Forrest texted Bruce after his first coffee and a bite of breakfast, when he was sure Bruce would be up, an early riser on west coast time. Time to talk, chat me. He returned to the den to wait, continued sifting his notes, thinking through them.
He had started on his second cup when the screen began its low-key pinging, and Bruce’s face appeared again. Not so full of energy at this earlier hour, hair ruffled and face a little drawn.
“Hey Forrest. Mmm, you didn’t get much beauty sleep either, did you?”
“Morning Bruce. Well I’ve got so much beauty stockpiled, I can afford to lose a night once in a while.”
“Ha ha.” Bruce actually was amused, but the pain-state brought on by sleep denied made him sound sarcastic.
If Forrest even noticed, he didn’t let on. “I did a little thinking.” He shuffled the pages of notes again, as though trying to keep it all fresh in his mind.
“Course you did. I have to say, I was up most of the night too.”
“Right. Well, I want to hear what you’ve got, but I’ll go first. I have three lines of thinking.” He took a chug of his coffee. “You know how I go about this stuff Bruce. Except this time it’s not just what do we know, but also what do we think might be possible? What do we need to find out?”
“Yeah, and who else might know something.” Bruce had internalized Forrest’s methods as his own.
“We know something was dropped, blanketed really, across the country. The planes were right there. Couldn’t miss those. We know there was a story in the media about what was going to happen, and we can see from simple observation what a pile of bullshit that was. We could see the atmospheric effects, and we could see the effects on the ground.”
“Yes, to all of that,” Bruce cupped his own coffee mug in his hands, taking energy from the warmth as well as the caffeine. “And the actual objects that fell is where I started.”
“Good, I took a look too. I told you I think, I was digging potatoes at the time?”
Bruce tilted his head and squinted a bit, like someone trying to remember something that never happened.
“Maybe I didn’t, doesn’t matter, they were shiny just as the dust fell. Metallic almost. So I put one under the microscope, a spud, and found dozens of very small bots. I have no doubt that’s what they are.”
“Same. You know I thought you were full of shit when you first called. I figured the proof was going to be if there actually was something in that dust.”
“And of course there was. Tell me what you saw.”
—
“You would have laughed your ass off watching me trying to grab samples to look at. I figured since I could see everything coated as it fell, like you just said, it would be right there, I’d be able to scrape up whatever it was and put it under the scope. Wrong. But you know what, I guess part of me knew you had to be right, ‘cause I didn’t just assume there was nothing there when I couldn’t find anything unusual straight away.” Bruce paused for a gulp of his coffee.
“I’m surprised it was that hard to get a sample. Though I suppose I was lucky. I had a good idea where to start looking.”
“When I finally found some I worked out why they were so hard to spot.”
“Well camouflaged aren’t they?”
“Incredible really.” By now, Bruce was awake enough for the jester to surface again. “You’ll love this. What worked was silly putty.”
Forrest tried to imagine how. “You took imprints?”
“Ha, yeah, you got it, man. I crawled around on my hands and knees smushing my boy’s long-forgotten silly putty onto stone, wood, a trash can lid…”
“I found a bunch of them, and I thought they were all the same at first, but after a while I noticed differences. Size, ridges along their arms, the shape of the body in the center. Maybe some color differences too, but it’s hard to be sure. They kind of shift as you’re looking at them. I found five different patterns.”
“Nice work Bruce. I saw some of the same things under magnification, but I didn’t see those differences.”
“Next thing I looked at was electrical and near field properties. I have to spend some time setting up my equipment though. I’m pretty sure I got a signal one time, but only once. Couldn’t get it again.”
—
“Before you go setting a lab up, let’s think about who has one already. We were talking about some of the team, Luke… aah, Anna…” Their last names were out of reach for the moment.
“Right, right. Anna would be perfect.” Bruce considered a moment. “She probably still has all the toys. And DeShan, I told you he went to MedImplant, he would be another one. This stuff is right up his alley.”
“Good. Can you track them down?”
“You bet boss. I already looked Luke Willis up, I was in touch with him not that long ago. He’s still at the same company.”
“Great.” A thought crossed Forrest’s mind. His brow furrowed as he cupped his chin, and squeezed it unconsciously. “DeShan went over to MedImplant you said?”
“Yeah, I saw something about it a while back.”
“You know what, can you look him up, find out anything you can, but don’t get in touch?”
“Sure… What’s on your mind there Forrest?”
—-
Forrest took a breath while he chose his words, still following the thought. “I’m going to call it healthy paranoia.”
“Okay.”
“I’m backing up a bit here. I said I’ve got three lines of thinking. Figuring out what we’re actually talking about, what these objects actually are, that’s one. People we can get help from to figure out the technology, and to figure out what the point of it all is, that’s thread number two.”
“Right,” Bruce was nodding along.
“Third is more slippery. The reason this whole thing raised the hairs on my neck is what I already know and remember from years ago, did I mention that? Mostly what I saw at MIT. Their work was all funded by the people who formed MedImplant, and they were all wrapped up together afterwards. My guy there couldn’t stand those people. He didn’t trust his colleague, the one who did all the selling. He thought she knew what they were really doing with their technology, and kept it secret.”
“What was he working on?”
“Extreme miniaturization of the medical implant bugs they’d already developed.”
“Oh shit. That’s exactly what these things are. Nano-bugs.”
—
“Another thing,” Forrest clasped his mouth as his thought formed. “All these stories in the news about cloud seeding and atmospheric tech to combat the climate crisis.”
“Seems like a smart explanation for the planes, and the weird weather effects.”
“Sure it does. But the stories only work if no one notices the bugs.” Forrest was biting his lip. “I can’t believe no one else at all saw the mist, and the shine.”
“Oh I bet plenty of people saw them. They just didn’t know they meant anything.” Bruce focused on Forrest’s face on his screen. “Doesn’t surprise me at all that only you knew something was up.”
“It’s like a magician setting a bunch of birds loose, while they’re stuffing a rabbit somewhere else.”
Bruce nodded emphatically. “Simple misdirection.”
“Question is where did these stories come from? Setting a narrative that the entire media universe follows without question? That’s almost as big as organizing those fleets of planes.”
“From the top. Isn’t misdirection what every politician ever does all day long?”
“Only the evil ones. I’d like to think.”
“They all do it. It’s an art form for them.”
“If you’re going to go all conspiracy nut on me, I’ll have to reconsider you.” Forrest was deadpan, until he recognized the irony and burst into laughter, “Except that’s exactly what we’re doing. Dammit Bruce, we’re conspiracy nuts!”
“Don’t worry boss. I might be a skeptical asshole, but my career was built on science remember? Same as yours.” Bruce was the straight-faced one now. “But that’s the way it works. For that kind of media control it comes from the top down, with every kind of pressure to make people do what they’re told and nothing else.”
“Either that or it’s a story that people want to hear, so they don’t poke holes. They just accept whatever they’re told.”
“Both at the same time. It’s been going on since media was invented.”
—-
“The more I think about it, the more I’m sure MedImplant is where we’ll find all the answers,” Forrest let out a sigh. He looked less tense as he sensed their direction becoming clearer.
“If you’re right, they’re not going to give anything away are they?”
“Nope. I have a feeling… we have to be careful who we talk to , how much we let on that we know. I think it’s going to be dangerous to ask the questions.”
“Yeah I can see that.” Bruce’s jesting side had retreated completely. “We have some good connections, but we have no idea who we can trust.”
“Have to assume we can’t trust anyone, outside our circle.”
—
Both men paused as the weight of the possibilities settled on them.
“It’s not just the tech, not just finding people to fill in the blanks… we have to know what are the risks here, really?” Forrest grimaced at his last sip of coffee, too cold and silty. “If someone is pouring all these resources into something this big, and it’s supposed to be a complete secret, maybe a worldwide secret, what are they going to do to freelancers like us, trying to pull the covers off?”
“When you put it like that, I don’t think I want to find out,”
“Squish us like real bugs I suppose. But you want to know what’s going on just as much as I do, don’t you?”
Bruce’s eyes rolled upward, something close to a smirk reappearing. “Peas in a pod, aren’t we? Gluttons for punishment. Shit.”
Forrest laughed and yawned at the same time, which turned Bruce’s smirk to a full smile, “So, how do we move forward here, without giving ourselves away?”
“We have to do it like they’re doing it. Make it look like we’re after something else.”
“That’s it! Maybe they won’t notice us poking around at all, but if they do, we need a cover.”
—
“A good one.”
They sat quietly for a moment. Forrest doodled around his notes as his mind worked.
Bruce was first with an idea, “What about a startup? Something relevant to MedImplant, so it makes sense to be looking at them.”
“Genius!” Forrest pictured the scenario playing out. “Lots of reasons to do research, poaching employees, all of that. Really good, Brucie.”
“Told you. Rock star.”
“I even have a dormant company on the books. If we use that, we don’t look like we just started today.”
“What was the company doing?”
“AI applications. Seemed a logical step after Traffic Mesh.”
“That’s perfect. Completely relevant to everything they’re doing. And broad enough to be cover for pretty much anything. What’s the name?”
“Advanced Intelligence Systems.”
“A.I.S.” Bruce smiled as he repeated it. “Great name. Even sounds like a spy network.”
Forrest chuckled, “I don’t think that’s the impression we’re after.”
“I don’t care. I feel mucho coolness coming on,” Bruce narrated his new alter-ego’s introduction, “Agent Bruce Cameron, undercover A.I.S. officer…”
“Yeah, you’re joking about it now…” Forrest laughed. “Wait ’til they catch on to us.”
Bruce was reluctant to give up his act, but the thought was sobering, “You make a good point, Boss.”
“Maybe when you reach out to people, you present it as recruiting… at first, you know. Until you’re sure about them.” Forrest returned to his checklist. “I think your first priority should be reverse engineering the bugs. Might be with help from Anna… starts with a V…”
“Volcette.”
“Yes, and then find out about the others, and as we said, extreme caution with any MedImplant people.”
“Okay Forrest, you’ve got it.”
“I will send you a few details about S.I.S. so you have some reference, and I have a list of media people and a couple of MIT contacts to track down. Let’s talk tonight. Ping me if anything comes up.”
“Of course, likewise. Take it easy Forrest, man.”
Forrest wasn’t about to take it easy, but he did at least get a couple of hours of solid sleep before starting in on his calls.
—
Forrest’s ancient contact file was a relic of limited value, ten or more years after he had last used it. Now it was full of people who had moved on from their previous posts, or passed away. He reached only two of the people on his list.
The first was delighted to hear from him after such a long time, full of compliments, and wanting to know how retirement suited him. She had no knowledge of any background on the recent stories around climate crisis abatement technology, or really anything useful to offer about them. It all came through the wire, was as much as he could extract.
The second reporter didn’t recognize Forrest at all, and he found himself in a fractured conversation explaining his own identity, how he knew the guy a decade ago, and what he wanted to find out now. After a frustrating few minutes going in circles, the reporter understood enough to make a referral to a colleague, Katie Salmon, who was sure to know all about it. Katie kept her ear to the ground, knew the people at AP, she’d come up from there before she joined his office.
Forrest almost regretted not suggesting MedImplant treatments to the man. He took a break after asking Sissie to look up Katie’s info. He scanned the collection of stories with her byline, studied her bio in a few channels. Thorough, questioning, smart writing. Direct.
Back at his desk, Sissie connected the screen.
“Tel-graph tech desk, Salmon k-nelp ya?” The rapid-fire greeting, voice only, came from a young woman who was clearly tired of being interrupted by calls.
—
Forrest introduced himself and started his now well-rehearsed questions. After a moment Katie interrupted, “Traffic Mesh man.” A question that sounded like a statement.
“Yes, that’s me…”
“Name rang a bell, took me a second.” She paused for a moment. Forrest was about to start again but she beat him to it. “You have a new company and you’re looking for contacts.”
“Yes…” Forrest picked up a note of evaluation in her voice. She’s got sharp instincts. Maybe she wasn’t buying his story.
“The Forrest Morton…” The video feed snapped on and Katie’s face appeared on Forrest’s screen. Thirty-something, though her many freckles made her appear younger. Neat braids. A touch of waxiness and shadows under her otherwise bright eyes hinted at too many late nights staring into screens. “Ask me again.”
Forrest felt the intensity of her gaze, even through the screen. He smiled uncomfortably, “Okay… my company is working on an AI project, I’ve been hearing about climate crisis initiatives in the news a lot lately, I think there may be some overlap between what we’re doing and the atmospheric technology that’s being used. I’ve been calling my old contacts and most are long gone, but one of them gave me your name. I would just like to find out what PR team I can reach out to, to explore some possibilities for cooperation.”
Her pause made him completely sure she wasn’t buying any of it.
“Where are you located Mister Morton?”
“New England. Vermont. And Forrest is fine, please.”
“Right. I’d like to talk in person… Forrest… but we’ll have to make do with chat for now. I have your details. When’s a good time to talk again today? Or tonight?”
“It’s a fairly straightforward question, Katie. Is there someone else who would have the PR contacts?”
“No, I will be able to help you… and you may be able to help me.” Another pause. Katie seemed to alternate between steamrolling, or weighing her words very carefully. “Better when I’m away from my deadlines here.”
“Pick your time, I’m here all day.”
Katie considered. “I can get out of here in a while. Six. Talk to you at six.”
Forrest nodded, and the video snapped off again.
—
With a couple of hours to go before Katie Salmon’s call, Forrest turned to his MIT contacts. They were more recent, gathered during his consultation there a little over a year before. He surveyed the list, tried to gauge how certain he could be about the people he remembered. Not at all, he decided, with just one exception.
He made a single call, to the one solid friend he had made on that engagement.
Radley Beaufort picked up after a couple of rings. “Forrest! Very happy to hear from you.” Radbo was in his lab, the stacked electrical equipment behind him filling the frame on the screen. “Ordinarily, I’d probably say nice surprise, but you know, I’m not altogether surprised you called.”
—
“Taken up clairvoyance now, Radley?”
“Let’s say I know how you can put two and two together.” Radbo set aside his food wrapper, wiped the last traces of sauce on a napkin. “Interesting developments, no?”
“You might say that. I’m trying to work out if I also need to be terrified.”
“We all do, Forrest.”
“You’d better tell me what you know.”
“You go first. What have you worked out? Then I will fill in any blanks I can.”
Forrest summarized everything he and Bruce had seen, and his suspicions.
“I’d say you’re right on the money. I happened to be outside when they dropped here. The instant I saw the mist and those glimmering surfaces, I knew exactly what I was looking at.” Radbo paused as he pictured it again. “I remembered a comment you made at one point, about your work being used to create things you could never anticipate. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I almost puked in the street.”
“Scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to believe it. Bruce didn’t believe it. He thinks most people would have seen it and not known enough to think anything of it.”
”Judging by what’s in the news, or more accurately what is not in the news, I’d say he’s exactly right.”
Radbo shuffled through a stack of documents to his side, retrieved a folder. “He was right about the different types of bugs too. We developed quite a few here. A variety of sensors, chemical, endocrine, electrical, position. All transmitting to relays and accumulators. I took a look under the microscope and recognized several. Some I did not recognize. MedImplant must have come up with more variations.”
—
The pages Radbo held up to the camera showed schematics of the bots Forrest had seen under his microscope. He grimaced as he recognized them. “It was a mistake to wait to call you.”
“It sounds like you worked things out very well without me, Forrest.”
“A few things, perhaps. We would have had some important details immediately.” His brow furrowed, “The bots I saw all had some kind of hair structure at the end of the arms. I don’t see that in your drawings.”
“Like fly legs. I saw those too. My bugs were developed for medical use, or so I believed… you know I was very suspicious of them. I think the MedImplant people added those to adapt them for use in the wild. Very clever.”
“I want to put you in touch with Bruce. He’s reaching out to our old team mates now to figure out the technology. With your input, we have a big head start.”
“I’ll help however I can. They can use my lab.”
“Now I have a new set of questions. We know for certain these things are based on your technology.”
Radbo nodded, gravely.
“How certain are you it’s actually MedImplant behind these changes, and the dispersal?”
—
“One hundred percent. No doubt at all. The specification for these bots came from them. They funded the work.”
“Right. They would have the resources to pull this off, too.” Forrest winced as though he were sucking a lemon. “But it doesn’t add up.”
“Go on.”
“They built a reputation on transforming lives for the better. Their stuff works. I’m living proof. I told you I’m sure, I started a MedImplant treatment just before we met. Miraculous technology.”
“I recall. And I told you I’m completely riddled with their medibots.” Radbo gestured with both hands over his torso, “They changed my life too. That success gives them a lot of power.”
“All these medical problems just eliminated. So many people helped. Largest market cap in history. Why something so at odds with what they’re all about?”
“Again, power.”
Forrest still looked skeptical.
Radbo leaned back and crossed his arms, looked away from the screen. “You know, I’m remembering one of the faces that would always show up around here meeting with Van Sluys. I’d forgotten about him. Our Massachusetts congressman. Heavily involved in setting up manufacturing and so on in the tech belt around here. That was why he was always around. He still has his paws in a lot of pies. Defense, intelligence.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Oh yes. Travis Rickard.”
“Oh Rickard. Of course. Every defense contractor’s best friend. So he’s the link. Find out who he’s connected with and we’ll have a good idea who’s involved. And that should lead us to the why.”
“You make it sound very simple Forrest,”
“Easy to say, I know. You said he was around. Does he still show up for meetings? And could you identify the MedImplant people he’s with?”
“You wouldn’t know this… Last time we spoke was before everything changed around here. Almost a year ago we transferred all the IP and manufacturing processes over to MedImplant. Lock, stock and barrel. They were to scale the operation and any further development is with them. Van Sluys took a position with them. She’s a big muckety-muck now, they gave her a hefty stake. Took her team with her.”
Radbo settled into a new train of thought. “The QR lab got a nice endowment when the transfer was closed. Very nice. Funds my chair and Roy’s. He’s still here, so are quite a few of the people you met. We’re back to quantum stuff, back to the roots. But with a side of AI.”
“Oh really? I’d like to hear more, later. I’m firing up my old AI project as a cover, in case anyone notices us asking questions. That would give us a convincing reason to work together.”
“What fun! Noted.”
Forrest steered the conversation back. “There’s no more contact with MedImplant at this point?”
“None. I haven’t seen Rickard since, or anyone from MedImplant. A great blessing from my point of view.”
“Do you have any contacts in Van Sluys’s team?”
“I don’t. Might be someone here who does.” Radbo’s face brightened, “Thinnick. That was the last name of two of their people who were here a lot. I remember because they were uncle and nephew. Unusual. And they were tight with Rickard, it was obvious even to me from a distance. And all cozy with Van Sluys.”
“Alright. That gives us a good place to start.”
—
“You know I didn’t care for them or what they were up to.
Where do we go from here? What can we do about it?
My first thought was to find out what actually happened. Then there’s the question of who and why, and then there’s what do we do about it.
Outcome needs to be collaboration between RB and Bruce/Willis or Volcette – they develop counter tech
What does DeShan do – went to MedImplant – available as known entity, but can be trusted? Acts as though yes, but betrays,
VS is on board with evil for material benefit
—
Conversation arc –
RB not too surprised, expected FM to put something together and connect with RB’s work
Compare what they know
Forrest what do you know
RB you first I’ll fill in
FM recounts all
RB notes correct
What does RB know, withhold – his bots, knew VS and M-I no good
Question is why isn’t he acting but FM is?
Unless RB didn’t piece together some part of it – or else his strategy is to undermine when he can, but needs other things to fall in place, or needs help he can trust, like FM
- Got it – RB has come to same conclusions as FM, waiting for him to be on board, rb has ideas on subverting mesh, not how to go beyond that
Inspired by a few things you said when you were up here with us. Got me thinking later. The thing with AI is they’ve been forever trying to make systems think like a person would. A super-person in fact. I thought it might be more useful to avoid all the learning and baby steps of growing a system that does everything a person does, and instead grab specific parts of human intelligence that are useful for specific systems doing specific tasks. Don’t build a fake super human to do everything, build a smarter system that concentrates on just what it needs to do.
All of that AI is interesting to me, but a little out of my area. My push is the interface that collects human intelligence to build AI systems. Special kind of bots.
Not MedImplant no.
You know I didn’t care for them or what they were up to.
“Forrest, hi.” Katie’s face appeared on his screen again, right on time. Shelves of books in her background. Piled for quick reference, not neatly arranged for show. Her face seemed more relaxed. She was very nearly smiling.
“I’m intrigued Katie. What would make you punt my question for the afternoon, and call back out of office hours?”
She didn’t answer straight away. Instead she took a moment to gauge whether Forrest was asking the question just because he already knew the answer.
She made her mind up. “I’m going to be straight with you Forrest.”
“I certainly hope you would be.”
“You be straight with me.”
Forrest felt her intense, appraising look again. “Of course.”
“You, the long retired Traffic Mesh King, call me, out of the blue right after this nationwide rollout of climate control technology. And you’re looking for info on the people who created the stories about the rollout.”
“Yes,” Forrest tried to reveal nothing.
“You’re not calling the company that did the rollout. You’re being sneaky.”
He pursed his lips and tried to read her face. “Maybe.”
“I think you smell the same rat I do.”
Now Forrest returned the penetrating gaze. He considered his impression of her, of her bylines and bio. Looked for a sign that he might be missing something.
“Listen, Forrest, you called me. You never heard of me until today.”
She was right. What reason did he have not to trust her? Let’s see what she knows.
“Tell me about your rat.”
“You don’t think the media coverage explains what we all saw. And you’re trying to find out who is really behind it. Am I right?”
Forrest hesitated to admit. “You are.”
“When you called, that settled it for me. Something isn’t right. I don’t know what yet.”
“What have you seen?”
Katie took a moment to collect her thoughts. “The stories all came through the wire, same exact release through AP, Reuters, H Comm, all of them. Usually they write their own feeds based on what they pick up. These were identical. Not unheard of, but strange. They followed a line of PR from this MedImplant division that’s fighting the climate crisis, right? Happy stories about this new atmospheric program. It’s a big deal. You would expect links and resources to dive deeper into all the tech on something like this. There’s nothing. It’s all so vague. So I started to ask around. People would want to know what they’re actually doing to help the climate, how it works. I’m on the tech desk, explaining this stuff is what we do. Shot down immediately by my editor.”
Forrest acknowledged with a grunt.
“I reached out to an editor friend at another site. His boss shut him down, same as me, with a threat. After that, my editor called me in again, and warned me off. Gave me a list of bullshit to do instead. They’re listening to my calls, watching me somehow.”
Forrest was about to ask a question, but Katie wasn’t done, “Now the kicker. Also this afternoon I start to see wire stories about agitators pushing conspiracy theories. Stories undermining the opposition, before there’s any opposition. They’re framing up anyone who questions their version as the unhinged fringe, in advance.”
Forrest’s frown deepened, he grunted again to punctuate Katie’s pause.
“With all that, and now you calling, I know for sure something is very much up.”
—
“Could you tell where the releases came from… press contacts or anything?”
“All from that MedImplant division I mentioned. Strategic Partnerships they call it. No individuals.”
“I don’t think it’s just MedImplant. It makes no sense to me. I think it might be people in the company working with others, maybe government, maybe contractors. I was hoping the media sources might lead us somewhere.”
Katie shrugged. “It’s not hard to cover your tracks in PR.”
Forrest looked down at his notes for inspiration. “The contact who gave me your name said you were at AP before. Do you still know anyone there?”
“There’s a couple of people I might be able to ask. I kinda burned my bridges there.”
“If you can test the waters…”
“I’ll try. If these people don’t want to be found I wouldn’t expect a lot.”
Forrest switched gears. “First time we spoke, you said I might be able to help you?”
“I figured since you were calling, you must know something… what do you know?”
Forrest nodded, buying time as he considered how much to share. “I believe they dropped clouds of micro-particles… bots… to cover… maybe the whole country. I’ve looked at them. They’re based on medibots, but much smaller. Built in communications, energy harvesting. Hard to find, camouflaged…”
Katie’s eyes had grown wide, her mouth fell open, “Holy shit… holy shit. I’m not nuts… I knew this was something big…” She composed herself, “What are they for? What are they doing with them?”
“We don’t know yet. We’re looking into the bots, learning what we can.”
“Holy shit…” Katie sat back as her mind processed the idea.
“This does seem ominous…”
“Ominous! Medibots over the whole country… shit!”
“We don’t know what the threat actually is… if there even is one. We don’t know for sure it’s not something harmless, or if they actually are fighting the climate crisis.”
“No freaking way it’s harmless.” Katie leaned forward again. “Too big,…all this secrecy, covering up… it can only be bad Forrest.” Her expression almost looked panicked, “Shit! My palms are sweating. My guts are on fire. This is a huge story.”
“We don’t know yet. We have to find out more…”
“There’s bad stuff happening here, people have to know.”
“Katie, my instincts are telling me the same thing as yours. If we’re right, and they’re controlling the media… whoever they are… your story is going nowhere. And it could be really dangerous for you…”
Katie weighed Forrest’s words. Her dubious expression didn’t soften.
“Better to fly under the radar for now. I might have another way we can do this. Can you look into a few names and see where they lead?”
“Sure. What have you got?” She sounded distracted. Her imagination hadn’t made the journey to Pulitzers or Worth Binghams, but had certainly calculated the scale of the biggest story of her career. No way she would miss this one, radar be damned.
Forrest typed the names in the chat. “Sent. The Thinnicks are the MedImplant people I’m sure are involved. Rickard is the link to who or whatever else is going on.”
The sight of the names on her screen refocused her attention. “Right. I know these names. Let me see what I can find.”
“Promise me you’ll keep it low key, Katie. At least until we know more.”
“Forrest, I can’t do that. This story has to be out there.”
“At least keep me and my people out of it. I’ll help you when the time comes. Until then we need to avoid any attention.”
Katie considered the angles. “I can do that, if you give me everything you find about the technology.”
Forrest realized he had little choice. “Alright. And Katie, be aware, if you’re right… if we’re right, once they know about you, you’ve got trouble.”
“Of course.” Her eyes brightened, the corners of her mouth almost turned up into a smile. “I know how to be sneaky too.“
Anna Volcette pulled out the pass she had picked up at the front desk of her hotel earlier in the day. She waved it over wall-mounted sensors, and the secure doors of the MIT Quantum Research Laboratory opened before her. A place where she had no business at all until now. It felt like magic. Unreal. The hallowed halls of history’s most monumental breakthroughs in computer science.
She couldn’t conceal her smile as she made her way along the empty corridors, peering into darkened labs, marveling at the portraits, commemorative plaques, and group photos on the walls, even the bulletin board posters spoke to her. She checked her screen again to confirm the directions.
When she reached her destination, something other than reverence filled her senses.
“Ohmigod you guys! Skunk works! Now I know why they call it that. It smells like fast food and rotten socks in here. Jeez, someone needs a shower bad.” She threw her bag on an empty desk and sat. “How long have you guys been in here?”
“Hey Anna. How was the flight?” Bruce greeted her without looking up.
“Glad you could finally make it Volcette,” Luke Willis grinned at her.
“Really. Not going to single anybody out, all of you, go get a shower. Freshen up, change your socks, use some deodorant. God. I can’t work in this shit. I should get danger money.”
“Hey Anna, you volunteered like we did.”
“I’m damn well going on strike unless you stinkers go clean up.”
“You only just got here!”
The guys looked at one another. Willis smelled his armpits with a suspicious frown.
“You know guys, I could use a break,” Bruce stood up and headed for the door. “Glad you made it Anna. Great to see you too.”
Astonishment swept over Anna’s face as Luke shrugged, laughed, and meekly followed Bruce out, with the third guy in the room right behind him, someone she did not know.
She mouthed in surprise, “I didn’t think they actually would…” She looked around the cramped space, hot with the hum of electronics. Could really use some aromatherapy in here.
She headed back to a staff kitchen she had passed, and rifled through the drawers. Back in the lab she set up her loot: nine pristine birthday candles, a handful of slightly burnt ones, still clumped with remnants of icing from long-past office celebrations, and what was left of one bona fide nine inch taper. Lucky there were also matches in there. “Goddam Mensa Nobel winners and they don’t know to clean themselves or use a trash can. Jesus.” She used molten wax to stick the birthday candles in jar lids in a few clusters, and watched the last ones burn away with little wisps of smoke. The taper’s flickering flame persisted. She cleared a spot for it on a file cabinet. That actually kind of worked.
Her face creased in disgust at the discarded wrappers and boxes littering the space. She returned to the kitchenette to find a handful of trash bags, brought them back to the lab, draped them over seat backs.
She examined the screens around the lab, shuffled through notes on desks, studied the diagrams and scrawls on the white boards around the room. She chose the cleanest station, sat, and focused.
—
She was still intently evaluating files and scribbling notes as the men returned to the room, one by one. It was now quite late. Willis brought an assortment of snacks, Bruce a box of coffee. The new guy trailed in with an armful of drinks and a bag of ice.
He was younger than she and Willis, about the age they had been when Forrest had first hired them. He had an enthusiastic air about him.
Bruce waved an introduction, “Anna, this is Ted. Ted, Anna.”
“I work with Luke,” Ted reacted to Anna’s questioning gaze. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Well ignore all that. I’m only an asshole some of the time.”
Ted looked a little puzzled, “Oh no, only good…”
She turned to Bruce as he cleared a space for the refreshments. “Looks like no one’s sleeping anytime soon then?”
Willis took Anna’s hint and filled a trash bag with accumulated leavings. “What’s with the candles Volcette?” He pitched the lids with their blobs of sooty wax, examined the wavering flame of the taper. “This place not romantic enough for ya?”
“New trick for you Willis?”
Bruce smiled at her and passed a cup, “Still cream and a dab of sugar?” She returned the smile and nodded her approval.
“Hey Anna, how come you’re so late to the party anyway?” Willis was still pondering the candle.
“Unlike you playboys, I couldn’t just hop on a flight same day as I heard about this little project. Had to give notice at my job.”
“Well we’re happy you could join us.” Bruce settled back into his station.
“Course you are. You sad little puppies need someone to get the bitrot out of all that cruft you write.”
“Oh this sounds just like old times.” Bruce reached over to give Willis a playful arm thump.
“I missed you so much Volcette,” Willis tried for full sarcasm, but his lopsided smile gave him away.
“Likewise I’m sure,” gentler than she intended.
She paged through a report on the screen in front of her, as she finished a bite. “Lukey, how do you manage to be here?”
“I had so much time piled up. Technically, this shit is what I do on vacation now.”
“And Bruce, you’re free to do whatever, whenever, right?”
“That would be correct. Pretty much. Thank you Traffic mesh.”
“Speaking of thank you Traffic Mesh, where is Forrest? I thought he’d be here.”
“He’s off with Radbo. They’ll be back.”
Bruce took the opportunity to catch the group’s attention. “We should give them an update. Let’s review where each of us is at. That’ll get Anna up to speed at the same time.”
“I have a pretty good idea already. I poked into you creatures’ stuff while you were gone.”
—
“Picking up some tips?” Willis threw a crumpled wrapper at her.
“Certainly not from your screen.” She retrieved it from the desk and threw it back, with a grin.
Bruce caught it mid-flight, shook his head with a laugh. “You two really are picking up where you left off aren’t you? Let’s recap for everyone’s benefit. I want to hear what progress we’re making. Luke buddy, what have you got?”
“I’ve been measuring the comms functions with Radbo’s testing rig. It sends a ping signal, catches the responses and analyzes them. They respond exactly as they were designed. So far they are right within the original spec, at least for wavelength. Looks like they can store more power now. That gives them more range than I expected. They can be a couple of centimeters apart before they go silent.”
“Considering the scale of the things, that’s amazing.”
“Incredible, really.”
—-
“Alright, nice work Luke. What comes next?”
“I want to use this to work out what kind of coverage and density we can expect. It might be useful to know how many bots there are likely to be in a particular area. Then I’m going to move on.”
“Great, thanks Luke. I’ll go next. Forrest asked me to look for one of our old Traffic Mesh people. Haven’t had any luck yet. Anybody remember DeShan Saunders?”
Anna chimed in, “He joined MedImplant. A recruiter headhunted him.”
“I read that. He seems to have disappeared without a trace since then.”
Brows furrowed and lips pursed among the group.
“When does that ever happen?”
“Makes no sense…”
“Never.”
“No posts on social. Stale search results. I have to get Ellen on it.”
Ted looked to Willis, “Who’s Ellen?”
“Forrest’s wife. She was admin for Traffic Mesh. Ninja researcher.”
Bruce went on, “I also looked at the sensors embedded in the bugs. Radbo shared a list of the ones the MIT team delivered. I recognized most of them, some seem to be new. Radbo’s software only works for the sensor data he knew about, so I’ve hit a bit of a brick wall. We’ll need more work on translating signals into readable form before we can tell what we’re really looking at. Which is a good point to switch to what you’re working on, bud.” He extended a hand toward Ted.
Ted was about to speak when Anna jumped in.
—
“Is this you?” She turned from the screen in front of her to look at Ted, who was still standing.
“Yeah.“
“Okay new guy, you are actually on to something here.”
“It’s Ted.”
Other heads turned in their direction.
“What do you see Anna?”
—
“New guy’s looking at the actual data being transmitted, right? He’s got the binary streams from a cluster of them here. Each one of these is a separate transmission, look over here, see?” She pointed out the obvious groups of binary digits. “You were looking for patterns to break these into meaningful parts, yes?”
She looked at Ted, who nodded. “Why don’t you lead us through it?” She stood to let him take his place.
Ted highlighted a section on his screen. “Over here we can see the binary code from the transmission, and here it’s translated into native code. See how we can swap the p-value. That’s the processor the code is written for. If we use the wrong one this is just a stream of gibberish, like this.”
Anna leaned in, “You found the right one with trial and error?”
“We’re lucky we have a leg up here, because these bots use the same native code that Radbo’s team wrote originally. Doctor Roy’s quantum machines needed their own operating system, of course. That was a wheel the MedImplant people couldn’t reinvent even if they wanted to.”
Ted continued, “So when we pop in the right p-value, this program knows what we’re looking at. It takes the binary stream and applies the rules of the program to it. Now we have a structure, and the chunks we see down here become something with meaning. Instructions or data to be processed. And we can turn that into human readable info with that box. That’s the lab toy that grew up to become the MedImplant terminals in your doctor’s office.”
Willis was standing in front of it. “That’s just a bunch of error codes.”
“Yeah, we can’t see it on the end terminal yet. I’d guess this structure is a MedImplant addition. We’ll have to write a patch.”
Ted pointed to a new highlight on his screen. “See in the native code… what’s interesting is this section here. It’s a repeat.”
“What do you think the repetition is Teddie?”
Ted’s eyebrows arched as he turned to answer Anna. Teddie now is it?
“My guess… this isn’t just a transmission from a medibot, like, you know… a temperature reading, or a hormone level. This is a retransmission. This one bot repeated what it received from another bot, with all the original source markers included, and the original sensor data right here inside.”
—
For a moment no one spoke, as they gathered to look for the patterns in the stream of code on Ted’s screen.
“We expected they would form a mesh,” Bruce spoke as he returned to his station. “Very cool to see how it happens.”
Anna’s expression relaxed, she stared distantly at a whiteboard. “Just think how much data would pass through it, when every bot repeats all the signals from its neighbors. It’s blowing my mind to think about it.”
“The beauty of quantum computing, right?” Ted turned to face the others. “Unlimited processing capacity, unlimited storage… distributed through trillions and trillions of bugs, instead of boxes on desks.”
“Wow.” Anna dropped herself into a free chair, eyebrows raised as she calculated inwardly. “You know what else that means? The system can route data whichever way it needs to, through the whole mesh. There’s no vulnerable pathway.”
“Like our Traffic Mesh,” Willis mused.
“Exactly!”
Ted focused on Bruce, “Where does all the data go?”
“Good question buddy,” Bruce nodded. “It’s on Forrest’s list of things to think about. He says when we know who is behind all this we can figure out where data is processed. He’s got some reporter he came across on the trail.”
After a moment’s thought, he added, “It would work the other way around, as well. If you see any clues… pipe up.”
“You know what’s surprising me more than anything?” Anna broke in, “You guys can intercept whatever is coming out of these things. It doesn’t sound like there’s encryption or anything.“
“Not actually true,” Willis turned toward her, “The transmissions are encrypted, but they didn’t change anything up. When Radbo started looking at the bugs he used the keys the MIT team developed. They still work.”
“Whaaa…” Anna raised her hands to her cheeks with a mixture of alarm and amusement on her face. “You cannot be for real!”
“Reals.”
Anna spun her chair around with a snort. Some broken part clicked as it turned.
Willis watched her with a smile. “Look out everybody, Volcette’s thinking now,”
“Okay, the MedImplant people did some really smart things, also some not-so-smart.” Bruce sounded like he might be about to tell a joke. ”Actually we could say they did stupid things, but instead let’s say helpful. Helpful to us.”
The rhythmic tick of the chair sounded like the slow beat of a metronome.
Anna paused her spin, “How could they not expect anyone to look into their technology?”
“I think the security is really strong actually,” Willis responded. “It would be a tough hack to get into these things without a head start.”
“Right.” A smile spread across Ted’s face, “You think they forgot someone else created them?”
“Epic fatal bonehead error,” Anna chuckled as she set her chair in motion again.
“The question is, how do we exploit our advantage here? How do we use what we know?” Bruce spoke as though he was talking to himself out loud.
“You sound like Forrest,” Willis quipped a little absently, as he watched Anna’s chair revolve.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you.”
Anna’s chair clicked full circle a couple more times, then she grabbed the desk to stop. “We add ourselves to the mesh.”
—
Ted’s eyes narrowed, “What do you mean… you’re talking about building our own bots?”
“That would be impossible,” Willis added, “Even with Radbo on the team.”
“No, doofus. Once we know all the comm formats, we can send them as well as receive them. We can make up our own data. We can pass it along just like the real bots do. We don’t need to use actual bots to do it. Could be any size. We could use a truck…”
Willis considered the idea for a moment. “Why would we do that though?”
Bruce looked uncertain too, “We need to know what’s being passed through this mesh. How would it help us to add our own data?”
Anna groped for a reason that might support her instinct, but came up empty. “It’s something they won’t expect. Can’t say how we could use it yet.”
“It’s a cool idea, Anna,” Bruce tried to sound supportive. “Let’s stay focused though. We still have a lot to figure out before we go off on any tangents.”
Willis poked Anna’s arm, “I want to ride shotgun…”
She gave him half a smile, but it faded quickly and she moved across the room.
She pulled up a directory on a screen and settled into an uncharacteristic silence.
Ted looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. Was she sulking? What a prima donna.
Willis glanced at the same time, with a different thought. He recognized the set of her mouth and the steely gaze as she paged through documents on the screen. When she was playful she was likely to surprise you with some creative idea. When that serious look came over her, she was working on a game changer. Sooner or later. She was like a dog with a bone.
“Just give me a warning Volcette.”
“What’s that Willis?” She sounded distracted.
“When you start kicking ass I don’t want to miss it.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll know.”
Bruce- wait that could be really useful. We’re getting ahead a bit, we haven’t figured out some parts here, it’s just a theory that this is for some kind of surveillance or influence. That was Forrest’s first idea when he told me about the drop.
[Later on the idea can morph into being cloaked and tapping into the data stream to see what they are seeing, based on what’s coming back – instructions from the AI processor would be tagged or encapsulated or identified distinctly, so later on after traffic starts they have to identify those transmissions}Shit Anna, that’s genius. We can
That’s genius.
Thhhinks
We
—
“It’s to kill bad smells.” Ted snuffed the last sputtering flame from the remains of the taper, then looked at Anna. “The candle. My Gran had them going all the time. Bathroom off the kitchen.”
She gave him a friendly smile and a wink, and returned to her screen.
We have a spec to begin with, we know the baseline info that’s being passed, each sensor type has a range of values it can transmit. wavelengths and power gradients, all dependent on the energy level, we want to know what they are passing for info, what
We know from Radbo’s spec what to expect for transmissions, but we’re not getting anything out of them. We know they’re powered. We can measure energy levels and know the output range we can expect for any level. So why are we not reading anything?
Radbo would have shared all of MedImplant spec – they would know how they are energized, a lot about camouflaging, how they communicate, power and wavelength etc. So what’s to discover? What’s being passed – what info each type sends, where it’s routed, collected, if it’s 2 way as anticipated, or
Duplicate bots, don’t have to be nano, just look same in terms of signal content so they can send and receive just like others, replicate firmware and any system, app content, sensor encoding, figure out if there is encoding
Scenario: they manage to connect to local bots and figure out they are all sending and receiving to each other, any within range, using triangulation from position sensors, passing signal data so distance can be measured, triangulating from position data, all relative to bots with proximity to known gps location data
Big moment when the system is activated and suddenly there’s an astonishing amount of traffic
They find data is encoded for efficiency but they can crack the security – let’s do something simple but plausible – M-I didn’t change the security protocol after MIT developed it. Simple oversight, didn’t occur to them that Radbo would still have the essential pieces
Willis, measuring comms abilities (ping signal used by MIT still works)
Bruce identifying sensor types, using MIT software to translate sensor readings, figuring out what new sensors are being used – audio – stitched from receptors that sense narrow range of frequencies, bots in an area each gather separate parts of audio waveband, pass to accumulator where complete audio for a given locus is assembled
Radbo and Forrest in a different lab with optical/SEM, micro manufacturing, identifying any tech changes, blowing them apart, looking close, functionality, they’re in the earth sciences dept.
Ted analyzing data inputs and outputs,
Someone identifies that unlike m-i bots, which just transmitted sensor data one way, these add receivers and act as relays if they need to, beacons, that would have been part of the new spec Radbo didn’t like