by Tony Batton
"Powerful encryption-breaking algorithms are woven into Darwin’s code. And they learn. Very little is resistant to it, especially with today’s processing power. Indeed, that is the limiting factor: Darwin is designed to run on limited legacy hardware, and its cycles have to be prioritised because there are only so many." Craig paused. "Of course the real irony is that more and more data is put on the net voluntarily through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Instagram, Baidu, WeChat, Orkut, any type of webmail, anything you do on Google, smartphones of every flavour and variety." He held his hands open. "People hand it over without a thought. Fifteen years ago I never envisaged how easy it would be."
Millie nodded. "People harp on about the dangers of governments spying, but for the most part they simply volunteer their deepest secrets. And don’t get me started on this whole ‘quantified self’ thing - why people feel the need to track and record everything about themselves, I will never understand."
"Exactly," said Craig. "They provide a ready stream of what they’re doing and thinking, who they’re talking to and where they’re doing it. It’s almost ludicrous."
Michael coughed. "So intelligence organisations are one hack away from knowing everything about us?"
"Oh they don’t need to hack us, if you believe the rumours." said Millie.
"The rumours about the government having secret access keys to our phones and computers?" Jenson asked.
"Quite," said Craig. "But that’s not relevant to Darwin. The problem for anyone trying to make sense of all the data already out there is simple: there’s too much of it. They’re drowning in data, and the torrent is only getting greater."
"Until someone built a new kind of computer," Millie said, folding her arms and looking at Craig and Jenson.
"So," said Michael, "plugging all this into Darwin means you predict future events how?"
Craig raised his palms. "Prediction is a misnomer. Darwin really 'predicts' what has already happened, by extrapolating from a limited dataset. But that is still an extremely powerful function. First it draws data into its hub matrix - the data can be pretty much everything and anything. The system analyses, processes, correlates and connects. It takes your question and produces an answer."
"And it’s accurate?"
"That very much depends on the accuracy of the data it’s using. The more it has, and the more accurate it is, the better Darwin is at spotting patterns in it, then using those patterns to seek out more data, then looking for more patterns, and so on. People aren’t quick enough, and we can’t hold enough of information in our heads to properly grasp these patterns. In fact often we don't know what we're looking for. But with Darwin the patterns become readable – and as a result everyone’s secrets are ripe for the picking."
"Most people have nothing to hide," Michael said. "Why would they fear a machine knowing the truth about them?"
Craig frowned. "I think you'll find that most people have a great deal to hide. Take the five of us: we all have our secrets."
They exchanged suspicious glances.
"So how did Kinek obtain Darwin?" Michael asked.
"Not from me," Jenson said. "ZAT funded the project, but the only prototype we ever saw didn’t work."
"Still," Kelly said, sipping from her coffee, "surely someone else would have made this leap eventually. You can’t take all the glory. Or the blame."
"Actually," Jenson said, "it’s not at all clear that would have happened. Why don't you tell Michael what made Darwin so special? I think it's past time he knew."
Michael frowned. "What haven't you told me?"
"Yeah, what?" Millie asked. "Because everything can be replicated. Particularly if they found your notes. Maybe they didn’t need your actual system."
"Not Darwin," said Craig without hesitation. He turned to face his son. "It's about you, Michael," said Craig slowly. "And how you helped make Darwin what it is."
Eighty-Seven
"I needed an operational matrix to frame the system," Craig said. "And nothing I came up with worked. It needed a level of complexity I could not grasp. Perhaps if I'd been able to reach out to other programmers and crowd-source the solution, then maybe things would have been different. But obviously everything was being done in such secrecy."
"So tell Michael what you did," Jenson said, his arms folded.
Craig shrugged. "I found an established blueprint that had already solved the problem."
"You stole one?" Michael asked.
"No," Jenson said. "Your father looked to nature. Instead of reaching out to other brainiacs for the answer, he realised a brain could be the answer."
Millie put her coffee mug down. "You copied a human brain? That’s preposterous."
Craig raised his hands. "No. That isn't remotely possible with our science now, let alone what we had fifteen years ago. What I did was map a neural structure electronically."
"To create an environment for Darwin?"
"Exactly. One it could grow within. One that would allow it to evolve."
"Wait," Michael said, "did this involve the use of a computer headset?"
Craig frowned. "How did—"
"You didn’t just pick any brain. You picked mine." Michael’s stared at his father. "Did you think, maybe, to ask me first? That's what was going on with the headset you had on me in the basement?"
"Well… yes. But it was no big deal."
"Mum says differently."
Craig’s brow furrowed. "Huh?"
Millie cleared her throat. "What about his right to privacy?"
"Hang on. I wasn’t copying his brain. This is more like if I took a book and copied the font size and page layout, but not the actual content."
"You still should have asked—"
"That’s not what Mum meant," Michael said, interrupting. "She said it harmed me. Seriously."
"What?" Craig held his hands up. "It was just a headset copying your neural activity. It didn’t do anything to you. Seriously. It couldn’t have hurt you."
"Given that she's the doctor, shouldn't I be more inclined to believe her?"
"But she’s not a neurologist. This wasn’t a two-way communication device. The helmet was a modified magnetoencephalography, or MEG, cage: it's an imaging technique used to measure the magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the brain. But it’s only an imaging technique – it just records what’s already going on in the brain - it certainly wouldn’t change it."
Jenson frowned heavily. "You don’t know that. And it was a huge risk to take with your son."
"By every bit of science that we know it was not. And as for the work that you do," Craig said, his voice rising, "you put your daughter at risk. By dealing in arms, you created enemies. Would your daughter have been kidnapped if you weren't who you are?"
"I did everything I could to protect her. I never experimented on her."
"And I never experimented on my son." Craig turned to Michael. "Do you feel unwell?"
"Not… exactly."
"Of course you don’t. But why would she make something up?"
"With your mother, who knows?"
"But why use Michael at all?" Millie asked. "Surely you could have found some impoverished undergraduate who needed extra rent money?"
Craig shook his head. "We tried it with a number of others first – none of whom suffered any adverse consequences from the process. With Michael it was different. He was special, displayed many of the abilities I was looking to instill in Darwin: he rated off the scale in pattern-matching and in making predictions based on limited information. In fact, he was the original inspiration for Darwin, so it seemed only logical to take things a step further. And, of course, it worked. Better than I could have hoped."
"I made Darwin possible?" Michael asked.
"Without a doubt." Craig said. "That is why we can be sure that nobody replicated the system. It didn’t need just any brain: it needed yours."
"So if I made it possible, this is all my fault?"
&nb
sp; "Oh shut up!" Millie shouted. "This is not on you."
"No," Jenson said, "it’s not. But can we focus on the problem we actually face. If Darwin required Michael, how did someone else make it?"
"That is the question," Craig replied. "And right now, I simply don’t know."
"But," Millie said, "what if somebody stole your working version before you sabotaged it? Could they not copy that?"
"No. I built in fundamental copy prevention. It can’t be moved from one operational matrix to another, without the original matrix map. They would have needed Michael to be present."
Michael coughed. "So we’re agreed we can’t explain it. But for now, it’s enough to know they have it. And if they have Darwin working then this is all part of some plan. It’s just a case of working out what that is."
"Maybe," Jenson said, "that’s why they stitched Michael up with the murders. Maybe they want him out of the way so Darwin can’t be recreated."
Millie shook her head. "Then why not just kill him?" She glanced apologetically at Michael. "It’s not like they haven’t done that to others."
"Who knows?" Craig replied. "The damn system is too powerful. And it's only going to get worse."
"What do you mean by that?" Michael asked.
"It’s just occurred to me. This is all happening because Darwin has inherent limitations, constraints it cannot move beyond. Parallel may well solve them. And if that happens, all bets are off."
Millie blinked. "I'm usually the one to get carried away with doomsday scenarios."
"Darwin can do things that Parallel can’t, but Parallel has brute force power. If you could combine Parallel’s power with Darwin’s efficiency - it doesn’t take a genius or a computer to predict that the outcome will be bad."
"So we destroy it," Jenson said. "Except we can’t, because we don't know where it is."
Millie held up a slim hard drive. "This contains everything we know about Kinek, given to me by Warwick Saxton. Now if the five of us working together can’t find some way to locate Kinek, I’m pretty sure nobody can."
Eighty-Eight
Regina Rose watched from the deck of the Evolution as the small boat made its final approach and pulled alongside. Two of her crew, hi-tech rifles slung across their backs, tied the smaller boat off then laid down a gang plank and prodded a familiar man towards it.
Maxwell Errington looked at it with a dubious expression, then up at Rose. "Why am I here?" He stepped forward, almost losing his balance as the two craft bounced in the gentle swell. "I said I wanted no part of this."
Rose extended her hand and helped Errington aboard. "Kinek were very helpful to me. In fact they did everything they said they would and more. They were so useful I thought I might need to reach them again."
"So you kidnapped me as your go-between?"
"I saved you. Your enemies were closing the net."
"I’m used to that. It’s a dangerous world."
"A contract had been taken out on you."
Errington frowned. "Why would anyone pay to kill me? I’m so old they might as well just wait."
"Kinek have been right about everything else, Max, so I believe a ‘thank you’ might be in order."
"Thanks for what? I had a life. A wife."
"We can buy you a new one." Rose cracked a smile.
"So Kinek informed you of this impending hit?" Errington shook his head. "The thing to remember is that everything they do, they do for their own reasons."
"Everyone does everything for their own reasons. And you’re the one who introduced me to them. I think it’s worked out just fine." Rose turned to stare at the silver cases, plastered in warning signs, that were being carried aboard from the motor boat. "My drones."
Errington pointed at a large metal cabinet that sat on the deck of the smaller craft as several men attached a small crane to it. "What is that?" His voice trembled with excitement.
"An experimental computer system that Kinek asked me to acquire. It was all part of the deal."
"That’s the thing with Kinek. The experimental computer system was probably their goal all along. They just made you feel like you needed the drones."
"Now you’re being ridiculous," Rose replied. "I was in the neighbourhood, anyway. It was a good opportunity to do them a favour." Clipped footsteps sounded on a nearby staircase. "Hopefully a familiar companion here will help sweeten your mood."
Kara’s slim figure appeared from below decks on the Evolution.
Errington’s expression grew fixed. "So that’s how you’ve been keeping an eye on me, Regina. Just how much did she pay you, Kara?"
Kara shrugged. "You say that like I defected, but there’s been no recent change in my allegiance." She walked over and placed a kiss on Errington’s cheek. "We’ll look back on this moment and laugh."
Rose nodded. "I suggest we look to the future, because I can sense big changes on the horizon. Now I need to get our computer set up and test some of these drones."
"Is that safe?" Errington asked.
"My customer won’t tolerate faulty merchandise. And we’ve got that scientist, Chow, below decks. He can help us if there’s any issue." Rose smiled. "Besides, it should be fun."
Eighty-Nine
Michael stood surveying the hive of activity in Jenson’s basement lab. Over the last few hours they had deployed a significant array of computing equipment, all with the goal of locating Kinek and Darwin.
At the centre of activity was the secure drive Millie had obtained from Saxton. Working with Craig, she had decrypted all the files and was parsing their contents with a range of tools. Jenson, meanwhile, had been digging through his meticulously-organised storage cupboards. So far he’d had located everything they needed for the next stage of their plan.
Kelly, bored at not being able to contribute, had been exploring the sub-basement’s ‘toy cupboard’, then had disappeared upstairs with a set of experimental night-vision goggles.
"Do you really trust her?" Millie asked, staring at a screen rapidly scrolling text as she rattled away at her keyboard.
"Someone has to monitor the perimeter," Jenson replied. "And what Astrid’s saying makes as much sense as anything I’ve heard over the last few days. I might not be happy that she works for Saxton, but I’d stake my life she’s not part of Kinek."
"Not long ago she was pointing a gun at me."
Craig gave a snort. "At least she didn’t shoot you."
"That’s quite a low bar you’re setting."
"Maybe we should focus," Jenson said.
"Doesn’t mean I can’t talk at the same time," Millie muttered.
"Are we making any progress?"
Craig leaned forward in his chair. "Not nearly enough. I’ve managed to localise some aspects of Darwin’s activity, but the data is fuzzy – heavily packetised. Instead of a trail of breadcrumbs, it’s like someone has thrown a handful of them over a map. Doesn’t tell us much."
"I’m trying to overlay the research onto Darwin’s data – see if any patterns emerge," Millie added. "But we’ve got nothing yet. With only the computing power we have here, it could take some time."
"Meaning what?" Jenson asked. "Hours?"
"Weeks. Maybe longer. We really need access to a supercomputer."
"Yeah," Craig said, "it kinda takes one to know one."
Michael scratched his head. "You said earlier that Craig displayed the data as some type of scattergram. Can you do that again, but on top of an actual map?"
"Because you’ll see something that we didn’t?" Millie asked. She stabbed an instruction into her computer and the largest display-screen filled with a random assortment of dots overlaid on a map of central London. "Hundreds of possible locations."
Michael frowned. "What about some form of heat map? Can you allocate intensity to the validity of the searches? You know, with different colours representing the different—"
"I know what a heat map is." Millie shrugged. "I guess we could try that." Again her hands flew over
the keyboard. The map of London vanished then reappeared along with splotches of colour, structured like contour lines.
Michael walked closer, frowning. "No, that hasn’t helped either."
Millie shrugged. "The reality is that this type of analysis isn’t magic. We simply don’t have enough data points.
"What about Morton?" Jenson asked. "He was Saxton’s interface with Kinek. Saxton actually had him arrested, but the Home Secretary had him released. I heard there was a ruckus with expensive lawyers threatening all sorts of problems."
Michael frowned. "I wonder who was representing him."
"If Morton was arrested," Millie said slowly, "maybe we could track him after he left custody?"
"We also know the times and places Saxton met with him," Jenson replied. "Is there any pattern there?"
Millie shrugged and typed some more. The colours shifted and simplified.
Jenson clapped. "Progress."
Millie shook her head. "It’s still at least fifty possible locations. And they’re only possible at that."
Michael walked closer to the display. "What exactly are we looking for?"
"Somewhere large enough for their people to work out of with fast network connections. Somewhere out of sight."
"Can you overlay the London Underground network?"
Millie tapped away at the keyboard then shook her head. "It reports no statistically-significant intersections."
"Add disused stations. Service tunnels."
Millie shook her head. "Still nothing."
Michael frowned, then snapped his fingers. "Add historic as well. Include works started but not formally classified as stations."
Millie shrugged and typed again. A single point lit up on the screen.
"What is that?" Craig asked.
"A point of maximum relevance," Millie whispered. "How did you know?"
"I had some information you didn’t. When I was starting out as a lawyer, I worked in the real estate team and helped negotiate the lease of a building right here." He pointed at the dot. "It took ages because the survey reported preliminary excavations for a tube station carried out in the 1930s; it was cancelled during construction and, according to our survey, filled in again, but I’m guessing that survey was less than accurate."