by Brandt Legg
“Wen? Wait, Wen? Your Wen?”
“Yeah.”
“When did that start back up?”
“It hasn’t yet. She’s trying to defect.”
“Whoa. I know you’re still hung up on her and everything, but, man, that sounds like a hornet’s nest. Hasn’t it been four or five years? What about that blonde you were seeing?”
“That didn’t work out.”
“Okay, but she’s a US citizen. I mean, you can date her without starting an international incident.”
“Did you call for a reason?” Fatigue and annoyance laced his words, even though he loved his brother.
“Oh, Mr. Sensitive, yeah, as a matter of fact. The contract for SalesForce is up, and I was hoping you could put in a word with Benioff.”
Marc Benioff was the founder of Salesforce, a huge cloud computing company who occupied the Salesforce Tower, the tallest building in San Francisco. He and Chase were friendly associates. “I doubt Marc makes that decision.”
“He can make sure it gets made the right way. Normally, I wouldn’t ask, but, a few of our biggest competitors are low-balling, trying to get the contract for bragging rights. As you know, the Tower is a super complex job, and no one can do it like we can.”
“I’ll try to give him a call, but this stuff with Wen and a crazy situation with RAI . . .”
“You sold RAI, so what’s the issue?”
“I’ll tell you over lunch. Not a conversation I want to have at thirty-thousand feet. Just remind me in a few days about calling Marc.”
“Okay. And let’s do lunch Friday. I’m buying.”
When Chase saw Dez’s number calling back two hours later, he had a moment of optimism. Perhaps Porter got the dates wrong, some crazy misunderstanding or mishap, everything is good now . . . though Chase knew deeply, as a sick feeling overtook him, that something was very wrong and it was going to keep getting worse. In that split second before he answered Dez’s call, he had a sense, like the one action heroes get in movies—he knew that he was the only one who had a chance to stop it. Not because he was so smart, or rich, or skilled, or strong. No, it was for a much simpler reason.
Guilt. He was the one who’d built the final invention. He imagined how those men and women who worked at Los Alamos in the early 1940s, developing the first atomic bomb, must’ve felt years later when the world held its breath and seemingly remained on the brink of nuclear destruction for decades.
“Please tell me you have good news,” Chase said as he answered.
“I wish,” Dez said gravely. “Porter is dead.”
Seven
Rong Lo pushed a button on his desk and a woman immediately entered the room. “Yes, sir?” she asked.
“Get me on a plane to the United States as quickly as possible.”
“What city?”
He paused for a moment, as if to consider his options. “It’ll have to be San Francisco.”
A technician looked up from his computer. “You think Wen Sung has made it to America?”
“That is yet to be seen,” Rong responded. “However, the only way we are going to find her is to follow Chase Malone.” He was guessing that Chase was heading back home. It was a gamble, but Rong figured Chase knew that each hour Wen was gone meant the likelihood of the MSS capturing her decreased. “Alert our agents in San Francisco that I’m on my way. They are to shadow Malone's every move once he gets off that plane. Reach me in flight to confirm he’s landed in San Francisco. If his plane diverts anywhere else, make the arrangements to get me there and ready agents in whichever city he winds up.”
“Shouldn’t you await orders now that it appears Wen Sung is out of the country?” the technician asked instinctively.
Rong glared at the technician. “I have all the authority I need! Chase Malone did not fly to Hong Kong just to take a walk along the seedy section of the harbor because he was bored. He came for Wen, and he will lead us to her.”
“Risky,” the technician said.
“We will have her soon enough,” Rong said, his expression murderous.
The technician looked questioningly at Rong’s assistant.
“I want to be on a plane an hour ago!” Rong barked.
The assistant nodded and quickly left the room. The technician went back to his screens of data, scouring the darknet for clues as to Wen’s whereabouts. Rong looked at the digital clock showing what time it was in a dozen major cities around the world. Wen could be anywhere, he thought. What are her plans for the secrets she knows? Does she really believe she can get away?
San Francisco was more than a calculated gamble. The MSS had an elite death squad headquartered in the city. Killing her would be easy.
Chase had read Wen’s letter so many times during the flight from Hong Kong, he now had it memorized, but there were still parts of it he didn’t understand. Mainly why she was in such danger. Wen had asked him to do several things that would be difficult, one was definitely illegal, but he would do them.
His plane landed at the San Francisco Airport at 1:28 a.m. Dez was waiting. Their reunion was tense, as the two old friends had battled and debated several times during Chase’s long flight. Chase could have had a chauffeur, but always enjoyed driving himself whenever possible. This passion for being behind the wheel, imagining he was a professional racer, annoyed those close to him. They all had stories to tell about his driving style and their near death experiences.
As they jumped into his silver Tesla Model S, their conversation resumed.
“Come on,” Chase said, raising his voice. “Joey Porter did not kill himself! You remember when we first met him in college? He was Mr. Sunshine. We’re talking about a healthy, happy guy in a great marriage.”
“Damn right, I know he didn’t kill himself,” Dez said, his normal smile buried by worry. “But this confirms that Sliske and the other sharks at GlobeTec know what they’ve got, know the stakes, and knew Joey could expose everything.”
“Then I hope you now know that your idea of going to the authorities is crazy,” Chase said.
“Or maybe a better idea than ever,” Dez snapped back.
“How can you say that?” Chase asked, merging smoothly onto 101 North. The late-night traffic was light enough that the Tesla was topping eighty-eight mph in a few seconds.
“Because we’re probably next.”
“Because you think Sliske knows Joey got us that data?”
“Of course they know,” Dez said. “But more than that, they know we’re the only ones who can stop them.”
“We’re going to give that bastard one more reason,” Chase said. “We’re going to stop them . . . we’re going to destroy them.” He stomped the accelerator as if to emphasize his point, the car easily passing one hundred mph.
“Well I’m all for that,” Dez said, hardly noticing the speed, “but I haven’t changed my mind. And you’ve got three days left before I go public with everything we know.”
They’d had the same argument while Chase was flying back from Hong Kong, so he knew trying to change Dez’s mind would be a waste of time. Still, the prospect of having seventy-two hours to cripple TruNeural’s brain program, prove Porter had been murdered, and save the woman he loved from being captured or killed by MSS agents, seemed impossible, within the best of all circumstances.
Eight
Wen Sung opened her leather messenger bag and withdrew another smart phone—the sixth since fleeing China—then quickly unzipped a small pouch and pulled out a SIM card. The subscriber identification module stored the international mobile subscriber identity number. She slid the card into the new phone, having already destroyed her old one with a hammer—sending it, in a weighted bag, to the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
Wen’s exotic beauty, long dark hair, lithe build, and sweet smile, concealed a tigress. Inside her bag, a QSZ-92 semi-automatic pistol, her preferred Glock 19, plus extra ammo, seemed to radiate heat and scream to the looming danger. She knew Rong Lo was coming for her, and ha
d a bullet ready for him. Still, she preferred “the Demon,” as she called him, would never get that close.
Wen stared at the handguns, briefly lost in thought, before closing her bag and placing a call. Sooner or later, I will have to deal with Lo, she thought, while tapping a phone number into the screen. I will have to kill him.
“Yes?” a man answered in English.
“The tiger is loose,” she said in Mandarin.
“Excellent! Where?” the man asked, now also speaking in Mandarin.
“Seventeen,” she replied using a code number for Singapore. Wen had already come a long way in the hundred hours since her flight to freedom had begun. Her meticulous plan had thrown enough false trails to keep Rong Lo and any other pursuers busy and confused. Wen felt bad about dragging Chase all the way to Hong Kong, but it was the best method to make Lo believe she’d really been hiding there. She’d had not been in Hong Kong for months, instead using Singapore as a base since leaving China. However, she couldn’t remain there any longer.
“Is the company suspicious?” the man asked.
“Not yet,” she said. “Has it escalated?”
“He has not moved it up,” the man said. “He has too much at stake.”
If Wen was going to survive and achieve her goals, she had to keep moving. Her plan was timed to hours rather than days. So far, the breaks had gone her way, but she knew things could turn any moment. More than her planning, training, and strategy, Wen was counting on the love of a man she’d betrayed.
Rong Lo’s MSS team had gone to San Francisco, wasting resources. And now the vile agent himself was even heading there. San Francisco, a city she’d always wanted to visit, but now knew she’d never see.
Wen was relieved that Rong Lo had not escalated her case yet, and had kept it in his division. If the entire MSS mobilized against her, it would be the end not just of her, but so much more.
“Is the package ready?” she asked.
“It will be on the plane,” the man said. “Make sure you get there in time.”
Wen thanked him and ended the call. She sorted through four different passports, having already burned her Chinese one. Thinking about Chase for a moment, she wondered how she could ever convince him to trust her once he learned the truth. Wen pushed those thoughts away, knowing that getting on that plane would require all her skills.
The next day, on his way to Dez’s yacht, where the two Balance Engineering founders along with BE’s Chief Financial Officer, Adya Patel, were gathering to deal with the RAIN crisis and plan their offensive against TruNeural, Chase stopped at his favorite fish and chips restaurant, The Shipwreck. The “Wreck” as locals called it, was a not-so-fancy joint on the waterfront that managed to survive because of its incredible fish and chips, which were one of Chase’s favorite meals. He didn’t have a lot of time before he had to be at the marina, so he’d called the order in ahead. Chase generally preferred to eat alone on the patio overlooking the water. The weekly ritual provided thinking time, something he needed desperately today.
So he was surprised and somewhat annoyed when an African American man dressed in kitchen whites approached his table.
“Chase Malone?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
“A friend of yours asked me to deliver a message.” The man spoke in a Jamaican accent. “You’re being followed by MSS agents. You must be careful.”
“You’ve spoken to Wen?”
The man nodded. “Find a way to get to Vancouver tomorrow, but make sure you’re not followed.”
“Following me?”
“Apparently,” the man said. “Even now.” He began to walk away. “I must go.”
“Wait. What do I do once I get to Vancouver?” He suddenly thought back to Wen’s note from Hong Kong and the question that had been haunting him echoed in his mind: Why does the MSS want Wen so bad?
“She’ll find you.”
“How?”
“She found you here.”
“Why Vancouver?”
“You’ll have to ask her. Hopefully you’ll be able to do that in forty-eight hours. As long as you aren’t followed,” the man warned, still moving away.
“Got it,” Chase said. “Thanks. Crazy she knew a guy who works in the kitchen of my favorite fish and chips joint.”
“I don’t work in the kitchen.” The man smiled. “I don’t work here at all.”
Nine
The three top executives of Balance Engineering sat on the deck of Dez’s eighty-foot yacht, the Wadogo—which meant “scale” in Swahili—sailing toward Sausalito, the clear skies and sun reflecting on the calm waters of San Francisco Bay belying the apocalyptic stress they each felt. Dez adored his “boat,” his first big purchase with his share of the proceeds from the RAI sale. Chase had spent considerably more for his beloved jet at the same time.
Adya Patel, their exceptional CFO, flirted with the Captain, a rustic looking rogue of unknown age—but most likely sixty—whose face had been etched by sun and salt. He’d spent most of his life at sea, and never ran out of stories. He’d taught Dez to sail as a teen, and now was a full time employee. The Captain was the real reason Adya loved to meet on the Wadogo. She, half his age, played the crush, both enjoying the fact that it was all innocent between them. Today, however, playtime had to wait. Dez called her over. There were urgent matters to discuss.
Adya had been key to the company from day one. She’d helped raise the initial round of capital during those frantic and competitive days when BE was just another scrappy start-up. Her parents had immigrated from India in order to give their daughter a chance to achieve everything her mind could conceive. However, there was much more to this brainy woman. Adya also provided the company with its only truly grounded guidance, often reining in Chase and Dez—two wild dreamers.
“You may be rich, brilliant, and creative,” Adya addressed Chase in an older-sister tone. “And even though you invented RAI, I’m afraid you’re out of your league on this one.”
Chase downed a long gulp of water and then stood against the rail. “Of course I’m out of my league, but we can’t just let them destroy the world.”
“What if the SEER simulations are wrong?” Adya asked. “I mean—Search Entire Existence Result—there is a lot of room for error in the future.” They’d already had this debate twice since the custom AI programs written by Chase and Dez had been completed, but Adya remained unconvinced.
“The reason you can’t accept the results,” Chase began, “is because believing that humanity will soon come to an end is as impossible to fathom as the size of the universe, or the number one trillion, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen.”
“Life is fragile,” Dez added. “Biology in general is susceptible to an infinite number of risks, any of which can upset the delicate balance of our miraculous human existence.” He pulled a nickel from his pocket, looked at it for a moment, then threw it overboard.
“Still, do you want to risk the company, and maybe your lives, on the bet made by a computer?” She said “computer” as if it were a tinker-toy.
“Again?” Chase said irritably. “Why do we have to have this argument repeatedly? The simulations aren’t wrong! And even if they are, so what? Humanity survives another decade or two? A hundred years? Can’t you see it doesn’t matter? A variable could make the dates slide a bit, but RAIN will lead to human extinction.” A heavy mist of ocean spray hit his face.
Dez looked at her solemnly and nodded his agreement. “Listen Adya, I know everyone in Silicon Valley and so many academics, from Stanford to MIT, love to discuss and hypothesize when singularity might occur,” Dez said, referring to the event when artificial super intelligence was expected to surpass that of humans, resulting in sudden exponential technological changes to human civilization. “But the truth is, singularity already happened and nobody noticed. Because everyone is looking in the wrong place.”
“What does that have to do with TruNeural and RAIN?” Adya asked.<
br />
“Because computers are the only hope humanity has,” Chase said.
“Yet you’re worried that TruNeural will kill us with them.”
“Double-edged sword,” Dez said flatly.
“The scientific and tech communities were waiting for one machine to be able to pass the Turing Test,” Dez said, referring to the accepted measure of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior, indistinguishable from that of a human. “But that’s a line in the sand, as if nothing matters until we reach that magic moment. What everyone misses is that we’ve already passed the point of no return. The Turing Test will blur by on our way to oblivion. The simulations showed that. Singularity isn’t a day, it’s fifteen thousand days, and we’re in them. People think we have time to get ready before AI surpasses us, but we don’t. It’s already too late!”
“Guys, if you’re right, and this isn’t all hyperbole drama,” Adya said, “we need to target TruNeural with everything we can, not just your tech tricks and ‘AI Anecdotes’. We’ve got to throw scandals, economic hits, market manipulation, and governmental regulatory intervention at them.”
“Can you do all that?” Dez asked, surprised by her suddenly sounding like some kind of corporate terrorist.
“No, but I know someone who can.”
Ten
Changi International Airport in Singapore was surprisingly busy at midnight. Wen’s extra passports, although useful for moving about within Singapore and the interior of other nations, would do her no good trying to board a flight out of the country. China not only had the world’s largest domestic surveillance network, they had also covertly built a massive and complex system of cameras across Asia, and throughout the world. Even though her forged papers could fool local officials and border agents, it would be impossible to beat the facial recognition programs monitored by the MSS. The communist leadership had bribed, tricked, concealed, and strong-armed the micro cameras across the region.