Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller

by BMichaelsAuthor

  “General,” Ali said, “it went perfectly. I don’t know how it worked on the other end, but in REALSPACE, everything performed smoothly.”

  General Shields pushed the red button.

  Ken, Hideki, and Chris moved from the viewing platform, back into the Maze. Each reconfigured a different segment of the Swarmbot labyrinth. The new Maze pattern allowed the 11 Swarmbots to traverse the Maze, not in single-file, but as a team. Looking at the larger Swarmbots, Samantha asked, “Why are those bigger?”

  “Oh, you’ll see,” answered Shields, with a twinkle in his eye.

  Within 10 minutes, the Maze was reconfigured. The Swarmbot team was back standing on the viewing platform. As Samantha’s eyes traveled the path of the Maze, she spotted a dead end. A wall stopped progress in the middle of the Maze.

  “How are the Swarmbots going to get over that?” she asked, pointing to the obstacle.

  *

  In GAMESPACE, the scenario had gone just as well, although the Marine was grating on Saul. The Leatherneck asked, “What’s the big deal was about a first-person VR shooter, in which we warriors, simply walk in a single-file line through a maze?”

  Saul informed the Marine that he could leave whenever he wanted.

  When the Marine asked when he got to shoot something, Saul went ballistic. Saul told him to leave. The Marine begged for forgiveness and asked to stay, saying, “If that’s what it takes to keep America safe from terrorists, I’ll walk through a maze all day long. Hoorah!”

  I’d never make it as a Marine, thought Saul.

  He told the Gamers that the second scenario was more collaborative. The Gamers were to work as a team to collectively navigate the maze. “One team member’s failure is everyone’s failure,” bellowed Saul. He tried to parrot General Shields as much as he could.

  *

  Back in REALSPACE, the General was close to hitting the green button again.

  “Ken, are you guys ready?” asked the General. “We’re going to see some magic on this run, right?”

  “Yes, sir.” Ken gave his command tablet to Chris Fischer.

  Chapter 17 – Swarmbot Demo 2

  9:20 a.m. (EDT), Wednesday, September 30, 2020 – Columbia, MD

  The Maze, Sixth-Floor SCIF, Defense Innovations Accelerator

  The General hit the button to initiate the second demo. Chris Fischer swiped his tablet.

  In the next instant, the Swarmbots were imbued with fluorescent coloring. The nine softball size Swarmbots glowed neon red. One of the soccer ball size Swarmbots was green; the other was yellow.

  “For this portion of the demo,” said Chris, “we’ve configured the adaptive camouflage of the Swarmbots for different colors. It’ll help you follow the action better.”

  The red Swarmbots stacked up in three rows, of three across. The jumbo-sized green and yellow Swarmbots completed a rear row. The Swarmbot collections spun forward. Rocks impeded the some of the drone’s paths. These Swarmbots spaced themselves appropriately. As they moved through the Maze, they easily worked their way around the barriers.

  “We call that the Rushing Water Move. It reminds me of water, flowing by a submerged branch in a stream,” said Chris. Chris knew that the demo got more exciting as it progressed. Fischer joined Swarmbot after their jump in revenue from law enforcement. Chris resigned from Marvel Defense Systems to join Swarmbot. At Marvel, Chris was Chief Engineer for the Marauder line of remotely piloted aircraft.

  The Marauder was a cash cow for Marvel. Chris spent his free time working on mini-drones. But Marvel was more interested in ever-larger, more powerful, more lethal, and more expensive drones. The mini-drones Chris pursued were biologically inspired—the size of birds initially. Chris kept engineering smaller and smaller drones. His ultimate vision was to build robots based on nanotechnology.

  Ken and Hideki convinced Chris to jump ship. They told him he’d be in complete control of the fourth generation—4Gen—Swarmbot platform. Ken and Hideki said they’d continue to market 3Gen to SWAT teams. Chris was tasked to make 4Gen more compelling to the DoD and IC markets.

  This promise of total control over 4Gen was important to Chris. He knew that Ken and Hideki had a profound aversion to weaponizing the Swarmbots. They wanted the drones to work just as an advanced ISR platform.

  Chris knew this was naïve. Though he had complete control, many arguments still ensued about enabling the Swarmbots to prosecute kill missions. Despite the disagreements, Chris fashioned 4Gen to include lethality modules. Chris sounded like a broken record, as he told Ken and Hideki, “Drone sales only took off when we made them capable of launching missiles.”

  The lethality modules were only one of the many modifications that Chris made to the 4Gen Swarmbot platform. At the General’s urging, Chris met with Flashcharge. They had a standing meeting at the Accelerator twice a week. Shields directed Chris to incorporate Flashcharge’s wireless charging capabilities into the 4Gen’s batteries.

  One of the conditions of the Accelerator’s $6.75M investment was that Swarmbot promised to market 4Gen only to the United States’ DoD and IC, for a period of five years—no sales to non-US entities.

  Ken negotiated a provision to nullify the agreement if sales from the US DoD or IC didn’t materialize within two years from the time that 4Gen was ‘commercially available.’ He also haggled hard with the General to allow Swarmbot to sell to Australia. Ken had high-placed contacts in that country.

  But, the General was adamant. He was investing a substantial amount of US taxpayer dollars. No foreign country, even if they were a member of the Five Eyes, was going to benefit from the investment.

  In fact, any TOP SECRET//FOGGY or TOP SECRET//SWARM document was always marked NOFORN. This meant that only properly cleared United States citizens could access FOGGY or SWARM information.

  The three red Swarmbots on point, that is the three Swarmbots in the very front, came to the wooden obstacle in the Maze. All red Swarmbots stacked up. They looked like eggs, in a three-rowed egg carton.

  The green and yellow Swarmbots rolled over their smaller brethren, with the green Swarmbot on the right leading the way. As the green Swarmbot hit the barrier, it started to roll up the wall. At the same time, the yellow Swarmbot came from behind and nudged the green Swarmbot. It fell over the wall onto the other side. All of this occurred in absolute silence. Even when the green Swarmbot dropped to the other end of the barrier, there was no noise.

  In GAMESPACE, Saul watched the Marine help an Airman over a brick wall.

  The smaller Swarmbots rotated to form a single-file line, which seemed linked together. The yellow Swarmbot moved to the back of this connected line.

  Samantha asked, “How do they become one like that? Is it magnets?” Chris smiled. He shook his head no.

  There was a single red Swarmbot, now on point. It rolled back from the barrier and on top of the Swarmbot behind him. Now, he was no longer making contact with the ground. The lead, red orb completely supported itself on the Swarmbot underneath him. This process repeated itself, until the Swarmbots looked like a dancing piece of rope.

  “That’s our Cobra Move,” said Chris, building his excitement up for the crescendo.

  Now, five red Swarmbots were stacked on top of each other. They stood straight in the air. The other four remained on the ground, in a single-file line. They were anchored by the larger, yellow Swarmbot. It surprised Samantha that, apart from the different coloring, the 10 Swarmbots moved as one. It was as if the individual Swarmbots had melted together.

  The cobra Swarmbot moved forward. It began crawling over the barrier. The head of the Cobra then linked to green Swarmbot, which had climbed over the wall earlier. Now, he was the head. The green Swarmbot drove aggressively forward, pulling all the other Swarmbots over the wall. The snake with a green head, red body, and yellow tail finished the Maze.

  In GAMESPACE, the Gamers were all ascending a long ladder.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Samantha. “How’d they do that, Chris?”<
br />
  Chris laughed and said reservedly, “They did that because that’s what your system led them to do.”

  “Now, we’re moving to the finale,” shouted Ken.

  “So obviously,” said Chris “you’ve heard—or should I say, not heard—our sound suppression technology. When sound suppression is active, Swarmbots are nearly silent. I’m going to show you the ISR capabilities of the green Swarmbot.” He swiped his tablet and passed it around. The thin computer displayed the video feed, from the green Swarmbots’ point of view.

  “That’s creepy,” said Lin.

  “I can’t wait to use these things on the Caliphate,” crowed the General. The tablet screen also contained a dashboard with numerous graphs and charts. This included real-time air pressure, temperature, and soil composition.

  Chris continued, “We completely redesigned the innards of the 4Gen Swarmbots to be much more modular. We can outfit them with a configurable array of surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, including thermal imaging and 360-degree facial recognition.

  “It can also house a bevy of hacking tools. Or, you could use it to laser-paint targets for fire support. Paint the target and then boom, here comes the artillery or missile. Another option is to use its acoustics package to geo-locate gun fire. And remember, you don’t need to endanger any serviceman or woman to perform any of these tasks.

  “But, my favorite feature is this.” Chris swiped the tablet again. “Watch the green and yellow Swarmbots.” Chris depressed a virtual button on the tablet. The larger, green and yellow Swarmbots unlinked, and spun ahead of the red Swarmbots. Then they stopped. Their sides seemed to cave in on themselves, until the orb was now a half-circle. This action revealed a platform on each Swarmbot. There was something on the platform, but it was hard to make out. Immediately, that something rose from the platform. It started flying across the room.

  Chris looked directly at Shields, “Here’s your mini-drone, General.”

  Lin gasped. Both of the mini-drones flew over to the viewing platform and hovered. The mini-drones were the size of a large insect. The beating of the Swarmbot’s wings sounded exactly like a dragon-fly.

  Chris looked at the flying Swarmbot’s with satisfaction.

  “They can fly for 90 minutes, before they need a charge from their mother Swarmbot. My next big goal is to outfit them with a Flashcharge battery. Then the mini-drone Swarmbots will be charged by microwaves, just like the other Swarmbots.”

  The flying Swarmbots darted across the room for several minutes. They returned to the platform on their host Swarmbot. The two jumbo Swarmbots’ sides raised. Now, they were full-orbs again.

  In GAMESPACE, two of the Airman released backpack-sized drones. The drones hovered in front of their target, before returning to the Airmen’s hands.

  “And now, for the grand finale,” yelled Ken, enthusiastically. All the Swarmbots moved forward for a few seconds. With another swipe of Chris’ tablet, they completely disappeared.

  Lin shrieked, “Where’d they go?”

  “They’re still there,” beamed Chris.

  Samantha and Lin completely freaked out. Lin started swatting imagined buzzing insects from her face. After about a minute, all the Swarmbots reappeared on the other end of the Maze. “Holy…,” said Samantha. “How’d you do that?”

  “It’s magic,” replied Chris, “the magic of adaptive camouflage. It makes them nearly invisible.”

  General Shields punched the red button.

  *

  General Shields asked the Swarmbot team to meet him in the SCIF conference room. He nodded to Samantha. Samantha thanked Ali for his hard work, and told him that he wasn’t needed for the follow-on meeting. After Ali had left, the General instructed Lin to be on the lookout for Saul.

  Once in the conference room, General Shields told everyone that he was pleased with the results. He praised the efforts of the Swarmbot and Gamification team. Saul and Lin strode into the conference room. Both Samantha and General Shields surveyed Saul’s facial expression. He smiled and bobbed his head. It was clear that everything had, at the very least, gone satisfactorily in GAMESPACE.

  General Shields stared intently at the two Co-Founders of Swarmbot. “Gentlemen, I’ve known you for a long time. I think you’re well on the way to being very wealthy men. In fact, I want to help you do that. I’d like to order 75 Swarmbots for $100M. I want to spread that payment over a two-year period.” The total budget of the NSA in 2020 was $18B; the second largest in the IC, behind the CIA’s budget of $19.5B

  Samantha’s jaw dropped. “What about Gamification Systems?” she blurted out.

  The General smiled. “Samantha, I’ll place my order later.” Samantha just shook her head in disbelief.

  The General turned his attention back to Ken and Hideki. “I know you’ve both made great personal sacrifices to launch your company and build your dream. It’s going to change the face of warfare. I think Swarmbots are going to have a key military role, just like remotely piloted aircraft. But I need something from you to proceed.”

  Chris Fischer already knew what the General was going to say.

  “I need,” said the General, slowly, “…no—your country needs—you to weaponize the Swarmbots.”

  Ken didn’t look surprised. He’d had these conversations on many occasions with Chris. But he tried to push back. “General Shields, Swarmbots are the most sophisticated ISR platforms on the planet. They can provide you with facial recognition. They can hack Wi-Fi. They don’t make a noise. They can hide in plain sight. Chris is working on a DNA processing option. You have everything you need. With 4Gen, you have all we’ve ever promised to you—even a mini-drone.”

  Chris exploded. “Ken, how do you see through those rose colored glasses of yours? I’ve told you from the get-go, if you want to sell to the DoD, you need to weaponize the Swarmbots. What’s the difference between these two scenarios? Swarmbots provide ISR regarding the location of a terrorist. That ISR leads to a lethal drone strike. Or, Swarmbots kill or incapacitate a terrorist.

  “By the way, let me tell you a dirty little secret about Hellfire missiles from a Marauder. They cause a lot of collateral damage. More than that, we’re killing people based on their cell phone metadata. We’re bombing mobile phones.

  “Swarmbots can prosecute night raids, targeting only one person. Hell, they don’t even need the cover of night. Soldiers stay safely behind the lines. If Swarmbots need to kill, they can. If they need to listen, they can. If they need to incapacitate, they can do that too. Our company’s biggest market is the DoD and IC. If you want any sales to these markets, you must weaponize Swarmbots.”

  Tears spilled down Ken’s cheeks. “Chris, my great-grandmother was irradiated to death at Hiroshima. My great-grandfather was a kamikaze pilot. My grandfather nearly starved to death in post-World War II Japan. I understand war. I understand technology. I’m a second-generation American. I want to protect, and not kill. Weaponizing these drones is a point of no return.

  “Do I have to go down in history as that guy? You and I both know—someday soon—you aren’t going to need a tablet or joystick to control Swarmbots. Can I live with the fact that I’m the father of autonomous…silent…invisible…killer robots?”

  The room remained hushed for a few moments.

  Then, the very shy Hideki spoke up. The room got even quieter, so everyone could hear his hushed voice. “If you’re the father, then I’m the mother. You can’t protect, if you refuse to kill. We’ve both given our lives for Swarmbot. You’re divorced. I’m getting a divorce. I don’t know my kids. I could go on and on. If we don’t do this, someone else will. That’s something I can’t live with—that all of our sacrifices were a waste.”

  For his part, General Shields was respectful. He let the drama play out. Then he said, “Ken, I understand your position. But war has caused loss all over the world. My family has experienced profound sorrow. Can you imagine if a lethal Swarmbot was available when the Caliphate took my s
on? Before his head was separated from his body and broadcast to the entire world; your Swarmbots could’ve eradicated Charlie’s murderers. If you guys need time, that’s fine. But my purchase is contingent upon you demonstrating kill and incapacitate features in the 4Gen Swarmbots.”

  Chapter 18 – Separation

  9:50 a.m. (EDT), Wednesday, September 30, 2020 – Columbia, MD

  Suite 201, Gamification Systems’ Offices, Defense Innovations Accelerator

  Ali tried to casually sneak into his office. If only he were a Swarmbot. He’d be in full active camouflage mode. But nothing could hide him from Becca. She scowled at Ali. Just months ago, they were good friends. Now, Becca felt forsaken by someone she went out of her way to help. Ali’s coding skills were sub-par, until Becca coached him up. Becca felt she’d trained her replacement.