Chasing Rain

by Brandt Legg

  Porter always responded, “As soon as you create something as exciting as RAI.”

  Chase would then reply, “I’m working on it.”

  After the sale, though, it hadn’t taken long for things to go south, and Porter had been the one who sounded the alarm. He’d sent Chase a series of encrypted messages. TruNeural had added the “N” to RAI, and knowingly—or unknowingly—altered the path of humanity forever. That’s when Chase and Dez put their next invention to the test—SEER. The acronym stood for Search Entire Existence Result. It had been developed in strict secrecy and employed advanced photonic quantum information processors and utilized deep learning, AI, quantum algorithms, and virtually every data point in digital existence to predict the future with stunning accuracy. They had plans to do incredible good, to solve all of society’s problems, to liberate all of earth’s inhabitants from complex burdens.

  What they never expected was that the SEER Simulator would show them the end of human existence.

  Chase, deeply affected by his time in China and his relationship with Wen, and after discovering Buddhism, had founded Balance Engineering. He believed that great technology could be used to improve the world, or it could be used for greed, war, and would result in harming humanity. Chase chose the name “Balance” to always remind him that technology was the scale that could tip the world in either direction, or be what kept it in balance. Yet even with all his brilliance and involved thought, he had not prepared himself that we were so close to destroying everything.

  A text came in from Dez.

  “Lousy time to leave,” Dez’s text began. “Every minute counts if we can even try to reverse RAIN.”

  “Wen needs my help. I’ve got to deal with this.”

  “We’ve got this to deal with,” Dez shot back. “Wen is history. Five years. Neither of you are even the same person anymore. Not to mention, we do business with China. Why is she in trouble? Come on.”

  “I don’t turn my back on people.”

  “Really? What about the 7.5 billion people counting on you?”

  “There’s time. You know I’m the king of multi-tasking.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not . . . And if I am, then it’s already too late to save everyone anyway.”

  “Nice,” Dez wrote. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours, and then I’m warning the authorities.”

  “No! This could take weeks to figure out.”

  “Are you kidding? We don’t have WEEKS!”

  “Damn it, Dez. Ten days.”

  “Two.”

  “Seven.”

  “Five.”

  “Fine!” Chase understood Dez was scared, because the same fears had been smothering him as well. TruNeural had to be stopped. “You’ll have to meet with Porter tonight.”

  “I know,” Dez wrote. “He’ll be stunned you won’t be there. He’s way out on a limb.”

  “Tell him it’s Wen.” Everyone who had been with Chase in the beginning knew about Wen. She was his only weakness—kryptonite to Superman. “He’ll understand.”

  “No,” Dez shot back. “No, he won’t. Wen is some figment from your past. Five years . . . Five years! She doesn’t even deserve you answering a phone call. You’re flying halfway around the world! Porter hasn’t even seen the simulations, and he knows the stakes are astronomically-catastrophically-massigorical.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “I can save her and the world at the same time.”

  “Five days.”

  Four

  Rong Lo stood in front of a large monitor flanked by two technicians tapping rapidly on keyboards, as if attacking them. He barked orders in Mandarin as the images continued to change, leading him closer to his prey. Rong Lo was a brilliant tracker, always on the lookout for slivers of data, surveillance footage, or facial expressions that didn’t fit, anything that could expose what he searched for—a defector. His slick black hair, perfectly parted to the left, impeccable gun metal gray suit, red and gold communist party cufflinks, and state issued semi-automatic pistol, presented the absolute air of authority and confidence. However, it was his angry eyes, with their sinister glint, that made his subordinates fear him and, equally, let his superiors count on him to do the often-ruthless work they required.

  He’d risen through the ranks of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, “MSS,” faster than any of his peers, by rooting out disloyal agents. “In China, everyone is suspicious,” he often said, while subscribing to the Stalinesque principle summed up by the then-head of the Soviet Secret Police, Lavrentiy Beria: “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”

  Rong Lo believed this case would surely lead to another promotion. Yet, as he reread the details contained in his target’s file, he worried that this one could be his most difficult. Wen Sung was not his typical adversary. She had skills and a level of intelligence that posed exceedingly difficult challenges. Rong Lo liked challenges, however, and had already set aside a fine bottle of champagne to celebrate her execution. First, though, he must prevent her from escaping to the west.

  A car was waiting for Chase as he stepped off the plane. “We have a lead,” a British woman said, sliding into the rear seat beside him. Employed by a law firm Chase had hired several years earlier to help locate Wen, the woman explained that a contact had uncovered information from a network of informants.

  “Wen appears to have been at this building near the harbor last night.” She showed a photo on her tablet to Chase. “It’s from a surveillance camera.”

  “If you could get this picture, then the authorities must also have it,” Chase said, suddenly more concerned. “I couldn’t say for sure that’s her.”

  “We should have some better images shortly,” the woman continued. “And, yes, MSS is probably looking at the same information, and are possibly way ahead of us.”

  “MSS?” Chase asked.

  “Ministry of State Security,” she clarified.

  As the car raced away from the airport, Chase didn’t see anything from the windows. The ocean and tall buildings blended into a gray opaque blurred background of nothingness.

  “I know who MSS is,” he tried not to snap at her, “but why would they be involved? Just how much trouble is she in?”

  “Impossible to know at this point. However, we have confirmed MSS is pursuing her.”

  “How were you able to do that?”

  The woman raised an eyebrow as if to say, “That’s why you pay us so much money, but you don’t pay enough to get to know how we do what we do.”

  Chase swallowed his frustration. Wen had finally come back into his life, and yet she felt more lost to him than ever. She’d mentioned in her message that the MSS was after her, that her life was at stake, but didn’t say why. It made no sense. When he’d known her, she had just been a student. What could have happened in the years since, he wondered, knowing whatever it had been is what had kept them apart.

  Rong Lo scanned the data on the screens. MSS agents had followed Wen’s trail to Hong Kong. They had numerous surveillance photos and videos that were believed to be her, and yet . . .

  “It’s been too easy,” Rong Lo told one of his team members. “She’s being sloppy.”

  “We don’t have her yet, and we only found this by accident,” the subordinate responded, disagreeing. “Wen Sung is being meticulous.”

  “Because you think we are so smart?” Rong Lo asked. “You are mistaken. But you are correct about one thing. Wen Sung is being meticulous. She only wants us to believe she is in Hong Kong . . . but where is she really?”

  “Sir, we just received word that Chase Malone is in Hong Kong,” one of the technicians interrupted. Rong Lo knew Wen had been in a relationship with the billionaire five years earlier, before Chase had made his fortune. The development was not a shock, but still it surprised him. The MSS had no knowledge of any contact between the two since Chase left China after a year spent study
ing at Tsinghua University as part of a special exchange program, before interning with HuumaX, the top AI company in China. “Chase Malone's presence proves she is in Hong Kong,” the technician announced triumphantly.

  “No,” Rong Lo said coolly, “it proves she is already gone.”

  Five

  As the car navigated the usual Nathan Road traffic, and the British woman from the law firm continued to explain their progress, Chase fell deep into his thoughts and hardly heard a word.

  He thought back to that summer in Beijing when he’d first met Wen, just weeks after he’d graduated from Stanford. Both he and Dez had been selected to participate in a special “further education” exchange program with the prestigious Tsinghua University. The main reason Chase chose to take part had been the chance to intern at HuumaX, China’s leading AI firm. The company was at the forefront of developing AI/human interfaces, an area that Chase and Dez had been exploring. Chase had formed the company and research group that developed RAI in college, but was still a long way from the billion-dollar breakthrough which would come after his time in China.

  The student exchanges had grown out of an initiative between the two rival super powers meant to ease mounting trade and competitiveness issues. However, some conservatives warned it was another way for China to pilfer tech secrets from US corporations. Chase disagreed with that premise, knowing he was gaining far more knowledge than he was sharing. But at the end of his year, when HuumaX offered Chase a permanent—and very lucrative—position, he wondered if they weren’t going for a talent grab. Either way, it had been the equivalent of three years of AI graduate work jammed into less than twelve months, and he was ready to take on the world.

  On top of the knowledge and skills he’d acquired, there had been Wen. They’d met on his third day at Tsinghua University. She was also a student. He’d known a lot of smart women at Stanford, but in addition to Wen’s obvious brain power, she possessed a confidence that made her magnetic. Her quiet concentration juxtaposed a firecracker humor and infectious laugh. He fell in love immediately, and again every day thereafter. They studied together and monopolized each other’s time. He proposed six months in, and if not for the problem of her being unable to move to the US and him not wanting to live forever in China, they would have wed, he felt sure. He almost took the HuumaX offer in order to have more time with her, but it would have just delayed the inevitable and increased his pain.

  “Here we are,” the British woman said, pulling him back to the desperate present. They’d stopped in front of a row of seedy waterfront buildings and a cheap hotel that hadn’t seen fresh paint in half a century.

  A Chinese man, employed by the same firm as the British woman, met them. “No trace of her,” he informed them as they exited the car.

  “Was she here?” Chase asked, deflated.

  “Yes. Verified through the CCTV camera,” the man said. “There are more than a million cameras in Hong Kong alone.”

  Chase knew that China possessed the world’s largest video surveillance network, with more than half a billion cameras scattered across the country, jammed with the latest artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology.

  “Then the authorities could have grabbed her,” Chase said, increasingly alarmed.

  “They were here, too,” the man said. “But they also came up empty.”

  Chase sighed. “I’d like to look around.” Wen must have known she’d be spotted on the camera, that he would find her.

  Chase entered the shabby hotel, hoping something would stand out, but not really expecting anything. So close, he thought. There were hundreds of nice hotels overlooking Victoria harbor, this wasn’t one of them. The place would have been condemned in America, and probably would be here soon enough with the soaring property prices. He could only imagine it was caught in some sort of bureaucratic purgatory, otherwise it would have been redeveloped into a glass tower long ago.

  Chase wasn’t sure what to do now. He’d flown around the world chasing a ghost, and was left with only hints of nothing. As he jogged down the street toward his escort, an old woman with a loaded shopping cart watched him. As he returned her gaze, she waved, beckoning him over.

  Although she appeared disheveled, smelled of dumpster and old seaweed, her eyes were clear and firm. She stared intently and then shook her finger at him. “I know who you are looking for,” she said in broken English, with a dry, ancient voice that sounded as if it hadn’t been used in years.

  “How do you know?” Chase asked, wondering if she was just trying to get a couple of dollars. Her crisscrossing wrinkles and etched face were a real-life version of the wise old mountain women he’d seen in National Geographic magazines as a kid.

  “I have seen her,” the old woman said, her voice now a little stronger, but still gravelly.

  “Who?”

  “The pretty lady. The one you seek.” She smiled, showing yellow teeth. “The one you flew here to meet.”

  “Where is she?” Chase asked casually, suddenly feeling she could hear his heart beating wildly.

  “You’re not as handsome as she said you would be. But love is blind.” The old woman cackled. “Nice blue eyes, but boy you need a shave, or finish growing a beard—if you can!”

  Chase was pretty sure the old woman was crazy, but she might still have important information to share. She obviously lived on the streets, and had probably seen Wen come and go from the dive-hotel. Maybe she guessed he was looking for her. Maybe she knew more. “Please,” Chase implored, “tell me what you know.”

  “First, you need to pay me, then I tell you.”

  Chase shook his head, exasperated, figuring that he’d guessed right about the old woman just looking for a fix.

  “The pretty lady said you would pay me,” the old woman repeated. “Look at this scarf she gave me.”

  “Who said I would pay?” Chase asked, as he glanced at the piece of silk that most definitely did not look like anything else this small determined creature wore.

  “Wen.” She smiled wide at his startled expression. “Wen Sung said this.”

  Skepticism fought with his hope. He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket, and fidgeted with his custom multi-tool, a kind of deluxe Swiss Army knife, something he always did when nervous. “What else did she say?”

  “You pay!”

  Chase fished a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet.

  The old woman shook her head.

  He pulled another one.

  She shook her head and held up five fingers.

  “Two now and three once you tell me what she said.”

  “No, five hundred first,” the old woman growled. “Then I give you her letter.”

  “Letter?” Chase asked, stunned. “She left me a letter?”

  The old woman smiled and nodded.

  Chase handed her five hundreds.

  Six

  Aboard the Gulfstream, over the Pacific, en route to San Francisco, Chase typed urgent notes into his laptop, methodically searching for a way to disrupt RAIN. When he’d created Rapid Artificial Intelligence, the sheer force of the event pushed away concerns from his mind that it would ever be used as a tool of control, a path to destruction. His optimistic nature couldn’t easily imagine the greed and lust for power people like Sliske possessed.

  Chase felt happy to be heading home, but sorry not to have Wen with him. Still, he had her letter. There was much to do to help her. And, if all went well, he would see her in a few days. Meanwhile, he needed to stop TruNeural before they could turn RAIN into a digital storm of AI so vast it would engulf all of humanity. Chase had built RAI on the back of a breakthrough in neuromorphic computing which makes computer chips work like the human brain. He believed that the solution to defeating RAIN would be found in the same neuromorphic system.

  A text came in from Dez saying it was imperative they speak. SEER’s prediction clock ticked loudly in his head, even as he worried about Wen. He called Dez instantly.

&n
bsp; “Porter didn’t show for our meeting,” Dez said as he answered. “Didn’t pick up my calls, or respond to my messages, either.”

  Chase suddenly felt uneasy. Porter was “Mr. Reliable.” He never would have missed the appointment.

  “I phoned his wife,” Dez continued. “She told me Porter never came home last night. She’s worried.”

  “I am, too,” Chase said. “Have you tried him everywhere?”

  “Everywhere I can think of,” he hesitated, “except the hospitals.”

  Chase was quiet for a few seconds. “Maybe you’d better have someone check them.”

  “I just don’t believe—”

  “You know the stakes,” Chase interrupted, his voice rising. “It’s safe to assume that our friends at TruNeural know them even better.”

  “Yeah but . . . we know these guys. We worked with their whole team. I mean, Sliske might be a bit of a hard ass, but going after Porter? Jeopardizing human existence? Just for money?” Dez asked

  “You’re smarter than this. It’s not just money! You know it’s not just the damn money. It’s power, it’s everything! And TruNeural aren’t the good guys. You just want this to be a big mistake, but it’s real!”

  “What if they think that they’re ushering in a whole new world—great comforts and ease for everybody, leisure and fun while robots do the work,” Dez argued. “They couldn’t possibly know it leads to the end of humanity.”

  “Would they care? Would they believe it?” Chase blasted back. “Everyone thinks the future is so far away—ten years, twenty years, a hundred years—but the future started a long time ago, and the end of the future is right now.”

  Not long after he signed off with Dez, Chase’s older brother, Boone, called.

  “What are you doing in Hong Kong?”

  “Wen’s in trouble.” Chase was close to his brother, who had followed the whole saga of losing Wen. Boone, very bright, but not a genius like his little brother, had taken a different path, albeit also an entrepreneurial one. He owned the largest window washing company in San Francisco. Chase had worked for him during high school, riding scaffolds up and down the city’s tallest buildings.