Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller

by B. Michaels

  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 ''''''''''' ''''' ''''''''''' '''''''''' ''''''''''''' the second largest in the IC, behind the ''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''' ''''' '''''''''''''''''

  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. '''''''''''' '''''''''' ''''''''''' ''''''''''''' '''''''''''''' '''''''''''''' ''''''''''' '''''' ''''''''''' '''''''' '''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''

  “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.”

  Chapter 18 – Separation

  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.

  Ali understood why Becca was upset. He just couldn’t do anything about it. He tried to convince Samantha to read Becca into SWARM, but to no avail.

  Becca confronted Ali. “I think you guys are using drones in REALSPACE, and you’re using a different game in GAMESPACE. My guess is that these drones are going to be used to kill people. Am I right?”

  Ali looked at Becca with compassion. “You know I can’t tell you what I’m doing. I like you Becca, but I’m not going to wear an orange jumpsuit for 10 years. Besides, I have no idea what’s going on in GAMESPACE.”

  “Well,” countered Becca, “let’s just think out loud. You saw the two Co-Founders of Velocity meet with Saul and Samantha. Saul’s got comments in his code about Velocity. This morning, I watched Saul and a bunch of soldiers go into the SCIF on this floor. You’ve got Swarmbot manuals all over your office. So it’s pretty clear. Our company is moving from gamification of cybersecurity to gamification of killer robots. And Samantha doesn’t trust me enough to tell me.”

  “Becca, I shouldn’t have left the manuals out. I was trying to meet a deadline. Go to the Swarmbot website. All they do is manufacture surveillance drones.”

  “Ali, if the drones aren’t weaponized yet, they will be soon.”

  Becca stormed back to her workspace. She grabbed her phone, hoping to see a text from Josh. ‘Good morning, LoveBug. Can I see you tday?’

  Becca texted back, ‘Sure. Lunch in the cafeteria?’

  Becca reviewed her inbox. There were two emails from Gecko Insurance. Everything else was unimportant. Becca didn’t want to read them. She opened Eclipse, the program she used to author source code. Becca looked at some Python code for the next hour. Then, she closed the Eclipse application. She was done.

  Samantha walked into her glass enclosure. She didn’t look in Becca’s direction. Becca shut her MacBook and followed her boss.

  *

  “We need to talk,” said Becca, austerely.

  Samantha asked Becca to sit down and close the door. This was another one of those times that Samantha wished that Gamification’s offices weren’t see-through.

  “Samantha, I’d like to give you my two weeks’ notice. I’m not happy here. Gamification Systems is moving in directions that I’m not comfortable with. I started working for you because I thought you’d mentor me. You’re a successful and talented woman. I wanted to learn from you. But, you haven’t been honest with me. I wasn’t imagining things. You didn’t even talk to me about our most important project. You told me this was an open, transparent environment—remember your glass office speech?

  “I’m grateful for this opportunity, but I’m going
to move on. Over the next two weeks, I’ll help you transition the Gecko relationship to someone else. I know I’m losing all my stock options. I don’t care.”

  There wasn’t anything for Samantha to say. She wasn’t shocked. She was sorry. She was upset with the General. And Samantha was mad at herself. Rebecca Roberts was her second best coder. She was her best employee in front of customers, even better than her VP of Sales. Samantha had tried in vain to convince Shields to assign Becca, at least to FOGGY. What would it hurt if she only worked in GAMESPACE?

  The General believed that Becca had the profile of someone who would disclose classified information. She’d either go to the press or upload it to a website, like WikiLeaks. Becca would call herself a whistleblower. General Shields would call her a traitor.

  *

  At 12:55 p.m., Josh arrived at the Accelerator’s sixth-floor conference room. This was CyberAI’s Demo Day for September.

  Josh unpacked his laptop and set up his PowerPoint. The General wouldn’t want to see a demo. There was only one slide that mattered. He hoped that the results would improve his relationship with the General. Since his fiery Sunday meeting in August, it hadn’t been the same.

  The General and Lin took a seat. After terse mutual greetings, Josh began his very upbeat presentation. He provided some technical background explaining his deep learning approach. He briefed the General on his success in using the NSA supercomputers. They helped to rapidly develop genetic algorithms for each layer of the neural network.

  As Josh approached his most significant slide, CyberAI’s CTO—Vish Kumar—joined the meeting. Josh was bewildered. While Josh, Vish, and the General always met for Board meetings; Josh conducted his monthly demo sessions solo.

  “Thanks for coming, Vish,” said the General. “Josh, I took the liberty of inviting Vish. I’d like him to attend all the demos going forward.”

  “Ok,” said Josh reservedly. He continued with the presentation. “General, I know this is the slide you care about.” Josh clicked his prompter to advance to the next slide. “We now recognize 92.7% of the cyber-events. Two months ago that number was 83%.”

  “Outstanding,” said the General. Lin also looked impressed.

  “Vish, what’s your reaction to that metric?” asked Shields.

  “Obviously, I think it’s wonderful,” said Vish, with his deep voice and Indian accent. “But, I’d like to take a look at the source code. Josh, I haven’t seen a commit from you since you started the deep learning stuff, about three months ago.”

  “Right, I forked the repository. I didn’t want any namespace collisions or other problems that might set us back. But, I’m going to merge the code soon.” This was a technical excuse that meant that Josh hadn’t put the source code in the CyberAI repository. The code was only available to him.

  Vish looked annoyed. “So, the code that has improved cyber-event recognition is on a forked source code repository on your laptop?”

  “Yea Vish,” said Josh, irritated. “Just like you, I do a lot of development from home. I back it up on a server in my apartment. Sometimes, it’s more convenient for me to do coding at home, where I’m not disturbed by the day-to-day issues of being a CEO.”

  General Shields jumped in. In a stern manner he asked, “Josh, you’ve been solely concentrating on using your new algorithms for cyber-events, right?”

  “Uh, yes.” Josh sensed that his answer was not definitive enough, so he added, “Can’t you tell by looking at the performance improvement?”

  After working through the rest of the presentation, General Shields adjourned the meeting.

  Josh was punctured. And on edge.

  *

  General Shields waited until Josh and Vish had cleared the room. He looked at Lin with a serious expression.

  “Lin, I think we have an issue with Josh. I’m going to need your help. The General shut the conference room door, and picked up the secure telephone. He placed a call to Phil Callahan at NSOC. General Shields told Phil he was dealing with an urgent matter.

  “Phil, I think one of the CEO’s at the Accelerator is going rogue. I want to know what Josh Adler is doing now, and what he’s done over the past three months. Assign only intel analysts that you completely trust to this tasking.

  “First, I want to examine the log files of the NSA supercomputers. Lin can give you the details regarding the dates and times of Josh’s usage. I think that’ll give us the clearest picture of what he’s up to. You should get some good selectors by examining the logs.

  '''''''''''''''' ''''''' ''''''''''''''''''''' '''''' '''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '' ''''''''''' ''' ''''''''''''' ''''''''' ''''''''' ''''''' '''''''''''' '''''''''' ''''''''''' '''''''''' ''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''' '''''''''''' '''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''' '''''' '''''''''' ''''''''''''' ''''''''''' ''''''''' ''''''''''''''''' ''''' '''''''''''''''''' '''''''''' ''''''''' '''''''''' ''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Make sure you also include the selectors you get from the supercomputer logs. I want to know every social media post: his likes, new friends, comments—everything. Give me all his call records, text messages, and credit card transactions.

  '''''''''''''' '' '''''''''''' '''''''' '''''' '''''''''' ''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''' ''''''' ''''''''''''''''''' ''''' '''''' '''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''' ''''''''''''''''''' ''''''''' '''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''' ''''''''''' I need this report and the CyberAI software by the close of your shift tomorrow morning. Call me tonight and give me an update.” TAO stood for Tailored Access Operations. It was the NSA’s name for its clandestine hacking operations.

  Phil said, “Yes, sir.” He added gingerly, “General, don’t we need a warrant?”

  “Dammit Phil,” barked Shields, “I’ve got a potential traitor here. I’m not trying to prosecute him; I’m attempting to protect the information. At this very moment, he might be giving away source code to China, Russia, or Israel.

  “Any one of those countries might use the information to start World War III. I don’t have time to get a warrant. Besides that, he’s got a clearance. I believe he’s an insider threat. That fact alone is sufficient justification for NSA counsel. Just get this done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  General Shields terminated the call. “Lin, I want you to kick off our plan to staff the SWARM Op Center 24/7 with our most talented analysts.”

  “Got it.”

  “Also, I need you to call Loreal & Hammer. Get them to draft a notice for a Board of Directors meeting for CyberAI. The bylaws allow for a board meeting to be called with a 24-hour notice. I want the documentation prepared. I want to be able to send the notice out tonight, if Phil’s update confirms my suspicions. That way, we can conduct the board meeting on Friday. And before I leave today, I need you to schedule a face-to-face meeting with Vish. Don’t invite Josh.”

  Lin inspected Shields. “General Shields, you’re sure about all this? You’ve been going Mach 1 since Dabiq-gate. You’re moving past the point of no return on this.”

  “Lin, I’m not in the mood for psychoanalysis. Just do what I’ve asked.”

  *

  It was early evening when Becca arrived at Josh’s apartment.

  “I’m sorry I had to cancel lunch,” said Josh. He looked discombobulated. “I don’t think you want to be seen with me. You still haven’t told anyone at work about us, right?”

  Becca laughed. “None of that matters anymore.”

  Josh looked confused. “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “No silly. I wanted to tell you in person, and not by text. I gave my notice today.”

  “What?” yelled Josh.

  Becca glanced at the apartment. Every time she came over, the place was messier. The book stacks were taller, and there were more empty pizza boxes. The books weren’t about programming or AI. There were piles for ancient Israel, the Bible, and the Ark. Middle East travel boo
ks were strewn across the coffee table.

  Since her last visit, Josh had thumbtacked a map of the Middle East to the kitchen wall, along with drawings of the Ark of the Covenant. Another stack sat tall on the dining room table. It contained books on learning Hebrew and Judaism. Judaism thought Becca, is Josh becoming Jewish? Since Josh was Jewish, she filed the thought in her illogical box.

  “Josh, you’re not going all Beautiful Mind on me here, are you?” Becca and Josh had recently watched the movie about the mathematician and cryptographer, John Nash.

  “I hope not,” replied Josh, emotionless. The imagery of the question caught him by surprise, elevating him above the situation for a moment. He looked around his apartment and seemed a bit shocked by the scene himself. He sighed deeply.

  “Becca, what did you mean? Notice for what?”

  “I quit my job so I could be your maid.” Becca laughed. “I’m kidding, but this place does look terrible. Anyway, you know how I’ve told you that weird things have been occurring at Gamification—that I’ve sensed that Gamification and the NSA were up to some crazy stuff? And, how Samantha has cut me out of the loop for the past few months? For the first time ever, I wasn’t even invited to Demo Day! Ali stood in for me. Today, it all came to a head.

  “I think Samantha is replacing Castle Chevaliers with Fog of War in GAMESPACE. In REALSPACE, I believe that the Gamers will control Swarmbots. If the Swarmbots aren’t lethal yet, I’m sure they will be soon. I don’t want any part of it. I was hired to create software for a gamification company, specializing in cybersecurity.”

  “They’re gamifying death?” asked Josh. What makes you think they are going to arm them? All of Swarmbot’s marketing indicates that they just sell surveillance drones.”

  “Josh, have you ever played Fog of War? It’s a first-person shooter. The goal of the game is to kill.”

  “You’re right.” He considered the situation for a moment. “Do you have a problem with the Swarmbots or the fact that Samantha didn’t trust you with the information?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Becca, laconically. “Probably both. It’s just so disappointing,” she stammered. “I took the job because I looked up to Samantha. We had a ton in common. I thought she could teach me so much. I worked really hard for her. I wanted to make Gamification a success. But she stopped trusting me. When I approached her to express my concerns, she tried to make me think I was going nuts.”