—Chris Peterson, Foresight Institute
Equipped with its new complement of four hundred Quantum Zero Speed gyroscopic stabilizers, the Heinlein had sailed beyond the confines of the BrainTrust reef into the not quite so calm waters beyond. The goal had been to move far enough away so the BrainTrust would be safe in the event of an accident. For this goal, they had only been partly successful. The Heinlein might have left the BrainTrust behind, but not quite all of the BrainTrust had left the Heinlein. Two ships, the Haven and the Argus, had followed her beyond the reef.
Matt was not amused. “You're still too damned close,” he complained.
Dmitri slapped him on the shoulder hard enough to knock down anyone but an ex-football player. “Nonsense! Why, you let crowds of onlookers closer than this at Cape Canaveral for your launches.”
They stood on the immense balcony outside Dmitri’s immense bay window separating his immense living room from inclement weather on the Haven. Gina snuggled up against her husband on the right, her hand wrapped around his upper arm. Dmitri stood to his left.
A freezing wind off the ocean should have made the balcony uninhabitable, but a series of huge infrared lamps and a beautiful green-glazed fire pit kept it toasty despite the chill. A handful of other guests stood in another cluster, looking out at the towering multicolor jewel that was the first Kestrel Titan rocket.
The other cluster stood protectively around Dash, who wrapped her traditional lab coat around her like armor as if expecting another kidnapping attempt at any moment. The people with her seemed to expect it as well. At least, everyone except Chance expected it. She had recovered from the kidnapping ordeal with remarkable speed and had even greeted Yefim with hearty good cheer when they arrived. Yefim had tried to kidnap them, Chance had given him a concussion for his efforts, they were square.
Chance, Toni, Amanda, Lindsey, and Ben hovered close enough that Dash welcomed the occasional gust of wind that brought her a cool breath of fresh oxygen. Yefim stood in a corner of the living room off the balcony, his shoulders hunched as if he were still trying to apologize for the recent debacle.
This gathering was both smaller and less formal than the last party for a rocket launch. It was a shame they had so few onlookers because the rocket being launched was a work of art. Since she was built with titanium, it had been a simple matter to stress the surface in such a manner that it shone with an iridescent swirl of colors like titanium jewelry...and like the superstructure of the Elysian Fields, the tourist isle ship for which some BrainTrust engineers with more time than sense had perfected the stress-coloring technique.
Matt had been furious when he first saw his engineers creating a coloration test patch by one of the landing struts on the central core booster. He was terrified it would introduce structural weakness as a worst case and set them behind schedule even in the best case. But Colin had shown him on the PERT chart that the color stressing could be done in parallel without using any resources from the critical path. And Alex and Werner had all gently assured him it would not impair the rocket’s function.
After half the work crew had come up to him and congratulated him on the boldness of his decision to make a rocket as beautiful as it was functional, Matt gave up and wrote it off as a price for employee morale.
Matt looked to the side to see the other ship that had sailed out here to watch the launch. Alex, Werner, and Colin waved at him from behind the plexiglass gunwale of the Argus. Matt cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, ”You're too close!”
Gina whispered in his ear, “Futile. Even if they could hear.”
Matt muttered, “No one listens to me anymore.”
Gina laughed softly. “You picked them. Best and brightest.”
Matt muttered back, “Does best and brightest have to mean least manageable and most obstreperous?”
Gina chuckled. “How could you not know?”
The countdown for the last ten seconds began.
The Premier stretched back on his black leather sofa in the living room of his Northern dacha, hands behind his head, watching the snowfall outside while he kept the corner of his eye on the Heinlein displayed on his wallscreen.
He loved watching the snow cover the world while he sat snug in his warm house. By now, the snow had covered the roads so thoroughly, this home could only be reached with snowshoes or cross-country skis. If the Apocalypse came and destroyed everything, he and Pascha would be among the handful of survivors.
And as it happened, a small apocalypse was about to arrive for the BrainTrust. The final countdown for the Kestrel Titan, so, so beautiful, had begun. He turned his full attention to watching its moment of life and its swift death.
The countdown finished. The rocket’s boosters came to life. Any moment now his plan would come to fruition. The rocket lifted up, and up... And up, and up.
The Premier glared at the screen. Where was the mighty explosion he had paid for? What happened to the virus whose insertion had been indisputably verified? What could possibly have gone wrong?
Matt groaned. “Screwed up.”
Gina answered as she watched the rocket lift over their heads. “Over the BrainTrust?”
Matt’s eyes followed hers. “You’d think we could have moved it a little further to the west. If something goes wrong now, the whole archipelago could go up in flames.” His voice turned from mournful to sour. “Or maybe just the newer ships with magnesium superstructures.”
Lindsey sidled up next to Dmitri. Speaking across the Russian, she asked, “Matt, is it supposed to be going straight over everyone's head?” Her eyes gleamed. “I may get a good story out of this, after all.”
The Chief Advisor sat alone in the war room. The primary wallscreen was linked to a public broadcast of the Kestrel launch. The Advisor stared at the multicolored rocket in bewilderment. Why would you make a giant rocket look like a child's toy or a piece of cheap jewelry? Those people were lunatics.
A secondary screen showed the Combat Information Center on the Vella Gulf with the captain front and center. The Advisor knew he was pestering the captain, but he could not help himself. “And the troops are all ready to go? In case something happens, I mean.”
The captain closed his eyes momentarily lest the Advisor see him roll his eyes in disgust. “Yes, sir everyone's ready here. And on the Zumwalt and Harper’s Ferry as well.”
“Excellent.” The chief advisor dared not ask the captain about Seal Team 3 on board the Zumwalt. It would seem oddly specific, and the only people who knew the real mission were the fire team leaders of the Seal Team itself. Everyone else would actually try to help the survivors of the explosion. Only the Seal Team would actually engage in the critical search for Doctor Dash.
The final ten count came and went. The absurdly colorful Kestrel Titan, looking like a firework itself, lifted off. The Chief Advisor rose and walked to the wallscreen, bringing his nose practically to touch with the fiery rocket. He became even more excited as the rocket started to tilt over and race at ever accelerating velocity towards the BrainTrust itself. This was it…
The rocket soared over the BrainTrust. He tensed in anticipation of a crescendo of fire.
And then the rocket was beyond the floating ships, accelerating ever faster and higher into the heavens. The Chief Advisor gaped at the screen.
The captain of the Vella Gulf coughed to get his attention. “Sir, it looks like we won't be needed for rescue operations after all. Might it be reasonable to stand down at this point?”
For a long moment, the Chief Advisor stared unseeing and speechless. Finally, he growled, “Yes, yes, of course. Stand down. You can return the troops to their previous dispositions at your leisure.”
“Thank you, sir,” the captain offered respectfully.
The Chief Advisor grunted, then disconnected the cruiser captain from his secondary wallscreen.
What could have possibly gone wrong?
Matt barked at his cell phone, demanding an immediate connection
with Werner. He watched from Dmitri’s balcony as Werner on the Argus lifted his phone to answer. Matt spoke swiftly. “Next time, we’re launching from much farther from the archipelago. And to the Southwest, for God's sake!
Werner was too happy to pay much attention to Matt’s anger. “Of course, of course. We only kept the Heinlein close for this launch in case we needed to get emergency crews out there quickly.”
Matt covered his eyes with his hand. “Fine. I'll be over in a few minutes.” Pocketing his phone, he saw Dash approach with her coterie out of the corner of his eye. He turned to her, forcing himself to smile.
Dash smiled back brightly. “That was a beautiful launch. And especially let me compliment you on how beautiful the rocket itself is. Transforming it into a piece of titanium jewelry was a brilliant stroke of creativity.”
Matt stood speechless. Gina nudged him and spoke on his behalf. “Don’t you think so? Everyone loves what he did with it. I have to concede it was one of his more brilliant ideas.”
Matt glared at his wife for a moment, then broke down in laughter. “Yeah, I thought it was pretty clever myself. But just to be clear, it wasn't my idea. The real credit goes to Alex. Or Werner. Or my entire workforce, depending on who you ask.”
Dash nodded. “Well, you still deserve the credit for allowing them free rein. It's not every boss who has the wisdom to let his people go a little crazy with a good idea every now and then.”
Gina nudged Matt again and answered smugly, “exactly what I've been telling him.”
The rocket had disappeared into the distance. As Werner walked back inside the Argus, he remembered something he'd been wanting to ask. “Colin, I've been wondering about some lost software code on these new chips from the BrainTrust.”
He stopped walking a little ways inside the passageway, before they reached the promenade. Here the walls showed displays of an island paradise with palm trees and a pirate ship off the coast as several children flew overhead. Captain Hook shook his fist at them.
Colin stopped next to Werner. “Lost software? Sounds serious. What happened?”
Werner shook his head. “My software release manager uploaded a series of enhancements to the computers on the Kestrel Titan days ago. As per standard procedure, he downloaded the result and confirmed that the upgrade had been completed successfully. But when he went to make another upload the following day, the earlier changes weren't there anymore. So he reentered them, and when he checked for them yet again the following day they were still there, so they seem to have stuck the second time. But it's still worrisome.”
“Ah.” Colin nodded knowingly. “Your production manager probably entered his authorization code incorrectly the first time and got his update trapped in our security honeypot.”
Werner shook his head, not understanding. “A security honeypot?”
“Of course. Surely someone has mentioned that the main buyers of BrainTrust chips are people with deep concerns about privacy. So when someone uses an invalid authorization to enter the system, if the intruder attempts to insert code or data, his insertion is directed into a virtual machine tied to his access code so that anytime he and his associates break into the system they see their own hacked version.”
Alex chimed in, “That’s why it’s called a honeypot. The attackers are lured in and can’t leave.”
Colin nodded. “Since he can see he succeeded, the attacker is less likely to try again. Of course, the actual chip, its code, and its execution are all unaffected by this. As a systems administrator and owner of the chip, there's a way to access, read out, and purge these hacker-trapping virtual machines, so you can see what the attackers have attempted to do.”
Werner sighed. “Seems hardly relevant to us. It's not like anybody would want to read or infect our controller chips.”
Colin hesitated as if he might object, but in the end, he just shrugged. “In any event, inspecting the attack code doesn't make sense for anyone except those who are under assault from the most dedicated of professional cyber attackers.” He pulled out his phone. “Shall I text the lead engineer in charge of the honeypots, and have him send someone over to help you purge the chips? There’s no real danger leaving them alone, but you might want to delete them just to keep your systems clean.”
Werner shrugged. “Sure.” As Colin texted, Werner grumbled, “We wouldn't have had this problem if we'd just been able to use our own chips. Blasted California government, confiscating our shipment like that. How'd they even know those chips were ours? They weren’t even addressed to us, Keenan Stull at Goldman Sachs was taking the delivery. Damnable luck.”
Now Colin’s eyes brimmed with unexplained mirth. “Indeed. Lady Luck makes a fickle and uncertain partner. Best not to have her on the team at all.” As Werner moved off, Colin muttered under his breath, “Far, far better, to have someone more reliable than the Lady to make your luck. A skill all project directors should cultivate.”
Werner turned to him. “What’s that?”
Colin smiled brightly. “Coming,” he said, lengthening his stride to catch up.
Two days later Dash found herself getting off the elevator on the Babylon deck of the GS Prime. It was her first visit to the Goldman Sachs isle ship. Keenan Stull was throwing a small party of his own for Matt and SpaceR.
Dash had no idea why she was invited. But it seemed that partying had become much more commonplace on the BrainTrust since the arrival of the Haven and SpaceR. Perhaps things would settle down now with the Titan operational. She certainly hoped so. She had work to do.
Heading for the party’s conference room, passing Babylon’s Hanging Gardens, she found Matt bent over, studying some detail of the passageway artwork. Dash looked over his shoulder.
A massive ziggurat rose into the clouds. She could see the column continued above the clouds, off to infinity. She realized that this must be the Tower of Babel, man’s most arrogant attempt to reach Heaven and be as God.
A detail caught her attention, and she found herself bent over just like Matt, scrutinizing the workers with tools traveling up and down the spiral path around the column. Each person wore an earbud wired to a cell phone at the hip.
In the Goldman Sachs version of the story, after God struck men down and made them speak different languages so they could no longer work together, the people had developed translator apps and finished the job. She peered up again and saw the people on the path above the clouds carried not tools but suitcases. Travelers to Heaven. Mission accomplished.
Matt muttered, more for himself than for her, “Elisabeth.”
“What?” Dash asked.
“The artist who created this.” He stood up. “I’ll need something like this for the Helios—the new SpaceR manufacturing ship we’re building so we can stop sharing the Argus with the BrainTrust. SpaceR deserves a deck theme like this at least as much as these people.”
Dash made the obvious recommendation. “Ask Colin who she is. He probably knows.”
Matt nodded thoughtfully. He held out his arm. “May I escort you to the party? Gina’s going to be late.”
Dash took his arm. “Didn’t we already celebrate the success of the Kestrel Titan? Do we really need another party?”
Matt laughed. “Oh, we’re not celebrating the launch. Old news. No, as of today, SpaceR has moved everyone and everything of value out of California. What we’re celebrating is California’s achievement.”
Dash looked at him in puzzlement. “Achievement?”
Matt smiled triumphantly. “Oh yes. The governor is finally getting his fair share.”
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Author: Readers, I’m delighted to inform you that the main characters of the BrainTrust have agreed to an interview. Here they are: Ping, Jam, and of course Dr. Dyah Ambarawati.
Dash: You know better. It’s not like we’re strangers. Call me Dash.
Author: Of course. I got a little confused there. Stage fright.
Ping: So, book two is done, right? When do
we celebrate?
Author: As soon as we’re done with this interview.
Ping: Cool. What do you want to know?
Author: Well, normally I go through and talk about the reality behind all the different forms of tech used in the story. For example, Dash, what about the stealth mode created for Jam’s copters?
Dash: Of course that’s real. They were doing successful experiments back in 2017 to absorb radar waves with graphene. It was just lab work in those days, of course.
Jam: What copters?
Dash: Uh, you know Jam doesn’t even learn about the copters till book three, right? Ted and I are still fleshing out the details.
Author: Oops. Let’s move on quickly then. What about the Graphene Reinforced Carbon used for the launch pad on the Heinlein?
Dash: That wasn’t developed until much later. It seems like an obvious extension of the principles of carbon fiber reinforced carbon, though.
Author: Of course. But really, the big tech used in this book is the Accel educational software framework. Is there anything like that in reality?
Dash: No. Of course, scientists have been researching adaptive learning and testing since the Seventies. For example, with adaptive presentation of increasingly harder questions, you can assess a student’s competence with fewer than ten questions as accurately as you could with a standard hundred question test. Adaptive learning can similarly zoom in on the student's particular challenges, spending the student's time exactly where needed, enabling much faster movement through the material.
Author: So, it works much the same way the optometrist gives you an eye exam?
Dash: Very much so. But none of it has penetrated the public school systems. There’s nothing like Accel. I’m deeply puzzled by it, actually. Why isn’t there anything like Accel?
Author: One problem is that adaptive learning is wicked hard to program. The tools aren’t really ready. But even so, you’d have expected more progress in deployed systems if you had a competitive market. Alas, there’s little competitive about Western education. Certainly, the textbook publishers would lobby against a system like Accel that cuts out the middleman. And surely the state regulators who certify educational materials would oppose something that continuously improved itself. How could they certify it when it was going to get better the next day? And a lot of open source educational software developers would rail against the idea of letting module authors profit from their efforts.
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