MadMcAl
This by far the longest chapter yet. I could, and probably should, have split it into two, but I did not want to have another Enhanced Negotiations chapter.
That means that you have a chapter more than twice the average word count this time.
Have fun with it.
My admission was answered by nearly a minute of silence until Michael softly knocked onto the table.
“While all this is quite entertaining, how about we get on with business? I am sure, you have better things to do than to speculate what might have been possible two or three years ago.”
Dan Elos shook his head and then sighed.
“Yes, I think you are right. Regardless of what Dr. Symmonds thinks, Ralcon needs that tech. If it really works that is.”
I groaned and Michael slumped, with Michael declaring exasperated:
“Oh come on. I can see why your CIO might get the idea that it doesn’t work, but you at least should be smart enough to realize that we will not fuck ourselves over by fucking you over.”
Elos nodded slowly.
“Yes, that is true. But one factor remains. From everything I have heard, every time we tried to integrate VR functionality into Envision, it became unusable. Everything but the beefiest machines could not run it. And despite what Ms. DuClare might think, or is that Dr. DuClare?”
He looked directly at me, and I just shook my head.
“I have the right to the title, but it is just a title. I prefer you judge me by what I can do instead of what title I was able to achieve, steal, hustle or buy. So I am okay with Ms..”
He looked at me for a moment, before he nodded sharply, and continued:
“Ok, as I was saying, despite what Ms. DuClare might think, we don’t employ duds. Our ‘code monkeys’ might not be in her league, but they are not that bad. So, how were you able to integrate VR into Envision?”
I smiled at him.
“You got that the wrong way around.”
His surprised “Huh?” was frankly, pretty amusing, but I continued without laughing:
“I don’t know if it is possible to integrate VR into Envision. If you par it down, and exclude the legacy, probably. If not, it would most likely be very hard, if at all possible. But I did not do that at all. Instead, I created a very bare-bones VR OS, that runs Envision on a virtual machine. That works because it intercepts most calls and is significantly more economical with resources.
It puts every application, every legacy function, in its own VM, and only accesses them when it is needed. Honestly, from what I could see, Envision would work quite fine without at least 30% of the programs, drivers, and services that it routinely starts. The VR system starts those tasks and then shunts them into a passive VM until they are needed. In theory, it is significantly more inefficient, but in reality, with all the garbage that Envision puts up, it makes it run much smoother.
And before you ask, yes, I left the ‘telemetry’ functions up and running.
And as you probably have seen, it takes considerably more oomph from the garbage can than vanilla Envision, if it runs in VR. Outside of VR, in my experience, it reduces the strain on the system quite a bit.”
The two nerds sat there, their mouths hanging open, while ‘Dr. Ph.D. in computer science’ Symmonds just looked at me without even the slightest hint of understanding in his eyes.
When the ‘good doctor’ remained silent, Dan looked first at him, then, after a few seconds, he sighed, shook his head, and turned to the boy nerd.
“You, nerd, is what she says realistic?”
Both nerds flinched, turned red, and looked around as if they just had committed a crime. It was, interestingly, the girl that answered:
“Uh, sir, I… that is we… well, we never… it is…”
Dan barked: “Spit it out, damn it!” and again, both nerds flinched.
The boy swallowed visibly, took a deep breath, and then, in a faint voice, answered:
“Well, sir, yes, it is plausible. I can’t say if it would work. We have never even thought about that approach. Usually, if you shunt something into a VM, you lose available power and resources.”
The girl continued, equally flustered: “Normally, to try to use a VM to reduce the strain is just, well, it is stupid. But if the VM cuts out the unneeded tasks… well, it might work. And if it works, it is brilliant.”
Mr. Elos slumped a bit.
“And how do we know if it works? Just to make it clear, is it possible that this was just bullshit and we are hunting for some fake shit?”
The boy squared his shoulders, but was still unable to look Dan in the eyes:
“Uhm, yes, sir, it is possible. Until we get the source code, we have no way to say if it is real or not. And that is what we need to know if it works or not.”
I gave a slight nod to Justin, and he produced a thumb drive and placed it on the table.
I then said:
“Here are the program, as an archive, in installer form, and the source code. It is only 2.3 TB as the installer. The archive is a bit smaller, and I gave you the source code without the public libraries, so it is only around 260 GB.”
Dan swiveled towards me, then looked at the stick on the table, then back at me:
“Just like that? You are just giving it to us?”
It was Michael that provided the answer:
“Did you listen to us? Any contract between us is essentially worthless. Yes, a nice legal fig leaf, but nothing more. If you want to destroy Enki, you will, contract or no contract. The ‘price’ for the software is that you just let us be. And when you have it, it is in your interest to let us be. So yes, we are just giving it to you.”
He narrowed his eyes, looking at Michel now:
“And you don’t want to extort some concessions from us? You just assume we play fair?”
Michael chuckled.
“What would concessions from you be worth? Let’s face the facts here. If we don’t give this to you, Envision will keep slowly dying. Us providing cheap and safe jacks will accelerate that decline. So without having this program, you essentially have to try to stop us.
I still think you would at best delay us, but it is better to just not risk it.
Now, if we give it to you, suddenly people having jacks becomes an advantage for you. That means that it might be a few bucks in your coffer if you manage to take us over, but it is almost certainly not worth the effort for you. Especially as I don’t think the other triple-As would look favorably at you getting this technology.
That changes if we force too many concessions out of you. I don’t know where the break-even point would be, but the humiliation alone would most likely make it low. And it would be unlikely that we would gain anything substantial. We are well-capitalized, we have the land for our corporation already bought, and we are slowly knitting contacts with other corporations.
The only thing you could provide for us, stopping others from fucking with us, you will most likely do anyway, just because of us succeeding will push your main product up, increasing your profit and influence.
So tell me, what do we have to gain to hold you over the barrel?”
Dan looked at Michael, then at me, then at the thumb drive, and then back at Michael.
“I see. And you are right. If you don’t piss us off, and this thing actually works as you say it does, it would be an advantage for Ralcon to have you succeed.”
He gestured towards the nerds, and the boy quickly grabbed the stick, putting it in a heavy, armored briefcase, before giving the briefcase to one of the security goons, who cuffed it to his wrist.
I looked at it a bit confused, and could not stop myself from asking:
“What is the point of all this security?”
Mr. Elos snorted before he answered me: “I thought we had already established that this” he gestured to the briefcase, “is the future of Ralcon. As Mr. Walker so succinctly explained, without it, Ralcon will be going down hard. So we keep it safe.”
I shook my head slightly.
“Yes, I know that, but that is just one thumb drive. Those things are cheap as heck. We have brought a dozen of them, just to be sure. And if everything fails, you give me a matrix address and a few minutes later, the files are there. I do have the installer, the source code, and the archive secured in several places.”
When he looked at me a bit confused, I shrugged my shoulders.
“We are talking about a digital product. The stick is just a convenient way to transport it. And, frankly, this much security only tells people that you think what’s inside that briefcase is valuable. You certainly don’t want somebody stealing it and possibly patenting it, do you?”
Phil snorted, while Dan spread his fingers and closed his eyes.
A few seconds later, Dan shook his head and looked back at me.
“Then, Ms. DuClare, what would you suggest how we handle our future?”
I massaged my temple but held his gaze.
“I would take that stick, connect it to one or all of the coms in your group, copy the files there, then make a connection to your servers and send the files directly, and after that, put this stick, and the other eleven into the various pockets you have in your clothes. After that, I would put some fake data on another stick, and put that into that briefcase. And finally, I would provide a matrix address to me so that the files can be transferred safely from my systems to yours.
Oh, and of course, the moment the files land on your servers, you should immediately apply for a patent. Just to be sure.”
Unfortunately, that was the moment, Symmonds came out of his funk.
“Preposterous. All that effort for some prank! You should be ashamed of yourself little girl. And I will see to it that you will regret it.”
I cursed inwardly before I answered under gritted teeth: “Mr. Symmonds, are you by chance aware of the existence of my VI?”
He recoiled and looked at me confused. “What?”
“I asked if you are aware of the VI that is listening to every single word that is said here? You know, the VI with access to essentially all the tools of one of the ten best hackers in the world with the primary objective to protect me at any costs and absolutely no compunction of eradicating whole cities in the process?
Because, frankly, if you are, then there are much more pleasant ways to commit suicide. Ways that won’t result in enough collateral damage to be considered a war crime.”
That shut Symmonds up, for a moment. Then, with spittle flying from his mouth, he lifted the finger and berated me:
“That is just another of your irresponsible actions. People like you are a menace. A danger to society. Just to have such a VI running rogue, you deserve to be shot.”
I steepled my hands in front of me and looked at him as coldly as I could manage.
“You mean people like you don’t you?”
He scoffed at me.
“People like me? I did not create a homicidal VI. That is solely on you.”
I couldn’t help myself and had to chuckle mirthlessly.
“But did you ever think about why? Why did I do it? Well, I can answer that, I did it because people like you made it inevitable. If I had known that a simulated fuzzy logic processor was enough to turn an expert system into a VI, there would be no VI hellbent on protecting me.”
He sneered:
“So, you are stupid after all. And what has that to do with me?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call me stupid. I mean, if the corporations, among them Ralcon, had not removed that little tidbit of information and had replaced it with the lie that a physical fuzzy logic processor has to be present in all textbooks, tutorials, and documentation, I would have known better. Unlike you I had to earn my Ph.D. in computer science, you know.”
He slapped the table:
“Is that all you have? Conspiracy theories and lies?”
I leaned back.
“No, what I have is the Panacea dump.”
Symmonds was not the only one who was confused by that, and I calmly continued:
“A few months ago, the Phantom hacked Panacea, I am sure you know about it. No question that Ralcon gobbled up any information from it it could get. But, just for fun, I had my VI look into it if it could find something that explained how the substitution happened.
And lo and behold, it found the minutes of the cybersecurity meeting of the Inter-Concernal Security Conference of 2120, as well as the digitally signed contract between all the triple- and double-A corporations of that time.
The minutes where they hash out why to make the substitution, and how to best do it. And the contract that demanded all of them keep silent about it. So no, not a conspiracy theory anymore, is it?”
I now slowly stood up.
“That was not even the only scheme I found in the dump. And people like you don’t even care what you have done. The damage to humanity you’ve caused. And for what? To keep possible competition down? As if you corpo-rats did not have any other, less damaging ways to do that. But no, you had to go the way that resulted in around 20% of the most brilliant minds of their time being killed or broken. That made another 30% of them unemployable.
And then, when the dispirited pitiful rest of those brilliant people was gobbled up by the likes of you, you fucking broke them to the company line. Snuffing their innovative spirit.” By now I was screaming at him. “YOU are the reason why humanity wallows in mud 150 years after world war III. 150 years where any progress was at best accidental. 150 years where we as a species moved closer and closer to extinction, destroyed innovator by destroyed innovator.”
During all that I felt that Michael was tugging on my sleeve, but I ignored it. Finally, he forcefully pulled me back down into the chair, and hissed at me:
“That’s enough.”
I was breathing heavily but slowly calmed down. Symmonds turned red with anger, while Dan hardened, the nerds paled, and Phil just facepalmed.
Dan snarled at me:
“If you know what’s good for you, nobody of you will breathe a single word about this to anybody. IS THAT CLEAR?”
I laughed at him.
“You think that will help? Nobody of us has to say a word. The dump is out there. In the dark web. Do you really think it is not already being analyzed by the conspiracy nuts? They are slower than I was, because thanks to the corporations, I have a VI running on a supercomputer. But it is only a matter of months before they crow their victory out.
This ship has sailed, and the cat is out of the bag. All you now can do is damage control. Not that the population knowing about it will do anything. Sure, it will make them hate the corporations even more. So what? They can’t do anything.”
Dan clearly was not very enthused by my statement.
“FUCK!” He took a deep breath and leaned forward, putting his head on his hands.
“Shit, there is no helping it. We have to go into damage control mode. Phil, call your grandfather. This is maybe even more important than the VR app. We have to get our PR team on it. Maybe have the politicians release something about falsified memos or something like that.”
I sighed.
“Why bother? Does it really matter? What can the peasants even do? Vote for puppets that you haven’t bought yet? Get real, everybody knows that you and Enertech decide who they can even vote for. Riot? You have the corporate military and the national military. Not buy your stuff? Then who do they buy from?
That is why this whole scheme is so vicious. You had no need for it. Do you think we enjoy giving Ralcon this program? Essentially for free? No, of course not. But we have no choice. We have to play nice with you, with Enertech, and the other A-leaguers. And no startup would have ever stood a chance if the big corps made a concerted effort to keep them down.
Face facts, the corporations own this world.
Even the ‘bastions of democracy’, the EU, the Confederation, Luna, and Louie 5 are under the thumb of the big guns. It is just a little bit better hidden there.”
That earned me another glare from Dan.
“So, why are you so angry about it then? You have made it out of the trap.”
“I am so angry, though furious would be probably the better term because this messing around has deprived humanity of the people it needs to survive. Because what was an IQ of 100 in January 2079 is an IQ of 108 today. It was 102 in November 2093, after 14 years of the most brutal, most devastating war humanity has ever encountered. A war that specifically targeted the smarter people on both sides.
And this little scheme is responsible for it. We still don’t have the level of bioengineering that we had before the war. Before the war, we had some new discoveries every week. Now we can be happy if we have one in a decade.
And we still don’t know what Sanderson’s Folly did to us. Just that we are dying out from it. And virtually nobody is working on it. That is the result of your meddling. That humanity is going extinct.”
Of course, that was the moment when Symmonds had to spew his nonsense again:
“Pah, nonsense. Humanity is doing fine. Stop being so melodramatic.”
“That explains why you had to buy your degree. You really are an idiot. Humanity is not fine. In 2093 there were 8.6 billion humans. Today, we have 1.1 billion. If that trend continues, then we will be down to 500 million in 50 years. Less than 300 million in 100 years. We are reducing our numbers by 50% every 50 years. And you think that is sustainable?”
Symmonds snickered at that.
“You are a bit behind the news, dear child, or you would know that in the Commonwealth they have a new mutation that is completely fertile. So yes, humanity is fine.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Oh, is that so? And do you know that out of 933 of those mutations, 921 are, in a medical sense, retarded? They are at the mental developmental level of a three-year-old. And they give that trait to their children. Marvelous idea, replacing humanity with small children in adult bodies. Oh, sure there are 12 that are, well, not quite normal, but functional. But 12 is not enough to base the entire species on. The genetic bottleneck will destroy humanity in a few generations. So yes, unless somebody finds a cure for the Folly, humanity is fucked.”
Unfortunately, that was still not enough to make Symmonds shut up.
“So, if you are so concerned about the future of humanity, why don’t you do it? Develop the cure. Be a hero.” Oh yes, by now he was mocking me.
My reaction probably disappointed him a bit.
“Get real. I have a Ph.D. in computer science and one in nanoengineering. I have enough knowledge in physics, math, electronics, material science, cyber-technology, and medicine that I could get another Ph.D. in each of them if I bothered to do the dog and pony show. I have just now brought CRS-free cyberware to the market. I am the creator of the best cyber-board one can buy. I have written entire operating systems from scratch.
I have done all that, and I am just 18. When, if you are so smart, should I have done that?
Then there is the fact that biology and genetics are not my forte. I know enough to hum the melody, but I also know enough that it is not for me. And if the big corporation would stop killing the more inventive, intelligent people, there would be no need for me to do it.”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but thankfully, he remained silent. I, on the other hand, took a few deep breaths with closed eyes to calm down again.
When I opened my eyes again, I turned my attention to Dan.
“I assume that he was the reason you demanded my presence?”
Dan was massaging his temples for some time now, but he still answered me:
“No, not really. He included himself in the team when he learned that we requested you to be here.”
I felt a wave of exhaustion flood over me. Still not done. But fine, I would get through this as well.
“In that case, could I ask you to come to the point, please? I would prefer to leave the actual negotiations to Mr. Walker and his team.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed again, but he nodded slowly.
“Ok. In essence, we want to hire you.”
For a moment I was sure that I had misheard him, but no, he definitely had said that Ralcon wanted to hire me.
“You are aware that I already have a job, right? A job that I mostly even like. Working for a company that mostly belongs to me. So, and please don’t take that personally, what makes you think that I would come to work for Ralcon? Or anybody else?”
He shrugged.
“We don’t want to give you a job, we want to hire you, by the way of Enki, to do a task for us.”
That… sounded not so good. Ralcon was known for playing hardball. I hesitated to answer, but Michael took over here:
“What do you want her to do?”
Dan cleared his throat and then answered:
“Last time, she mentioned that Envision is, what was the description again?” He looked at his tablet and scrolled around a bit. “Ah yes, here it is. A ‘big ball of mud’. While our programming teams were not happy about that description, they all agreed that she was right. More importantly, she guessed that cleaning up the source code would increase the performance by around 30%.”
Michael nodded slowly.
“Yes, I remember. So, please, continue.”
“Our programmers have tried for more than a decade to clean up this source code. They failed. Every single time they attempted it, it broke Envision. That by the way is the reason they said Envision can’t be made VR-capable. But obviously, Ms. DuClare is better at it than our programmers. We want to hire her to clean up Envision.”
They did want me to do WHAT?!? Were they even remotely sane?
I could only stare at Dan, completely without words. Heck, it would be easier and faster to start from scratch. Sure, it would not include all the legacy interfaces, but seriously, what the heck?
Michael was leaning forward, while I still was coming to grips with what Ralcon wanted, and asked:
“Do you really trust an outsider with your source code? Is that not quite dangerous?”
Dan sighed before he answered:
“Not any outsider. Her. And yes, it is risky. But that is where she comes into the play. She is Seraphim, and even in the corporate world we have learned that if Seraphim gives her word, she does her level best to keep it.”
Unfortunately, Michael nodded and spoke: “Yes, I can see that. We’ll think about it. I am sure you can understand that this is not an ad-hoc decision. Especially because she tries to keep her word.”
That ripped me out of my shock, and I turned to Michael in disbelief. Had he just sold me out?
“What the heck? No, we won’t think about it. Do you have any idea what they are asking? How much work that is?”
Micheal looked at me with some sadness in his eyes:
“Viv, keep calm. No, I don’t know, but I do know that we have to at least think about it. At this time, we can’t make an informed decision.”
“At this time, I can make a sufficiently informed decision to say that I don’t want to touch that cesspool. I would guess that it would take me at least a month at full compression, more likely two or three, to get it done.
It is… no, just no. I don’t want to touch it.”
Michael’s answer was in a warning tone: “Vivian, keep calm, and we will talk later about it, do you understand?”
Mr. Elos interjected at this moment:
“Can I ask why you don’t want to do it?”
I looked at him for a moment and then shook my head.
“Do you have any idea, a real idea, what you are talking about? I don’t know how it is with Envision 48, but 42 had 230 million lines of code. Do you have any measure of what that means? It is said that one million lines of code are 18 thousand pages. That is fourteen times as much as what Tolstoy's War and Peace have.
The fricking full genome of a mouse is only the equivalent of 120 million lines of code. There is a reason why I wrote the VR system the way I did, and that reason is that after some cursory reading of the source code I decided not to touch that thing. If you want to have it cleaned up, why don’t you create a VI to do it? Run it on a supercomputer and come back a month later?”
Before Dan could answer, Symmonds exploded:
“Because not everyone is such an irresponsible imbecile like you? Do you even have an idea how fucking dangerous VIs are? We will do no such thing.”
I was, in one word, flabbergasted. I mean, he was the CIO of one of the biggest software giants in the world. It was his responsibility to get their computer systems to the best status possible.
After a few awkward seconds, I looked back at Dan.
“And he is your CIO? For real?”
Dan slumped when I said that but answered:
“Yes, he is the CIO. And why is what he said that much of a problem? You just ripped into us because the corporations made rogue VIs more likely. So, why are you astonished that we don’t use them if we don’t have to?”
I lifted my right hand palm up.
“Rogue VI!” I lifted my left hand in the same way. “Controlled VI! They are not the same. A VI does exactly what it is programmed to do. What its objectives demand. Nothing more, nothing less. Rogue VIs are a problem because they are not planned.
They happen because, in the best case, a learning-enabled expert system runs on a system with a fuzzy logic core. In that case, the new VI will take over the objectives from the expert system. That could be anything, from network defense over resource allocation to gaming, or whatever. If you get the expert system running the opponent in a strategy game as the VI it tries to follow the rules of the game and beat the humans.
It is worse if you have several expert systems on the same computer when the fuzzy logic core is introduced. Then the resulting VI is an amalgamation of all of them, with, in part, mutually exclusive objectives. The VI will try to find a way to satisfy all of them, in any way it can. The results are unpredictable, and often the solution is to remove humans from the equation.”
I placed both my hand back on the table.
“I was lucky with my VI that I had only one learning-enabled expert system running, and that I could modify its objectives a bit. After I convinced it that the original objectives were a threat to the objectives.
But a controlled VI is a completely different beast. For one, anybody purposefully creating a VI does so in an isolated system where a mistake in the objectives can do no harm, and second, the objectives are carefully planned out so that the VI can be productive without conflicting orders.
A controlled VI is an incredibly valuable tool.”
I shook my head.
“But we are going off-topic. My point is, that with a VI you probably can cut the work down to a manageable degree. And you don’t have to ask me to do it.”
“Well, we are offering you quite good compensation for it. We thought about $1 billion.”
I heard Melissa inhale sharply, but did not give her any attention.
“That is nice of you, but honestly, I don’t need the money.”
That brought several exclamations, and a few coughs and nearly everybody was staring at me astounded.
Michael of course was barely able to suppress a snicker and Dan, after he lifted his chin from the table, asked in an unsure voice:
“You don’t need the money? We are talking about one billion dollars!”
“Yes, I heard you the first time. And I get that when I sell a specialized exclusive nanobot design. I don’t do this for money. I don’t even do it to get my inventions to the people. I do it because I think it is the right thing to do.”
Haggerton just stammered: “But… but… we are talking about a billion dollars. How can you not be interested in that?”
“Because, frankly, I have enough money for the rest of my life and my time is more valuable to me than to use it on the big ball of mud.”
Symmonds was still pouting, and Dan was obviously not amused. Haggerton just sat there with his mouth open, but Phil just slightly shook his head.
“Can you at least tell us what’s wrong with it?” It seemed that he was the closest to accepting my refusal.
I now had the problem of where to begin, it took me a moment before I decided to go with brutal honesty.
“The better question is what is not wrong with it. You can summarize the problem in one sentence. It has not had a major overhaul since world war three. At this point, it would be easier to just start from scratch.
It is bloated, many of the functions are somehow forced into it without much concern of how it influences the rest, and most security patches and updates are essentially jury-rigged.
To make it work, you would have to go back to Windows 40 as a starting point and cleanly integrate newer features.
At the same time, you have to clean up the feature creep or at least make the control of all of it more streamlined and ergonomic.”
“What do you mean Windows 40?”
“That was the oldest version that as far as I could see was competently created. If I had to guess, that was the last version where fully educated pre-war software engineers were working with it. After that… well it is a patchwork of classes and libraries that seem to have been written without any thought about how it fits in.”
Dan had by now found his voice again.
“What do you mean, software engineers? You mean programmers?”
“No, not really. Software engineers could, and did program, but they also kept the bigger picture in mind, and the good ones of them kept the project consistent. Not always successful, especially in something as big as Windows or Envision, but, my impression is that you have a feature idea group that divines features Envision should have and then give a programming team the job to create each feature. A group of software engineers would now have the job of keeping all those little groups compatible.
As it is now, all the projects get thrown into the pot, and if something is not working right, the programmers try to find a workaround. If that does not work, the features get deactivated, but remain in the source code and therefore the OS.
Some of them are only partially deactivated and still use resources. Some interfere with other features, and the workarounds increase the needed resources by a few times.
All in all, it is a mess.”
They did not seem too happy about what I had said. It was unfortunate for them that it was the truth. But they were not alone. During the great war, the meticulous planning and work ethics of proper software engineers were more often than not left on the wayside in favor of speed.
Speed in getting programmers to do the work, speed in getting new programmers trained, speed in getting software out of the doors that can do the job somehow.
Something that can be done in wartime, has to be done in wartime, but after the war, all those bad habits were deeply ingrained. And software engineers had become a dying breed. Oh sure, some parts of software engineering were still there, and a handful of us still had the knowledge of how to do it.
Mostly because we either recreated it, found it in historical files, or had a mentor who could do it because the mentor had a mentor, and so on.
But the universities had stopped teaching it because just after the war, the boards of the big corporations saw the increased cost of doing software development the right way, without realizing the long-term cost of doing it the wrong way.
Phil sighed.
“And you think without some of those software engineers we are doomed? Why does nobody have them anymore then if they are so important?”
“The war. During the war, there was no time for proper software development cycles. They needed new updates right then. After the war, corporations had grown to see the new way to write software as a positive. After all, it was faster and cheaper.
They influenced vocational schools and universities to cut the ‘unneeded’ parts of software development out of the curriculum. The results are now visible, but there is almost nobody who can repair them. There are a few on the dark web who can because they made the effort to research the old methods for whatever reason. Otherwise, forget it. I think with the help of some historians, we can reintegrate the skill into the software developer parts of education, but that is a slow thing. Other than that, as I said before, a VI programmed to keep an eye on it is the only relatively quick solution.”
While I was saying that, Dan let his head hang down, and when I was finished, he looked at me.
“So, we are fucked is what you want to say? Let’s be honest, nobody in the dark web has your reputation for keeping their word. We certainly won’t trust them with Envision. A VI is, as you might have found out, out of the question. And you don’t want to do it.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t want to do it because it will be a painful, thankless job that will take way more of my time than I am willing to invest. Just to give you some perspective here, if I use the time to develop nano-technology and sell that for 50% of market price, I will have made a few hundred billion dollars. I don’t do that because that is the same boring, repetitive work that I hate. There would have to be a very good reason for me to do this job.”
I heard Michael whimper on my side, but did not divert my attention to him, but kept looking at Dan.
Dan’s face on the other hand lost all emotional expressions as if he suddenly stopped feeling anything. I have to say, the effect was… creepy.
“Is that so? Just to make it clear, Ralcon needs somebody to do those changes, do you understand what we are saying?”
Before I could say anything, Michael intervened. “Yes, we understand. Give us some time to have her think about the matter.”
I felt anger rise up inside me. Why was he falling so into my back? I thought I had made it abundantly clear that I had absolutely no intention of doing this job.
What I got from him was a message:
M: Shut the fuck up! You are just on the way to ensuring that they take us out. They think they need that to happen and they will do anything to force you. They will destroy Enki, and everybody of us, except you to get you to do it. Give in and we will look into you avoiding it. But right now, I need you to shut up!
I was a bit confused for a moment before I remembered that we were talking to one of the most ruthless and vicious corporations there were. Of course, they would put any pressure they thought they could get away with onto me to get what they wanted.
And the idiot that I was, I had just made it clear to them that they would need enormous amounts of pressure on me. Yup, I messed up by the numbers. Now I had to find a way to get out of it.
I don’t know what made him say that, but Rafael used this moment to lighten the mood of the room. Or at least trying to.
“You should look at the bright side, with Envision going VR, your gaming division will finally be able to make money again.”
I whipped my head around to look at him. Did he not understand that the gaming division was far from being on their mind just now?
I saw Haggerton waving dismissively from the corner of my eye.
“Pah. Forget it. We will finally be rid of this albatross at the end of the year. No more money pit of gaming division.”
I did not understand. Why would they want to get rid of their gaming division now?
“Not that that is of any big concern to me, but what are you meaning?”
Phil shrugged.
“It is no secret. We’ve been trying to sell the whole division for years. At this time, we are just throwing good money after the bad. Since 2240 they’ve had exactly one game that did more than break even. It is just not sustainable.”
I had to shake my head in confusion.
“Yes, and that one game was the one where the developer ignored your directive of not including a VR function. The rest, stuck on the desktop Envision has barely been interesting for anybody.
You don’t make games for the Dream or the Funboard. People will have to spend four times the amount of time doing the same things on the Envision as they do on the consoles. Time that they don’t have if they can afford a current console or a gaming computer after 12 hours of work the day. So they use the consoles and don’t buy an Envision PC. And your sales reflect that.
With Envision going VR, you now have a completely new market segment available. It is, in my opinion, stupid to sell it now.”
Symmonds piped up right then.
“Don’t bother. It won’t be sold. Nobody wants to buy it. At the end of the year, we are finally rid of the contracts and can shut it all down.”
They were trying to shut down their gaming division? Waste all the IP that they had? And nobody was willing to buy it?
“You are serious? Nobody is willing to buy it? Are they all insane?”
I got an idea, right that moment. That might be the way out of the dilemma I was facing. In my innermost mind, I knew that I had to take on the Envision job, but by now I had to find a way that Ralcon actually believed me that I would be doing the job without pressure.
And if we got all those intellectual properties on the way, so much the better.
I took a deep breath.
“Fine. We will buy it! And yes, I’ll even clean up Envision for you for that.”
Michael’s astonished “We will what?”
“I said we will buy their gaming division. It would be a shame to see all those brands go to the garbage dump of history.”
And as I already had the plan to make a software engineering VI for Envision anyway, it was a good use of the resources.
What, do you think I was willing to spend virtual years going over that can of worms that Ralcon called Envision? No, a few virtual months distributed over several real-world weeks to control the work of the VI were more than enough.
And if we had this VI anyway, it would be easy to use it for a whole gaming division. Heck, the work Warden had done on Doom alone would make that IP much more valuable without putting any more work into it.
So yes, buying the gaming division as a method to preserve my face with Envision would, over the medium term, bring us quite a bit of money as well.
Michael snarled: “Are you… we barely have enough personnel at this time to keep our operations up and running. Do you have any idea how to manage a gaming division? And one that is losing money for decades at that?”
“I have some ideas. Even if it does not work out, I am the one paying the price. Personally. And we will have some time to clean them up.”
Of course, now Symmonds absolutely had to give us his two cents.
“You think your work is worth a complete division of Ralcon? Get real.”
“First, we are talking about a division that Ralcon wants to close down. No loss here for you.
Second, you offered me $1 billion for the work on Envision. That was your starting offer. Depending on how long it would take, it would be worth up to $100 billion. If we would negotiate, we would meet somewhere in the middle. But now you get the work for something you want to throw away anyway.
And third, if that is still not enough, I’ll even throw this into the pot.”
I pulled out the stick with the nano-fab and nano-bot schemata.
“These are the plans for a family of 8th-gen nano-fabs with 12th-gen nano-bots. On the open market, those plans have a worth between $5 billion and $10 billion. Together with the work I will do on Envision, that should be more than enough to pay for your gaming division.”
Phil looked at the stick in my hand.
“And it just so happened that you had that in your pocket?”
I snorted.
“Nope. I had it in my pocket to potentially sweeten the deal if you turned out to be difficult. It wasn’t needed for the basic deal, but for this, you can have it.”
Phil looked at the stick but then sighed.
“We don’t have the authority to make that deal.”
“Then who has it that you can reach quickly? Because I want to get this deal done with.”
He looked at Dan, who looked from him to Symmonds and back to Phil.
“Yes, do it. This is important enough to call your grandfather directly.”
I could have increased the gain on my ear implants and listened to his call, but I decided that it was not that important.
Roughly five minutes later, Phile got back to the table.
“Ok, we have a deal. You give us your word that you will do the job, give us this stick, and you get the gaming division. All the studios, the publishers, the IPs, and whatever else belongs to it. Is that acceptable to you?”
I shrugged.
“I was the one who suggested it, so yes.” I placed the stick on the table and slid it forward.
“Now, if there is nothing else, I would like to get back to my place and start working on Envision. Do you have a copy of the source code or will you send it to me over the matrix?”
The boy nerd pulled out a thumb drive from his briefcase and placed it on the table. Directly in front of him. After a few seconds, where I waited for him to shove it over, I cleared my throat, nodding pointedly toward the stick, until the nerd turned red and gave the stick a shove, placing it halfway between us.
Meanwhile, I had a silent discussion with Michael.
M: What the fuck are you trying to do? Now there is no way we can weasel you out of this deal.
V: You were right. Ralcon will get me to work on Envision. There was no way for me to weasel out of it in the first place. And I was so stupid to tell them that $1B won’t be worth it for me, so they need something else to make me do it.
V: That can be me wanting their gaming division, or the lives of you, or your father. I would rather not make them decide that they need some insurance.
M: Ok, fine, but what will we do with those gaming studios? Or those IPs? What I said about our personnel was true. We don’t have the people.
V: For one, the studios already have people working for them. They also have people running them. What will change is that we provide the funding for them. They had a thirsty stretch because of Ralcon’s policies. We will change those policies. We will also develop our own console, with my new tech.
M: Fuck V, those studios are crap. They haven’t had a hit in forever. And I am sure you have no idea how to develop a game.
V: I know enough to supervise the technical aspects of it if it is necessary. Not that it will be necessary. And the studios are distributed all over the world. What we need are people who get to the artistic aspect of game development. And we can then throw money at the problem until it goes away.
M: Money is not the solution to everything. And you don’t have the time to supervise those studios.
V: No, I probably won’t. At least not much. But what I will have is the VI that I will build to tackle the Envision problem. Warden has already proven to me that she can upgrade a game, develop levels and make games simply better.
M: A VI? Have you lost your mind? Ralcon will shit bricks if they learn you used a VI for that.
V: Ralcon wants the source code of Envision cleaned up. They don’t really care how we do that. And even if they do care, I’ve only promised to get it done. And later, when that idiot Symmonds is out of the loop, we might even be able to sell them the VI.
M: I thought VIs lacked the creative capability to do something like clean up the source code.
V: Nah, what they lack is the ability to create new code, new functionality. They don’t understand why we humans want the software to do something. If I put the VI at recreating the functionality of Envision, but within the rules of software engineering and good code writing, it will do that.
M: And how long will that take? Ralcon will not be very patient for all that long.
V: You remember talking about the super Grendel? Well, I think we will see one much earlier than we expected.
M: You are building one of those 150 Grendel monsters? For this?!?
V: I don’t think I will get a full 150 Grendel servers up and running before the VI is done with Envision. I would be surprised if I get more than 20 or 30 Grendels in that thing.
Hmm, that gave me an idea. Maybe if I mobilized all my resources? I mean, sure, I could, and would build more NADAs, but I had an inkling where I could find some more.
M: I thought we agreed that a super Grendel was an insane idea. What happened to that?
V: What happened is that my choices are to remake Envision, or see the people I like to suffer from Ralcon pressuring me into it. And I will not put any more effort into it than absolutely necessary.
V: As you said, they won’t wait forever, so I need the computing power of a super Grendel. And if I am designing and building the super Grendel anyway I can as well fully populate it.
M: Fuck, V. You are killing me. And how many super Grendels will Warden build?
W: At least 22.
M: Fuck! Warden is that you?
W: Of course.
M: What the hell are you doing in this discussion? This is private.
W: I thought you were aware that nothing that uses Seraphims implants is private from me.
M: Shit. :( Yeah, I forgot that. So, why 22?
W: Because I have by now 22 clusters I run on. Depending on my predictions, I might build more super Grendels, but that is to be seen.
V: That is a good moment, Warden, how many Grendel can you send me within 2 weeks?
W: 57. Do you want me to begin production?
V: Yes, please do. Together with my 3, that would be 60. So in 6 weeks, I’ll have the fully populated super Grendel. By the way Warden, have you noticed any difference if you increase the number of fuzzy logic cores?
Seemed as if I would get a fully populated super Grendel before the new VI was done with Envision. Probably. On the other hand, even the first tranche of 60 Grendel should be enough to make the VI lightning fast.
W: No, there was no measurable difference.
V: Ok, that means I will make one fuzzy Grendel.
M: And you don’t want to go into the fact that Warden has 57 replicators?
V: Have you expected anything else? I am more surprised that the number is so low.
M: Fine! Whatever! Don’t say I did not warn you when Warden decides to subjugate the human race.
Fortunately, we were able to have this conversation at 24:1, and we did not have to type, so it was all finished when Dan growled at the nerd:
“Give it to her, asshole!”
With some stretching, the nerd was able to get the stick back and then walked around the table to give it to me.
I put it into one of the inner pockets of my blazer before I looked into the round.
“Is there anything else you need me for?”
Dan shook his head.
“No, I think that was it for you.”
I nodded at him, Phil and Haggerton, while standing up, followed by Ryan and Justin.
“Then, if you excuse me, I suddenly have much to do.”
MadMcAl
This by far the longest chapter yet. I could, and probably should, have split it into two, but I did not want to have another Enhanced Negotiations chapter.
That means that you have a chapter more than twice the average word count this time.
Have fun with it.
My admission was answered by nearly a minute of silence until Michael softly knocked onto the table.
“While all this is quite entertaining, how about we get on with business? I am sure, you have better things to do than to speculate what might have been possible two or three years ago.”
Dan Elos shook his head and then sighed.
“Yes, I think you are right. Regardless of what Dr. Symmonds thinks, Ralcon needs that tech. If it really works that is.”
I groaned and Michael slumped, with Michael declaring exasperated:
“Oh come on. I can see why your CIO might get the idea that it doesn’t work, but you at least should be smart enough to realize that we will not fuck ourselves over by fucking you over.”
Elos nodded slowly.
“Yes, that is true. But one factor remains. From everything I have heard, every time we tried to integrate VR functionality into Envision, it became unusable. Everything but the beefiest machines could not run it. And despite what Ms. DuClare might think, or is that Dr. DuClare?”
He looked directly at me, and I just shook my head.
“I have the right to the title, but it is just a title. I prefer you judge me by what I can do instead of what title I was able to achieve, steal, hustle or buy. So I am okay with Ms..”
He looked at me for a moment, before he nodded sharply, and continued:
“Ok, as I was saying, despite what Ms. DuClare might think, we don’t employ duds. Our ‘code monkeys’ might not be in her league, but they are not that bad. So, how were you able to integrate VR into Envision?”
I smiled at him.
“You got that the wrong way around.”
His surprised “Huh?” was frankly, pretty amusing, but I continued without laughing:
“I don’t know if it is possible to integrate VR into Envision. If you par it down, and exclude the legacy, probably. If not, it would most likely be very hard, if at all possible. But I did not do that at all. Instead, I created a very bare-bones VR OS, that runs Envision on a virtual machine. That works because it intercepts most calls and is significantly more economical with resources.
It puts every application, every legacy function, in its own VM, and only accesses them when it is needed. Honestly, from what I could see, Envision would work quite fine without at least 30% of the programs, drivers, and services that it routinely starts. The VR system starts those tasks and then shunts them into a passive VM until they are needed. In theory, it is significantly more inefficient, but in reality, with all the garbage that Envision puts up, it makes it run much smoother.
And before you ask, yes, I left the ‘telemetry’ functions up and running.
And as you probably have seen, it takes considerably more oomph from the garbage can than vanilla Envision, if it runs in VR. Outside of VR, in my experience, it reduces the strain on the system quite a bit.”
The two nerds sat there, their mouths hanging open, while ‘Dr. Ph.D. in computer science’ Symmonds just looked at me without even the slightest hint of understanding in his eyes.
When the ‘good doctor’ remained silent, Dan looked first at him, then, after a few seconds, he sighed, shook his head, and turned to the boy nerd.
“You, nerd, is what she says realistic?”
Both nerds flinched, turned red, and looked around as if they just had committed a crime. It was, interestingly, the girl that answered:
“Uh, sir, I… that is we… well, we never… it is…”
Dan barked: “Spit it out, damn it!” and again, both nerds flinched.
The boy swallowed visibly, took a deep breath, and then, in a faint voice, answered:
“Well, sir, yes, it is plausible. I can’t say if it would work. We have never even thought about that approach. Usually, if you shunt something into a VM, you lose available power and resources.”
The girl continued, equally flustered: “Normally, to try to use a VM to reduce the strain is just, well, it is stupid. But if the VM cuts out the unneeded tasks… well, it might work. And if it works, it is brilliant.”
Mr. Elos slumped a bit.
“And how do we know if it works? Just to make it clear, is it possible that this was just bullshit and we are hunting for some fake shit?”
The boy squared his shoulders, but was still unable to look Dan in the eyes:
“Uhm, yes, sir, it is possible. Until we get the source code, we have no way to say if it is real or not. And that is what we need to know if it works or not.”
I gave a slight nod to Justin, and he produced a thumb drive and placed it on the table.
I then said:
“Here are the program, as an archive, in installer form, and the source code. It is only 2.3 TB as the installer. The archive is a bit smaller, and I gave you the source code without the public libraries, so it is only around 260 GB.”
Dan swiveled towards me, then looked at the stick on the table, then back at me:
“Just like that? You are just giving it to us?”
It was Michael that provided the answer:
“Did you listen to us? Any contract between us is essentially worthless. Yes, a nice legal fig leaf, but nothing more. If you want to destroy Enki, you will, contract or no contract. The ‘price’ for the software is that you just let us be. And when you have it, it is in your interest to let us be. So yes, we are just giving it to you.”
He narrowed his eyes, looking at Michel now:
“And you don’t want to extort some concessions from us? You just assume we play fair?”
Michael chuckled.
“What would concessions from you be worth? Let’s face the facts here. If we don’t give this to you, Envision will keep slowly dying. Us providing cheap and safe jacks will accelerate that decline. So without having this program, you essentially have to try to stop us.
I still think you would at best delay us, but it is better to just not risk it.
Now, if we give it to you, suddenly people having jacks becomes an advantage for you. That means that it might be a few bucks in your coffer if you manage to take us over, but it is almost certainly not worth the effort for you. Especially as I don’t think the other triple-As would look favorably at you getting this technology.
That changes if we force too many concessions out of you. I don’t know where the break-even point would be, but the humiliation alone would most likely make it low. And it would be unlikely that we would gain anything substantial. We are well-capitalized, we have the land for our corporation already bought, and we are slowly knitting contacts with other corporations.
The only thing you could provide for us, stopping others from fucking with us, you will most likely do anyway, just because of us succeeding will push your main product up, increasing your profit and influence.
So tell me, what do we have to gain to hold you over the barrel?”
Dan looked at Michael, then at me, then at the thumb drive, and then back at Michael.
“I see. And you are right. If you don’t piss us off, and this thing actually works as you say it does, it would be an advantage for Ralcon to have you succeed.”
He gestured towards the nerds, and the boy quickly grabbed the stick, putting it in a heavy, armored briefcase, before giving the briefcase to one of the security goons, who cuffed it to his wrist.
I looked at it a bit confused, and could not stop myself from asking:
“What is the point of all this security?”
Mr. Elos snorted before he answered me: “I thought we had already established that this” he gestured to the briefcase, “is the future of Ralcon. As Mr. Walker so succinctly explained, without it, Ralcon will be going down hard. So we keep it safe.”
I shook my head slightly.
“Yes, I know that, but that is just one thumb drive. Those things are cheap as heck. We have brought a dozen of them, just to be sure. And if everything fails, you give me a matrix address and a few minutes later, the files are there. I do have the installer, the source code, and the archive secured in several places.”
When he looked at me a bit confused, I shrugged my shoulders.
“We are talking about a digital product. The stick is just a convenient way to transport it. And, frankly, this much security only tells people that you think what’s inside that briefcase is valuable. You certainly don’t want somebody stealing it and possibly patenting it, do you?”
Phil snorted, while Dan spread his fingers and closed his eyes.
A few seconds later, Dan shook his head and looked back at me.
“Then, Ms. DuClare, what would you suggest how we handle our future?”
I massaged my temple but held his gaze.
“I would take that stick, connect it to one or all of the coms in your group, copy the files there, then make a connection to your servers and send the files directly, and after that, put this stick, and the other eleven into the various pockets you have in your clothes. After that, I would put some fake data on another stick, and put that into that briefcase. And finally, I would provide a matrix address to me so that the files can be transferred safely from my systems to yours.
Oh, and of course, the moment the files land on your servers, you should immediately apply for a patent. Just to be sure.”
Unfortunately, that was the moment, Symmonds came out of his funk.
“Preposterous. All that effort for some prank! You should be ashamed of yourself little girl. And I will see to it that you will regret it.”
I cursed inwardly before I answered under gritted teeth: “Mr. Symmonds, are you by chance aware of the existence of my VI?”
He recoiled and looked at me confused. “What?”
“I asked if you are aware of the VI that is listening to every single word that is said here? You know, the VI with access to essentially all the tools of one of the ten best hackers in the world with the primary objective to protect me at any costs and absolutely no compunction of eradicating whole cities in the process?
Because, frankly, if you are, then there are much more pleasant ways to commit suicide. Ways that won’t result in enough collateral damage to be considered a war crime.”
That shut Symmonds up, for a moment. Then, with spittle flying from his mouth, he lifted the finger and berated me:
“That is just another of your irresponsible actions. People like you are a menace. A danger to society. Just to have such a VI running rogue, you deserve to be shot.”
I steepled my hands in front of me and looked at him as coldly as I could manage.
“You mean people like you don’t you?”
He scoffed at me.
“People like me? I did not create a homicidal VI. That is solely on you.”
I couldn’t help myself and had to chuckle mirthlessly.
“But did you ever think about why? Why did I do it? Well, I can answer that, I did it because people like you made it inevitable. If I had known that a simulated fuzzy logic processor was enough to turn an expert system into a VI, there would be no VI hellbent on protecting me.”
He sneered:
“So, you are stupid after all. And what has that to do with me?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call me stupid. I mean, if the corporations, among them Ralcon, had not removed that little tidbit of information and had replaced it with the lie that a physical fuzzy logic processor has to be present in all textbooks, tutorials, and documentation, I would have known better. Unlike you I had to earn my Ph.D. in computer science, you know.”
He slapped the table:
“Is that all you have? Conspiracy theories and lies?”
I leaned back.
“No, what I have is the Panacea dump.”
Symmonds was not the only one who was confused by that, and I calmly continued:
“A few months ago, the Phantom hacked Panacea, I am sure you know about it. No question that Ralcon gobbled up any information from it it could get. But, just for fun, I had my VI look into it if it could find something that explained how the substitution happened.
And lo and behold, it found the minutes of the cybersecurity meeting of the Inter-Concernal Security Conference of 2120, as well as the digitally signed contract between all the triple- and double-A corporations of that time.
The minutes where they hash out why to make the substitution, and how to best do it. And the contract that demanded all of them keep silent about it. So no, not a conspiracy theory anymore, is it?”
I now slowly stood up.
“That was not even the only scheme I found in the dump. And people like you don’t even care what you have done. The damage to humanity you’ve caused. And for what? To keep possible competition down? As if you corpo-rats did not have any other, less damaging ways to do that. But no, you had to go the way that resulted in around 20% of the most brilliant minds of their time being killed or broken. That made another 30% of them unemployable.
And then, when the dispirited pitiful rest of those brilliant people was gobbled up by the likes of you, you fucking broke them to the company line. Snuffing their innovative spirit.” By now I was screaming at him. “YOU are the reason why humanity wallows in mud 150 years after world war III. 150 years where any progress was at best accidental. 150 years where we as a species moved closer and closer to extinction, destroyed innovator by destroyed innovator.”
During all that I felt that Michael was tugging on my sleeve, but I ignored it. Finally, he forcefully pulled me back down into the chair, and hissed at me:
“That’s enough.”
I was breathing heavily but slowly calmed down. Symmonds turned red with anger, while Dan hardened, the nerds paled, and Phil just facepalmed.
Dan snarled at me:
“If you know what’s good for you, nobody of you will breathe a single word about this to anybody. IS THAT CLEAR?”
I laughed at him.
“You think that will help? Nobody of us has to say a word. The dump is out there. In the dark web. Do you really think it is not already being analyzed by the conspiracy nuts? They are slower than I was, because thanks to the corporations, I have a VI running on a supercomputer. But it is only a matter of months before they crow their victory out.
This ship has sailed, and the cat is out of the bag. All you now can do is damage control. Not that the population knowing about it will do anything. Sure, it will make them hate the corporations even more. So what? They can’t do anything.”
Dan clearly was not very enthused by my statement.
“FUCK!” He took a deep breath and leaned forward, putting his head on his hands.
“Shit, there is no helping it. We have to go into damage control mode. Phil, call your grandfather. This is maybe even more important than the VR app. We have to get our PR team on it. Maybe have the politicians release something about falsified memos or something like that.”
I sighed.
“Why bother? Does it really matter? What can the peasants even do? Vote for puppets that you haven’t bought yet? Get real, everybody knows that you and Enertech decide who they can even vote for. Riot? You have the corporate military and the national military. Not buy your stuff? Then who do they buy from?
That is why this whole scheme is so vicious. You had no need for it. Do you think we enjoy giving Ralcon this program? Essentially for free? No, of course not. But we have no choice. We have to play nice with you, with Enertech, and the other A-leaguers. And no startup would have ever stood a chance if the big corps made a concerted effort to keep them down.
Face facts, the corporations own this world.
Even the ‘bastions of democracy’, the EU, the Confederation, Luna, and Louie 5 are under the thumb of the big guns. It is just a little bit better hidden there.”
That earned me another glare from Dan.
“So, why are you so angry about it then? You have made it out of the trap.”
“I am so angry, though furious would be probably the better term because this messing around has deprived humanity of the people it needs to survive. Because what was an IQ of 100 in January 2079 is an IQ of 108 today. It was 102 in November 2093, after 14 years of the most brutal, most devastating war humanity has ever encountered. A war that specifically targeted the smarter people on both sides.
And this little scheme is responsible for it. We still don’t have the level of bioengineering that we had before the war. Before the war, we had some new discoveries every week. Now we can be happy if we have one in a decade.
And we still don’t know what Sanderson’s Folly did to us. Just that we are dying out from it. And virtually nobody is working on it. That is the result of your meddling. That humanity is going extinct.”
Of course, that was the moment when Symmonds had to spew his nonsense again:
“Pah, nonsense. Humanity is doing fine. Stop being so melodramatic.”
“That explains why you had to buy your degree. You really are an idiot. Humanity is not fine. In 2093 there were 8.6 billion humans. Today, we have 1.1 billion. If that trend continues, then we will be down to 500 million in 50 years. Less than 300 million in 100 years. We are reducing our numbers by 50% every 50 years. And you think that is sustainable?”
Symmonds snickered at that.
“You are a bit behind the news, dear child, or you would know that in the Commonwealth they have a new mutation that is completely fertile. So yes, humanity is fine.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Oh, is that so? And do you know that out of 933 of those mutations, 921 are, in a medical sense, retarded? They are at the mental developmental level of a three-year-old. And they give that trait to their children. Marvelous idea, replacing humanity with small children in adult bodies. Oh, sure there are 12 that are, well, not quite normal, but functional. But 12 is not enough to base the entire species on. The genetic bottleneck will destroy humanity in a few generations. So yes, unless somebody finds a cure for the Folly, humanity is fucked.”
Unfortunately, that was still not enough to make Symmonds shut up.
“So, if you are so concerned about the future of humanity, why don’t you do it? Develop the cure. Be a hero.” Oh yes, by now he was mocking me.
My reaction probably disappointed him a bit.
“Get real. I have a Ph.D. in computer science and one in nanoengineering. I have enough knowledge in physics, math, electronics, material science, cyber-technology, and medicine that I could get another Ph.D. in each of them if I bothered to do the dog and pony show. I have just now brought CRS-free cyberware to the market. I am the creator of the best cyber-board one can buy. I have written entire operating systems from scratch.
I have done all that, and I am just 18. When, if you are so smart, should I have done that?
Then there is the fact that biology and genetics are not my forte. I know enough to hum the melody, but I also know enough that it is not for me. And if the big corporation would stop killing the more inventive, intelligent people, there would be no need for me to do it.”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but thankfully, he remained silent. I, on the other hand, took a few deep breaths with closed eyes to calm down again.
When I opened my eyes again, I turned my attention to Dan.
“I assume that he was the reason you demanded my presence?”
Dan was massaging his temples for some time now, but he still answered me:
“No, not really. He included himself in the team when he learned that we requested you to be here.”
I felt a wave of exhaustion flood over me. Still not done. But fine, I would get through this as well.
“In that case, could I ask you to come to the point, please? I would prefer to leave the actual negotiations to Mr. Walker and his team.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed again, but he nodded slowly.
“Ok. In essence, we want to hire you.”
For a moment I was sure that I had misheard him, but no, he definitely had said that Ralcon wanted to hire me.
“You are aware that I already have a job, right? A job that I mostly even like. Working for a company that mostly belongs to me. So, and please don’t take that personally, what makes you think that I would come to work for Ralcon? Or anybody else?”
He shrugged.
“We don’t want to give you a job, we want to hire you, by the way of Enki, to do a task for us.”
That… sounded not so good. Ralcon was known for playing hardball. I hesitated to answer, but Michael took over here:
“What do you want her to do?”
Dan cleared his throat and then answered:
“Last time, she mentioned that Envision is, what was the description again?” He looked at his tablet and scrolled around a bit. “Ah yes, here it is. A ‘big ball of mud’. While our programming teams were not happy about that description, they all agreed that she was right. More importantly, she guessed that cleaning up the source code would increase the performance by around 30%.”
Michael nodded slowly.
“Yes, I remember. So, please, continue.”
“Our programmers have tried for more than a decade to clean up this source code. They failed. Every single time they attempted it, it broke Envision. That by the way is the reason they said Envision can’t be made VR-capable. But obviously, Ms. DuClare is better at it than our programmers. We want to hire her to clean up Envision.”
They did want me to do WHAT?!? Were they even remotely sane?
I could only stare at Dan, completely without words. Heck, it would be easier and faster to start from scratch. Sure, it would not include all the legacy interfaces, but seriously, what the heck?
Michael was leaning forward, while I still was coming to grips with what Ralcon wanted, and asked:
“Do you really trust an outsider with your source code? Is that not quite dangerous?”
Dan sighed before he answered:
“Not any outsider. Her. And yes, it is risky. But that is where she comes into the play. She is Seraphim, and even in the corporate world we have learned that if Seraphim gives her word, she does her level best to keep it.”
Unfortunately, Michael nodded and spoke: “Yes, I can see that. We’ll think about it. I am sure you can understand that this is not an ad-hoc decision. Especially because she tries to keep her word.”
That ripped me out of my shock, and I turned to Michael in disbelief. Had he just sold me out?
“What the heck? No, we won’t think about it. Do you have any idea what they are asking? How much work that is?”
Micheal looked at me with some sadness in his eyes:
“Viv, keep calm. No, I don’t know, but I do know that we have to at least think about it. At this time, we can’t make an informed decision.”
“At this time, I can make a sufficiently informed decision to say that I don’t want to touch that cesspool. I would guess that it would take me at least a month at full compression, more likely two or three, to get it done.
It is… no, just no. I don’t want to touch it.”
Michael’s answer was in a warning tone: “Vivian, keep calm, and we will talk later about it, do you understand?”
Mr. Elos interjected at this moment:
“Can I ask why you don’t want to do it?”
I looked at him for a moment and then shook my head.
“Do you have any idea, a real idea, what you are talking about? I don’t know how it is with Envision 48, but 42 had 230 million lines of code. Do you have any measure of what that means? It is said that one million lines of code are 18 thousand pages. That is fourteen times as much as what Tolstoy's War and Peace have.
The fricking full genome of a mouse is only the equivalent of 120 million lines of code. There is a reason why I wrote the VR system the way I did, and that reason is that after some cursory reading of the source code I decided not to touch that thing. If you want to have it cleaned up, why don’t you create a VI to do it? Run it on a supercomputer and come back a month later?”
Before Dan could answer, Symmonds exploded:
“Because not everyone is such an irresponsible imbecile like you? Do you even have an idea how fucking dangerous VIs are? We will do no such thing.”
I was, in one word, flabbergasted. I mean, he was the CIO of one of the biggest software giants in the world. It was his responsibility to get their computer systems to the best status possible.
After a few awkward seconds, I looked back at Dan.
“And he is your CIO? For real?”
Dan slumped when I said that but answered:
“Yes, he is the CIO. And why is what he said that much of a problem? You just ripped into us because the corporations made rogue VIs more likely. So, why are you astonished that we don’t use them if we don’t have to?”
I lifted my right hand palm up.
“Rogue VI!” I lifted my left hand in the same way. “Controlled VI! They are not the same. A VI does exactly what it is programmed to do. What its objectives demand. Nothing more, nothing less. Rogue VIs are a problem because they are not planned.
They happen because, in the best case, a learning-enabled expert system runs on a system with a fuzzy logic core. In that case, the new VI will take over the objectives from the expert system. That could be anything, from network defense over resource allocation to gaming, or whatever. If you get the expert system running the opponent in a strategy game as the VI it tries to follow the rules of the game and beat the humans.
It is worse if you have several expert systems on the same computer when the fuzzy logic core is introduced. Then the resulting VI is an amalgamation of all of them, with, in part, mutually exclusive objectives. The VI will try to find a way to satisfy all of them, in any way it can. The results are unpredictable, and often the solution is to remove humans from the equation.”
I placed both my hand back on the table.
“I was lucky with my VI that I had only one learning-enabled expert system running, and that I could modify its objectives a bit. After I convinced it that the original objectives were a threat to the objectives.
But a controlled VI is a completely different beast. For one, anybody purposefully creating a VI does so in an isolated system where a mistake in the objectives can do no harm, and second, the objectives are carefully planned out so that the VI can be productive without conflicting orders.
A controlled VI is an incredibly valuable tool.”
I shook my head.
“But we are going off-topic. My point is, that with a VI you probably can cut the work down to a manageable degree. And you don’t have to ask me to do it.”
“Well, we are offering you quite good compensation for it. We thought about $1 billion.”
I heard Melissa inhale sharply, but did not give her any attention.
“That is nice of you, but honestly, I don’t need the money.”
That brought several exclamations, and a few coughs and nearly everybody was staring at me astounded.
Michael of course was barely able to suppress a snicker and Dan, after he lifted his chin from the table, asked in an unsure voice:
“You don’t need the money? We are talking about one billion dollars!”
“Yes, I heard you the first time. And I get that when I sell a specialized exclusive nanobot design. I don’t do this for money. I don’t even do it to get my inventions to the people. I do it because I think it is the right thing to do.”
Haggerton just stammered: “But… but… we are talking about a billion dollars. How can you not be interested in that?”
“Because, frankly, I have enough money for the rest of my life and my time is more valuable to me than to use it on the big ball of mud.”
Symmonds was still pouting, and Dan was obviously not amused. Haggerton just sat there with his mouth open, but Phil just slightly shook his head.
“Can you at least tell us what’s wrong with it?” It seemed that he was the closest to accepting my refusal.
I now had the problem of where to begin, it took me a moment before I decided to go with brutal honesty.
“The better question is what is not wrong with it. You can summarize the problem in one sentence. It has not had a major overhaul since world war three. At this point, it would be easier to just start from scratch.
It is bloated, many of the functions are somehow forced into it without much concern of how it influences the rest, and most security patches and updates are essentially jury-rigged.
To make it work, you would have to go back to Windows 40 as a starting point and cleanly integrate newer features.
At the same time, you have to clean up the feature creep or at least make the control of all of it more streamlined and ergonomic.”
“What do you mean Windows 40?”
“That was the oldest version that as far as I could see was competently created. If I had to guess, that was the last version where fully educated pre-war software engineers were working with it. After that… well it is a patchwork of classes and libraries that seem to have been written without any thought about how it fits in.”
Dan had by now found his voice again.
“What do you mean, software engineers? You mean programmers?”
“No, not really. Software engineers could, and did program, but they also kept the bigger picture in mind, and the good ones of them kept the project consistent. Not always successful, especially in something as big as Windows or Envision, but, my impression is that you have a feature idea group that divines features Envision should have and then give a programming team the job to create each feature. A group of software engineers would now have the job of keeping all those little groups compatible.
As it is now, all the projects get thrown into the pot, and if something is not working right, the programmers try to find a workaround. If that does not work, the features get deactivated, but remain in the source code and therefore the OS.
Some of them are only partially deactivated and still use resources. Some interfere with other features, and the workarounds increase the needed resources by a few times.
All in all, it is a mess.”
They did not seem too happy about what I had said. It was unfortunate for them that it was the truth. But they were not alone. During the great war, the meticulous planning and work ethics of proper software engineers were more often than not left on the wayside in favor of speed.
Speed in getting programmers to do the work, speed in getting new programmers trained, speed in getting software out of the doors that can do the job somehow.
Something that can be done in wartime, has to be done in wartime, but after the war, all those bad habits were deeply ingrained. And software engineers had become a dying breed. Oh sure, some parts of software engineering were still there, and a handful of us still had the knowledge of how to do it.
Mostly because we either recreated it, found it in historical files, or had a mentor who could do it because the mentor had a mentor, and so on.
But the universities had stopped teaching it because just after the war, the boards of the big corporations saw the increased cost of doing software development the right way, without realizing the long-term cost of doing it the wrong way.
Phil sighed.
“And you think without some of those software engineers we are doomed? Why does nobody have them anymore then if they are so important?”
“The war. During the war, there was no time for proper software development cycles. They needed new updates right then. After the war, corporations had grown to see the new way to write software as a positive. After all, it was faster and cheaper.
They influenced vocational schools and universities to cut the ‘unneeded’ parts of software development out of the curriculum. The results are now visible, but there is almost nobody who can repair them. There are a few on the dark web who can because they made the effort to research the old methods for whatever reason. Otherwise, forget it. I think with the help of some historians, we can reintegrate the skill into the software developer parts of education, but that is a slow thing. Other than that, as I said before, a VI programmed to keep an eye on it is the only relatively quick solution.”
While I was saying that, Dan let his head hang down, and when I was finished, he looked at me.
“So, we are fucked is what you want to say? Let’s be honest, nobody in the dark web has your reputation for keeping their word. We certainly won’t trust them with Envision. A VI is, as you might have found out, out of the question. And you don’t want to do it.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t want to do it because it will be a painful, thankless job that will take way more of my time than I am willing to invest. Just to give you some perspective here, if I use the time to develop nano-technology and sell that for 50% of market price, I will have made a few hundred billion dollars. I don’t do that because that is the same boring, repetitive work that I hate. There would have to be a very good reason for me to do this job.”
I heard Michael whimper on my side, but did not divert my attention to him, but kept looking at Dan.
Dan’s face on the other hand lost all emotional expressions as if he suddenly stopped feeling anything. I have to say, the effect was… creepy.
“Is that so? Just to make it clear, Ralcon needs somebody to do those changes, do you understand what we are saying?”
Before I could say anything, Michael intervened. “Yes, we understand. Give us some time to have her think about the matter.”
I felt anger rise up inside me. Why was he falling so into my back? I thought I had made it abundantly clear that I had absolutely no intention of doing this job.
What I got from him was a message:
M: Shut the fuck up! You are just on the way to ensuring that they take us out. They think they need that to happen and they will do anything to force you. They will destroy Enki, and everybody of us, except you to get you to do it. Give in and we will look into you avoiding it. But right now, I need you to shut up!
I was a bit confused for a moment before I remembered that we were talking to one of the most ruthless and vicious corporations there were. Of course, they would put any pressure they thought they could get away with onto me to get what they wanted.
And the idiot that I was, I had just made it clear to them that they would need enormous amounts of pressure on me. Yup, I messed up by the numbers. Now I had to find a way to get out of it.
I don’t know what made him say that, but Rafael used this moment to lighten the mood of the room. Or at least trying to.
“You should look at the bright side, with Envision going VR, your gaming division will finally be able to make money again.”
I whipped my head around to look at him. Did he not understand that the gaming division was far from being on their mind just now?
I saw Haggerton waving dismissively from the corner of my eye.
“Pah. Forget it. We will finally be rid of this albatross at the end of the year. No more money pit of gaming division.”
I did not understand. Why would they want to get rid of their gaming division now?
“Not that that is of any big concern to me, but what are you meaning?”
Phil shrugged.
“It is no secret. We’ve been trying to sell the whole division for years. At this time, we are just throwing good money after the bad. Since 2240 they’ve had exactly one game that did more than break even. It is just not sustainable.”
I had to shake my head in confusion.
“Yes, and that one game was the one where the developer ignored your directive of not including a VR function. The rest, stuck on the desktop Envision has barely been interesting for anybody.
You don’t make games for the Dream or the Funboard. People will have to spend four times the amount of time doing the same things on the Envision as they do on the consoles. Time that they don’t have if they can afford a current console or a gaming computer after 12 hours of work the day. So they use the consoles and don’t buy an Envision PC. And your sales reflect that.
With Envision going VR, you now have a completely new market segment available. It is, in my opinion, stupid to sell it now.”
Symmonds piped up right then.
“Don’t bother. It won’t be sold. Nobody wants to buy it. At the end of the year, we are finally rid of the contracts and can shut it all down.”
They were trying to shut down their gaming division? Waste all the IP that they had? And nobody was willing to buy it?
“You are serious? Nobody is willing to buy it? Are they all insane?”
I got an idea, right that moment. That might be the way out of the dilemma I was facing. In my innermost mind, I knew that I had to take on the Envision job, but by now I had to find a way that Ralcon actually believed me that I would be doing the job without pressure.
And if we got all those intellectual properties on the way, so much the better.
I took a deep breath.
“Fine. We will buy it! And yes, I’ll even clean up Envision for you for that.”
Michael’s astonished “We will what?”
“I said we will buy their gaming division. It would be a shame to see all those brands go to the garbage dump of history.”
And as I already had the plan to make a software engineering VI for Envision anyway, it was a good use of the resources.
What, do you think I was willing to spend virtual years going over that can of worms that Ralcon called Envision? No, a few virtual months distributed over several real-world weeks to control the work of the VI were more than enough.
And if we had this VI anyway, it would be easy to use it for a whole gaming division. Heck, the work Warden had done on Doom alone would make that IP much more valuable without putting any more work into it.
So yes, buying the gaming division as a method to preserve my face with Envision would, over the medium term, bring us quite a bit of money as well.
Michael snarled: “Are you… we barely have enough personnel at this time to keep our operations up and running. Do you have any idea how to manage a gaming division? And one that is losing money for decades at that?”
“I have some ideas. Even if it does not work out, I am the one paying the price. Personally. And we will have some time to clean them up.”
Of course, now Symmonds absolutely had to give us his two cents.
“You think your work is worth a complete division of Ralcon? Get real.”
“First, we are talking about a division that Ralcon wants to close down. No loss here for you.
Second, you offered me $1 billion for the work on Envision. That was your starting offer. Depending on how long it would take, it would be worth up to $100 billion. If we would negotiate, we would meet somewhere in the middle. But now you get the work for something you want to throw away anyway.
And third, if that is still not enough, I’ll even throw this into the pot.”
I pulled out the stick with the nano-fab and nano-bot schemata.
“These are the plans for a family of 8th-gen nano-fabs with 12th-gen nano-bots. On the open market, those plans have a worth between $5 billion and $10 billion. Together with the work I will do on Envision, that should be more than enough to pay for your gaming division.”
Phil looked at the stick in my hand.
“And it just so happened that you had that in your pocket?”
I snorted.
“Nope. I had it in my pocket to potentially sweeten the deal if you turned out to be difficult. It wasn’t needed for the basic deal, but for this, you can have it.”
Phil looked at the stick but then sighed.
“We don’t have the authority to make that deal.”
“Then who has it that you can reach quickly? Because I want to get this deal done with.”
He looked at Dan, who looked from him to Symmonds and back to Phil.
“Yes, do it. This is important enough to call your grandfather directly.”
I could have increased the gain on my ear implants and listened to his call, but I decided that it was not that important.
Roughly five minutes later, Phile got back to the table.
“Ok, we have a deal. You give us your word that you will do the job, give us this stick, and you get the gaming division. All the studios, the publishers, the IPs, and whatever else belongs to it. Is that acceptable to you?”
I shrugged.
“I was the one who suggested it, so yes.” I placed the stick on the table and slid it forward.
“Now, if there is nothing else, I would like to get back to my place and start working on Envision. Do you have a copy of the source code or will you send it to me over the matrix?”
The boy nerd pulled out a thumb drive from his briefcase and placed it on the table. Directly in front of him. After a few seconds, where I waited for him to shove it over, I cleared my throat, nodding pointedly toward the stick, until the nerd turned red and gave the stick a shove, placing it halfway between us.
Meanwhile, I had a silent discussion with Michael.
M: What the fuck are you trying to do? Now there is no way we can weasel you out of this deal.
V: You were right. Ralcon will get me to work on Envision. There was no way for me to weasel out of it in the first place. And I was so stupid to tell them that $1B won’t be worth it for me, so they need something else to make me do it.
V: That can be me wanting their gaming division, or the lives of you, or your father. I would rather not make them decide that they need some insurance.
M: Ok, fine, but what will we do with those gaming studios? Or those IPs? What I said about our personnel was true. We don’t have the people.
V: For one, the studios already have people working for them. They also have people running them. What will change is that we provide the funding for them. They had a thirsty stretch because of Ralcon’s policies. We will change those policies. We will also develop our own console, with my new tech.
M: Fuck V, those studios are crap. They haven’t had a hit in forever. And I am sure you have no idea how to develop a game.
V: I know enough to supervise the technical aspects of it if it is necessary. Not that it will be necessary. And the studios are distributed all over the world. What we need are people who get to the artistic aspect of game development. And we can then throw money at the problem until it goes away.
M: Money is not the solution to everything. And you don’t have the time to supervise those studios.
V: No, I probably won’t. At least not much. But what I will have is the VI that I will build to tackle the Envision problem. Warden has already proven to me that she can upgrade a game, develop levels and make games simply better.
M: A VI? Have you lost your mind? Ralcon will shit bricks if they learn you used a VI for that.
V: Ralcon wants the source code of Envision cleaned up. They don’t really care how we do that. And even if they do care, I’ve only promised to get it done. And later, when that idiot Symmonds is out of the loop, we might even be able to sell them the VI.
M: I thought VIs lacked the creative capability to do something like clean up the source code.
V: Nah, what they lack is the ability to create new code, new functionality. They don’t understand why we humans want the software to do something. If I put the VI at recreating the functionality of Envision, but within the rules of software engineering and good code writing, it will do that.
M: And how long will that take? Ralcon will not be very patient for all that long.
V: You remember talking about the super Grendel? Well, I think we will see one much earlier than we expected.
M: You are building one of those 150 Grendel monsters? For this?!?
V: I don’t think I will get a full 150 Grendel servers up and running before the VI is done with Envision. I would be surprised if I get more than 20 or 30 Grendels in that thing.
Hmm, that gave me an idea. Maybe if I mobilized all my resources? I mean, sure, I could, and would build more NADAs, but I had an inkling where I could find some more.
M: I thought we agreed that a super Grendel was an insane idea. What happened to that?
V: What happened is that my choices are to remake Envision, or see the people I like to suffer from Ralcon pressuring me into it. And I will not put any more effort into it than absolutely necessary.
V: As you said, they won’t wait forever, so I need the computing power of a super Grendel. And if I am designing and building the super Grendel anyway I can as well fully populate it.
M: Fuck, V. You are killing me. And how many super Grendels will Warden build?
W: At least 22.
M: Fuck! Warden is that you?
W: Of course.
M: What the hell are you doing in this discussion? This is private.
W: I thought you were aware that nothing that uses Seraphims implants is private from me.
M: Shit. :( Yeah, I forgot that. So, why 22?
W: Because I have by now 22 clusters I run on. Depending on my predictions, I might build more super Grendels, but that is to be seen.
V: That is a good moment, Warden, how many Grendel can you send me within 2 weeks?
W: 57. Do you want me to begin production?
V: Yes, please do. Together with my 3, that would be 60. So in 6 weeks, I’ll have the fully populated super Grendel. By the way Warden, have you noticed any difference if you increase the number of fuzzy logic cores?
Seemed as if I would get a fully populated super Grendel before the new VI was done with Envision. Probably. On the other hand, even the first tranche of 60 Grendel should be enough to make the VI lightning fast.
W: No, there was no measurable difference.
V: Ok, that means I will make one fuzzy Grendel.
M: And you don’t want to go into the fact that Warden has 57 replicators?
V: Have you expected anything else? I am more surprised that the number is so low.
M: Fine! Whatever! Don’t say I did not warn you when Warden decides to subjugate the human race.
Fortunately, we were able to have this conversation at 24:1, and we did not have to type, so it was all finished when Dan growled at the nerd:
“Give it to her, asshole!”
With some stretching, the nerd was able to get the stick back and then walked around the table to give it to me.
I put it into one of the inner pockets of my blazer before I looked into the round.
“Is there anything else you need me for?”
Dan shook his head.
“No, I think that was it for you.”
I nodded at him, Phil and Haggerton, while standing up, followed by Ryan and Justin.
“Then, if you excuse me, I suddenly have much to do.”
