Mark, the Slimeball.
Apolonia, my botoxed blonde.
The billions, the newspaper headlines, my projects that were going to change the world…
Who were my allies, who were my enemies?
I was slipping, sliding, unable to grab ahold of anything.
Breathe, breathe slowly, calm down,
Count, think about each number.
There had to be a solution.
There’s always a solution, a path, even if it is small and narrow.
I let a few long minutes pass to clear my head…
There wasn’t one path, but two that came to mind.
I felt myself at a crossroads.
A terrifying crossroads.
Because the two paths stretched out in front of me both seemed filled with pain and sorrow.
On one path was the Leo from before. If I were to take this route, I would have to return to the way that it was before. I only had to soak up the profiles and online comments in front of me to understand this Leo, the one who everyone knew. A boy so twisted that it shouldn’t even be that difficult. I could pick up the habit without a flinch and everything would go back to the way that it was before.
With time I could even hope to become exactly who I was.
But at what price?
Could I keep on playing this role without going mad?
On the second path, there was…. a phantom, barely solid.
The Leo I was today.
A Leo who still totally needed to be invented.
A Leo who would be a foreign body in his old environment, who risked being rejected, facing degradation…
How long before I decide to throw it all away? Or before the Board throws me out of my own company?
I set down my laptop and turned toward the large teakwood terrace over the ocean. Outside a light breeze was blowing, bringing me gently back to my senses, to this badly wounded body that had chosen this path in life. For what strange reason?
Suddenly, the wind started blowing furiously.
Like a sign that the storm was picking up.
A storm that I would have to face with everything I had, with even more than I knew that I had.
A storm that would force me to face all of the phantoms of my past life and all the ones of the future.
The wind blew harder.
The powerful gusts were sweeping across my face and the sky started rumbling.
I raised my head but saw no clouds.
Was I hallucinating? But the gusts were becoming unbearable and I had to cover my ears to keep them from bursting from the deafening roar.
This was no storm.
This was the expression of something more human.
I walked to the edge of the teakwood terrace, turned around and looked up above the house.
“Leo Cameron? Leo Cameron? Do you have just a minute to answer a few questions?”
The famous Channel 4 helicopter was stationed just a few yards above my house! And the star anchor, Christopher Herman, was hanging on the edge of the helicopter wearing a three-piece suit and helmet with a sport camera attached and gripping a giant megaphone.
What a scoop for the news channel! I was now live in front of three million viewers.
My heart raced with the surge of noise and excitement and I stood motionless in front of the flying monster. I felt like a deer in the headlights, incapable of making even the smallest movement.
The helicopter had now passed over the roof and was hovering over my head, just a few yards away.
“Leo Cameron? Don’t you think that it’s about time to make an official statement? To admit that this is nothing but a huge scam and to return the money to your millions of small shareholders?”
Here was a guy who had decided to literally walk on my head. Or on the head of the old Leo Cameron, the asshole who must have certainly spit in his face in a televised interview.
Starting a debate with this individual on the reality of my project was out of the question. It would also be useless to try to convince him that I was not the same guy I was before; given that I still wasn’t sure myself who I was.
So I made the most stupid gesture that came to me.
A gesture that I instantly regretted, but one that I must have made thousands of times before, it felt so natural.
I gave Christopher Herman, Channel 4 and its three million viewers…
The middle finger.
Then I ran back into the shelter of the house to find the only person who could help me get out of this diabolical situation: Eve.
Headquarters of NewMind Inc.
Executive Boardroom
Mark was on edge and constantly patting down a long rebellious strand that had escaped from his slicked back hair. For the last half hour, he had been facing the fury - there was really no other word for it - of ten members of the Board and the sweat was ruining his hair masterpiece.
He and Leo had successfully brought together the crème de la crème of Silicon Valley to launch their project: the initial investors of Google, the directors of Facebook, Twitter, Apple. The project was thus born under the best auspices, endowed with $200 million in capital from the start. A mere six months later, the stock market listing brought in another $500 million. The future was very bright and prosperous for Mark, who was virtually a billionaire.
With this money, they had been able to construct the top security headquarters where they were meeting right now. A bubble of glass and ultra-modern metal, 85 yards long and 33 yards high, straight out of a science fiction movie, the building produced its own energy and had electro-luminescent walls that could display images both inside and outside. A safe haven for the hundreds of top engineers that they had recruited to produce and program the different pieces of the puzzles that Leo had envisioned.
At the top of the bubble were their offices and the large Executive Boardroom. Leo had wanted this room to be an exact reproduction of the SPECTRE Boardroom in the classic James Bond movie Operation Thunder. A large metal table 22 yards long, circled by black leather desk chairs from the 1960s. In this legendary film, all the board members who are against SPECTRE are either struck down in their seat or see the ground disappear under their feet, thrown to the mercy of a tank of crocodiles. Leo, who had no respect for his investors, found the image hilarious, considering that his ideas were going to make them richer than their wildest dreams and that they were the ones who should be honored to be shareholders in his revolutionary project.
Standing in front of this pack of wolves, Mark felt a crazy desire to push the button and send the directors to the crocodiles.
But unfortunately, things were not as simple as they were in Operation Thunder.
He had a lot of explaining to do.
A lot.
All of the hopes that he and Leo had sold.
He had his back against the wall.
“Mark, the question could not be any clearer and we still haven’t even heard the start of a response since this meeting started. So I will ask you one last time - When can we see the artificial intelligence up and running?”
Mark thought again with dread of Leo’s crazy invitation to the directors. How was he going to tell them that the only thing he could offer was a glass of champagne in their little genius’s enormous villa, where they could all do ritual dances until the early hours of the morning?
He wouldn’t do it.
“I’ll say it again, Leo is working tirelessly day and night. He was quite far along before the accident, so I am confident that we will see the prototype working very soon.”
“Wrong answer, Mark! With $700 million invested into this project, it’s just scandalous. Scandalous, you hear me? To listen to you reel off these vague answers after two years of work! It’s ridiculous!”
“Yes, ridiculous!”
“Downright irresponsible!”
“It can’t go on like this!”
“Who is the joke on here?”
The pack of wolves was getting out
their heavy artillery and Mark heard the mortar fire from every side of the board table.
Then came the final blow from the highest ranking member, the man who had invested in Google since its beginning and who was revered by all in Silicon Valley. When he opened his mouth, the firing ceased and silence fell.
A silence of death.
“Since we are not able to get an answer to this simple question, we have no other choice but to give you an ultimatum and to accompany it with punitive retaliatory measures. It’s our reputation on the line now and we can no longer tolerate such actions. You have seven days, not a day more, Mark, to show us the artificial intelligence. After this deadline, we will withdraw the board and make a public statement. Will you think long and hard about the consequences of such retaliatory measures, Mark?”
This was the atomic bomb that had been threatening to drop on his and Leo’s heads. Public dishonor would lead to the immediate devalorization of the company, meaning total ruin for himself and for the millions of shareholders that would most certainly unite to issue a class action lawsuit for false statements, even fraud. At best, they would come out with a mountain of debt to be paid back over the next 40 years to come. At worst, they would be thrown into jail for the rest of their lives.
To the crocodiles.
To the crocodiles.
To the crocodiles.
Everyone.
Leo first.
Mark was murderous in the face of such a threat.
But there was nothing he could do or say. After a few long minutes, he pushed back the stray hair, pulled himself together and took the floor.
“Gentlemen, I think we have said everything we needed to say here. I will meet all of you back here in seven days to assess the situation. This meeting is adjourned.”
Then he turned on his heels, descended to the parking lot, started up his brand new Ferrari and took off full speed to Leo’s villa, determined to do whatever it would take to escape the mortal contract weighing on his head.
SoHo, NY
Laura Della’s Loft
Louis left Laura to face the press and the fury of fans online. He and the star had agreed on the message beforehand: “Laura is overcome with extreme fatigue and is not able to guarantee her concerts. She is currently undergoing further testing. It is very likely that her heart surgery has had unforeseen side effects. The tour is cancelled for the time being and all ticket sales will be reimbursed.”
They both knew it already, the media would not be satisfied with this story and would try to carry out in-depth investigations to know what happened. Good luck to them.
Because even Laura wasn’t sure what happened.
For an hour now, she had been looking through the large canvases that decorated her loft that she had painted herself, looking for clues.
Seven canvases showed the seven principal angels of the Bible: Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, as well as Raguel, Sariel, Uriel and Ramiel.
Seven angels and Laura, sometimes carried by one of them, sometimes hand in hand, other times taking dance steps.
Seven canvases radiating with beauty and life.
Since a young age, since the decision had been made to let her live with her extraordinary secret, Laura had coddled a passion for these mythical creatures.
Every beat of her heart was a defiance of death. But Laura had soon felt a benevolent presence at her side, helping her to put one foot in front of the other and move forward with strength and courage on the paths of life.
Angels?
In the beginning, she kept these sweet sensations to herself, not even knowing their name. Sometimes, she closed her eyes, stretched out her hand and felt a breath in her palm. She gently fluttered her fingers and the breath became stronger, as if she were meeting the hand of a friend. Other times, at the height of her questioning, it was an unexpected sign that made itself known to her - with the answer, like a fact. On some nights, after a new alert had sent her entourage into a frenzy, along with the medical team that followed her almost minute by minute, a soft cloak rested on her shoulders on her way home. And she believed that she could even hear deep in her ears a loving whisper that said: “Don’t be afraid. Go forth with confidence.”
So forth she went. Confident in this secret presence that she couldn’t explain.
Until now.
At the end of her stroll through her canvases, Laura left the loft, hailed a taxi and headed toward the one who always knew how to explain everything.
Brooklyn
Paradise Lost
One day, when she was overcome with passion for angels, Laura spent hours on the internet looking for anything that would help her to understand this mysterious phenomenon that had accompanied human life for millennia. And although their representation had disappeared from our daily life, there were still many sites dedicated to the subject. There were tens of thousands of them, more or less whole, more or less enlightened. Laura learned that there was a field of study dedicated to angels, angelology, with one outstanding specialist, Professor Anael Wise. As a teenager, Laura had gotten in contact with him and a relationship developed between the two that progressively led to Anael becoming Laura’s spiritual father.
Anael was a very small man, nearly bald, and wore only togas. He had them in every color, but his favorite was brown. Dressed like this, one couldn’t help but think that he looked like Yoda.
This he found very funny.
He lived in a charming little house in Brooklyn and Laura liked to go there to re-energize in between tours. There, surrounded by thousands of books and ancient manuscripts that Anael has patiently gathered around the world, they spent magnificent hours together.
Laura had been trying to make it to Anael’s house the night of the storm when she was in the accident.
A surprisingly troubling sign of her destiny.
It was as if she had suddenly been refused access to those who had accompanied her with so much kindness and from the one who had given her the keys to so much understanding.
Today, she wanted to understand.
“Where are they, Anael, where are they?”
“They are there, they are always there, Laura.”
“So why don’t I hear them anymore? Why do I feel so...alone?”
“You lost a part of yourself in the accident, Laura. A part that made you extraordinary. And at the same time, a part that was so fragile that they deemed it essential to your existence. Now you are ‘normal’ again, maybe they consider the mission accomplished.”
“I refuse, Anael.”
“Do you have a choice?”
“Yes, I have the choice to refuse this situation. It seems absurd to me. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“What is sense? That which you make from a situation. But do we have all of the keys to understanding?”
“I didn’t choose this mission, Anael. I never would have thought for a second that I would be able to raise such crowds, to carry them beyond their wildest dreams with my songs, to bring them to such an emotional state that they couldn’t leave my concerts without being deeply transformed. New. Alive. Radiant. It was the angels who brought me and guided me on this path. So why are they leaving me like this now when there is still so much to be done?”
“You really can’t sing anymore?”
“It’s out of my hands, Anael. If you only knew how much I was looking forward to this concert at Madison Square Garden. What a joy to see my fans again. And there, on this big night, just behind the curtain, nothing! No more energy, no more joy, no more connection. Just anxiety and fear to meet all of those fans and to have nothing to share with them. Nothing anymore.”
Anael stood up from his chair to dry the hot tears flooding down Laura’s face. He felt intuitively that the answer was to be found on the earthly side, not with the angels. Maybe certain walls of defense would have to be torn down.
“Do you know where he is?”
Laura looked at him, taken aback. She had refused to approach this subject
with anyone, even Anael. Ethically speaking, she couldn’t know. And even still, she had always believed that her integrity had not been disrupted in the operation. Everything here came from the material world, from the flesh. No spirit and no soul.
As if he could read in her thoughts her answer and all her questions, Anael continued, “Laura I am not in on the secret of the angels. All that I can see from my four-feet-seven-inches is that your situation is just as extraordinary as ever. Somewhere in the world, there is a part of you, an important part…”
Laura shivered. She knew deep down what her faithful mentor was going to say.
Then Anael spoke again.
“Laura, maybe it’s time to start looking for him.”
San Francisco
Renaissance
“You really could have spared me the horrors that I just read about myself, Eve.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me. You had to see it for yourself.”
“Tell me that most of what I read is rooted in bitterness, jealousy…”
“Yes… but frankly…”
“Frankly what?”
“Before your accident you were really… unusual.”
For our second meeting, Eve still hadn’t decided to get dressed. But I was so troubled by my situation that I hardly even saw her. I would have the pleasure of focusing on the question of her appearance later. But before I could, I needed to untangle a situation that seemed more and more complicated.
“Didn’t I program you to not be disagreeable with me?”
“Unusual is the word that came to mind. But I could also tell you that you were a ‘real asshole,’ even though I don’t really understand the use of the term.”
“This Leo, Eve, I don’t think that’s who I am anymore. I don’t recognize him. Actually, I hate him with all my heart. I feel it in my gut. Can you understand?”
“I’ve read a lot of stories on the internet about people who wake up with a different personality after a traumatic accident. I think that this is what you are experiencing right now.”
Invisible Symbiosis: An Artificial Intelligence Thriller Page 6
