Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (23 page)

The G
amers
put on the VR
Headsets, equipped with neural controllers from Prosthetic
Thought.
This made
the headset look more like a
helmet,
than
oversized goggles
. The Prosthetic Thought controllers were supposed to scan
the
brainwaves
of the Gamers, and translate their brain patterns into motion
and action in the game.
This
allowed
for a much more realistic VR
experience, as Gamers wouldn’t have to move as much to influence
their VR characters.

Each Gamer
also held
two
wireless controllers. They were for backup, in case the thought
controllers failed. The Prosthetic Thought equipment was still
erratic. Saul was interested to see how everything would come
together in GAMESPACE and REALSPACE.

Gamification Systems’
Chief Architect gave the team time to practice moving around.
This
Fog of War
version
was not tied
to the Swarmbots in REALSPACE. After 20 minutes,
the team looked good. Saul could watch the Gamers’ point of view on
the flat screens attached to the SCIF’s wall.

“
Alright,” said Saul.
“When the green light goes on, all of you have a very simple task.
Guide your VR avatar through the Maze. Exit the other side. Walk in
a single-file line.”

Saul was a bit nervous. The last two
months were a whirlwind. He’d lost ten pounds and not slept for
more than three hours. How else was he supposed to respond when
General Shields told him that the fate of the nation was riding on
his technical skills?

Only Saul and Samantha
knew
the
full scope of the task. Saul was in charge of
integrating
Fog of War
and the Swarmbots,
with
G-Bridge. Ali assisted Saul by
working the Swarmbot side, in REALSPACE. But Ali didn’t know what
was on the other
end
in GAMESPACE. Saul knew Ali’s first assumption
was that
GAMESPACE
was Castle Chevaliers. But over time, the light
seemed to click. Ali kept mentioning meeting Velocity Studios’ key
management.

Saul felt
sorry
for Becca.
He couldn’t figure out why Samantha had not read her into FOGGY or
SWARM. Saul thought Samantha was underutilizing Becca. He really
could have used her help. She was
very bright
and determined.

“
Gentlemen, are you
ready?” yelled Saul.

*

General Shields depressed the green
button. “Here we go.”

Immediately, the red light
in the distance flipped
off,
and the green light flashed on. A
swipe of Ken
Sazuki’s
tablet animated
the Swarmbots. The spheroid drones looked alive.

They rolled slowly across
the room, from right to
left.
In a single-file line, they
headed towards the Maze exit, on the far left side of the
room
. The first
thing Samantha noticed was the deathly silence of the Swarmbots.
Even when they nudged a rock or log, there was no sound. “This is
like watching TV with no volume. How are they so quiet?” she asked,
in disbelief.

The second thing that
struck her was the
Swarmbot’s
tremendous agility. They
could start, stop, and rotate on a dime. In an
instant,
they could move in
any one of 360 directions. Each Swarmbot moved methodically and
independently.
Yet, as
they wheeled towards the end of the
Maze
, they
seemed to communicate with one another. “They’re like a
colony of ants, working for their queen,” exclaimed
Samantha.

“
I’ve been called worse
things than a queen,” laughed the General.

It was the first smile
Samantha had seen on General Shields’ face in weeks.
Within two minutes
, all the Swarmbots completed the
Maze. They
assembled at the
exit.

“
How fast do they go?”
asked Samantha.

Ken looked at the General
inquisitively. The General slightly shook his head no. “I can’t
disclose that precisely. I can tell you that they’d outrun
you.”

“
I don’t know, Ken.
I’m
pretty
fast, even in heels.” Ken lost himself for a second as he
gawked at Samantha’s
toned
legs.
Lin wasn’t the
only one who could work it
, thought
Samantha. Of course, Ken wasn’t tall, dark, or
Australian.

“
It’s as
if each one is looking at me. It’s eerie,” said
Lin.

General Shields chuckled. “I don’t
want them looking at you. I want them to look straight into the
eyes of Abu Mosulaydi.”

The Swarmbot executives
were all
smiles, even
though the demonstration seemed incredibly simple
to them. All Ken knew was that someone was remotely controlling the
Swarmbots. Ken
wasn’t read into
FOGGY; he didn’t know anything about
GAMESPACE.

Over the past five years,
Swarmbot’s CEO had seen this sight many times. First, was
the wild excitement
and promises.
This was
followed
by the disappointment of
unanswered calls and unreturned emails. The sales cycle for
Swarmbot in the DoD and IC was brutal. If it
weren't
for the law
enforcement market,
Swarmbot would
have gone bankrupt.

“
General,” Ali said, “it
went perfectly. I don’t know how it worked on the other end, but
in
REALSPACE, everything performed
smoothly.
”

General Shields pushed the red
button.

Ken, Hideki, and Chris
moved from the viewing platform, back into the Maze.
Each
reconfigured a different segment of the Swarmbot labyrinth.
The new Maze pattern allowed the 11 Swarmbots to
traverse
the
Maze, not in single-file, but as a team. Looking at the larger
Swarmbots, Samantha asked, “Why are those bigger?”

“
Oh, you’ll see,” answered
Shields, with a twinkle in his eye.

Within 10 minutes, the
Maze was
reconfigured. The
Swarmbot team was back standing on the viewing
platform. As Samantha’s eyes traveled the path of the
Maze,
she
spotted a dead end. A wall stopped progress in the middle of the
Maze.

“
How are the Swarmbots
going to get over that?” she asked, pointing to the
obstacle.

*

In GAMESPACE, the scenario
had gone just as well, although the Marine was
grating
on Saul. The
Leatherneck
asked, “What’s the big deal was about a first-person VR
shooter, in which we warriors,
simply
walk in a single-file line
through a maze?”

Saul informed the Marine
that
he
could leave whenever
he
wanted.

When the Marine asked when
he got to shoot something, Saul went ballistic. Saul told him to
leave. The Marine begged for forgiveness and asked to stay,
saying
, “If
that’s what it takes to keep America safe from terrorists, I’ll
walk through a maze all day long.
Hoorah
!”

I’d never make it as a
Marine
, thought Saul.

He told the Gamers
that the second scenario was more collaborative.
The Gamers were to work as a team to collectively
navigate the maze. “One team member’s
failure
is everyone’s failure,”
bellowed Saul. He tried to parrot General Shields as much as he
could.

*

Back in REALSPACE, the General was
close to hitting the green button again.

“
Ken, are you guys ready?”
asked the General. “We’re going to see some magic on this run,
right?”

“
Yes, sir.” Ken gave his
command tablet to Chris Fischer.

9:20 a.m. (EDT), Wednesday, September
30, 2020 – Columbia, MD

The Maze,
Sixth-Floor SCIF, Defense Innovations
Accelerator

The General hit the button to initiate
the second demo. Chris Fischer swiped his tablet.

In the next instant, the
Swarmbots were imbued with fluorescent coloring. The
nine
softball
size Swarmbots glowed neon red. One of the soccer ball size
Swarmbots was
green; the
other was yellow.

“
For this portion of the
demo,” said Chris, “we’ve configured the adaptive camouflage of the
Swarmbots for different colors. It’ll help you follow the action
better.”

The red Swarmbots stacked
up in three rows, of three
across.
The jumbo-sized
green and yellow Swarmbots
completed a rear row. The Swarmbot collections spun forward. Rocks
impeded the some of the drone’s paths. These Swarmbots spaced
themselves
appropriately
. As they moved through
the Maze,
they easily
worked their way around the barriers.

“
We call that the Rushing
Water Move. It reminds me of water, flowing
by
a submerged branch in a
stream,” said Chris. Chris knew that the demo got more exciting as
it progressed. Fischer joined Swarmbot after their jump in revenue
from law enforcement. Chris resigned from Marvel Defense
Systems to join Swarmbot.
A
t Marvel, Chris was Chief Engineer for
the Marauder line of remotely piloted aircraft.

The Marauder was a cash cow for
Marvel. Chris spent his free time working on mini-drones. But
Marvel was more interested in ever-larger, more powerful, more
lethal, and more expensive drones. The mini-drones Chris pursued
were biologically inspired—the size of birds initially. Chris kept
engineering smaller and smaller drones. His ultimate vision was to
build robots based on nanotechnology.

Ken and Hideki
convinced
Chris
to jump ship. They told him he’d be in complete control of the
fourth generation—4Gen—Swarmbot platform. Ken and Hideki said
they’d continue to market 3Gen to SWAT teams. Chris was tasked to
make 4Gen more compelling to the DoD and IC markets.

This promise of total
control over 4Gen was
important
to
Chris. He
knew that Ken and Hideki
had a
profound
aversion to weaponizing the Swarmbots. They wanted the
drones
to work just as an advanced
ISR platform
.

Chris knew this was naïve.
Though he had complete control,
many
arguments still ensued about
enabling the Swarmbots to prosecute kill missions. Despite
the
disagreements
, Chris fashioned 4Gen to
include lethality modules. Chris sounded like a broken record, as
he told Ken and Hideki,
“Drone sales only
took off when we made them capable of launching
missiles.”

The lethality modules were
only one of the many modifications that Chris
made
to the 4Gen Swarmbot
platform. At the General
’s urging, Chris
met with Flashcharge. They had
a
standing
meeting at the Accelerator twice
a week. Shields directed Chris to incorporate
Flashcharge’s
wireless
charging capabilities into the 4Gen’s batteries.

One of the conditions of
the Accelerator’s $6.75M
investment
was that Swarmbot promised
to market
4Gen only to the United States’
DoD and IC,
for a period of
five years—no sales to non-US
entities
.

Ken negotiated a provision
to nullify the agreement if sales from the US DoD or IC didn’t
materialize within two years from the time that 4Gen was
‘commercially available.’ He also haggled hard
with the General to allow Swarmbot to sell to Australia. Ken had
high-placed contacts in that country.

But, the General was adamant. He was
investing a substantial amount of US taxpayer dollars. No foreign
country, even if they were a member of the Five Eyes, was going to
benefit from the investment.

In fact,
any TOP SECRET//FOGGY or TOP SECRET//SWARM
document was always marked NOFORN.
This meant
that only properly cleared
United States
citizens could
access
FOGGY or SWARM
information.

The three red Swarmbots
on
point, that is the three
Swarmbots in the very front,
came to the
wooden
obstacle
in the Maze. All red Swarmbots stacked up. They
looked like eggs, in a
three-rowed
egg carton.