gerald Michaels, who preferred to be called Jerry, was next. His pudgy body, balding pate, straggly comb over, rectangular glasses and white button down shirt screamed computer geek, which in this case was pretty close to the truth. Jerry was a computer scientist with an industrial engineering background. He had an impressive genius level IQ and was on the bleeding edge in his fields.
“SWEET TITS!” Jerry exclaimed as if addressing Julia by her nickname, his face stoic and expressionless.
There were some muted gasps in the room, a smile from Uhli and a near tumble to the floor from Komiko. Although already aware Jerry suffered from Tourette syndrome, Brian was still surprised and couldn’t help but smile discreetly.
Julia was confident in her appeal but this was a first, as she had not experienced the cat call of “sweet tits,” at least that she could remember. She simply crossed her arms and gave a deadpan stare at Jerry who then continued.
“Apologies for that, I suffer from a mild form of Tourette’s which results in uncontrollable outbursts which are usually quite crude in nature and if not so frequent would be terribly embarrassing, I barely register them now.” Jerry’s normal speaking voice and diction made Julia think of the way a snooty British person would speak but without the accent. It was very pleasing and somewhat at odds with his appearance resulting in an almost comical overall package.
“FUCK TITS,” Jerry stammered before continuing again in his regular voice without pausing a beat. “Happy to help as usual, Brian and Julia, but can you explain why I am here and how long until I can return to my lab and my work?”
Looking to Brian to respond, Julia caught his amusement at her discomfort and they shared a brief moment of levity.
A general rumble of discontented grumblings and comments began in support of Jerry’s questions.
“To be honest, I’m not sure,” Brian said. “We are up against an unprecedented threat, if that’s what it is. Today’s discussion will help us identify our initial focus, from which we can hopefully map out some actions and determine whose specialties we need and when. Let’s get through the intros so Julia and I can take you through what we know at this point. Uhli you’re up.”
“Hello, my name is Uhli Pokov. I specialize in what some people refer to as positive thinking but is more accurately termed synergetic realization. My research and personal experience revolves around the concept of controlling your own destiny, using the power of the relationship between energy and thought. Thoughts can become powerful when embraced by the many. For example - did we lose direct contact with the gods described in religious stories around the world, or did we lose the power to contact the gods because the strength of belief has diminished? Without knowing the specifics of the goals for this group, I assume we are dealing with a large number of people, and as before, my role will be to utilize my framework to help manufacture the success and results desired.”
With a wry smile he added, “And at a minimum we might all go home with new nicknames courtesy of Mr. Michaels.”
Continuing around the table was James (Jim) Spacek. Jim’s expertise was in nano materials. A renowned researcher, he had helped produce some of the biggest breakthroughs in the field to date.
Next to Jim sat Komiko Akari, specializing in biotechnology. Komiko was dressed in a stylishly funky outfit with a traditional Japanese flavor, but it was her eyes and their intensity that drew your attention, providing a window to the great intelligence that lay beyond.
Lastly, Francisco Chupez, a futurist with the most think tank experience, as his discipline existed solely in the realm of thought experiments.
With introductions complete, everybody took a quick break to get coffee, relieve themselves and settle in for a long day and night.
Julia came up next to Susan as she was getting a cup of coffee from the back table. “It’s nice to see a familiar face,” Julia said grabbing a cup. “I didn’t know you participated in these types of DARPA programs.”
“I’ve been involved in a few. My specialty can sometimes be of help especially with terrorist mind-set scenarios; not sure if this will be one of those times though. To be honest I’m a little distracted and anxious to get back to a potentially very unique case I’m working on,” Susan replied, stirring a packet of sweetener into her styrofoam cup.
“I’m intrigued. Do tell, Dr Reynolds,” Julia said flashing a conspiratorial grin.
“I’m sure it’s just a strange similarity, definitely a long shot, but…” Susan trailed off, pausing to look at Julia, whose raised eyebrows egged her on. “Well, it seemed as though I encountered the same personality in two different patients.”
“Wow, that sounds strange alright. Sounds like you’ve got the ultimate spy on your hands,” Julia said, widening her eyes and laughing at the incredulity of the idea.
Their conversation was interrupted as Brian encouraged everyone back to the table. Julia made a mental note to followup with Susan on their discussion. Surely there was some rational explanation. But what a powerful ability that would be.
As everyone took their seats, Brian turned the lights down and powered on one of the screens in the video wall.
The first image Brian brought up was a map of the U.S. with symbols made up of small circles with letters in them. The circles were primarily over the central states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and then horizontally across the northern states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. The greatest density of circles were located over the states dead center in the U.S. which then became sparser in the southern and eastern directions. The letters within all the circles however seemed random throughout the various locations on the map. If you squinted, the overall shape resembled a boomerang.
“What you are looking at is the latest reporting map from the CDC marked with the locations of reported rare disease infections. The various diseases are indicated by the different letters in the circles. What’s alarming about these infections is that they are all diseases which are not native to the U.S. and have historically rarely, if ever, originated here,” Brian said now standing at the front of the room near the screen.
“We have Ebola, malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, sleeping sickness, and chagas disease…..so far.
“It is not uncommon to see a couple of these cases in the U.S. Typically they originate initially overseas, travel with the infected host to the U.S. where the hosts start to exhibit symptoms. The situation we are in at the moment is far removed from the odd traveler infection.
“The CDC gathers data on a national level, as long as it is reported, and is able to see trends and macro issues which might not come to light as quickly otherwise. With good reason they sounded the alarm in this situation, which is why we were asked to get involved this morning.” Brian paused and took a sip of his water while this initial information sank in with the group.
Julia couldn’t help but be impressed with the group’s snap-to focus as Brian began the presentation. It was obvious that all of these individuals had done this before and that she was the newbie.
“Over what period was the data collected and what is th
e rate of infection?” Susan asked.
“This data was gathered over the course of the past 30 days. The rate of new reports has slowed but this might be the eye of the storm, as contagious disease epidemics begin in waves due to the time delay for people to show symptoms. Until we know the source we can’t be sure if a reoccurrence, or worse, might be facing us soon.” Brian paused again, not wanting to add any information beyond that requested, interested to see what questions the group would ask.
Squinting, Komiko said, “There are a couple of interesting things happening it appears. We often look to nature in my field for inspiration on how to create biotech solutions and frankly how to make them work. As such we are often looking at small creatures, and if I am not mistaken these are all insect borne diseases.”
“That is exactly right, Komiko,” Brian confirmed.
Francisco joined the conversation with his mellifluous South American accent, “So did someone accidentally release a lab full of infected insects in Missouri and they spread from there?”
Komiko took the initiative, “The mechanics of small insects like mosquitos and flies make it almost impossible for them to fly anywhere the wind does not take them. Or more accurately, they end up traveling in primary wind directions. If this was such a release, we could overlay the prevailing wind patterns on this map during the same time period to determine where the initial release occurred.”
Uhli shook his head. “That presumes an accident. I assume that since the CIA is involved, the cause for this outbreak is assumed or maybe has been determined to be something other than such a wind-blown accident?” Uhli offered as more of statement than a question, which he punctuated with a raised left eyebrow while looking at Julia.
“At this point all options are on the table and…” Julia paused to look at Brian, and understanding his quick nod indicated she could tell this group everything, continued “…we are treating this as an act of aggression as directed by the President at yesterday’s initial cabinet meeting. The President has also directed that this be kept quiet to avoid a public panic until we have a plan.”
As Julia talked Brian brought to life the wall panel next to the one showing the CDC map, on which he had googled a map of the primary wind patterns in the U.S.
Looking at the screens with his back to the group, “Well lookey there,” Brian said as he played with the zoom of the map showing the wind patterns until it was the same scale as the CDC map next to it. “There’s a wind corridor starting along the gulf coast of Texas which goes straight up the center of the country and then turns east around Iowa continuing east along the north border, essentially creating the same boomerang pattern we see on the CDC map. Komiko, good thinking on this.”
Brian continued talking as he brought to life a third screen above the CDC infection map. “Just before this meeting I received an email including pictures which I will try to pull up. Julia, this is what I was looking at when you walked into my office.”
A photograph of what looked like a fly popped up on the new screen.
Clicking again, a close up of the fly replaced the original and in this picture you could see this was not something nature created. This magnification revealed thin metal filament legs, jointed and wickedly pointed at the tips. The transparent wings looked almost natural and instead of two bulbous eyes there was a single faceted sphere where presumably guidance equipment resided. The appendages were clearly hinged but the mechanism could not be discerned at this magnification.
“These are being found in areas where people have been infected and presumably we now have the weapon AND possibly the initial point of entry.”
“Do you have one of these…FUCK NUTS…items in hand, that we could look at?” Jerry asked perking up in his seat.
An amused smile appeared unconsciously on Brian’s face as he answered while flipping through the additional pictures from different angles, “We will soon. We are just about operating in real time at this point. CDC is confirming these devices contain matching viruses. After sterilizing we should have some samples in our hands within a couple hours.”
“Brian, these appear to be years ahead of anything I have seen, maybe even decades ahead.” Komiko gasped with a panicked and excited look in her eyes. “I thought I was at the cutting edge in this field. Who could possibly have made these?”
“That is one of the two most pressing questions that we need to answer,” Julia responded knowing this would be one of the areas where the CIA’s considerable resources would play heavily.
“What's the other question?” asked Uhli.
“How we catch up,” said Francisco as he studied the ceiling in thought.
Bringing his gaze down and meeting the eyes around the room, he continued. “This technology and ability as demonstrated is a game changer for the geopower balance as we know it. Devices such as these could bypass wealthy countries’ current military defenses. I can only think of natural defenses at this moment for such an attack; either people start to live outside of major wind patterns and we treat the unlucky ones with traditional medicine or everyone avoids the outdoors for the rest of their lives.”
The room became silent. Francisco’s velvety accent and something about the way he spoke produced a hypnotic effect on the group.
Francisco broke the silence, clearly agitated, the alarm in his voice continuing to escalate. “Some of these diseases are also contagious. What if a full onslaught of millions of these infectors, (his word came out sharply accented as in-fect-OORS), was released on the U.S.? There would be millions of deaths and the country would start to break down. Hospitals (hos-pee-talls) would be overwhelmed and become ineffective. As people are eliminated industry would slow, farming and food production would come to a halt, the whole economy would shrink. The U.S. military would still be a formidable force but to what effect? We wouldn’t need tanks and planes, we would need flyswatters. Guys, we have to find a way to not only catch up but get ahead of this—”
“AND figure out who is behind it,” Julia interrupted.
The mood in the room had darkened and everyone now sat forward in their seats listening very carefully.
Brian’s instincts and need for action kicked in. “Okay, let’s start breaking this down into smaller problems and determine how we are going to solve them. The following are the initial items we need to focus on:
“1. Who - Julia this one’s right up your alley. Can you look into the available satellite imagery around the estimated time of the initial release in the gulf area off Texas and explore any other intel sources to see if we can identify who released these micro robots?
“2. How - Komiko, if you are right and these devices are 10 years ahead of our tech, we need to know how someone could have gotten so far ahead and how we can catch up. This one we are going to tackle as a group in shifts - this is going to be an all night affair everyone, as time is our enemy.
“I have a meeting first thing in the morning at the White House where the full cabinet will be reconvening for everyone to report back with initial thoughts and findings. The more information I can provide at that meeting, the better, so that’s our deadline.
“As we get into this, nothing is secret between agencies, so share everything and share often as long as it is an internal chain of communication. We need to bring to bear all our resources to move quickly on this.
“We will get some cots setup in one of the other conference rooms so people can get some rest when they need it.”
At 2:00 am, only Jerry, Brian, Julia and Francisco were awake. Everyone else was taking a shot at getting a little rest in the pseudo bunk house in the conference room down the hall.
Jerry sighed to the table he was staring at, head in hands, elbows on the table. “I’m worried that what’s at issue here is a brute force technological singularity. Not the true A.I. technological singularity that would undoubtedly leave us behind, but something in between,” Jerry said very clearly, without a hint of Tourettes related outbursts, as if this w
as such an important statement that even maladies stepped to the side.
“What do you mean, Jerry? Put that into layman’s terms my tired brain can understand,” Brian said, running his hands through his hair and giving his head a squeeze.
“Well the theory, which I agree with by the way, is that once the invention of artificial super intelligence has been achieved this will trigger an exponential technological growth never before seen.
“Forget Mohrs law, we are talking about quasi-instantaneous breakthroughs in science and all fields that are frankly hard to imagine.
“I don’t think we are up against a true artificial general intelligence in our current scenario, but it seems that what we are up against is a brute force type pseudo A.I. which has to be operating in a trial by error manner.”
Francisco was stretching his legs, trying to keep himself awake by doing slow laps around the conference table with his hands in his pockets, his head tucked looking at the ground while listening to the conversation and finally joining. “So what you’re saying is that our yet-to-be-identified perpetrator is using brute force computational power to find complex solutions in a trial and error methodology by simply trying all the possibilities and just by sheer processing power have accelerated 10+ years beyond everyone else?”
“Yes, PUSSY BOOTS!, that is exactly what I am saying,” Jerry said smiling, “and there is really only one country other than the U.S. who has the supercomputing power to even attempt something like this.”
“Why are you so sure it's not a true general artificial intelligence as you say?” Julia asked.
“Because we’re having this discussion,” Jerry responded.
Julia and Francisco both looked at Jerry.
Taking the cue he clarified, “Whoever gets there first wins. There's no catching up from behind with this.”
The implication Jerry made drove the magnitude and reality of the situation home to Julia. If Jerry was right. If China, or someone, was close to this true AGI, it was the fate of the human race on the line.
The Slip Page 3