Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (18 page)

General Shields led Lin,
Samantha, Ali, and Saul to the western door. Shields
placed
his palm
on the scanner attached to the wall. After a brief
moment,
he typed
in a numeric code. The door
opened,
and they all walked into
an exquisite
conference room. It was much more ornate, elaborate, and
advanced than its counterpart on the second-floor. The shiny
conference table looked brand new. Every item, from the whiteboard
to the projector, was nicer—and more expensive.

As the Gamification team
made their way
into
their brown leather chairs, there was a knock on
the SCIF’s metal entry door. “Excuse me,” said the General, “that
must be Swarmbot.”

“
Swarmbot?” blurted
Samantha. Samantha had met the Swarmbot executives only one time
before. They hadn’t attended the
eight-week
introductory
course for the
Accelerator.

*

General Shields opened the front door
and exited the SCIF.

“
Good afternoon,
Gentlemen,” said Shields. “Please make sure to leave your phones
and electronics outside.”

Swarmbot Corporation’s key
executives were Ken
Sazuki
, Hideki Sato, and Chris
Fischer. All three held TS/SCI clearances. Ken and Hideki were both
short, geeky men, of Japanese origin. Ken was loquacious and
jovial. Hideki spoke so
softly;
he
was hard to hear. Chris was five foot
eleven. He wore khakis and a white dress
shirt that
hid his runner’s
frame.
His sleeves
were rolled up.

The General glanced at his
phone in the cubby hole. There were two text messages. One was from
his wife; the other was from Josh Adler. He read Josh’s
text
. ‘General,
I want to meet with you ASAP to discuss
big
progress. Can I call Lin to
get on your schedule?’

General Shields replied, ‘Great news!
If able, I’m at the Accelerator now. I can meet in about 90
minutes. Or, schedule later with Lin.’

*

Everyone
now assembled
in
the conference room. The General led the round of introductions,
briefly highlighting why the Accelerator chose to invest in
Swarmbot and Gamification Systems.

Ken Sazuki was CEO and
Co-Founder of
Swarmbot,
while Hideki Sato was CTO and
Swarmbot’s
other
Co-Founder. Chris Fischer introduced himself as the Chief Engineer
of Robotics.

General Shields described
Swarmbot as an incredibly innovative startup. “Swarmbot markets a
line of advanced intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance—ISR—drones. Right now, the Swarmbots are remotely
controlled.
Over time, we expect
that they’ll become fully autonomous robots, with a human override
capability. They’ll also get smaller, and their Swarm intelligence
will improve.
The drones operate
in clusters
to
accomplish tactical objectives. We’re going to use Swarmbots
to stealthily track the
Caliphate
.”

Ken met General Shields
when he was Commander of the 24
^th
Air Force in San Antonio,
Texas. Ken recognized that the 24
^th
was a natural stepping
stone to DIRNSA for Shields. Sazuki went out of his way to maintain
contact with the General. The foresight paid off.

DIRNSA wore more than one hat. Shields
was also the Commander of CYBERCOM. CYBERCOM was a relatively young
organization, officially only reaching full operational capability
in late 2010. Establishment of CYBERCOM was a significant moment
for the DoD. It memorialized the fact that the Department of
Defense formally recognized cyber as an official war-fighting
domain—on par with land, sea, air, and space.

Many critics
questioned
the wisdom vesting so much
power in one
man
. But separating the organizational
leadership for such a nebulous concept as ‘cyber,’ was sure to
cause destructive turf battles
.

NSA’s mandate was to spy
on foreign communications and protect the DoD’s networks from
foreign adversaries. In a word, the NSA provided defense. The NSA
had no mandate to destroy
foreign
countries’
systems or engage in offensive
cyberwar on
enemies
. CYBERCOM was the offense. They
were authorized to wage war in the cyber-domain. The first publicly
disclosed instance of US
cyberwar
was the Stuxnet virus,
discovered in 2010.

The Stuxnet virus hampered
the Iranian nuclear program by infiltrating programmable logic
controllers in Iranian nuclear facilities. The PLC hacks caused
centrifuges,
which were
used to enrich uranium, to spin too fast and
break. CYBERCOM,
Israel, and
GCHQ
jointly developed Stuxnet. GCHQ stood
for Government Communications Headquarters. GCHQ was the British
equivalent of the NSA.

When Ken first met the
General, DARPA was funding Swarmbot.
While at the 24
^th
, Shields told Ken that
he loved the Swarmbot concept. But the General didn’t think
Swarmbots were ready for
primetime
. And Shields
didn’t have any research and development money
available.

When the Accelerator was green-lighted
by Congress, Ken was pleased that he received one of the General’s
first calls. As they spoke of the capabilities and
cost-effectiveness of Swarmbot, General Shields told Ken that he
thought Swarmbots were a game changer for ISR.

Over time, Ken’s team
had
significantly
improved the Swarmbot technology. The company
also wooed Chris Fischer from a
high-level
position at Marvel Defense
Systems, a major aerial drone manufacturer.

Shields first offered
Swarmbot a $5M investment for 25% equity. Ken and Hideki had more
room to negotiate than either Gamification or
CyberAI. They actually
had a
growing revenue stream. Municipal police forces provided the bulk
of Swarmbot’s sales. They used the drones to augment their SWAT
teams.

Swarmbot had trouble
landing DoD contracts, despite the DARPA funding. The US Army and
Air Force seemed much more interested in purchasing from
established suppliers. They were also more inclined to
buy
large,
ruggedized robot or missile-equipped drones. More
expensive
systems ultimately required bigger budgets. Washington DC
talked about
budgets
in the same way that Silicon Valley spoke of
valuations. It was how everyone kept score.

Sazuki also approached the
CIA. They
too,
were more
interested
in ever larger,
lethal
aerial drones. Even when Ken
demonstrated the new Swarmbot mini-drone configuration, the company
couldn’t land a DoD or Intelligence Community contract.

Ken felt that if
Swarmbots were more expensive, he might have gained more
traction.
The average cost of an aerial
drone was $20M, without missiles. The average cost of a
Swarmbot
was
under $2M. And the cost would come down with
volume.

Sazuki couldn’t put his
finger on it, but he sensed that expensive drones were selected to
make sure that the purchaser’s budget
wasn't
slashed next year, not
because they were the best product available.

With the investment from
Defense Innovations Accelerator, Ken and Hideki hoped that the
five-star General would champion Swarmbot within DoD. Swarmbot
countered Shields’ original offer with $5M for 10%. They settled on
$6.75M for 15%, and a board seat. The General had another,
more
electronics-oriented
member of the Accelerator, take the board
seat.

After
introductions,
the General
began: “What I’m about to describe is a TS/SCI project that I’ve
code named, SWARM. I would like SWARM to involve both of your
companies. You’re going to need
to
collaborate
closely
with one another.

“
If you choose to
be read
into
this
program,
I
believe
you
’ll make the United States
safer. Of course, I
can’t make any guarantees. But if everything proceeds
smoothly, you may both be rewarded with lucrative
contracts.
As a
mentor to you both, I strongly suggest that you each elect
to
be read
into SWARM. Lin, please disseminate the NDAs.”

An NDA was a legal
document that precluded the signer from talking about
information—in this case, anything related to SWARM. “Please read
and sign this, if you agree to the terms. The General and I have
already executed our
NDAs,” said
Lin.

The representatives from
Swarmbot and Gamification Systems each completed their NDAs. The
Swarmbot team took much longer than Gamification. The General
looked gratified. As Lin collected the documents, General Shields
said, “Welcome to
Project
SWARM.” Introductory talks discussing
capabilities and integration issues proceeded.

*

After a little over 90
minutes, General Shields was in his office with Lin and Samantha.
The ladies
were seated
in the two chairs in front of his desk. Josh had
texted that he’d work in his CyberAI
office,
until the General was available
to meet. Shields directed Josh to come up in 15 minutes.

The General was smiling broadly. “That
went great, don’t you guys think?”

“
Yes, I believe
that
it
went very well,” said Lin. “I tracked all the milestones and
deliverables that came up today. If we achieve them all, we’ll meet
your
eight-week
demo deadline.”

“
That’s terrific Lin,”
snarled Samantha, “you’re such
a
good
secretary.”

“
I’m the Director of the
NSA’s personal aide.” Lin glowered at Gamification’s
CEO.

Samantha continued,
“General, I think the real key is the API that allows
communication
between
the drones. If it’s as easy as Swarmbot says,
then we
essentially
emulate their controller with G-Bridge. That’s
the REALSPACE side. On the GAMESPACE side, we then need to
translate all the mappings—”

“
Excuse me General?”
interrupted Lin. “Shouldn’t this discussion be conducted in
a SCIF—Samantha
just referenced two TOP SECRET projects: SWARM and
FOGGY.”

Samantha seethed.

“
Lin, you’re
right.
I’m
sorry. That was my fault,” said the General, trying to diffuse the
situation. “I can say that I’m extremely pleased with the progress
we made
today.
I
believe
that the demo deadlines are very doable. Now, if
you all will excuse me, I’ve got a meeting with Josh Adler in a few
minutes.”

Samantha and Lin began to gather their
notebooks and purses.

Lin asked, “General, are you sure I
shouldn’t attend this meeting?”

“
I’m sure.”

Samantha then said, “General, I’d just
like a second of your time to talk about Becca. It’s going to be
hard to meet all of our deadlines without—”

General Shields pounded
his fist on the table. “Rebecca Roberts is not to work on any of
the classified projects. Any further
discussion
of this topic is
closed.”

Samantha glared,
steely-eyed at the General.

“
You know Lin, on second
thought, why don’t you stay and take notes.”

Irritation radiated
through every limb of Samantha’s body. Lin flashed a toothy smile
in Samantha’s direction. The door to the foyer, leading to General
Shields’
office,
opened. Josh Adler rapped on the General’s
door.

“
Come on in,
Josh.”

*

Josh felt the thick tension in the
room. Samantha darted past him without saying a word.

“
Hi,
General. Hi,
Lin,
” he said, in his typically
cheerful manner.

“
Take a seat. Tell me
what’s going on,” said Shields.

“
Since my last demo, I’ve
been working on an approach that incorporates a new type of AI
algorithm—deep learning. It doesn’t replace the
other algorithms;
I’m just
adding deep
learning
to the AI Kernel. General Shields, the
improvements are astonishingly good!
I now recognize
91.5% of the
cyber
-events on
my test set.”