Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (24 page)

The green and yellow
Swarmbots rolled over their smaller brethren, with the green
Swarmbot on the right leading the way. As the green Swarmbot hit
the barrier, it
started
to roll up
the
wall
. At the same time, the yellow
Swarmbot came from
behind
and
nudged
the green Swarmbot. It fell over
the wall onto the other side. All of this occurred in absolute
silence. Even when the green Swarmbot dropped to the other
end
of the
barrier, there was no noise.

In GAMESPACE, Saul watched the Marine
help an Airman over a brick wall.

The smaller Swarmbots
rotated to form a single-file line,
which seemed
linked together. The
yellow Swarmbot moved to the back of this
connected
line.

Samantha asked, “How do
they become one like that? Is it magnets?” Chris
smiled. He
shook
his head no.

There was a single red
Swarmbot, now on point. It rolled back from the barrier and on top
of the Swarmbot behind him. Now, he was no longer making contact
with the ground. The lead, red orb
completely
supported itself on the
Swarmbot underneath him. This process repeated
itself,
until the Swarmbots
looked like a dancing piece of rope.

“
That’s our Cobra Move,”
said Chris, building his excitement up for the
crescendo.

Now, five red Swarmbots
were
stacked
on top of each other.
They
stood
straight
in the air. The other
four
remained on the
ground,
in a single-file line.
They
were anchored
by the larger, yellow
Swarmbot. It surprised Samantha that, apart from the different
coloring, the 10 Swarmbots moved as
one
. It was as if the individual
Swarmbots had melted together.

The
cobra
Swarmbot moved
forward. It began crawling over the barrier. The head of the Cobra
then linked to green Swarmbot,
which had
climbed over the
wall
earlier.
Now, he was the head. The green Swarmbot drove aggressively
forward, pulling all the other Swarmbots over the wall. The snake
with a green head, red body, and yellow
tail
finished the Maze.

In GAMESPACE, the Gamers
were all
ascending
a long ladder.

“
Wow!” exclaimed Samantha.
“How’d they do that, Chris?”

Chris laughed and said reservedly,
“They did that because that’s what your system led them to
do.”

“
Now, we’re moving to
the
finale
,” shouted Ken.

“
So
obviously
,” said Chris
“you’ve heard—or should I say, not heard—our sound suppression
technology. When sound
suppression
is active, Swarmbots are
nearly silent. I’m going to show you the ISR capabilities of the
green Swarmbot.” He swiped his tablet and passed it around. The
thin computer displayed the video feed, from the green Swarmbots’
point of view.

“
That’s creepy,” said
Lin.

“
I can’t wait to use these
things on the Caliphate,” crowed the General. The tablet screen
also contained a dashboard with numerous graphs and charts.
This included
real-time air pressure, temperature, and soil
composition.

Chris continued, “We
completely redesigned the innards of the 4Gen Swarmbots to be much
more modular. We can
outfit
them
with a configurable array of
surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, including
thermal imaging
and
360-degree
facial recognition.

“
It can also
house
a bevy of
hacking tools. Or, you could use it to laser-paint targets for fire
support. Paint the target and then boom, here comes the artillery
or missile. Another option is to use its acoustics package to
geo-locate gun fire. And remember, you don’t need to endanger any
serviceman or woman to perform any of these tasks.

“
But, my favorite feature
is this.” Chris swiped the tablet again. “Watch the green and
yellow Swarmbots.” Chris depressed a virtual button on the tablet.
The larger, green and yellow Swarmbots unlinked, and spun ahead of
the red Swarmbots. Then they stopped. Their sides seemed to
cave in
on
themselves,
until the orb was now a half-circle. This action
revealed a platform on each Swarmbot. There was something on the
platform, but it was hard to make out. Immediately,
that
something
rose from the platform.
It
started
flying across the room.

Chris looked directly at Shields,
“Here’s your mini-drone, General.”

Lin gasped. Both of the
mini-drones flew over to the viewing platform and
hovered
. The
mini-drones were the size of
a
large
insect. The beating of the
Swarmbot’s
wings
sounded exactly like a dragon-fly.

Chris looked at the flying Swarmbot’s
with satisfaction.

“
They can fly for
90
minutes,
before they need a charge from their
mother
Swarmbot. My next big goal
is to outfit them with a Flashcharge battery. Then the mini-drone
Swarmbots will be
charged
by
microwaves
, just like the other
Swarmbots.”

The flying Swarmbots
darted across the room for several minutes. They returned to the
platform on their host Swarmbot. The two jumbo Swarmbots’
sides
raised. Now, they were
full-orbs
again.

In GAMESPACE, two of the
Airman released
backpack-sized
drones. The drones
hovered in front of their target, before
returning
to the Airmen’s
hands.

“
And now, for the grand
finale,” yelled Ken, enthusiastically. All the Swarmbots moved
forward for a few seconds. With another swipe of Chris’
tablet,
they completely
disappeared.

Lin shrieked, “Where’d they
go?”

“
They’re still there,”
beamed Chris.

Samantha and Lin
completely
freaked
out
. Lin started swatting imagined buzzing
insects from her face. After about a minute, all the Swarmbots
reappeared on the other end of the Maze. “Holy…,” said Samantha.
“How’d you do that?”

“
It’s magic,” replied
Chris, “the magic of adaptive camouflage. It makes them nearly
invisible.”

General Shields punched the red
button.

*

General Shields asked the
Swarmbot team to meet him
in
the SCIF conference room. He nodded
to Samantha. Samantha thanked Ali for his hard
work,
and told him that
he
wasn’t needed
for the follow-on meeting. After Ali had
left
, the
General
instructed
Lin to be on the lookout for Saul.

Once in the conference
room, General Shields told everyone that he was pleased with the
results. He praised the efforts of the Swarmbot and Gamification
team. Saul and Lin strode into the conference room. Both Samantha
and General Shields surveyed Saul’s facial expression. He smiled
and
bobbed
his head. It was clear that everything had, at the very
least, gone satisfactorily in GAMESPACE.

General Shields stared
intently at the two Co-Founders of Swarmbot. “Gentlemen, I’ve known
you for a long time. I think you’re well on the way to being
very
wealthy
men. In fact, I want to help you do that. I’d like to order
75 Swarmbots for $100M. I want to spread that payment over a
two-year
period.” The total budget of the NSA in 2020 was $18B; the
second largest in the IC, behind the CIA’s budget of
$19.5B

Samantha’s jaw dropped. “What about
Gamification Systems?” she blurted out.

The General smiled. “Samantha, I’ll
place my order later.” Samantha just shook her head in
disbelief.

The General turned his attention back
to Ken and Hideki. “I know you’ve both made great personal
sacrifices to launch your company and build your dream. It’s going
to change the face of warfare. I think Swarmbots are going to have
a key military role, just like remotely piloted aircraft. But I
need something from you to proceed.”

Chris Fischer already knew what the
General was going to say.

“
I need,” said the
General, slowly, “…no—
your
country needs—you to weaponize the
Swarmbots.”

Ken didn’t look surprised.
He’d had these conversations on many occasions with Chris. But he
tried to push back. “General Shields, Swarmbots are the most
sophisticated ISR platforms on the planet. They can provide you
with facial recognition. They can hack Wi-Fi. They don’t make a
noise. They can hide in plain sight. Chris is working on a
DNA
processing
option
. You have everything you need. With
4Gen, you have all we’ve ever promised to you—even a
mini-drone.”

Chris exploded. “Ken, how
do you see
through
those rose colored glasses of yours? I’ve told
you from the
get-go,
if you want to sell to the DoD, you need to
weaponize the Swarmbots. What’s the difference between these two
scenarios? Swarmbots provide ISR regarding the location of a
terrorist. That ISR leads to a lethal drone strike. Or, Swarmbots
kill or incapacitate a terrorist.

“
By the way, let me tell
you a dirty little secret about Hellfire missiles from a Marauder.
They cause a lot of collateral damage. More than that, we’re
killing people based on their cell phone metadata. We’re
bombing
mobile
phones.

“
Swarmbots can prosecute
night raids, targeting only one person. Hell, they don’t even need
the cover of night. Soldiers
stay
safely behind the lines
. If Swarmbots need
to
kill,
they can. If they need to
listen,
they can. If they need
to
incapacitate,
they can do that too. Our company’s biggest
market is the DoD and IC. If you want any sales to these markets,
you must weaponize Swarmbots.”

Tears spilled down Ken’s
cheeks. “Chris, my great-grandmother was irradiated to death at
Hiroshima. My great-grandfather was a kamikaze pilot. My
grandfather nearly starved to death in
post-World War II
Japan. I
understand war. I understand technology. I’m a second-generation
American. I want to protect, and not kill. Weaponizing these drones
is a point of no return.

“
Do I have to go down in
history as
that
guy? You and I both know—someday soon—you aren’t going to
need a tablet or joystick to control Swarmbots. Can I live with the
fact that I’m the father of autonomous…silent…invisible…killer
robots?”

The room remained hushed for a few
moments.

Then, the very shy Hideki
spoke up. The room got even quieter, so everyone could hear his
hushed voice. “If you’re the
father, then
I’m the mother. You
can’t
protect,
if you refuse to kill. We’ve both given our lives for
Swarmbot. You’re divorced. I’m getting a divorce. I don’t know my
kids. I could go on and on. If we don’t do this, someone else will.
That’s something I can’t live with—that all of our
sacrifices
were
a waste.”

For his part, General
Shields was respectful. He let the drama play out. Then he
said,
“
Ken, I understand your position. But war has caused loss all
over the world. My family has experienced
profound
sorrow. Can you imagine
if a lethal Swarmbot was available when the Caliphate took my son?
Before his head
was
separated
from his body and broadcast to
the entire world; your Swarmbots could’ve eradicated Charlie’s
murderers. If you guys need time, that’s fine. But my purchase is
contingent upon you demonstrating kill and incapacitate features in
the 4Gen Swarmbots.”

9:50 a.m. (EDT), Wednesday, September
30, 2020 – Columbia, MD

Suite 201, Gamification
Systems’ Offices,
Defense Innovations
Accelerator

Ali tried
to casually sneak
into his
office
. If only he were a Swarmbot.
He’d be in full active camouflage mode. But nothing could hide him
from Becca. She scowled at Ali. Just months ago, they were good
friends. Now, Becca felt forsaken by someone she went out of her
way to help. Ali’s coding skills were
sub-par,
until Becca coached him
up. Becca felt she’d trained her replacement.