The Slip

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The Slip Page 14

by Tom C Willoughby


  All of this happened in mere seconds and now all he needed was to transfer back to Li, who, now in control of his own actions, reeled slightly, then instantly tried to undo the previous overly personal and weak statement.

  “Sir, thank you for your concern. What I mean is that I would like some additional responsibilities to keep me fresh. Everything is in excellent order at ZG, and I want to make sure I continually challenge myself, so I stay vigilant and never become complacent.”

  The President paused as he looked at Li noting the change in demeanor from the beginning of their conversation. “Okay, well, that is good to hear, Commander. I want you to be close at all times but I understand the need to be continually challenged. Let me think on it and we will find a solution.” The President responded standing up to conclude the meeting.

  Following the President, Li also stood and then forlornly shook his extended hand, allowing Sam back in.

  Sam had to fight the urge to torpedo Li’s career there and then, but he still needed Li’s access and rights to be intact as his mode of transport. Sam left Li in control as he exited the room, ready to take over if anything strange occurred, to allow Li to be as natural as possible in the President’s eyes.

  As the door clicked closed behind them, Sam slammed Kung backwards as he took control again, and walked quickly towards the underground carpark.

  47

  FULLY INTEGRATED, SAM HAD IMMEDIATE access to all things Li, and looking for transportation found that Li never really left the ZG compound. A number of limousines with drivers were available to him, but something with sirens would be better to cut through traffic, if necessary. There were plenty of military and police type vehicles in the carpark, but Li did not know the route to his destination and driving himself would take a lot of his focus. So he decided on both. Sam radioed Peng and told him to report to the garage asap, and to arrange for one of the limo drivers to be ready to depart immediately.

  Peng was going to be his security escort in a military police vehicle, allowing Sam to ride in one of the limos with a driver who would know the quickest routes. The damage he had done to Peng’s life was a weight on Sam’s conscience, and he was hoping for an opportunity to rectify that situation by bringing him along.

  “But, Commander, we are on lockdown,” Peng said carefully to not sound like he was being insubordinate to Commander Li’s orders to escort him out of the compound.

  Lockdown. That word was like a punch to the gut, stopping Sam mid-thought. Looking internally he saw what he had missed, and he imagined a crocodile smile on Li’s fat face.

  48

  WITHIN THREE MINUTES FROM SAM’S order, Peng joined Sam in the garage with a limo driver in tow. They quickly found their vehicles and began their mini convoy.

  Once aboveground and leaving the carpark, Sam saw troop movements were clearly in motion as military personnel rushed to reinforce the existing security at each of the ZG gates.

  Sam had been so focused on the choreography of getting in and out of the President and Li that he had not recognized what Li had done in the brief period Sam had been integrated with the President. The depth of paranoia in the Communist Party was much deeper than Sam had thought. Now looking he could see in Li’s mind the various protocols that were put in place in the event of a number of situations, unbelievably including a handshake signal that only the President and his most trusted protector Li Kung knew. This simple silent alarm indicated they were compromised. It was this handshake in the President’s office which Sam had used to reintegrate with Li and which Li had used to signal that they had been infiltrated at the highest level.

  This protocol, once activated, included the lockdown of their current location, so that the interloper would be trapped and caught. The lockdown was implemented with the addition of army troops who would work in parallel with the security forces as a check and balance. In the event that one of their ranks was compromised, the other command structure would theoretically not be. Hence the military troops rushing to reinforce the ZG gates in addition to the existing security staff. Sam thought the level of fear Li had instilled in his security forces would enable him to direct them to allow him to leave the compound, even though it was technically against the protocol. He had no such hold over the army forces now rushing to secure the facility. He had to beat the troops to the exit gate.

  “DRIVER! Get us out of here as fast as you can.” They had been moving at an efficient pace but using a page from Li’s book, his manic directive spurred the driver to great speed, and Sam watched out the window as they passed the jogging formations of soldiers.

  The west gate was fairly close to the office buildings and it wasn’t long before they pulled up to the staunch-looking security officers, motioning them to stop.

  Rolling down his window the driver was told they would not be able to leave. As the security officer at the window looked into the back seat and saw Commander Li his voice faltered and his confidence wilted. The officer redirected his command as a question towards Li, “Sir, the protocol says not to let anyone in or out of the compound.” The officer thought maybe this was a test of the resolve of the security personnel by Commander Li.

  Seizing upon the uncertainty and Li’s reputation, Sam went all in, “Who do you think created this protocol? Time is critical - OPEN THE GATE! The rear car is my escort and will also be allowed to pass.”

  “But, sir, the instruction is to not let anyone in or out.” There was a slight tremble in the officer’s voice as he rebutted.

  Sam caught sight of the first group of soldiers approaching as he glanced in the car’s rearview mirror. They were about 50 yards away, and it was now or never to get past this gate.

  Reading the officer’s last name on his shirt, Sam softened his approach, “Chun, you have done an honorable and courageous act to challenge even your Commander to uphold your orders, and I will make note of it.” Even softer now, “But if you don’t open the gate immediately I will have you locked up, never to be seen again. NOW OPEN THE GATE!” Sam sat back in his seat and looked out the window on his side to indicate the conversation was over, hoping that he had scared the officer enough.

  Sam held his breath, continuing to look out his window as seconds passed after the officer had walked away from the car. The soldiers had to be almost to them at this point. It seemed like minutes and he was anticipating someone jerking open his door and ordering him out.

  Then he saw the gate starting to rise and he heard shouts from the soldiers behind the car, yelling at the security officers to close the gate.

  The soldiers were now on either side of the car as he felt the lurch of the car start to move forward. The security men and soldiers were shouting at each other. The soldiers banged on the side of the car as the limo slid out of the compound and away.

  Sam felt his chest unclench as he started to breath regularly again.

  49

  SAM INSTRUCTED PENG TO MOVE ahead of the limo and use his siren to cut through traffic. He wondered how the President would react to Commander Kung leaving his post in the middle of a lockdown. Sam pushed these thoughts away as he leaned his head back to rest and think through his next steps.

  Although his visit in the President’s mind was brief, he got the information he needed, or at least hoped he did. There were two data centers involved in the creation and operation components of the micro attacks in the U.S., and the program was code named “Dragonfly”.

  Dragonfly was only a part of China’s much larger artificial general intelligence (AGI) program, which was thoroughly frightening in its vastness. The President and Party had set very aggressive goals for AGI as a country, with various applications falling under that umbrella, as AGI could be brought to bear on almost any challenge one could think of. There were strong overtones of China’s destiny to return to power harkening to the period of history prior to the “century of humiliation”, when China perceived itself as the central power in the region. The President’s sense of destiny in its
long view form allowed dealings with current issues to be perceived as speed bumps on the long road ahead. Working within the current confines of the world and powers-that-be was preferred, but not required. China’s unique ability to be nimble and absolute, with an uninterrupted Party control, allowed them to plow ahead while the western countries and their slow bureaucratic governments churned as they attempted to keep up.

  There was a sinister aspect to this mentality which unsettled Sam and added to his determination to kill Dragonfly and push back on the injustice he felt.

  Each of the data centers had a Dragonfly operations center associated with it. Sam assumed that by taking the op centers offline, the ability to control the attacks would be lost and the reprieve the U.S. needed would be obtained. The first data center and associated Dragonfly operation center was at Tsinghua University, which was the best computer science university in the country. The University was about an hour away, and Sam hoped to cut that in half with Peng’s siren escort.

  Sam had images of the location of the facility on the campus from the President’s mind, which he hoped he would be able to use to visually identify an access point once on site. The President had also met a number of times with the head of the computer science program, a Professor Lee Chan who would be his backup plan to locate the ops center.

  50

  PENG RADIOED AS THEY WERE approaching the university, and Sam directed him to turn off his sirens and turn onto the campus roads when they got there.

  After entering the campus, Sam could see well kept squares off of the road as they drove. They were large open spaces of greenery which were not accessible by car. The buildings they were passing all looked very similar, and Sam was starting to get nervous that he was not going to be able to make a visual identification of their target. Sam got on the radio and directed Peng to call the University and get directions to Professor Chan’s office and to start driving in that direction.

  The buildings lining the roads were all somewhat nondescript low rise three and four story structures that were various shades of gray accented by faded reddish brown cladding. Sam could see more formidable buildings in the distance arranged around large open squares. The imagery he had from the President included an elevator that accessed lower levels where the ops center was located. There were some external building impressions but it was not clear which one contained the elevator in his, actually the President’s, memory. The memories were starting to get mixed up with the buildings he was looking at. Sam’s guess was the elevator would be in the computer science building or wherever the Professor’s office was.

  Peng must have obtained directions as he pulled into a small road and turned his lead car around. Sam’s driver followed suit, and they picked up speed finally coming to a stop at the edge of one of the larger squares they had passed previously.

  “Commander, we must go on foot from here,” Peng’s voice crackled over the radio.

  Peng took the lead, referring to his phone frequently as he began orienting himself. Peng was unsure why Commander Kung had brought him on this mission. He felt a sliver of hope it would somehow improve his standing and be a step towards freeing his family. A strange thought then occurred to him: what if he wasn’t the only one whose mind had been invaded. Could Commander Kung be wrestling with similar strange experiences? He steeled himself to do exactly what the Commander required of him and hope for the best.

  The square was even larger than it appeared from the road. Students were walking in all directions, following the crisscrossing pathways going to and from classes. It was still too cold to sit outside, otherwise Sam imagined there would be more people relaxing around the grounds. As he was taking in the surroundings, Sam noticed a group of what looked like soldiers off to the far right, or maybe they were campus security.

  Sam felt a surge of Li’s creepy version of happiness, which set off some alarms for Sam. Scanning the rest of the square he saw another group behind them who looked similar to those off to the right. Digging through Li’s mind he didn’t find anything related to the protocol that had been initiated that helped Sam make sense of their presence. It could be that they were associated with the University, after all, China is sensitive to protests which often are initiated by students, so maybe this was a standard presence and precaution on university campuses? Or, the fact that Li had set this protocol in motion and then left the compound that was under lockdown, might have raised some questions in the President’s mind, and these were contingency plan forces keeping an eye on him. Sam wasn’t interested to find out either way and spurred Peng on.

  “We need to move now, Peng, which way?”

  “Should be this way, Commander,” Peng responded looking up from his phone and squinting off into the distance at the buildings northwest of them.

  Peng started off in that direction which thankfully would move them away from the armed groups to the east and south. Peng was on the phone as they walked, confirming their direction with someone.

  Hanging up, Peng quickened their pace once again and said, “Commander, I have confirmed we are going the right way, and Professor Chan will meet us in the lobby of the building.”

  Sam glanced at the mysterious parties as he and Peng took a determined approach to their destination. He could see the group to the east had taken up a slight jog and appeared to be heading in their direction. Looking to their rear, the second group was closer, and they were walking at a good clip but not at the same pace as their colleagues.

  As he returned his gaze back towards their target destination, Li’s radio came to life, startling Sam and enflaming the panic that he had been so far controlling.

  “Commander Kung, this is Shu. The President wants to speak with you at 7:15 using appropriate protocol measures.” Shu was one of the President’s assistants and this was not a request, it was a directive. The protocol measure she was referring to was the use of a secured line from a location that, to the best of one’s knowledge, was not compromised or tapped. Certainly the President was curious as to why Commander Kung had left the compound that he was in charge of protecting, not to mention leaving the primary person he was meant to be protecting. It was 6:57, which gave Sam about 15 minutes to get somewhere he could make the call, if he was to follow through with it and keep Li Kung in play.

  “Certainly, Shu. I will be ready,” Sam replied and the radio did not offer anything further.

  Based on the requested call, Sam guessed that their colleagues in the square were not pursuers but might quickly become such depending on the now scheduled phone call. This was the President’s contingency plan. China seemed full of them.

  Peng and Sam rushed through the building entrance looking for Professor Chan. They had jogged the last 100 yards to try to keep the distance between them and the two approaching groups of men. Sam didn’t think they were going to apprehend them at that moment, or there would have been more urgency, but they definitely intended to close the gap, and Sam didn’t want to be any closer to them than necessary.

  Sam recognized the Professor from the images he obtained from the President’s memory and rushed over to where he was standing by the side of an ascending stair.

  “Professor Chan, thank you for meeting me on short notice. My name is Commander Li, and I am in charge of the ZG compound and the President’s personal security force. Something has come up and we need to visit the Dragonfly center,” Sam said.

  “Commander Li, this is highly unusual and outside the chain of command for this facility. I will need to verify your visit before we can enter,” Chan replied nervously. Li’s reputation preceded him and not in a good way. Chan did not want to make an enemy of Li, but the command structure for the Dragonfly program was very rigid and top secret.

  Sam noticed the Professor looked down the hall to his right when he mentioned the facility. Looking in that direction, he was able to see a door at the end of the hall with an LCD panel next to it, which looked to be the same as what he saw in the President’s memory
.

  Beginning to walk towards that door, Sam responded, “Professor, I appreciate the nature of security around this particular facility and encourage you to make your verifications. I have a call with the President at 7:15, which is in 12 minutes, at which time I am to be inside the operation center.”

  A slight stammer had entered the Professor’s voice as he was intermittently working to find a number on his phone and stay up with Li as he moved down the corridor.

  The entire length of the corridor was 60 feet, and halfway through they passed the only other door in the entire hallway besides the one at the end. Next to the midpoint door was an eight foot long window looking into what could only be a security room. Sam could see two uniformed men through the window sitting at a series of monitors which were aligned along three sides of the room. Sam didn’t slow down but noticed one of the men in the room recognize the Professor, nodding to him as they passed.

  When they stopped in front of the door at the end of the hall, the Professor began to speak into his phone, evidently having found the number he needed. Turning towards the sound of rushing footsteps, Sam saw the men from outside rounding the corner into the hallway. At that point everything went to hell.

  51

  NOT THAT THERE WAS MUCH of a plan to start with, Sam threw what existed of it out the window. He quickly took off his radio and handed it to Peng. He then grabbed his handcuffs and put them around Li’s ankles and also handed the key to Peng. Before the Professor had said more than three words into his phone, Sam grabbed it, hung it up and also handed it to Peng, whose hands were now full and his eyes wide.

 

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