Faster

by Alex Schuler

  “You were there?” Sam asked.

  “No. I had Lisa go, along with a number of others from our core team. Lisa’s my eyes and ears—sometimes even my voice. She profiled every key team member of the DARPA competitors for me.” Matthew glanced at his watch and took a couple of steps closer to his car. “I know you have a flight to catch so I’m going to be brief. Self-driving cars are the future. GSI intends to lead the way. We’re building an amazing team, and I want you two involved. More than involved. Sam, I want you to lead the software group. Ted, I want you on hardware. Let’s take what you did with Athena last weekend and use it to change the world of transportation.”

  Ted looked between Matthew, Lisa, and Sam. Sam looked shell-shocked; the color had drained from her face. Ted’s mind raced as it filled with questions.

  “Lisa has all the details.” Matthew sat down in the back of the Audi and closed the door. He immediately lowered the window. “Take your time to think it over, but I hope you say yes. Lisa?”

  Lisa stepped forward and handed Ted and Sam each a manila folder. Ted ripped his open. It was an offer letter. After reading the first paragraph, he scanned through the document looking for a salary. He found it in the last paragraph. Six figures. Ted read it three times to be sure he got it right.

  “Holy shit,” Sam blurted out, her face buried in the folder Lisa had given her. “Is this for real?”

  “I think it’s a fair offer,” Matthew said. “We don’t need an answer today. Lisa’s contact info is in there. I’m sure you will have plenty of questions.”

  “After you’ve had a chance to go over everything, please feel free to call me anytime.” Lisa shook hands with Ted and Sam and jumped into the front passenger seat of the Audi.

  “It’s a good thing you caught the pizza challenge on TV,” Ted said to Matthew.

  “Caught it?” Matthew laughed and shook his head. “Who do you think ponied up the million-dollar prize money?”

  The back window closed, and the sleek Audi pulled away from the curb, disappearing into the traffic.

  28

  GSI’s building management team spent six months renovating a workspace in a relatively new building for the autonomous vehicle team. Since its beginnings, GSI’s growth had been exponential, but the autonomy project was being done under the radar, at least as far as the public was concerned. GSI did not want anyone knowing what they were developing, so even those involved in building the project room had no idea who would occupy it. The space was light and airy, with ceilings soaring twenty feet high. Floor-to-ceiling windows allowed in plenty of light and offered stunning views of San Francisco Bay. Computerized blinds worked in concert with the heating and air conditioning system to optimize when to best use, or refuse, the warming rays of the sun.

  The workroom was divided into four named sections: Create, Crash, Convene, and Café. The main workroom—Create—consisted of sixty L-shaped wall-free workstations, the open concept meant to enhance interactive teamwork. Employees had their choice of color for their desks, making the room bright and joyful. Crash was a recreation area, with beanbag chairs of different colors and a wide assortment of games. The irony of the lounge’s name was not lost on anyone working on the self-driving car. Convene, as the name suggested, was a space for departmental and other meetings. Moveable and retractable walls would allow gatherings of various sizes as small as twenty-five or as large as five hundred. The café served a variety of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack options. Adjacent to Create were other rooms and facilities, including a comprehensive lab similar to that at Ashton, where people could refine and test the related hardware and software components directly on the autonomous vehicle.

  “This workroom is amazing,” Ted said to Sam.

  “It’s beautiful,” she replied. “We’re not in the Mojave anymore.”

  “I’m just glad we can officially kick this thing off.”

  Dozens of people swarmed about the new space, waiting for an opening ceremony of sorts to begin. Half were sitting in the rows of chairs facing the stage, while others stood about anxiously. Applause broke out as Matthew Grant entered the room and climbed up a short flight of stairs onto a raised stage area set up at one end. That was the cue for everyone to take their seats.

  Ted snagged Sam by the elbow and maneuvered her around several people to make a beeline for a front-row seat. Ralph and Lori followed closely behind. Ralph, at Sam’s request, had joined her at GSI. After relocating to California, Ted had contacted his three former DSU teammates and tried his best to entice them to get on board. Nico and Harry already had other projects and declined, but Lori jumped at the chance.

  “It feels like this workspace took forever to finish,” Ted said to Sam.

  “Really?” she replied. “I think it’s shocking they got it completed so quickly.”

  A hush fell over the crowd as Matthew held his hands up to get everyone’s attention. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m excited to see so many familiar faces as well as many new ones. Today is not only the first day of June, but it’s also the first day we truly set about changing the face of transportation as we know it.”

  More applause, followed by cheers and whistles echoing against the concrete and glass walls.

  “I’m proud to introduce your team leader,” Matthew said. “Give it up for Vin Malik.”

  Vin, who had been standing quietly in the corner next to Lisa, smiled as he joined Matthew on stage. The men briefly shook hands before Matthew waved to the crowd and walked offstage to stand near Lisa. The applause for Vin was deafening, with Sam and Ralph on their feet cheering and yelling. Vin laughed and motioned for them to sit down.

  “It’s been great working with each of you these past few months,” he said. He looked down at Sam and Ralph sitting in the front row. “Some of you much longer. But today is different. With our project center finally ready, we can now work side by side to bring this undertaking to life.”

  Vin clicked the remote in his hand. The motorized window blinds quietly closed as the lights lowered, darkening the room. An overhead projector that hung from the ceiling gradually brightened the screen hanging directly behind Vin, showing the official project name—Project Courier.

  Vin spent the next half hour highlighting the team structure and key technologies that would be used to design the autonomous vehicles. Ted, Sam, and the other team leads were all asked to stand when their areas were highlighted. Vin praised the breakthroughs made by Ashton, DSU, Princeton, and others. He then recapped the DARPA FAST Challenge, including highlights from Lisa’s reconnaissance mission. Ted was shocked to see specific details on the work done at DSU.

  “Lisa’s good,” Ted whispered to Sam. “How’d she get this information? I don’t even remember seeing her in the Mojave.”

  She shushed him and pointed back toward the screen. A new slide appeared with the words, Our Goals.

  “As I’ve said repeatedly, perhaps too many times, what we did at the FAST Challenge was just the beginning.” Vin paused in the center of the stage and clasped his hands behind his back. “As I look out at this crowd, I see the future leaders in autonomy, artificial intelligence, robotics, and mapping. A big lesson we learned working on Athena was the delicate balancing act between hardware and software. It’s a dance—a give and take—a marriage.”

  Ted couldn’t help but smile and glance over at Sam. He could see her grinning, refusing to acknowledge his stare.

  “Everyone must think outside the box,” Vin continued. “Never be afraid to challenge ideas. This is a total team effort. We win when the team hits its goals. So, what are our goals, you ask?”

  A new slide appeared with “100,000” and nothing else.

  “Our autonomous vehicle needs to complete one hundred thousand miles completely hands-free. That can be done in conjunction with the other goals, but even if all other goals are met, the project will not be consi
dered a success until we hit that milestone. As for those other goals, there are ten. Ten feats that must be conquered.”

  He clicked the remote, changing the slide to show the list of challenges.

  1. MARKET STREET

  2. LOMBARD STREET

  3. EL CAMINO REAL

  4. NORTH BRIDGE LOOP

  5. SOUTH BRIDGE LOOP

  6. LAKE TAHOE

  7. YOSEMITE PARK

  8. SAN FRANCISCO TO NAPA

  9. PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY

  10. SAN FRANCISCO TO LOS ANGELES

  “Many of these may look easy,” Vin continued, slowly pacing back and forth across the stage. “Some are even blatantly obvious, such as Lombard Street. Others have a few surprises thrown into them. For example, those of you not familiar with the area should know that the El Camino Real test will have over two hundred stoplights across a one hundred-mile distance. And the last one? Your target in Los Angeles is the Petersen Automotive Museum. There are a few ways to get from San Francisco to Los Angeles. For that challenge, you’ll need to take the 5 with the rest of the population. We want to see a vehicle maneuver through heavy stop-and-go traffic.”

  Several groans surfaced throughout the room. Matthew, standing beside Lisa in the corner, chuckled loudly. He clearly got a kick out of the reactions across the crowd.

  Vin spent time going through additional slides that spelled out the complexities of each of the ten challenges. The last slide showed the list of ten again, along with the other goal of hitting 100,000 miles. Vin clicked his remote to raise the blinds and the room lights.

  “Okay, I’m sure this crowd must have some questions,” he said. Several hands went up. He looked at the front row and pointed to Lori. “Yes, Lori?”

  “Are we allowed to drive on these roads?” Lori asked. “I mean, the self-driving car. We did DARPA in the desert. To complete those challenges will require us to drive on dozens of public roads.”

  “I can answer that,” Ted said, standing up and turning to face the crowd. “This came up during the pizza challenge. Technically it’s not illegal under California law. We had two of us in the car, ready to take over if things went wrong. As long as we’ve got at least one person behind the wheel, we’ll be fine.”

  “Ted’s right. Our legal team has researched this thoroughly.” Vin looked over at Matthew and nodded, acknowledging the painful number of weeks the legal team had spent working with state regulators. He then looked back at the crowd. Ted had his arm up. “Ted?”

  “What happens when we meet the goals?” he asked.

  “I’ve saved the best for last.” Vin turned to Lisa and motioned her to come forward. “Lisa? Can you, please?”

  In the back corner of the stage was a table with a white sheet draped over it. Lisa walked up on stage and rolled the table to the center, near Vin. Underneath the sheet, the outline of a variety of different shaped items could be seen, including a taller one in the center. Matthew walked up to join her. Together, they grabbed a corner of the sheet and pulled it away, revealing what was underneath.

  A 1.5-liter Magnum of champagne was centered in the table, surrounded by ten smaller bottles of champagne. Each bottle had a folded embossed cream-colored card with a number scrawled across the front. The small cards were numbered one through ten for each challenge, and the larger bottle’s plaque read “100k.”

  “What is that?” Sam asked Ted. “Champagne?”

  “It looks like one bottle per test,” he replied. “I would have preferred Chivas Regal.”

  “We will pop each of these once a challenge is completed,” Vin said. “But don’t worry, there’s much more on the line than some celebratory champagne. Matthew, would you do the honors?”

  “You are the brightest minds,” Matthew said. “This won’t be easy. With Project Courier, we are changing the very concept of transportation. So I want to make sure you are well rewarded. Once all eleven goals are met, each team member will receive a quarter of a million dollars as a bonus.”

  Gasps rippled throughout the room and a murmur built, as those in attendance exclaimed their surprise. Matthew looked up at Vin and nodded in approval.

  “That’s not all,” Matthew continued. “Our team leads will each get an additional quarter of a million.”

  “Holy shit!” Ted could not contain himself. He thought back to that morning back in the hotel room in Ann Arbor when he had nowhere to go and called his family. He had gone to Detroit with Sam, thinking they would take on the automotive world. Now, here he was, less than two years later, in Silicon Valley, looking at a potential bonus of $500,000. He turned and placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I never thought I’d make that much money in five years, let alone one. Can you believe it, Sam?”

  “I’m more in shock over the goals, Ted.” She glanced up at Vin, standing on the stage, smiling. “Vin warned me this was going to be the greatest challenge of my lifetime. He wasn’t kidding. But, Ted, you do realize this is going to take a lot longer than just one year.”

  “Bullshit. Look at this facility, Sam. All of these people. We’re going to bang through those challenges in no time.”

  29

  The Project Courier space was buzzing with activity. A dozen people were in line at the café waiting to grab a bite for lunch. The day’s specials included a build-your-own taco bar as well as five-bean chili. No matter where you walked, you couldn’t escape the fiery scent of cumin, chipotle, and jalapeños. In the Crash area, several people were flopped in beanbags with their food on plates. Three members of the robotics team sat at a small circular table playing a game of Monopoly. The fourth chair was occupied by a robot programmed to be the banker and distribute money to the other players. Laughter and smiles were everywhere, despite the long hours and enormous challenges everyone faced.

  Ted sat at a small high-top table beside one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. His plate was filled with three corn-shelled tacos, stuffed with chorizo, cheese, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole. One of the tacos was half-eaten. He had a notepad open, both pages crammed full of disparate notes and formulas, many crossed out. As he took a bite, he scanned through what he had written, tapping his pen against the paper as he mentally ran calculations.

  Flinging his pen down in frustration, he looked up at the sixty-four-inch flat panel monitor nestled high up the corner wall. CNN was interviewing David Foster, VP of Product Development at GM. Ted recognized him as one of the executives he and Sam had met with in Detroit. The audio was muted, but the conversation was closed captioned. David was discussing GM’s decision to kill the Pontiac brand as part of their restructuring to deal with bankruptcy.

  “Rest in peace, Frankie,” Ted said softly.

  “Is this seat taken?” Sam asked playfully.

  “Sorry, I’m saving it for my beautiful and brilliant girlfriend.” Ted flung his leg up, dropping his foot on the empty chair next to him.

  “Wow. Beautiful and brilliant? That’s quite the combination. You must be a very lucky guy.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Sam’s choice for lunch was a mixed green salad tossed with lime-infused sliced chicken, pico de gallo, and savory black beans. She slid her plate across the table and shoved Ted’s foot off the chair, taking a seat next to him.

  “Good answer,” she said with a devilish grin. She looked at the scratchpad of notes sprawled out in front of him. “How goes the battle?”

  “Market Street is going to be the death of me.” He looked across the Project Courier area at the milestone celebration table placed against the back of the stage in Convene. One of the ten bottles was open and emptied, resting upside down in a hammered pewter champagne bucket. The card for the Lombard Street challenge was now flipped face-down. The team still had nine challenges to complete, along with the hundred-thousand-mile task. “Why is this one proving to be such a pain in the ass?”

&nb
sp; “Because it’s the most unpredictable. Pedestrians don’t always follow the rules, walking in opposite directions, or cutting diagonally across an intersection. And bicyclists? Two words of terror in San Francisco: bike messengers.”

  “I can’t figure them out! Those maniacs stay inches away from the traffic around them, sometimes even holding on to a vehicle to go faster.”

  “Relax, Ted.” She laughed and focused on mixing the contents of her salad bowl. “We’ve made great progress.”

  “How can you say that?” He was disappointed with her nonchalant attitude concerning the Market Street challenge. “We’ve been at this for ten months, Sam. Ten! And we’ve only completed one challenge so far.”

  “It took us eight of those months to tear down Athena and create Leapfrog.”

  “That was our first mistake. We should have built on Athena, not ripped her apart to start over. Vin’s methodology is killing us.”

  “Though another Prius, Leapfrog is lightyears ahead of Athena. It was time-consuming, but it was the right approach.”

  Project Courier had taken a clean-sheet approach to the autonomy mission. Vin brought Athena over from Ashton to allow the team to perform an autopsy and see how she was designed. They meticulously went through each component, from hardware to software, to determine what would be used as part of the new design. Vin likened it to cleaning out a closet of old clothes, and flagging items to be kept, tossed, or evaluated. This allowed for what Sam felt was a rapid development of an entirely new architecture for their self-driving vehicle. Ted saw the whole process as moving too slowly and felt they should have simply used Athena as the starting point and refined everything.

  “Leapfrog,” Ted said as he dove into his second taco. “I hate that name, too. I’m sure Harry would have loved it.”