by Wesley Cross
“Before our agent went dark,” Contact typed, “they were able to send a very sensitive piece of intel. Engel is trying to establish a partnership with the Flores cartel in Bolivia. He’ll be sending a delegation to meet Diego Flores, the self-proclaimed Prince of Cocaine, and strike a deal. You have to use this opportunity and eliminate Flores. If that’s impossible, we need you to at the very least disrupt the deal.”
“I’m not aware of this meeting,” Connelly typed.
“Ulf Schneider, the head of Engel’s security detail, is supposed to be going with Guardian’s delegation.”
“Oh, great,” Connelly said out loud. He didn’t have to guess what was said between the lines—the ISCD wanted him to eliminate Schneider in the hopes that Engel would use him as the substitute. The problem was—even if he took care of Schneider, he wasn’t guaranteed the spot on Engel’s team. He would have to make a compelling case for it, which meant he’d have to volunteer. That could go either way, Connelly figured. Engel was either going to be happy that he didn’t need to reshuffle his team, or he would get suspicious at his eagerness to go on the mission with so many unknowns.
“I’ll take care of it,” he typed. “But I cannot guarantee that Engel will pick me instead of Tim Leonard, who’s likely to take over as the second-in-command.”
“According to our source,” came the reply, “Schneider and Leonard are going to be inspecting a warehouse two days from now. They should have minimal support.”
“Great,” Connelly typed. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Please update the log as soon as you have a confirmation. I’ll be checking it periodically.”
“Will do.”
Connelly closed the laptop and put it next to him on the couch. Limited support sounded great, but in reality, it only meant Schneider and Leonard weren’t bringing anybody else except their own bodyguards. Even then, Connelly was about to take on a team of six highly trained killers all by himself.
A flash of light illuminated the skies outside, and a split second later the window frames vibrated, absorbing the shock wave. Connelly stood up, walked to the window, and looked out. His car was engulfed in flames, and the fire from a Molotov cocktail was already spreading to the neighboring vehicles.
“Fuck me,” Connelly said under his breath. “Should’ve re-parked.” He turned away from the glass and headed toward the bedroom’s safe. He had some planning to do.
3
Hong Kong
Helen poured some cold coffee from a black plastic thermos into a paper cup and took it to the booth by the window. The corporate cafeteria was dimly lit—the spotlights peppering the ceiling at seemingly random intervals were switched off for the night, and the only source of light was the row of panels running alongside the inner wall.
“Helen? And I thought I was the only person here at this hour.”
She turned to the sound of the voice in time to see a curvy young woman walking across the dining hall.
“Hey, Mandy.”
“Mind if I join?”
“Knock yourself out.”
She watched as the woman poured herself a cup and took a seat at the other side of the booth.
“Man, these things make me depressed.” Mandy pointed at the glass-brick window. “It makes me feel like I’m stuck inside of a giant toilet, you know?”
Helen laughed. The frosted surface of the bricks used in most of the building’s windows indeed looked like a glass wall you’d see in a shower or a toilet.
“They let in some light during the day,” she said. “And you know how everybody feels about privacy around here.”
“That’s crazy talk. We’re right next to the prison building. Who’s gonna spy on us? Guards? Escaped inmates?” Mandy took a sip of the drink and screwed up her face. “Oh, this coffee is disgusting. I miss seeing something out the window, you know? At my previous gig, I worked at the ICC tower. Almost all the way up there. That was some view.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You bet. You could see the entire Victoria harbor. It’s amazing, especially at night.”
“Must be quite something,” Helen said. “What made you change?”
“The work here’s more interesting,” the woman said and then laughed. “And pays much better too. The first time I read about TLR, I knew I had to get a job here. And then I watched Tillerson on the TED talk, and he seemed like one of those crazy geniuses—with his Einstein hair and funky glasses, and the way he made extremely complicated ideas so easy to understand. It was incredible. There are a lot of good companies to work for, but if you want to build cognitive AI, there’s nobody else like us.”
“I agree,” Helen said. “He’s not afraid to push boundaries. I’m glad I ended up here. Even without proper windows.”
“It looks like you’re making a name for yourself too,” Mandy said.
“How so?”
“Oh, now you’re fishing for a compliment. All I hear every day is Helen Wu this, Helen Wu that, check with Helen Wu.”
Helen smiled, trying to hide her discomfort. Even after all this time, she wasn’t used to her new last name. Whenever she heard someone say it out loud, it made her feel like an impostor, about to be found out.
“Ms. Wu?”
She turned around, startled. Edmond Tillerson’s plump figure draped in a shapeless lab coat was leaning on the doorframe at the entrance of the cafeteria. The bright light coming from the hallway behind him set his wild auburn hair on fire and cast a long shadow of the man across the dining hall. From this angle, he looked like a mad scientist in a B-rated sci-fi movie.
“Can I see you in my office for a minute?” Tillerson pointed vaguely with his thumb over his shoulder, and the shadows shook and leaped, repeating his movements in a grotesquely exaggerated manner.
“Sure. I’ll be right over,” Helen said, but her boss was already gone.
“See what I mean,” Mandy whispered. “Don’t forget your campus neighbors when you inherit the company.”
“Yeah, right.”
She picked up the paper cup and hurried after Tillerson.
The long windowless hallway, narrow enough to induce a bout of claustrophobia, cut the structure into two equal parts. Helen had heard some people insist that Tillerson had commissioned the facility in the shape of a capital letter I on purpose, thus incorporating the word intelligence into the very foundation of the company. The theory was probably not true, she thought, as the main building was accompanied by a few small structures nearby that served as additional offices and storage, and together the buildings didn’t form any specific shape. But the rumor persisted.
At the bottom of the I was a dining room and at the top, Tillerson’s office, with an adjacent conference room. The longer sides of the building were taken by a bullpen of workstations for coders on one side, and a gigantic server room running alongside the entire building on the other.
The door to the office was cracked open, and Helen could hear the sounds of The Magic Flute playing in the background. She knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
Helen had never been in Tillerson’s office before, and looking around the large room, she felt almost disappointed. Nothing in the decor screamed artificial intelligence or even information technology. It could belong to a mid-level executive in a pharmaceutical company, or an accountant, or a lawyer. There was a polished desk in the center of the room with a dual monitor. The two wide bookcases of matching wood on either side of the desk were stuffed with a seemingly random collection of fiction novels and non-fiction publications in various fields from economy to military strategy. The wall proudly displayed a few framed documents—the degree from MIT, Tillerson’s alma mater, and various awards and honorary degrees.
The only extraordinary object in the room was a pear-shaped meteorite the size of a car wheel mounted in a cradle of dark polished bronze.
“Close the door and take a seat.” Tillerson pointed to a chair. “I wanted to chat with you fo
r a bit if that’s all right.”
“Of course.” She sat down and looked at her boss. “What can I do for you, Mr. Tillerson?”
“How long have you worked for us now, Miss Wu? Two years?” His green eyes, magnified by the thick glasses, stared at her with an intensity that made her uncomfortable.
“Almost, Mr. Tillerson,” she said. “About twenty months.”
“Please, call me Edmund. I’ve been hearing some good things about you,” he continued. “I know the project that you’ve been working on is almost completed. Do you think your team can finish it without you?”
“I’d like to see it to the end, but I guess they could wrap it up without me at this point.”
She was unsure of where the conversation was going. It sounded as if he was pleased with her work, but the comment about not needing her present for the project she’d been working on for the past six months made her uneasy. She couldn’t decide if he was about to move her to a different task, or to tell her she was getting laid off.
“Don’t worry,” he said, as if reading her mind, and then smiled. “Your job is safe. As a matter of fact, I have an exciting project I’d like you to join.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “What’s the project?”
“It’s the most ambitious thing we’ve ever set our eyes on,” Tillerson said and got up. “I can tell you a lot of things about it, but it’d be best if I show you something first.”
He walked to the meteorite in the corner of the room and pressed a button under the bronze cradle. The bookcase on the right of the desk slowly descended into the floor, revealing the entrance to an elevator.
“There’s an entrance from the parking lot too, but I guess it pays to be the boss. Shall we?”
There were no visible buttons on the elevator panel. Instead, there was a small video camera the size of a peephole. Tillerson removed his glasses and leaned into the lens. There was a barely audible mechanical whirring, and then the bookshelf rose into place, locking them inside of the elevator. The floor vibrated lightly—the only indication of movement—and then, a few moments later stopped. A door panel in front of them slid sideways, and they stepped out into an enormous hangar-like room. The air was cold, and there was a low buzz of energy coming from the thick cables running alongside the walls.
“Wow,” she said out loud. “Is it operational?”
“She is.” There was pride in Tillerson’s voice.
In the middle of the room, suspended from the tall ceiling like an enormous golden chandelier, hung what Helen instantly recognized as a quantum computer.
“I’ve never seen them in real life before. Only pictures. It looks like a piece of art.”
“That’s funny,” he said and then chuckled. “To me, somehow, it reminds me of the main weapon on the mothership from Independence Day. The one used to blow up the White House.”
Helen laughed. “I can see the resemblance. What do you want me to do?”
“We’re building a new generation of AI. I’ve christened it Minerva. The most powerful self-learning program ever built. What you’ve been working on before was one of the building blocks that will be used for the actual program. And this girl,” he pointed at the computer, “she is going to help us run it. What do you say?”
“I’m in.” She couldn’t hide the excitement. “Thank you so much for considering me.”
“You’ll do well. Welcome to the big leagues, kid.”
4
New York
Connelly threw the garbage bag down the chute and started to close the compactor room’s door.
“Hold it,” a raspy voice sounded from down the hallway. An older man in his seventies appeared out of the apartment next door and marched toward the room with two large garbage bags in his hands.
Connelly swung the door wide open, holding it for the man, and offered a hand. “You want me to take one?”
“What? You gonna take my garbage home?”
“No, Mr. McAllister, just offering some help.”
“Son, I told you a thousand times my name’s Jimmy,” the man said, marching past him and throwing the garbage down the chute. “You don’t think I can dump my own trash?”
“Never crossed my mind,” Connelly said, looking at his neighbor. Despite his age, his posture was ramrod-straight and the arms sticking out of the wife-beater shirt were thick with muscle. A faded eagle, globe, and anchor tattoo was covering the man’s bare left shoulder.
“What was the ruckus last night, anyway?”
“What ruckus, Mr. McAllister?”
“Don’t fuck with me, son. A bunch of cars burned to a crisp and looks like yours was the epicenter of it. Good thing the fire never made it to my side of the lot.”
“I have no idea,” Connelly said. “Must be some hooligans.”
McAllister stopped in front of him, scanning him up and down. “I’ve never asked you this before. What kind of work do you do, anyway?”
“Just a driver, sir.”
“Uh-huh,” the man said, turned around and walked away toward his apartment. “Sure.”
Connelly shook his head and closed the compactor door.
“Is he giving you a hard time again?”
Connelly turned on his heels in time to see a young woman coming up the stairs, carrying a large box.
“Not at all,” he said, walking up to her and taking the box out of her hands. “He’s a sweet man.”
“My uncle? A sweet man?” The woman laughed softly. “Right.”
“What have you got in here? It’s heavy.”
“Dirt,” she said, stopping in front of McAllister’s apartment door.
“Dirt? What do you need dirt for?”
“I’m going to plant a few things for him. Some tomatoes, cucumbers, some herbs. I’ve tried to convince him to get a pet, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I know that he gets restless when there’s nothing to do, and I wanted him to have something to take care of that doesn’t require too much time.”
“I see.” Connelly shifted his weight from one foot to another. “This might sound out of left field, but would you care for a drink some time?”
The woman cocked her head and looked at him with an expression he couldn’t read.
“Never mind,” he said. “It kind of just came out. I shouldn’t have—”
“Wow. Only took you what—seven? Eight months?” she interrupted him. “How about tonight, if you don’t have any plans already?”
“I don’t, not really.”
“All right, then. What time is it?” She glanced at her watch. “It’s almost four. I’ll be staying here until six, so you can pick me up then. There’s a new bar down by the water I wanted to check out.”
“O’Sullivan’s?”
“Yeah,” she said. “The view should be great, and I’ve heard they make nice drinks.”
“It’s a date, then,” he said.
“Sofia?” The old man appeared out of the apartment. “Come here, girl.”
He gave the woman a hug and then suspiciously squinted at Connelly. “I don’t know if I like this.”
“Uncle.” She wiggled her index finger at him. “Eavesdropping, huh?”
“It’s not eavesdropping when it comes to protecting my family,” he said, not breaking his eye contact with Connelly. “I don’t need to tell you what will happen if she’s not treated with respect, do I?”
“No, sir.”
“Come on,” Sofia said, gently pushing the man into the apartment. “I’m a big girl. You know that, right? I can handle myself. Besides, I’m sure Michael will be a perfect gentleman.”
Connelly smiled and gave her a wave and then headed back to his apartment.
He picked her up at six o’clock, and they took a stroll to the bar down by the water.
“It’s funny,” Sofia said as they passed a church. “I used to come here when I was a kid. My dad fancied himself a proper Catholic and occasionally dragged the entire family to church
on a random Sunday. Usually when he felt guilty about something.”
“What did he feel guilty about?”
“Money, mostly,” she said and hooked her arm through his as they walked. “He was a proud man. It bugged him that my mom had to work so hard.”
“I’m sure it was difficult,” Connelly said, watching her face. Her skin was pale, with a constellation of freckles spilled over the bridge of her nose and cheeks. With her wild reddish hair and thin lips, she wasn’t classically beautiful, he thought, but there was something about her that made his heart skip a beat.
“It was difficult.” Her strikingly light-blue eyes darted in his direction. “He was a stubborn fool with some old-fashioned views on how marriage was supposed to work. They were a dual-income family, and while they didn’t swim in money, they provided a good life for me and my sisters. We even owned an apartment. Everything was great. Until he got shot, anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I knew that he passed, but I had no idea—”
“That’s okay. It was a long time ago. But you can’t say it was difficult. It’s much harder to survive now, and it’s only getting worse every year. And scarier too. That block with the church on the corner used to be the safest neighborhood in Brooklyn. We would sneak out and play hide-and-seek until the moon was out. Now, I’m packing a Smith & Wesson every time I come here and still freak out if I have to get outside after dark.”
They walked in silence for a few moments as they entered the promenade by the river. The air was getting colder as the sun sank lower, and the breeze coming from the water brought a welcome relief from the heat and humidity clinging to the streets.
O’Sullivan’s Bar and Grill was a hole-in-a-wall, taking a narrow space inside the first floor of a residential building. A few tables sat outside under a dark-blue awning, and Connelly and Sofia settled down with drinks, watching the clouds over the famous Manhattan skyline darken as the day kept drawing to a close.
“So, what do you do, exactly?” Sofia asked as she sipped on a mojito, her eyes curiously studying his face. “Uncle Jimmy has all kinds of theories about you.”