"She just wants to get this over with," Harper had whispered to Skinner while the elevator glided up to level four. "I get the impression Tanaka's dumped us on her, and she's trying to get this done in record time."
Skinner nodded. He didn't really care for the egocentric security guru, but time and again over the last 18 months he'd found Harper's read on people to be spot on. I guess that's his real skill, thought Skinner, that's how he sells - he knows what makes people tick.
"I get the same feeling Andy," Skinner replied. "I'm guessing she wants this little tour over fast - tonight if she can keep us moving."
"Fine by me," the tall man's arrogance returned in a flash. "I'm a busy man that's about to get a few hundred million dollars richer. Last place I want to spend my time is in some corporate show-and-tell."
Skinner sighed and turned his head to the front again. Ahead of him, Santos and Hill stood shoulder to shoulder while Sakura looked like a sprinter in her blocks, waiting to spring forward when the elevator stopped.
As they glided to a halt, Sakura walked out of the still opening doors and without looking back, said "Welcome to level 4, home to our security centre and virtualisation lab. Mr Harper, Doctor Santos, I suspect you may find this of particular interest."
As Sakura rushed forward, the small group followed quickly behind.
Sakura led the group out onto a brightly lit, cool open area. Unlike the cavernous lobby and spacious visitors lounge, this area seemed small. A little claustrophobic even. The ceiling seemed unusually low. As if to illustrate the point, Harper stretched up and touched the ceiling tiles as he walked in. Sakura looked on disapprovingly.
Directly ahead, a ceiling to floor wall of white stretched the entire width of the area. To their left (the east side of the building according to iSight) was a wide, staircase leading up to the floor above. Immediately ahead was a large semi-circular white desk, and standing (not sitting, Skinner noticed) was a broad-shouldered man in his early thirties. Wearing the same uniform as Tanaka's guards on the sixth floor, the man exuded a quiet authority. Behind and to the left of the security guard, embedded in the centre of the large white wall was a narrow frosted glass door.
Sakura took a few short, hurried steps toward the man and entered into a quiet conversation in Japanese. A few seconds later, she turned to the group and nodded.
"We are about to enter one of the most-secure areas in WhiteStar. You will see several critical elements of the iSight game's operation here, but perhaps the most important is what we call the VCL ..." noticing Hill preparing to speak, Sakura quickly continued, "which stands for Virtual Character Lab." Hill demurred.
"This is the area in which we track and monitor the existing virtual population, and generate new 'virtual players' as the game demands. While much of this is automated, we find that adding a human element to some of the virtual characters brings a certain - integrity - to them."
Santos was fascinated. "What proportion of the characters in the game are generated by the game versus in the lab?"
Sakura seemed momentarily taken aback by the question. Almost impressed.
"This is a good question." Sakura paused for a moment as if to collect her thoughts. "Three years ago, more than half the characters were generated by this team. Today, thanks to the system's own artificial intelligence and input from experts such as Doctor Santos..." Sakura nodded curtly toward Santos, who - a little surprised by the acknowledgement - responded in kind, "... only one in twenty characters in the game have any human input. We find that is sufficient to retain realistic human behaviour in the game. In many ways it is a testament to the excellence of our artificial intelligence engine."
Sakura smiled inwardly as she watched the group whisper excitedly to each other. In the last few weeks, she'd quietly hosted some very powerful people. They had stayed in the same visitors' quarters and been given the same tour. Recent visitors had included the chief executives of some of the world's largest companies, marketing agencies and government agencies. Occasionally they would comprise nameless faces, men and women - groups that Tanaka insisted remain anonymous.
Men. Women. Old. Young. Eastern. Western. Everyone reacted the same way once they immersed themselves in the new iSight system. They were hooked. Sakura smiled as she recalled the grey old man, a corporate titan sitting astride a global top ten conglomerate, pleading with Tanaka to let him stay connected to the new game. She remembered the spiky, napoleonic marketing executive willing to commit to a billion dollars of advertising before iSight 3 had launched. All he asked was that Tanaka let him walk out of the building still connected to the new iSight system.
Tanaka had initially refused, claiming it wouldn't be fair to the others waiting for the launch. He would bend, twist - show them he could be persuaded. Eventually deals were struck, and some of the world's most powerful people remained went back to their boardrooms and penthouses, connected to and dependent upon the instant gratification of the iSight 3 system.
By Sakura's reckoning, Tanaka had already secured over four billion dollars - and the system didn't launch for another week. Sakura knew the money didn't really mean anything to him. It was simply a means to an end. No, for Tanaka the real value of the game was in information. He and he alone knew what the corporate titans, politicians and bureaucrats, were doing. What they looked for, what they passed by and what held their attention. Tanaka knew what they were thinking.
Years earlier, Tanaka had learned just how easily he could convince players to give up information in return for a little more game time, a little more access. It would start simply. Players would give their age and gender to register. Then they'd connect their social networks, so they could share the experience. Players would reveal their personal interests, sexuality and lifestyle choices in the way they played. The system would track where and when the player entered the game, and any changes in online behaviour. Before long, Tanaka had built up an unerringly accurate picture of the individual.
Of over 300 million individuals.
300 million consumers.
It was a database that corporations and governments spent enormous sums to access. And Tanaka was only too happy to take their money.
Sakura bowed to the security guard and walked toward the frosted glass door, which slid to the right, disappearing into a recess in the wall.
She turned and with a curt bow, "Please, follow me." And with that Sakura walked through the door and into the beating heart of iSight 3.
#
As he walked past the security guard and into the room beyond, Skinner was awestruck by the sight before him. He'd seen the technology operations in WhiteStar's other centres around the world and until today they'd all been identical. The same rows of 'racked' computers with mountains of neatly tied, brightly coloured cables flowing out from the back. Silent men walked quietly between the aisles, fiddling with cables or sliding some component in or out.
This. This, was something very different.
The familiar 'shopping aisles' were gone. In their place were row upon row of identical towering black, silent and unblinking machines, glaring ominously back at him. There were no coloured cables flowing from the machines. Nothing at all. The ceiling seemed to ... glow. Intrigued, Skinner gazed at the ceiling and flicked his eyes up to the right, triggering a short animation. The graphic explained that the ceiling comprised 1,800 individual LED panels, all powered entirely by the movement of the building's occupants, captured by two hundred thousand micro sensors embedded in the floor tiles and polished concrete. Skinner dropped his chin, and the iSight system explained that the raised floor comprised of 860 reinforced floor tiles, and underneath snaked 400 miles of shielded high performance fibre optic cable.
Skinner shook his head in amazement. Here at last were the mysterious slabs of computing power and blinking lights promised in every B-grade sci-fi movie. He glanced to his left and saw Harper and Santos gawp at the futuristic scene. To Skinner's amazement, Hill seemed unimpressed while Sakura shook
her head impatiently. It seemed clear to Harper that she considered this tour a complete waste of her time, and wanted it over as quickly as possible.
The group turned to listen as Harper interrupted the silence.
"Miss Sakura. This equipment is remarkable. Qantum supercomputers if I'm not mistaken," Harper paused to ensure the others recognised his brilliance. Santos rolled her eyes.
Sakura replied, "Yes Mr Harper, you are correct. You are looking at the largest single collection of quantum computing power in the world."
Harper didn't appear to register Sakura's response, more focused on what he'd be saying next.
"Yes, as I said, very impressive. But I don't recall seeing this equipment in any of your other centres around the world. What happens if something goes wrong here? Will the new iSight game stop working?"
Sakura smiled warmly at the man towering over her tiny frame. Skinner and Santos turned and smiled at Harper's soft serve question. Santos flicked the hair from her forehead as she whispered, "I wonder if that's exactly how Tanaka told him to phrase that?"
Skinner grinned and looked over at Alex Hill. The lawyer seemed to be the only one taken in by the pantomime. He seemed genuinely eager to hear Sakura's response.
Sakura slowly scanned the group, resting her attention on the receptive young lawyer.
"There are no single points of failure in iSight. What you see here either has, or will soon be replicated in our other centres. All systems are connected to each other directly and over the Internet. If any centre suffers a catastrophic failure, the others will immediately take on the load and the game will continue uninterrupted. As a final fail safe, we have distributed smaller elements of the game into other commercial hosting centres around the world should all centres fail."
Harper's grin disappeared instantly, replaced with deep concern, at the last sentence from Sakura. That was clearly not in his script.
Sakura continued, "And so Mr Harper, we have created an online games network so distributed, so intelligent that it is effectively impossible for it to fail."
Before a visibly angry Hill could respond, and to Sakura's surprise, Harper interjected, "I must say I'm surprised to hear of other hosting facilities being used Miss Sakura. There are many risks to that approach, and I would..."
Sakura interrupted sharply. "But Mr Harper, this is on the advice of your own company. Your lead architect, Mr Dodgson suggested these improvements to Mr Tanaka several months ago. I'm sorry but I did not realise you were unaware of this."
Harper looked momentarily dumbfounded, before quickly (too quickly Santos thought), stumbling a response. "Yes, of course, I do remember raising this with Mr Dodgson. Sorry, I'm so wrapped up in the big picture I sometimes let the little details pass me by."
Sakura smiled. Hill, Skinner and Santos all glanced at Harper who was for once, lost for words.
Sakura continued. "Therefore, with these changes the iSight 3 game can continue without one - or indeed for a limited time - any of the data centres operating. Of course, without the data centres operating, the game would be very limited. Without the information being captured about each player in the data centres, the game would quickly drift from today's indistinguishable-from-reality experience to something far less compelling.
Now it was Skinner's time to interrupt.
"Miss Sakura, I have to say I find all this technology talk very hard to follow, so can I clarify. Are you saying that the iSight 3 game could theoretically continue without any WhiteStar centres operating?"
Sakura nodded proudly. "That is correct Professor."
"But wouldn't that mean the games would be running without any control?"
His three companions swivelled as one at Skinner's question, then looked questioningly at Sakura.
Sakura didn't like the way this was going. They had lost track of the big picture, seemed to be focusing on the impossibly negative.
Sakura acknowledged Skinner, then addressed the group.
"I'm sorry, I should have been clearer. The game has multiple layers of safeguard, buried deep in the code, which ensure the game could continue to run for up to four hours with access to no WhiteStar data centres. I should point out of course that given the world-best technology and global spread of our centres, the possibility of every one failing at the same is miniscule. Nevertheless, we have catered for this eventually. If after four hours the game still can't access any of the global data centres, then the iSight player will experience what we call 'an orderly exit' from the game. They will be notified that the game is shutting down, their current game data stored temporarily in other hosting centres,"
Harper glowered.
"...and the game spread will coordinate a global shutdown, and can only be restarted at one of the WhiteStar centres.
Santos leaned forward, "Has this ever been tested Miss Sakura?"
Clearly keen to move on, Sakura waved dismissively "We have simulated this many times and the system is fail proof." Turning away from Santos before she could respond, Sakura said, "Now Mr Hill, I believe you had a question."
Santos grabbed Skinner's hand to get his attention. He turned to look at the psychologist as she mouthed bullshit. He nodded grimly. This trip wasn't panning out to be the 'tick the boxes' visit he'd expected.
Hill almost tripped over his own words in his hurry to respond. "Yes I do. Once again Miss Sakura, this seems like extremely significant news I am only just hearing of." The anger and frustration in his voice clear to all.
Santos watched Sakura closely, and couldn't shake the feeling that this conversation had been planned. That Sakura had wanted to play this out with Hill and, for whatever reason, she wanted the others to witness it.
Sakura calmly responded. "But you and the board have been fully informed of these changes Mr Hill. They are detailed in the addendum to operations working notes circulated during February's board meeting."
Hill's mouth opened. For a moment he seemed too angry to speak. Finally, his face reddening, Hill blurted out, "Miss Sakura, those documents are hundreds of pages long and appear at every board meeting. As Mr Tanaka is well aware, at every meeting we ask that he provide summary notes of their contents, and to this day he has failed to do so."
"I'm afraid I don't know anything about that Mr Hill. All I can say is that everything you see and hear today has already been provided to you in earlier board notes."
Santos and Skinner exchanged glances while Harper grinned as if the whole thing was hilarious. An awkward moment's silence descended on the group while Hill glared at their beautiful, impassive host.
Santos cast a professional eye over Hill. He seemed to be taking this slew of discoveries very badly, almost personally. Santos watched as Hill adjusted his tie, his hands trembling slightly while he fumbled with the blue silk. The man was clearly struggling to cope with the stress, and it was starting to show.
Sakura tried hard to hide her frustration at having to nurse these people. Particularly now - at the most critical moment in WhiteStar Corp's young history with the imminent release of iSight 3 - Sakura had been ripped from the action to babysit these wide-eyed visitors. Tanaka had made it clear that these visitors were to be handled carefully. She was to 'keep them as informed as they need to be'. It was also clear that Tanaka held Sakura responsible for making sure these visitors left impressed. To Sakura, they were an inconvenience, the latest in a long line of western faces to goggle in amazement at Tanaka's brilliance.
If only they knew how much more there was, that all they were seeing was the tip of the iceberg.
#
11:30am Thursday, Level Four Systems, Sapporo (Minus 3:30 Hours)
Clearly anxious about the time this was taking, Sakura hurried the group forward through the narrow glass corridor separating the incredible array of machines stretching off to the west (their left) and east, quickly arriving at a frosted glass door.
She paused before entering, then turned to face the group.
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