Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller

by BMichaelsAuthor

  Ali understood why Becca was upset. He just couldn’t do anything about it. He tried to convince Samantha to read Becca into SWARM, but to no avail.

  Becca confronted Ali. “I think you guys are using drones in REALSPACE, and you’re using a different game in GAMESPACE. My guess is that these drones are going to be used to kill people. Am I right?”

  Ali looked at Becca with compassion. “You know I can’t tell you what I’m doing. I like you Becca, but I’m not going to wear an orange jumpsuit for 10 years. Besides, I have no idea what’s going on in GAMESPACE.”

  “Well,” countered Becca, “let’s just think out loud. You saw the two Co-Founders of Velocity meet with Saul and Samantha. Saul’s got comments in his code about Velocity. This morning, I watched Saul and a bunch of soldiers go into the SCIF on this floor. You’ve got Swarmbot manuals all over your office. So it’s pretty clear. Our company is moving from gamification of cybersecurity to gamification of killer robots. And Samantha doesn’t trust me enough to tell me.”

  “Becca, I shouldn’t have left the manuals out. I was trying to meet a deadline. Go to the Swarmbot website. All they do is manufacture surveillance drones.”

  “Ali, if the drones aren’t weaponized yet, they will be soon.”

  Becca stormed back to her workspace. She grabbed her phone, hoping to see a text from Josh. ‘Good morning, LoveBug. Can I see you tday?’

  Becca texted back, ‘Sure. Lunch in the cafeteria?’

  Becca reviewed her inbox. There were two emails from Gecko Insurance. Everything else was unimportant. Becca didn’t want to read them. She opened Eclipse, the program she used to author source code. Becca looked at some Python code for the next hour. Then, she closed the Eclipse application. She was done.

  Samantha walked into her glass enclosure. She didn’t look in Becca’s direction. Becca shut her MacBook and followed her boss.

  *

  “We need to talk,” said Becca, austerely.

  Samantha asked Becca to sit down and close the door. This was another one of those times that Samantha wished that Gamification’s offices weren’t see-through.

  “Samantha, I’d like to give you my two weeks’ notice. I’m not happy here. Gamification Systems is moving in directions that I’m not comfortable with. I started working for you because I thought you’d mentor me. You’re a successful and talented woman. I wanted to learn from you. But, you haven’t been honest with me. I wasn’t imagining things. You didn’t even talk to me about our most important project. You told me this was an open, transparent environment—remember your glass office speech?

  “I’m grateful for this opportunity, but I’m going to move on. Over the next two weeks, I’ll help you transition the Gecko relationship to someone else. I know I’m losing all my stock options. I don’t care.”

  There wasn’t anything for Samantha to say. She wasn’t shocked. She was sorry. She was upset with the General. And Samantha was mad at herself. Rebecca Roberts was her second best coder. She was her best employee in front of customers, even better than her VP of Sales. Samantha had tried in vain to convince Shields to assign Becca, at least to FOGGY. What would it hurt if she only worked in GAMESPACE?

  The General believed that Becca had the profile of someone who would disclose classified information. She’d either go to the press or upload it to a website, like WikiLeaks. Becca would call herself a whistleblower. General Shields would call her a traitor.

  *

  At 12:55 p.m., Josh arrived at the Accelerator’s sixth-floor conference room. This was CyberAI’s Demo Day for September.

  Josh unpacked his laptop and set up his PowerPoint. The General wouldn’t want to see a demo. There was only one slide that mattered. He hoped that the results would improve his relationship with the General. Since his fiery Sunday meeting in August, it hadn’t been the same.

  The General and Lin took a seat. After terse mutual greetings, Josh began his very upbeat presentation. He provided some technical background explaining his deep learning approach. He briefed the General on his success in using the NSA supercomputers. They helped to rapidly develop genetic algorithms for each layer of the neural network.

  As Josh approached his most significant slide, CyberAI’s CTO—Vish Kumar—joined the meeting. Josh was bewildered. While Josh, Vish, and the General always met for Board meetings; Josh conducted his monthly demo sessions solo.

  “Thanks for coming, Vish,” said the General. “Josh, I took the liberty of inviting Vish. I’d like him to attend all the demos going forward.”

  “Ok,” said Josh reservedly. He continued with the presentation. “General, I know this is the slide you care about.” Josh clicked his prompter to advance to the next slide. “We now recognize 92.7% of the cyber-events. Two months ago that number was 83%.”

  “Outstanding,” said the General. Lin also looked impressed.

  “Vish, what’s your reaction to that metric?” asked Shields.

  “Obviously, I think it’s wonderful,” said Vish, with his deep voice and Indian accent. “But, I’d like to take a look at the source code. Josh, I haven’t seen a commit from you since you started the deep learning stuff, about three months ago.”

  “Right, I forked the repository. I didn’t want any namespace collisions or other problems that might set us back. But, I’m going to merge the code soon.” This was a technical excuse that meant that Josh hadn’t put the source code in the CyberAI repository. The code was only available to him.

  Vish looked annoyed. “So, the code that has improved cyber-event recognition is on a forked source code repository on your laptop?”

  “Yea Vish,” said Josh, irritated. “Just like you, I do a lot of development from home. I back it up on a server in my apartment. Sometimes, it’s more convenient for me to do coding at home, where I’m not disturbed by the day-to-day issues of being a CEO.”

  General Shields jumped in. In a stern manner he asked, “Josh, you’ve been solely concentrating on using your new algorithms for cyber-events, right?”

  “Uh, yes.” Josh sensed that his answer was not definitive enough, so he added, “Can’t you tell by looking at the performance improvement?”

  After working through the rest of the presentation, General Shields adjourned the meeting.

  Josh was punctured. And on edge.

  *

  General Shields waited until Josh and Vish had cleared the room. He looked at Lin with a serious expression.

  “Lin, I think we have an issue with Josh. I’m going to need your help. The General shut the conference room door, and picked up the secure telephone. He placed a call to Phil Callahan at NSOC. General Shields told Phil he was dealing with an urgent matter.

  “Phil, I think one of the CEO’s at the Accelerator is going rogue. I want to know what Josh Adler is doing now, and what he’s done over the past three months. Assign only intel analysts that you completely trust to this tasking.

  “First, I want to examine the log files of the NSA supercomputers. Lin can give you the details regarding the dates and times of Josh’s usage. I think that’ll give us the clearest picture of what he’s up to. You should get some good selectors by examining the logs.

  “Then, use Xkeyscore to search retroactively. I want a report that tells me what web pages Josh visited, what terms he’s searched on with Atom, who he’s emailed or chatted with, and what he’s downloaded. Make sure you also include the selectors you get from the supercomputer logs. I want to know every social media post: his likes, new friends, comments—everything. Give me all his call records, text messages, and credit card transactions.

  “And, I want you to have TAO penetrate the network at his apartment and exfiltrate our CyberAI source code. I need this report and the CyberAI software by the close of your shift tomorrow morning. Call me tonight and give me an update.” TAO stood for Tailored Access Operations. It was the NSA’s name for its clandestine hacking operations.

  Phil said, “Yes, sir.” He added gingerly, “Gener
al, don’t we need a warrant?”

  “Dammit Phil,” barked Shields, “I’ve got a potential traitor here. I’m not trying to prosecute him; I’m attempting to protect the information. At this very moment, he might be giving away source code to China, Russia, or Israel.

  “Any one of those countries might use the information to start World War III. I don’t have time to get a warrant. Besides that, he’s got a clearance. I believe he’s an insider threat. That fact alone is sufficient justification for NSA counsel. Just get this done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  General Shields terminated the call. “Lin, I want you to kick off our plan to staff the SWARM Op Center 24/7 with our most talented analysts.”

  “Got it.”

  “Also, I need you to call Loreal & Hammer. Get them to draft a notice for a Board of Directors meeting for CyberAI. The bylaws allow for a board meeting to be called with a 24-hour notice. I want the documentation prepared. I want to be able to send the notice out tonight, if Phil’s update confirms my suspicions. That way, we can conduct the board meeting on Friday. And before I leave today, I need you to schedule a face-to-face meeting with Vish. Don’t invite Josh.”

  Lin inspected Shields. “General Shields, you’re sure about all this? You’ve been going Mach 1 since Dabiq-gate. You’re moving past the point of no return on this.”

  “Lin, I’m not in the mood for psychoanalysis. Just do what I’ve asked.”

  *

  It was early evening when Becca arrived at Josh’s apartment.

  “I’m sorry I had to cancel lunch,” said Josh. He looked discombobulated. “I don’t think you want to be seen with me. You still haven’t told anyone at work about us, right?”

  Becca laughed. “None of that matters anymore.”

  Josh looked confused. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “No silly. I wanted to tell you in person, and not by text. I gave my notice today.”

  “What?” yelled Josh.

  Becca glanced at the apartment. Every time she came over, the place was messier. The book stacks were taller, and there were more empty pizza boxes. The books weren’t about programming or AI. There were piles for ancient Israel, the Bible, and the Ark. Middle East travel books were strewn across the coffee table.

  Since her last visit, Josh had thumbtacked a map of the Middle East to the kitchen wall, along with drawings of the Ark of the Covenant. Another stack sat tall on the dining room table. It contained books on learning Hebrew and Judaism. Judaism thought Becca, is Josh becoming Jewish? Since Josh was Jewish, she filed the thought in her illogical box.

  “Josh, you’re not going all Beautiful Mind on me here, are you?” Becca and Josh had recently watched the movie about the mathematician and cryptographer, John Nash.

  “I hope not,” replied Josh, emotionless. The imagery of the question caught him by surprise, elevating him above the situation for a moment. He looked around his apartment and seemed a bit shocked by the scene himself. He sighed deeply.

  “Becca, what did you mean? Notice for what?”

  “I quit my job so I could be your maid.” Becca laughed. “I’m kidding, but this place does look terrible. Anyway, you know how I’ve told you that weird things have been occurring at Gamification—that I’ve sensed that Gamification and the NSA were up to some crazy stuff? And, how Samantha has cut me out of the loop for the past few months? For the first time ever, I wasn’t even invited to Demo Day! Ali stood in for me. Today, it all came to a head.

  “I think Samantha is replacing Castle Chevaliers with Fog of War in GAMESPACE. In REALSPACE, I believe that the Gamers will control Swarmbots. If the Swarmbots aren’t lethal yet, I’m sure they will be soon. I don’t want any part of it. I was hired to create software for a gamification company, specializing in cybersecurity.”

  “They’re gamifying death?” asked Josh. What makes you think they are going to arm them? All of Swarmbot’s marketing indicates that they just sell surveillance drones.”

  “Josh, have you ever played Fog of War? It’s a first-person shooter. The goal of the game is to kill.”

  “You’re right.” He considered the situation for a moment. “Do you have a problem with the Swarmbots or the fact that Samantha didn’t trust you with the information?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Becca, laconically. “Probably both. It’s just so disappointing,” she stammered. “I took the job because I looked up to Samantha. We had a ton in common. I thought she could teach me so much. I worked really hard for her. I wanted to make Gamification a success. But she stopped trusting me. When I approached her to express my concerns, she tried to make me think I was going nuts.”

  “Becca, I’m sorry. I know how stressed out you’ve been. I haven’t been there for you. I’ve been in my own little world.” He hugged Becca, tightly.

  “Thanks, Josh. I can find a coding job wherever I want. I’ve got some savings. After my two weeks, I think I’ll just take some time. Maybe I’ll visit my dad. On second thought, forget that. I’ll find something to do. So…that was my day. What’s up with you? Why do you look so anxious?”

  “I also have a terrible feeling. Things at CyberAI aren’t right. Nothing about the place feels kosher. I’ve never been a CEO before, but I’ve been getting bizarre vibes from General Shields. Ever since I offhandedly mentioned the Ark with him, he’s been an entirely different man. I should never have brought it up. The Ark has changed everything.

  “Today, he invited Vish to our monthly meeting. Vish has never attended our Demo Day before. My own CTO then proceeded to rake me over the coals about the location of the source code for the deep learning software.”

  “What are you worried about? Aren’t you the CEO?”

  “Yes, but the combined equity of Vish and the Accelerator is more than mine. We all have an equal vote on the board. I think they can get rid of me with a simple vote.”

  Josh’s phone buzzed.

  Becca watched Josh’s face implode.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He stood in silence. He read, and re-read the email.

  “It’s an email serving me notice of a board meeting on Friday. The agenda calls for a discussion of general business items. It demands that I bring the source code to the meeting. Crap. This is bad. I need to call my lawyer, now.”

  Josh left a distressed voicemail for his attorney.

  “I’m sorry, Josh. That place is insane. I think General Shields has flipped his lid. The stuff he’s doing has to be illegal. What’s the deal with the source code? They don’t have your deep learning software?”

  “No, I didn’t want to commit the code. The General’s demeanor has been so baffling. You’ve seen the improvements from the deep learning algorithm. The genetic algorithms that the supercomputer selected made the neural network perform even better than I anticipated.

  “Everything improved—they cyber-recognition, the market predictions; and I know it’s early, but the Cowboys are undefeated. Most of all…Becca, I’ve got to show you this. Do you remember where the AI placed the Ark last time?”

  “Yes, it was a broad region of the Middle East.”

  “Right, now look at this.” Josh handed Becca her VR gear. In an instant, they were both back in TextWorld.

  “TextWorld, show me the current location of the Ark of the Covenant,” said Josh. This time, the map depicted a much smaller area. It only included portions of Israel and Jordan. Whereas it used to contain parts of six countries, now it included only slivers of two. Specifically, the map depicted the West Bank, Jerusalem, the northern part of the Dead Sea, the Jordanian desert to the west of the Dead Sea, and the area around Amman, Jordan.

  “It’s getting better and better,” said Josh. “My AI is learning. At the NSA supercomputer center, not only did I find the best genetic algorithms, but I started training the neural network on different languages. I began with Hebrew, ancient Greek, and Russian. I got help from NSA linguists on the Hebrew and Russian. I just finished the code
to add ancient Aramaic, Arabic, and Farsi. But I haven’t compiled it yet. I know I’ll have to work through some bugs before it works.”

  “This is incredible,” said Becca. “Every day, you’re getting closer to finding something that evaporated from the face of the earth over 2500 years. I understand why you don’t want the General or Vish to have this code.”

  Josh nodded in agreement. “Yep, now that I think about it, his plan has probably always been to integrate my AI with the Swarmbots. Then, he wouldn’t even need GAMESPACE. He’d have fully autonomous robots.”