Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (22 page)

7:05 a.m. (EDT), Wednesday, September
30, 2020 – Columbia, MD

Suite 201, Gamification
Systems’ Offices,
Defense Innovations
Accelerator

Becca
culled
the emails in her
inbox. Today was Gamification’s Demo Day for General Shields.
Unlike all the other monthly demos, Becca was not invited. Just
yesterday, Samantha told Becca she
was ‘not needed’
for the demo. Ali
would attend instead. Becca was incredibly upset.
How could Samantha not trust me?
The thought echoed through the canyons of her
mind.

Over the last two months,
two good things happened.
First,
her
relationship with Josh was advancing. Becca was at the
point
where she
thought she might be in love. She admired Josh’s passion, can-do
optimism, and
vision
for possibilities. She could overlook his
obsession with AI,
as long as she was a part of the
obsession
.

At
least
for now, Josh did
that. They were like hikers on
an
adventure. His dimples and rower’s
back didn’t hurt either. She continued to work with him closely,
integrating CyberAI’s AI Kernel with G-Bridge. He could be
romantic, at least when he put his mind to it. Maybe he could
develop an AI-romantic app to help him?

Secondly, Gecko Insurance
executed a paid pilot agreement. Samantha named Becca as
Gecko’s
principal
contact. Becca’s job was to ensure the engagement
proceeded successfully.
This
was
the first sale for Gamification
Systems. It was a big moment for everyone at the
company.

But beyond Josh and the Gecko pilot,
the pressure and professional disappointment of the last few months
weighed heavily on Becca. Like the drip-drip-drip of a faucet,
Becca felt that Samantha was slowly cutting her out of the
loop.

She couldn’t understand
why.

Samantha told Becca to
quit being paranoid. There was no effort to firewall her from
projects. The CEO only wanted Becca focused on making sure the
pilot with Gecko Insurance was
successful,
and led to the purchase of
an enterprise license.

“
You’re working on the
most important project for the whole company. You’re
essential
to
Gamification Systems,” Samantha told her.

Becca wasn’t buying it.

The VP of Sales,
Lou
Skaist,
arrived for an early web presentation and greeted Becca.
“Aren’t you going to Demo Day
this
morning
?”

Becca looked at Lou. Big
tears welled up in her eyes. “No,” she replied, trying to hide her
face. She ran to the bathroom. On her way to the ladies room,
through the tears, Becca saw Saul Abrams and
a number of
young
servicemen. They represented all branches of the military; Air
Force,
Army, Marines, and Navy. Saul led
the
servicemen into the
second-floor SCIF.

This had become so
familiar over the last two months.
She
had no idea what Ali, Saul, or
Samantha were doing. She felt like a second-class citizen. She
couldn’t fathom the reason for the
slights
.
How
could Samantha not trust me?

Granted, Gamification was
funded by the NSA. Becca expected some skullduggery and
compartmentalization. But she held a TS/SCI clearance, just like
Ali and Saul. After gathering herself, Becca lumbered back into
Gamification.
She walked into
Ali’s office, the site of so many laughs in the past.
Becca
wasn’t
sure what
she
was
looking for.
S
he just hoped to make sense of the
situation.

She spied numerous technical manuals
from Swarmbot, semi-hidden under file folders. They were scattered
all over Ali’s desk.

*

Samantha, Ali, and the
Swarmbot team
congregated
outside the sixth-floor SCIF. The Swarmbot
executives wore
elaborate
backpacks. They
were constructed
from a material
Samantha had never encountered. The
packs
were ready for
rugged
hiking.
General Shields and Lin Liu joined the SWARM team.

“
Good morning,” said the
General brusquely.

Samantha felt the pressure
of the last six weeks. Since the Dabiq fiasco, General Shields was
mercilessly
focused
and humorless. He was furious with POTUS and the
CIA. More than ever, Samantha felt that the General’s sole purpose
in life was to annihilate the Caliphate.

For her part, despite her
continued efforts, she failed
to
tal
k Shields into allowing Becca to work
on either FOGGY or SWARM. She knew Becca was upset. Samantha was
disappointed. She never expected an investor to be able to dictate
personnel decisions. Sleeping with him only complicated matters. It
was no longer
an escape.
It was a prison. She felt caged and
manipulated.

After everyone removed and
stowed
their
cell phones
, General Shields
moved to unlock the SCIF door. Ken Sazuki of Swarmbot said,
“General, you know we have the Swarmbots and tablets in the in the
backpack, right?”

The General replied curtly, “Yes, of
course. That’s why we’re here. Bring them in.”

Once inside the SCIF,
Shields moved past the conference
room
. He stopped at the north
door.
The General
extended his palm on the
scanner. An
interactive voice
response unit asked him his name. Then, he entered a code on
the
keypad
. The north door opened.

Everyone walked
into
a
voluminous
, half-moon shaped room. It
reminded Samantha of an amphitheater. They followed Shields down
the steps, passing rows and rows of analyst workstations, housed on
semi-circular desks.

This was
a high-tech war room. None of the
equipment
was
powered
. All eyes
were drawn
to the curved,
50-foot-high video wall.
The
situation room also contained
numerous
flat-screen
monitors
and television sets. Digital clocks flashed the
time in Berlin, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Tehran, and Kabul. Like the
NSOC, a blue hue tinted the room.

“
With
a great deal of pride
, I’m
pleased to present to you…the SWARM Operations Center,” said the
General, theatrically.
“The SWARM
Op Center will be command central for Project SWARM, once we get
started.”

After allowing everyone an
opportunity to absorb the moment, the General continued to walk the
perimeter of the op c
enter, at the
bottom of the video wall. He opened a door to lead
everyone into another room.

“
And this is the Maze,”
said Lin, in a spirit of triumph.

The room was one-third the
size of a football field. General Shields led the SWARM team up
a
small
set of stairs onto a metal viewing platform. The platform
overlooked the Maze. It resembled something you’d stand on to watch
a middle school football game. Aside
from
the portion of the room containing
the viewing platform, the Swarmbot labyrinth filled the entirety of
the
room
.
The
plywoo
d walls were only knee-high. Most of the Maze was
white,
although
sections
had
different landscapes painted on them.

Samantha could see one
area of the Maze that
resembled
a desert. Another depicted a
forest floor. The Maze contained rocks and other barriers, like
blocks of wood and half-sized logs. Two, large lights were attached
to the far wall. They directly faced the viewing platform. One
was
red; the
other was green. The red light
was illuminated
.

Ken Sazuki, Hideki Sato,
and Chris Fischer removed their backpacks. They walked to various
spots in the
Maze. The team
pulled out translucent orbs. Each orb was the
size of a softball. Ken, although socially awkward, was the showman
of the group. He lifted a Swarmbot high over his head and said,
“Ladies and gentlemen of Defense Innovations Accelerator, I give
you the fourth generation Swarmbot.”

Everyone clapped. Samantha
counted 11 of the spheroid robots. Actually, upon closer
examination of each orb, two were bigger than the others.
The
outliers
were about the size of a little kid’s soccer ball, the kind
that
five-year-olds
use to fit the kick of their tiny
feet.

Samantha eyed the orb
closest to her.
Its
construction was of a
composition that
was
entirely
foreign;
it looked like
foggy glass or opaque crystal.
General Shields asked Samantha if she’d ever seen
a Swarmbot.

“
No. Ali has—he went to
the Swarmbot lab many times, but I’ve never seen them. They don’t
look like much.”

As Ken, Hideki, and Chris
were walking back up the stairs of the reviewing
stand; Hideki
overheard Samantha. “You know, that’s the problem. We can’t
figure out why were not billionaires right now. Swarmbots are a key
to the future of
warfare. But
no
one in the DoD will buy them. I’ve had
a General tell me, ‘What the hell are those? We don’t need any
robot balls—I’ve got all the
balls
I need.’”

Knowing she’d struck a nerve, Samantha
apologized.

“
Take heart boys,” said
the General. “Since I first saw them
at
the 24
^th
, your Swarmbots have gotten
better every
year.
Generals can be some of the most unimaginative
buffoons you’ll ever come across. They get paid
to
not
make mistakes
.
Taking a chance is akin to career suicide. Then, when they retire,
they won’t land as lucrative of a consulting job.

“
The first
unarmed
drones
flew in Viet Nam. The Air Force laughed at them for nearly 40
years. Why would anyone want a pilotless aircraft? Drones could
have played
an enormous role
in
the 1991 invasion of Iraq. Surely,
if
deployed in 1991, the drones
would have been quickly armed.

“
But no! Why would
you need a drone, when you had cruise missiles? Those were the same
cruise missiles we used in our numerous attempts to kill Bin Laden.
They failed every time. Then came 9/11. Finally, ten years after
they could have been deployed, armed drones saw action. Imagine if
a drone had killed Osama during the Clinton Administration. No
imagination leads to unnecessary deaths!

“
Boys, you’ve stuck with
your dreams. Your tenacity is a huge reason the Accelerator
invested in you. I can see Swarmbots changing the face of warfare,
especially wars against terrorism and
counter-insurgency.”

Ken gave an appreciative
nod to the
General. He
removed a tablet from his backpack. “We’re ready
when you are.”

General Shields reached for a green
button on the platform.

*

Since 7:30, Saul had been
briefing the 11 junior members of US CYBERCOM. They worked at
CYBERCOM
headquarters on
the
Fort. All of them were young hackers,
who should excel at video games. The all-male group
consisted
of
four Airmen, three Sailors, three Soldiers, and a
Marine.

Saul began the briefing by
reminding the men that this discussion
was classified
at TOP
SECRET//FOGGY. Saul told the servicemen that they were testers for
a new video game. The video game was fielded to teach SOCOM close
quarters combat techniques.

The Marine asked why the
NSA was interested in video games for SOCOM. Saul told the Marine
that he wasn’t at liberty to disclose that information.
Saul
explained
that too many questions, beyond the game
mechanics,
would trigger their
replacement. He reminded them that there were plenty of DoD
personnel that would love to be paid to test virtual reality video
games.