by James Rosone
Blain wasn’t sure what to say. Alton rarely opened up like this. He was incredibly private about his ALS diagnosis. The public at large was still unaware of his health condition; only a tight-knit group had been informed of the President’s situation. Had he chosen to run for reelection, he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep this information to himself—he might have even been forced to resign. As it was, the world and the country had become consumed by more pressing matters than that of a dying president.
Blain looked Alton in the eye. “I need to talk it over with my wife. If she supports me, then I’ll stay on if asked.”
Chapter Seventeen
Transition Team
December 24, 2024
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Maria Delgado looked out the window of her D.C. townhome as the snow continued to blanket the city. The weather report said it was likely to snow most of the day. They were expected to receive somewhere between five and eight inches.
And tomorrow is Christmas…what a joy the snow will be for the kids.
She sighed as she turned away from the window. I really wish we could have spent more time in Albuquerque instead of rushing back to D.C., she lamented.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like her townhome; she did. She just favored her home near the Sandia Mountains. They were beautiful this time of year. The way the snow covered the tops of them and edged its way down the sides. It was a beautiful contrast to the mostly brown landscape that covered the high desert.
Walking out of her office and across the foyer, Maria entered the cozy yet well-appointed living room with a plush leather couch and several comfortable chairs on either side. Spread across the coffee table was a series of folders. Each folder had a person’s name on it, a recent photo, and a position they were being considered for. They were finalizing the selection of several key cabinet and administrative positions.
Her soon-to-be Chief of Staff greeted her with a warm smile and a cup of coffee. “Two creams, no sugar. Just the way you like it, Madam President-elect.”
Maria smiled as she reached out and accepted the liquid brain juice. Then she took her seat in the leather chair near the beautifully decorated Christmas tree. The seat by the tree had become her decision chair by default over the last few weeks as her transition team worked through the process with her of assembling her cabinet and political appointees.
They’d narrowed down the Secretary of Defense to two individuals, found the right person to be Secretary of Education and determined that her top two picks for Secretary of State would not work out. Maria felt they were falling behind in getting her cabinet and key positions filled, but her transition chairman assured her every administration went through these kinds of hiccups. Some people appeared to be perfect on paper or from TV interviews, but once she sat down with them one-on-one and got to know them, she learned their personality didn’t mesh with hers.
“Here,” her senior advisor Hanna Hoover said as she handed her a folder. “I really think we should consider George Millet for National Security Advisor. He’s a former diplomat, well connected within D.C., and the think tanks and academia love him. His insider contacts, especially at State, will really come in handy.”
Maria bit her lower lip as she took the folder and then placed it right back down on the table. “I’ve already made my mind up who I want for NSA,” she countered. “I thought I made that clear yesterday.”
Sighing audibly, Hanna shook her head in frustration. “Maria, you should clean house and bring in our own people. We owe a lot of chits, and some of them are coming due. George has a lot of backers.”
“I get that. But I know Blain. I’ve known him for a very long time, and I trust him. I need someone in place now that can help us hit the ground running. Our country was brutally attacked. We’re in a global war with China. We can’t afford to take months acclimating to our new positions. We need to be ready on day one. That means I need to retain some people from the current administration until we can get ourselves up to speed.”
Maria saw Hanna was about to object and put her foot down fast and hard. “I’ve made my decision, Hanna. Stop pushing George. We can find another role for him in the administration. I’m meeting Blain for coffee in two hours, so let’s go through some of these names for the other positions.”
The next couple of hours went by in a blur. They identified twelve individuals they’d like to meet with to fill six positions. The rest of the week would go by swiftly as they lined up interview after interview. They were looking to fill her cabinet before the end of the year—then they’d look to get the deputy positions filled as well as the other critical administrative positions before she was sworn in.
*******
The snow wasn’t coming down hard, but it was falling steadily nonetheless as Blain’s driver pulled up to the front of the President-elect’s townhouse. The Secret Service had the block locked down tight. They had several armored vehicles and some soldiers nearby for additional security as well. Normally, the President-elect would commandeer part of a fancy D.C. hotel or even stay at the Blair House. However, when Washington had come under direct attack during the opening hours of the war, the Secret Service had opted to have her continue to stay in her townhouse, which happened to be close to Embassy Row in Georgetown. It wasn’t really in a location the Chinese would likely try and bomb.
As Blain walked toward the front of the townhome, the security detail radioed ahead, letting the folks inside know he was there. After a few seconds, he was waved on through.
When he entered the townhome, he took a deep breath in. It smelled like Christmas. The interior of the home was uniquely decorated for the season—Blain suddenly remembered what an avid fan of Christmas she was.
“This way, Mr. Wilson. She’s in her study,” one of the detail members said.
Walking through the house, Blain saw most of her staff and closest advisors. He smiled warmly at them. Many of them returned the smile and offered season’s greetings—all but Hanna Hoover. For whatever reason, that gal seemed not to like him.
*******
“There you are, Blain. Merry Christmas,” said President-elect Maria Delgado as she greeted Blain with a warm hug. “Come on in. How’s the family doing?” she asked as she ushered him into the room. She caught a glimpse of Hanna staring at them, a look of frustration on her face.
You may have helped me get here…but I’m the President, not you, Maria thought as she closed the door, blocking Hanna’s view.
“The family is doing well,” Blain replied warmly. “The kids are growing like weeds. Both of them are getting close to being done with school. Then we’ll be empty nesters.”
“That’s great to hear, Blain,” she said with a gentle smile before shifting to a more serious tone. “Blain, you and I have known each other for more than twenty years, so I’ll get right down to it. I spoke with the President about you. He can’t sing your praises enough. He told me that without you at his side, he likely would have made some serious mistakes.”
Maria saw him blush. She continued, “My administration takes power in less than four weeks, and we’re taking over in the middle of a nasty war with China. I know this is a lot to ask, but I need to know if you can stay on as National Security Advisor and help me navigate my way through this. There’s still so much to learn, and so much is still unknown. I need people I can trust: people I know don’t have an ulterior motive, people who will be loyal to me and what’s best for this country. You and I have been to war together. I know I can trust you with my life, and I know you’ve trusted me with yours. Can I count on you to help me be the best president I can be for the nation and to lead our people to victory in this new conflict?”
Blain cleared his throat. “I talked this possibility over with my wife last night. I took some time to pray about it and then slept on it. Now that we’ve briefly spoken, I feel a strange peace about it, so yes. I’ll stay on as your NSA for as long as you need me to,” Blain offered.<
br />
Maria let out a soft sigh of relief. Thank God, someone I know will have my back.
“I’m glad to hear that, Blain. I was a little concerned that you might say no. I honestly have not been happy with the alternatives. You know, becoming President often means you owe a lot of favors to a lot of different groups. Those competing interests usually want their compensation to come in the form of political appointees and policy positions, which may not always coincide with what I’d like to pursue.”
Blain nodded. “President Alton learned that the hard way. It’s tough, Madam President-elect. You have to create a very tight inner circle that you can trust to be tough as nails and get your priorities done, and not the priorities of those who helped you get into power.”
I knew he was the right pick, she thought.
“Please, when it’s just the two of us in private, call me Maria. We’ve known each other too long and gone through too much to be all formal like that. But, yes, I agree with what you are saying. I’m still trying to work out who my inner circle will be, but I’m extremely glad to have you as one of them. Giving you a heads-up—Hanna, for whatever reason, does not particularly like you. She’s been adamant about me not picking you, but I overrode her.”
Blain lifted an eyebrow. “I had my suspicions about that. I’m not sure what I’ve done to cross her. But I suppose we’ll have to learn how to work with each other. She’s still going to be your Chief of Staff?”
Maria tilted her head to the side as if she was having second thoughts about that. “I believe so. But I’m considering maybe having her as a senior advisor. We’ve worked together for twelve years. She knows me well, and she’s a legislative wiz on my staff. I’m going to need her help if I’m to push through any of my domestic agenda.”
“The only advice I can give you about a Chief of Staff is that you need to find someone who’s really good at managing what comes across your desk and can work well with all sides,” Blain offered. “Everyone is going to want a piece of your day. It’s that person’s job to figure out what’s most important to get handled today: what’s the five-meter target versus the twenty-meter target that can wait for another day? With the war heating up and likely to get a lot worse before it gets better, this will be incredibly important.”
Maria bit her lip a little bit. “I’d have half a mind to make you my Chief of Staff, but I know it’d ruffle a lot of feathers.”
Blain chuckled at the comment. “Yeah, having a Chief of Staff from the previous administration might cause some challenges. But as long as whoever you appoint doesn’t block my access to you when I need it, I don’t see there being any problems.”
She laughed at the blunt assessment. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Don’t worry, whoever ends up in that position will know that if you need to see me for anything, no matter what’s going on, you go to the top of the priority list. I’ll make that damn clear to everyone at the White House. You’re one of my longest friendships; we’re battle buddies, and while that may not mean something to the others, it means the world to me.”
Blain smiled and visibly relaxed at hearing her statement.
“What do you mean by ‘the war is going to get a lot tougher before it gets better’?” she asked, changing the topic. “What else is going on that I don’t know about yet?”
He scanned his surroundings suspiciously. “How secured in this room? I mean, has your detail swept it for bugs recently?”
Maria’s left eyebrow rose. “I honestly don’t know. I left those details up to them. Let me ask.”
She took a minute to call the head of her detail in. He said the house was swept for bugs daily, but he’d have the room swept right now, just to make everyone feel comfortable if they were going to talk about something sensitive. Her townhome wasn’t exactly a SCIF by any means, but she didn’t have a classified facility to operate out of on a daily basis—not with the government having spread itself out a bit in the aftermath of the attack on D.C.
Once they’d confirmed the room was clear, she had an agent guard the door so she and Blain could talk about classified info for a little bit.
“You know, we could always arrange for a briefing in the Situation Room in a couple of days if you’d like,” Blain offered. “I could give you a lot more information than I can right now.”
“That’d be great. Maybe we could do that on the twenty-seventh. I want to take Christmas and Boxing Day completely off. I just need some personal time with my husband and our own kids before the madness of the coming weeks and months begin.”
“I’ll arrange it,” Blain confirmed. “I’ll have the relevant people there for you.” He jotted a note down to remind himself.
“OK, so back to your main question. Here’s what we know so far. This super-AI the Chinese created, Jade Dragon—it’s apparently a lot smarter than we had originally thought possible,” Blain began. “You remember a few weeks back, hearing about that shoot-out in Idaho? The CIA, working with MI6, had managed to get the lead developer of that AI to defect. When Jade Dragon figured out his death wasn’t real but had been staged, it somehow managed to track down his actual whereabouts. It apparently sent a Chinese Special Forces hit squad to take him out.”
Maria moved her hand to her mouth in shock. She’d heard about the attack, but it had been chalked up to an unconventional warfare attack by the Chinese. There had been a number of them happening across the country since the beginning of the war.
She held her hand up to stop him. “Blain, are you saying this AI managed to track him down in a safe house in the US?”
Blain nodded.
“How is that even possible? I mean, is this AI autonomous? Is it able to think for itself and penetrate our digital infrastructure?”
Blain looked around nervously, which caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up. She was going to have to look at some of the cabinet positions again. She might need to go with a different skill set than she had originally been thinking.
“Maria, we didn’t have access to the defector for all that long. He was in MI6 custody for two weeks and then ours for two weeks. I know that sounds like a lot, but we’re talking about an incredibly complex and very technical exploitation of his knowledge. That kind of information takes time to gather, and then more time is needed to analyze for follow-up questions. During the brief period the Agency and MI6 had him in protective custody, he disclosed some incredibly disturbing information about the program. To be honest, we were caught completely flat-footed by how far ahead of the West the Chinese are in the field of machine learning. Somewhere in the last five years, they moved beyond the scope of limited memory machine learning to the theory of mind machine learning.”
Maria wasn’t sure she was following what he was saying. “This seems to be getting a bit more technical than I understand. I know about the four basic levels of artificial intelligence, but maybe you can break this down a bit more for me.”
Blain nodded. He grabbed for a piece of paper, drew a couple of boxes and wrote some notes in them. “First, as you know, the term AI often gets interchanged with machine learning, but in reality they’re two different functions. Machine learning is the heart of AI; likewise, one cannot function without the other. The AI itself will only become powerful and do more when it has a functional brain that can absorb and retain information. Most of the West, to include the US, currently has the machine learning level that falls into the second of the four categories, called limited memory. These are essentially machines that move beyond purely reactive machines; they’re also capable of learning from historical data to make decisions.
“These types of machine programs are often used by insurance companies when they develop their actuarial tables. They’re also heavily used in the financial sector in a variety of different types of trading software, and then, of course, they’re used in social media and digital marketing. Like, say you click on an advertisement for one product on Facebook, then Facebook’s algorithm will look at that and th
en, based on that click or like button you hit, will push similar ads that you’re more likely to click on. The more that happens, the more refined the marketing becomes and the more accurate they are as a company at helping businesses find the right customers.”
Maria furrowed her brow. “So, what you’re telling me is we’re really good at this type of machine learning. But somehow, someway, the Chinese seemed to have advanced beyond that to the next level?”
Blain nodded. “It would appear so. The defector, a guy by the name of Ma Yong—he told us he’d been working on the project for seven years. In that time, he took a very advanced version of this limited memory program, and over the course of several years he imbued the program with what’s called ‘theory of mind.’ Meaning, he taught Jade Dragon how to discern human needs, emotions, beliefs, and our basic thought processes.”
“Hold up, Blain. How could he have taught a machine that?” Maria pressed as she shook her head in complete shock.
“Ma Yong said he spent several years training the machine with something called behavioral analytics. It’s kind of like game theory. But then he introduced something even more advanced called social behavior analytics: the study of social behavior and how humans interact with each other. Then he taught the machine how the human mind operates on a biological basis and how you can use that biology to mind-hack a person into believing what you want them to believe.”
“How exactly did this programmer teach the computer to do that?” she quizzed.
Blain sighed and then reached for the glass of water.
“I’m not an expert in this field, by any means,” Blain said, throwing his hands up for a moment. “But I have taken a lot of time to talk with those who are to try and gain an understanding of exactly what we’re dealing with. One of the ways Ma Yong was able to teach Jade Dragon this stuff was by first teaching him thirty-four languages. Once the computer knew them, it was able to teach itself most of the other languages of the world. Next, he had the computer ingest every news article being pushed by left, right, and middle-of-the-road news outlets in nearly every country in the world. He then had the machine watch hundreds of thousands of hours of talk shows and sitcoms to learn what people were viewing and finding either funny, informative, entertaining, or offensive. All of that data gave Jade Dragon a basic understanding of people.