by Scott Sibary
Solveig felt an arm stretch around her. She returned Lars’s embrace, then moved to give a hug to Mishuang.
Out in the hallway, several people had congregated around AnDe. Solveig went past them and into Room 3, where that group prepared scenarios to test how well the AI applied the vital codes. She found herself caught in an embrace between Rolv and Stig.
When they let her go, Rolv said, “You know not to take this one hundred percent? Until we’ve run our scenarios, we won’t know that this truly works.”
“Of course.”
She went to Room 2, where that group monitored the response of the immune system to the inputs from Rooms 1 and 3.
Reidar guided her inside, one hand pressing lightly on her upper back.
Per and another man were watching their screens. They appeared perplexed.
“Those two are still concerned,” Reidar said. “They want to check whether the immune system might have made a mistake or only temporarily accepted the Lock and codes.”
“Yes, OK. Either way, we’re running scenarios in a few minutes, as soon as the next room is ready.”
She entered the hallway and approached AnDe. The people around him stepped aside.
“You’ve got a look of confidence” AnDe said. “Do you trust this acceptance as complete? As real?”
“If it’s coherent.”
“Coherent?”
“It’s real if it comports well with a coherent picture of what’s going on. You’ve heard me say that before. It’s the way I keep from being fooled.”
He looked doubtful. “I suppose. Only,” he gave a quick shake of his head, “it feels like I’m hearing it for the first time.” He blinked, then his eyes widened.
“I hope that look doesn’t mean you disagree,” she said. He looked as though she had triggered fireworks in his mind. “We’ll see what happens in the scenarios.”
AnDe seemed to calm as he turned away. He raised his voice for everyone in the hallway and work rooms to hear: “Room 3 will begin the scenarios in ten minutes.”
Solveig strode to the restroom at the end of the hallway and reached for the handle. Her arm dropped as she read “occupied” on the little red sign. While other project members headed out of the suite to the building’s main hallway, she stood her turn at the unisex restroom. She faced the two brass letters: “WC.” They had acquired a faint tarnish, making them seem like they belonged there.
The door opened, and the man who had grunted and left quickly from her table appeared.
I’ve never noticed him to be the first one to rush to the loo, she thought. Was it just the excitement, or some other reason?
When she came back out of the restroom, Reidar was waiting at the door.
As they passed, she asked, “Do you think the restroom is insulated and sterilized from monitoring and communication?”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Do you have a way of checking?”
“No.” He went inside.
A few minutes later AnDe addressed the teams.
“Everyone ready? Let’s commence!”
As the others returned to their tables in the conference rooms, Solveig remained nearby with a view into Room 1. AnDe seemed the museum guard in an empty gallery, waiting for his tea break: a man both bored and anxious. Arms folded, he began to pace back and forth. His freshly shined shoes squeaked.
A murmur rose from Room 3, where Rolv could be seen holding up an arm and announcing, “We’re still getting the results. They look good.”
“We will analyze this thoroughly,” AnDe announced to Room 3 and to others who had come to cram at its doorway. “You all know we need to verify by running more difficult scenarios in the coming weeks. But this morning should give us confidence. If we find no problems this afternoon, we will have a preliminary celebration tonight.”
Wine from the cafeteria’s stock flowed freely throughout the evening celebration. The nineteen project members sat at three tables forming an arc. On the back wall hung four crepe paper ribbons like theatrical curtain trim: red, yellow, white, and blue. Solveig and AnDe sat beside each other at the central table, in front of the ribbons. It seemed to her that the color mix was drawing a few suspicious looks.
AnDe led a formal toast to everyone’s efforts at persevering. He invited all to engage in their own toasts, then sat down to watch the ensuing chaos. A person would stand up and walk with ceremonious steps to a colleague, then propose a toast in gratitude to that person. Chinese custom required that one not cross the path of anyone else who was en route or returning. Solveig saw Rolv stall as he approached what resembled a traffic jam, give up, go back to his seat, and motion to the seated Chinese colleague he had wanted to visit.
She erupted with giggles, then quieted. When Rolv was alone again, she rose from her seat and wound her way over to him.
He stood up. “Honestly,” he said, “I should come over to you. We all should.”
“I couldn’t have done my part without you.”
“Oh?”
“Without your help, your leadership, on matters I’ve had difficulty with. I wanted to say I appreciate it.”
“You’re wiser than you give yourself credit for. You let each of us fulfill our duty as we see it.”
Too choked up to continue, she headed back to her seat
An hour later, a tiered cake was rolled in for the dessert. She stood, feet well apart, holding a bottle of champagne she’d bought at lunchtime. AnDe stood beside her, holding his own bottle of Chinese sparkling wine. They each buried their attention in unwinding the wires around the corks.
Out of the corner of her eye, Solveig saw AnDe’s deputy, Project Manager Chongxiao, sit up with a sudden, reflexive jerk of his torso. He glanced under the table and whispered something to Stig, who was sitting next to him.
Stig responded with a quick double take, then reached into a bag by his feet. Holding a bouquet of flowers, he stalked around the table towards Solveig.
The room went silent in anticipation of the release of restrained corks, and as Stig thrust the bouquet at her, Chongxiao sprung to his feet and announced loudly, “Congratulations on the marriage of two systems for a new intelligence! May the union be fruitful!”
The popping noise and suggestive foaming from the bottles led to more of the same sort of joke. The need for restraint gone, Solveig let herself bubble like the short-lived foam in her glass. To wild applause, she clowned in the role of a mother holding a device with wires as a computer baby up at her breast. She returned the grins and laughs. Only Per and Reidar appeared unable, or unwilling, to join in the hilarity.
As Solveig got into bed that night, celebratory images spun like a merry-go-round. Visages, faces, expressions, sometimes only a pair of examining eyes would pop up around her and drop down again. AnDe’s face reappeared several times, reminding her that at some point they would have to work out a schedule together and finalize a formal report. It would include the last critical items on her agenda: recommendations on who would control access to the Protection Lock, and who should be appointed to the implementation team that would install the World Electronic Analyst. Faces of bureaucrats, politicians, and heads of state rose and sank on the merry-go-round. Others would decide, decide, decide.
Her swollen head was jostled with each swerve of the ambulance, and its ringing siren kept stabbing into her ears. Sweating and delirious, she strained to ask AnDe to tell the driver to turn it off. But her voice would utter no sound, and AnDe would not turn to face her. Her eyes widened as she saw his head turn into a lamp shade, and the dials of the equipment in the ambulance became the clock on her nightstand. It read 01:46, and the ringing that had been the siren continued.
“It’s the secure line?!” she said aloud as she reached for her phone.
It was the chief of security at the embassy. “Sorry to disturb you. We need you to come to the embassy as soon as possible. We’re sending a car for you. Could you be ready in about fifteen minutes?”
> “Yes,” she said, her voice gasping.
“Good. Someone will call at your building door. Thanks.”
She still had a pounding headache. It had been cheap wine, containing too much sulfite, the stuff the cafeteria had served. Solveig forced her zombie feet out of bed, forgetting about her headache until she stood up: a step, a half step, then stopping to take measure of her condition. Maybe she had time to make a cup of the strong but stale coffee she kept.
She hadn’t quite finished the cup when an embassy guard rang at her building door. He escorted her to the vehicle, her feet not feeling the reluctance of her heart. From her rear seat Solveig looked out the window, searching for the dark of night barely detectable between the building lights. Vehicle headlights and street lights kept crossing her view, coming close, assaulting her like questions during an interrogation.
She turned to the guard sitting beside her in his neatly pressed uniform. The upper buttons on his jacket sparkled as they passed under street lights.
“Can you tell me anything?”
The guard shook his head. “The chief of security will be able to.”
She had stewed on the mystery long enough, letting it simmer until the pot had boiled dry, leaving a residue of one suspect. Meanwhile, she had let others do the work of ferreting out the culprit. Now it was obvious they had found him. His exposure would spoil images that could have proved heroic and dash hopes for something that might have turned romantic.
She leaned back, closed her eyes, and found the reprieve she sought. When they reached the embassy her eyes opened, her gaze more alert and intense.
As they entered the building the chief of security was waiting to greet her. His voice was formal but tense.
“Thanks for coming so quickly.” He led her past a portrait of the king and down a hallway to a door with a guard posted outside. The guard opened the door for her.
One guard stood just to the left as she entered and another against the opposite wall. Seated at one end of the table was the deputy ambassador. At the other end sat Per.
Solveig took the seat just inside the door, and the chief sat across the table. Her surmise had been correct. She sat expressionless while the chief recounted what had happened.
Chinese security had kept their usual multi-point surveillance from outside the residence and had seen Per, at about midnight, stepping out, dressed as he usually would when going to a club. He crossed over the avenue to a taxi loading zone, but declined the taxi that came by and instead got into the next car that pulled up. The remote surveying agent noted the car had a British diplomatic plate.
Solveig noticed that as the chief spoke, Per sat unmoved and glowering at her. She examined his face, numb to his stare in the nighttime semi-reality.
The chief said a tail was ordered for the vehicle by Chinese security, and police near the British embassy were alerted. But the vehicle then headed for the US embassy. Police were almost too late to intercept it before it reached the protected grounds. Officials from the American embassy argued that Per was seeking asylum and could not be touched while in a car with diplomatic plates, but the police refused to budge. When the chief arrived, the standoff ended with Per being released into his custody.
Per leaned back in his seat and stared at the ceiling as the chief recited the information Per had confessed to disclosing.
“Dr. Nilsen has admitted to giving information to contacts he has in British and US intelligence. He says he told them that your Protection Lock for the vital codes has the offensive capability to create new viruses that might be able to take down any AI system that communicates with it.” The chief went on to give details about what Per had said, then asked Solveig, “Could you give us your thoughts on these disclosures. How significant are they?”
“It’s not an offensive weapon. For the Lock to protect the vital codes, it needs to fend off any attempt to interfere with their operation, all while the vital codes guide the main system. That way the Lock can guarantee the vital codes are adhered to.”
Per’s voice shot his words at Solveig. “It’s not just a shield!” Then he turned to the chief. “I understand these things. Her Protection Lock has given the Chinese operating system a formidable ability to disable other systems, maybe even take them over, like mutations leading to cancer.”
Solveig turned to the deputy ambassador. “Learning is an essential aspect of intelligent algorithms. They have to analyze what is being received. That means they must compare it to what they already have experience with, and then make assessments of it. In doing so, they also determine how to deflect back any attacking algorithms from a hostile system. It’s more like causing a malignant tumor to self-destruct.”
“Oh!” Per let out as he rolled his eyes. “So much for your so-called pacifism.”
“Dr. Kleiveland,” the deputy ambassador said, “we asked you to come in to help us with any issues that might be urgent. These disclosures could be embarrassing for our country if it looks like we are joining in the development of an unfriendly system. The disclosures might cause a loss in support for the World Council. And there may be other complications. You understand what I mean?”
Solveig understood that she herself could be blamed for the “complications.” Her sleep-deprived mind blurred, and she imagined herself targeted by a masked opponent: someone whose arrows were tipped with the poison of guilt. She wished she knew what martial arts might fend off the psychological assassin. She might well be blamed if the mission was dropped and the Chinese figured out how to turn her design into an aggressive weapon.
Then she remembered the advice AnDe had given her in the hospital. She discarded the imaginary scene to see herself safely working in the present, the future yet to be dealt with, and the past as gone.
Whatever had been disclosed was already in the hands of others, and, thanks to her, Per had no idea of the more critically secret aspects of her design. So what if the British and Americans had a jump on learning a few design specifics, embarrassing or not? One might as well beg some Lord of Time to set the clocks back. At some point, the insights Per disclosed would have had to come out and be dealt with by the diplomats.
She leaned forward, stared at her hands resting on the table, and let out a long, soft, “Hmmm.” Raising her head, she said in a calm voice, “Perhaps it’s better if they do know.”
The deputy ambassador lifted her eyebrows, and the chief sat more upright. Per cocked his head.
“Maybe,” Solveig added with a painful smile, “they’ll feel more comfortable with what they know. They’ve been leery of this project for the same reasons we have. The leaked information might convince them that the protections we’re building into this system, the codes and the Lock, really do work. The leak might help keep the US supportive of the World Council project.”
“Maybe,” said the deputy ambassador. “The other concern is whether the information revealed vulnerabilities to our system or gave advantages to competing systems.”
“Gave useful information to competing systems, maybe; revealed vulnerabilities, no. If he did any damage, it would have been in slowing our progress. Now we’re past that.”
The chief and the deputy ambassador sighed like people who had been told that their injured family member will fully recover.
Solveig addressed the deputy ambassador, “May I ask Per a few questions? I might not see him again.”
“Certainly.”
Solveig turned to face him. “Per, don’t you believe we’re working for the right cause, towards a better world?”
“Oh, you’re incredibly naïve!” he said. “We have a moment of peace now only because the world is still shaken up. It will soon be back to the old games of power politics. And here you all go, helping a power that is against what we stand for.” He shot an angry look at each person seated at the table.
“You think that’s what we’ve been doing here? You think the Chinese are so different?” Solveig asked.
“We don’t go execu
ting people,” he shouted, “violating their rights, controlling their lives, suppressing cultural differences by torturing masses of people in ‘re-education’ camps and making clones out of our citizens! And we don’t destroy our natural heritage; we protect it!”
The chief reached a hand towards Per’s shoulder, but Per fended him off and then went quiet.
Solveig was about to say that Per’s argument worked on a spectrum, and that both countries did bad things, just to different degrees and in different ways; but she quickly abandoned that reasoning, partly because it was slippery, and partly because she mostly agreed with him.
“Couldn’t another round of war be the last for everyone in the world?” she said. “Isn’t that the point? Aren’t there enough problems from increased violence in the weather? From rising sea levels? Don’t you think those threats demand global cooperation?”
More arguments arose like bubbles in water about to boil, but she switched course. “Per, how can you put your own judgment above what our people, through our government, have decided? Why sabotage? Why defect? Why didn’t you simply decline to participate?”
“Because inaction in the face of an imperative is wrong! You above all should understand that. And you’ve driven me to it. You’re creating hidden dangers: possibilities that no one else fully understands. I might not know precisely what it is, but coupled with their Great Wall, your Lock could disable any system attempting to interfere with it.”
“It’s not coupled; it’s designed to prevent—” she began to argue, but he cut her off.
“You are the traitor, drawn in by the opposition. Maintaining vigilance is the only way to peace. Don’t you see who is like us and who isn’t? We cannot trust an autocratic, blindly obedient culture!” His face had become red and bloated. The pitch in his voice rose as he gestured, and a gust of his sour breath came chokingly around her. She recoiled.
“Can’t you tell our natural allies?” His barrage continued. “Don’t you know many in our country, our military, our security services, maybe even people in this room wish we were still part of NATO? You fool! Do you think you can get away with sleeping with the enemy?”
