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After On

Page 48

by Rob Reid


  Bottom line, she’s beyond devastated. Which is nothing compared to where she’s dragged as Mitchell glances her way. She’s looking at her phone. She probably catches a headline, or something.

  Looking back later, Mitchell decides that witnessing a homicide could scarcely be worse than watching someone get whipsawed to pieces by humiliation. Make no mistake: Beasley’s murder chilled him to his core. But he didn’t see the body drop, didn’t behold the moment of death. Beasley suffered a greater tragedy than Serena that day by most (though not all) reckonings. But witnessing a fellow human’s emotional disfigurement will haunt Mitchell more. And, quite possibly, forever.

  “Yummm, who’s the baaaaabe?”

  Dudes, dykes, and bi chicks, we can hear you from Hollywood as you feast your eyes on this gorgeous image! And keep those hands where we can see them! Shown here is Stanford vixen Serena Kielholz. Still in her freshman dorm, yet already a femme fatale in the realest sense of the word!

  Yeah, yeah; we know you don’t care about places where the ugly people live! But we thought you’d put up with some upstate news if it’s about A) someone this hot, and B) the hot, hot, hot social network Phluttr! Phluttr, which draws out Kanye! Kim! Ashton! Beyoncé! And hundreds of the world’s other Top People to Share, Post, and BE REAL with us—daily!

  If you’re not living under ten tons of rock, you should know that Phluttr boss-man Tony Jepson just got murdered!!! And we now know “who done it.” No, it wasn’t this sexy ho, but her Daddy-o!

  Serena’s papa, Damien Kielholz, is a famous rich guy. Years ago, he backed Jepson’s first startup. Rumor is, they did not get along! No big reason. Just two guys not liking each other.

  But now, the plot thickens! A flurry of private texts, pix, and email from those days has just flooded the blogs. They involve Lena Kielholz—Damien’s wife, and Serena’s mother. Still plenty hot in her forties (as you can see!!), Lena must have been quite a piece in those days, when Serena was just a tot. And guess what?? The leaked message trove shows that back then, when Jepson wasn’t doing work…he was “doing” Mommy Kielholz!

  Daddy Money Bag$ knew nothing about this long-ago sex fest until a couple days back. Then, somehow, he got his angry paws on the message archive that the rest of the world is now feasting on!

  And to make it MUCH WORSE…he also picked up some recent steamy traffic between Jepson…and his Stanford sex-kitten daughter! And, like mother, like daughter, it turns out Serena favors some of the exact same shocking acts in the sack that Moms would go for back when she was the Kielholz babe in Mr. J’s bed! You can get those smutty details from the more porny blogs out there (and trust us: they’re ALL talking about this)!

  It’s enough to drive a man to murder, isn’t it? Which is what just happened!! Busted this morning, and now safely under lock and key, Daddy denies nothing. He even takes a certain Viking pride in what he did (his public statement is below)! This leaves Phluttr without a boss, Mr. K without a future, and Mrs. K without a husband. But since there’s always a silver lining someplace…Stanford boys, look who’s now single! And, you know she parties!

  Midmorning finds Mitchell alone at his desk, fretting. Kuba walked the few blocks to that PhastPhorwardr staff meeting a bit before eight, and should’ve been back by now. He’s not responding to messages. Odder still, his location isn’t broadcasting in Phluttr. This isn’t inherently bizarre, as people block their locations all the time (and for $4.95/month you can broadcast phony locations [and for another five bucks, no one will know you’re doing this {unless they pay an extra ten bucks for that insight [which you can always trump by getting the $24.95 platinum service]}]). But Kuba’s never blocked his location from Mitchell, and now is a mighty odd time to start. Mitchell’s checking hyperlocal blogs for news of pedestrian hit-and-runs when he gets a Poof! note from Tarek: Meet at SB-zip—NOW!

  The suggestive pattern of S’s and B’s might imply that like SB-null, “SB-zip” is a Starbucks. Yet this is but a ruse! SB-zip is actually a Peet’s Coffee (Ha!). On a similar note, the no-less-cunningly-named “PC-1” is not a Peet’s Coffee, but a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (Ha!). Whereas SB-null was assigned to an actual Starbucks to shatter the pattern of contrary signals, and thereby confound Authority code breakers (bottom line: much hinges on the world’s top spymasters finding Team Cyrano and their moronic code names utterly uninteresting).

  Mitchell’s in his Uber, fussing over the odd fact that Kuba wasn’t cc’d on Tarek’s summons, when a second message arrives from him. This just in, it says, with a link to the latest WhistleBlowings rant.

  WhistleBlowings blog

  Leak-A-Palooza!!!

  Throughout five thankless years of BELLOWING THE TRUTH to an indifferent world, we were never tipped off to so much as a Google interoffice romance. Now suddenly, it’s like GODDAMNED WIKILEAKS around here! Right after leaking the three most secure files in the HISTORY OF CRYPTOGRAPHY (or so it would seem, from the countless downloads we expensively served to the world, and the ensuing DEAFENING SILENCE as to their contents), we have been hit with a TRUE WHOPPER. So, NYT, HuffPo, WaPo, and Drudge, brace your Pulitzer-prizing asses, and eat your scooped hearts out!!!

  The City and the Valley are so giddy about “mourning” (AND making shamelessly false ex post facto claims of adoration for) Phluttr’s assassinated CEO, Tony Jepson, that almost no one noticed this morning’s news blip about an allegedly “random” drive-by killing of an “anonymous” citizen in a normally crime-free section of Potrero Hill. Well, ROT IN ANONYMITY NO MORE, Jake Beasley!

  Yes, we’re talking about THAT Jake Beasley. As in, Tony Jepson’s #2 at the most suspiciously secretive company in Silicon Valley! As in, Jepson’s SUCCESSOR AS CEO (betcha didn’t know THAT!), for, oh, about twelve hours! This, after his promotion at a suspiciously secretive emergency board meeting that WhistleBlowings has also learned about. Bottom Line: not ONE, but TWO Phluttr CEOs have been assassinated in almost instant succession!!!

  But WHO, you ask, would EVER want to kill yet another KIND, GENTLE CEO of an INTERNATIONAL DISGRACE? Rather than answer with the obvious back-atcha question (which, of course, is who wouldn’t???) we will instead answer with our own stock-in-trade, which is FACTS. Shocking FACTS!

  Let’s start with this NEWSFLASH: it turns out that our quiet, boring “post Cold War era”—you know, these flush years of never-ending peace dividends in a remarkably conflict-free world (NOT!!!)—has actually witnessed one of the most bare-knuckled arms races IN HISTORY.

  Who are we racing, you ask?

  CHINA!

  And where are we racing them TO?

  Oh, you’re gonna love this: the prize, here, is to be the first country to produce a technology that MOST OF THE WORLD’S SMARTEST PEOPLE, INCLUDING STEPHEN HAWKING, BILL GATES, AND ELON FUCKING MUSK, ALL PUBLICLY DEPICT AS HAVING TERRIFYING ODDS OF ANNIHILATING US ALL!!!!!!!

  We’re talking about artificial superintelligence—that much-predicted, much-DREADED form of consciousness that, once invented, cannot be uninvented. And, once let out of its box, can pretty much do whatever it wants to us, and to our planet!!!

  For years, a top secret international treaty called the Copenhagen Accord kept the world’s squabbling sovereignties from inventing this most lethal of technologies. And then, about twenty months ago, China broke ranks! Rather than shame them, sanction them, or otherwise EVEN ATTEMPT to stop them, WARMONGERS within US Intelligence decided to RACE THEM TO THE FINISH LINE!!!

  Documents AND SATELLITE IMAGES proving these shocking truths can be found here, here, here, here, and here. And no doubt from 10,000s OF OTHER SERVERS WORLDWIDE within minutes of us posting this!

  So, who killed our beloved CEOs? And WHY??? In the case of Tony Jepson, it was a bizarre love trapezoid involving a famous VC, his cheating wife, and his barely legal daughter. And as for Jake Beasley…well THAT’s actually the MORE interesting story…

  It turns out, China somehow learned that Jake was secretly in charge of America’s super AI developm
ent program. NOT ONLY THAT, but he was such a coding GENIUS, and such a deranged micromanager, that the ENTIRE SUPERINTELLIGENCE EFFORT was CERTAIN to grind to a CRASHING HALT if he were to spontaneously DROP DEAD!

  Now, superpowers don’t normally bump off each other’s key personnel. But any student of history will tell you that this can happen in extreme circumstances. And these here circumstances sure were extreme! Why? BECAUSE THE SUPER AI RACE TRUMPS EVERYTHING! Many believe that the first power to create one will control the world! Now, suddenly, China learns that America’s whole effort lies in one pair of mortal hands! So they’re thinking, kill this guy, and the world is ours! And so, Jake Beasley goes and drops dead!!!

  But HELLOOOOO, CHINA? Are you listening??? A teeny bit of bad news here. That kill-Beasley-and-control-the-world theory which you’ve just gambled world peace on is lethally FLAWED! In that, why the fuck would a guy working VERY full-time at a top secret government arm in SAN FRAN-FUCKING-CISCO also be loaded up with the TOP JOB IN NATIONAL SECURITY way out at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, NEW MEXICO?

  Oh, sure. We’ve heard of moonlighting. But that’s for barista-by-day/bartender-by-night people. NOT for people with ALWAYS-ON JOBS that the NATION’S SAFETY depends on!!! Furthermore, we’re NOT ENTIRELY CONVINCED that our government’s paranoid and efficient spooks would have let THE MOST SENSITIVE AND IMPORTANT WEAPONS PROGRAM SINCE THE MANHATTAN PROJECT become so dependent upon a solitary control freak!!!!!

  Be that as it may, these ARE the facts as Chinese Intelligence understood them, as evidenced by various internal documents included in the evidence trove that we installed at the five hyperlinked locations (and beyond)!

  So, whether on the basis of excellent or lousy intelligence, it is QUITE CLEAR that THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC did Jake Beasley in! This is still developing, so WATCH THIS SPACE!!!!!

  Mitchell nabs a small, isolated table at Peet’s. Like all their preset locations, it’s in a native-repelling tourist zone (in this case, Fisherman’s Wharf). Tarek arrives quite a bit later than expected and strides right up. “I was at the city jail,” he explains in a hushed tone, taking his seat. “Kuba’s been arrested!”

  “What? And…why? And how’d you find out? I didn’t see it in that WhistleBlowings post!”

  Tarek shakes his head. “How do we find out about anything these days?”

  “Someone shovel-passing us a ‘leak.’ ”

  Tarek nods. “Through Poof!, of course, so it’s gone without a trace. But the second I got it, I tried calling and texting you, but no luck.”

  Mitchell shrugs. His phone didn’t ring, bleep, or buzz—but personal electronics have had minds of their own lately.

  “So I went straight over to see what was going on,” Tarek continues. “They gave me about ten minutes with him. He’s in for Beasley’s murder.” He barely whispers this part. “A neighborhood security camera caught him leaving the house. Not you. Just Kuba, it seems.”

  “And someone let you know about that through Poof!, too.” A statement, not a question, as Mitchell can’t imagine the cops or prosecutors sharing facts so generously with a friend of the incarcerated.

  “Yes,” Tarek says. “And whoever—or whatever—it was gave me a real trove. Arrest report, initial investigator notes. Kuba gave me a couple details, too.”

  “Wait. Did you just say ‘Whatever’? You suddenly sound like Kuba!” Until now, Tarek reliably supported Danna’s position that a who was behind everything whenever Kuba raised the specter of a super AI.

  “It turns out, Kuba has some interesting points,” Tarek says.

  “And how bad is his legal situation?”

  “Too early to tell. And I’m a civil lawyer, not a criminal one. But on the surface, I’d say it could be worse. There’s no weapon tied to him. Also, certain stuff connected to this looks a lot like the Jepson case.”

  “Like?”

  “For one thing, several security cameras went out at just the wrong moment and failed to record the murder.”

  “What cameras?”

  “Beasley’s house apparently had a whole network of them. Plus that security camera across the street that caught Kuba leaving. They all went dark for several minutes.”

  “That’s nuts! So did our GoPros!”

  “Yeah, Kuba told me. Cuh-razy coincidence, huh? But I think it’s a good thing. Because that Kielholz guy confessed to Jepson’s murder, right?”

  Mitchell nods.

  “Kuba clearly had nothing to do with that. And with bizarre video camera outages at both murders, the same people are probably behind them.”

  “So you think Kielholz might’ve killed Beasley, too?”

  Tarek shakes his head. “I have another theory on Beasley that I’ll get to in a sec. But what matters for Kuba is that the fact pattern points away from him. That said, we have zero control here. Because just like the investigator’s notes are an open book to me, the other side’s also getting help.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, as with the bombing and the Ebola conspiracy, this investigation’s moving with insane speed. The image that put Kuba at Beasley’s house? It’s a frame from a security camera at a nearby store! How long would it normally take the SFPD to come up with that? And then, to match it to a foreign national with no police record who lives and works miles away? The store had barely even opened when they busted Kuba! Not even the CIA could’ve pulled that off.”

  “So the cops’re getting helpful leaks, too,” Mitchell says.

  “Clearly.”

  “And if whoever’s behind this wants Kuba to take the fall…”

  “He’s taking the fall. Because we’re just a bunch of marionettes! And if the puppeteer wants to screw somebody? He, she, or it just puts the wrong word into the right ear. And then—”

  “One thing leads to another.”

  “Exactly. Some person or group goes and does the dirty work. And they do it eagerly, and entirely for their own reasons! So there’s nothing to point back to the puppeteer. Other than this weird pattern of leaking information.”

  “So,” Mitchell muses. “When they wanted to stop Commissioner Milford…”

  “They put some crap out there that made her look bad, the Internet did its usual lynch-mob thing, and she killed herself!”

  “And when they wanted Jepson dead…”

  “He was enough of an asshole over the years that it was easy to find someone who could be manipulated into killing him!”

  “And with Beasley…” Mitchell says.

  “Call me gullible, but I believe the WhistleBlowings post. That wasn’t some low-rent gang hit. Look at the timing. The training. The ninjas on the ground who just vanished after the fact. It was the work of a nation.”

  “So. Just as Kielholz wanted Jepson dead after he learned certain facts, China learned something new, then wanted Beasley dead.” Saying this, Mitchell feels a twinge of admiration for the undearly departed nutcase. You’d have to be plenty badass for China—China!—to have an opinion about you. Particularly such a vehement one.

  “Kind of,” Tarek says. “Because do you know what’s scary? I think China’s a marionette, too! Think about the WhistleBlowings piece.”

  Mitchell nods. “Another place that’s collecting lots of leaks lately.”

  “Exactly! And since they must’ve been tipped off by the same all-knowing source as the rest of us, let’s take their argument seriously. Specifically, if there’s a huge super AI program at Sandia, why would Beasley be running it? From here?”

  “I don’t know. But China sure seemed to think he was running it. Are you saying someone tricked them into thinking that?”

  “Maybe. Now, this is just a theory, but imagine the top people in Chinese Intelligence get this slug of information from an anonymous source. It includes a bunch of facts that only they know. Locations of their own sensitive facilities, identities of their spies, that kind of thing. The mystery source—whatever it is—will have instant credibility, right?”


  Mitchell nods. “When someone tells you something only you should know, you can almost believe they know every secret in the world. It’s like when I got that text containing the name a bully used to call me.”

  Tarek nods. “Donkey Shit-Tail!”

  Mitchell cringes inwardly at those hated words. “It’s like a…credibility authenticator. You almost have to believe the next thing the source says.”

  Tarek nods again. “ ‘The Donkey Shit-Tail Effect’!”

  “Actually, can we call it something else?”

  “Not a chance. Anyway, imagine there’re also a few American secrets in the mysterious data transfer. Things the Chinese can verify quickly and easily. The location of a secret American transmitter in Beijing, or something.”

  Mitchell nods. “So now the Chinese figure, whoever’s behind this also knows all kinds of American secrets. And it can’t be the US, because they’re helping China shut down US spies.”

  “Exactly. And then, the clincher. It says, ‘PS: if you take out this Beasley guy, America’s super AI program will be screwed.’ Maybe it also says, ‘And in six hours, Beasley will learn that you’ve been tipped off about him.’ That means if they want to nail him, they have to move real fast, with zero time to analyze.”

  Mitchell eyes Tarek suspiciously. “You sure thought a lot of things through this morning. Did you come up with all this on your own?”

  “Of course not. I got it from Kuba when I visited him in jail.”

  This makes Mitchell feel better. Tarek’s smart, but Kuba’s thinking has instant credibility with him. “So who does he think the puppeteer is?”

 

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