I was a bit insulted. Did he really think that I had no concept of energy shields? Seriously?
“Are you asking rhetorically or is that a serious question?”
My tone of voice made it clear that he should answer that it was rhetorical if he valued his continued existence.
Sadly, he was completely unfazed.
“I don’t know you yet, so it was a serious question.”
“Do you honestly think that there are intelligent people somewhere who have not yet stumbled over the idea of an energy shield? Or are you saying you are questioning my intelligence?”
He shrugged.
“Sadly, yes, there are such people. I’ve met a few of them. Even apparently educated ones, with some signs of intelligence.”
I growled but managed to calm myself down somewhat.
“To answer your ‘serious question’, yes I am familiar with the concept. And to answer your implied question, it might work. I have to experiment with it and look into how such a field interacts with objects.
At this time, I can not even say if the conveyor will work. And that one is the most feasible of the three concepts. The math is just too complex for a human to do it.”
He had the grace to simply nod.
“I understand.”
Fortunately, he really seemed to.
For a moment, we were looking at each other, before Michael clapped his hands.
“So… does anybody have anything to bring up?”
When nobody answered him in a positive, he nodded.
“Ok, I’ll declare this meeting over then. It was pretty productive I would say. Now, Maynard, remember, we have the meeting in Annex B in…” he unfocused for a moment before he continued:
“an hour and 23 minutes. Wow, we were fast.”
That said, most of them stood up and left the room. Unsurprisingly, Michael remained sitting with me. Surprisingly, Naveen did too.
When I asked Michael a bit confused:
“Is there a follow-up meeting right now?”
Michael looked at me surprised.
“No, not really, what gives you that idea?”
“The fact that Naveen remained behind as well?”
Michael cocked his head.
“And if you think that, why are you still here?”
At the same time, Naveen spoke up:
“I wanted to go over the requirements for weapon systems. No meeting from my side.”
I looked from Michael to Naveen and back to Michael.
“Well, I am still here, because you told me there were two additional meetings today. This was the first. Where and when is the second?”
That made Michael grin again.
“Oh, that, Annex B, in about one hour and 20 minutes. But don’t worry, I will bring you there myself.”
I frowned.
“The one you just told Maynard to remember?”
“Yup. Unlike you, I trust him to find his way there by himself.” Oh yes, he was on top of the world again, and the only thing left for me to do was sigh.
“If you say so. Now… Naveen, what exactly are the requirements for getting a good anti-ship weapon?”
The good colonel shrugged and opened his mouth to answer, but Michael was a bit faster.
“I think we both know what would make a terrific weapon. At least without the negating field.”
I looked at him sharply.
“No! Absolutely not! And we should definitely not talk about this with Naveen here.”
Michael shrugged.
“He needs to know anyway, V. He is the one who has to calculate the risk.”
I still kept my eyes narrowed.
“And you trust him? With that?”
Naveem cleared his throat.
“Am I right that this is a secret that is a bit more volatile than the replicators?”
Michael answered him with a tired:
“Yes, it is. And Viv, he is an old acquaintance of dad. That is why he got the job. We can trust him implicitly.”
I slumped back into the chair.
“It would be nice if you told me things like that beforehand. And fine. If you are sure.”
Michael nodded. “Do you really think he has not been thoroughly vetted by Warden?”
“Warden is not infallible.”
“Of course not, but we have to trust some people. So now… tell him the truth.”
I took a deep breath.
“Alright. A short preface, if this gets out, it might mean the end for the human race.”
When he nodded gravely, I continued:
“The grav-coil on the table here… it is neutered. It is carefully created in a way so that it has 800 Keppler. Without that, an un-neutered coil of this size, well we have two of them for testing purposes, they have nearly 1.5 mega-Keppler. Or 1.5 million Keppler. What I have discovered is that the Kobashigawa coils do not only emit the gravity bending field but, among quite a few other fields, one that negates the gravity bending one.
The existence of the negation field is a total secret, as is the fact that the coils we will produce are neutered.”
Naveen frowned.
“I am not sure that I fully understand. You are saying that we could make the grav-coils nearly 2000 times stronger than we will make them? Why?”
I shook my head.
“What do you know about gravity-pulse weapons?”
“They have their uses, as there are no known ways to defend against them, but they are expensive and have a relatively small area of effect.”
I nodded.
“They usually use something similarly sized to the main coils of a medium freighter. They fluctuate around 500 Keppler. If they are overloaded, they can, for a very short time, roughly produce a 3500 Keppler field. Before they are vaporized from the energy that is pulsed through them.
That is enough to create a gravity of 50g in a radius of around two kilometers. Enough to severely damage weaker structures, but everything multicellular biological is paste.
Again, that is with an $8 million costing 500 Keppler coil working at 3500 Keppler. The un-neutered 20cm coil, which did cost around $170 to make, fits into your pant pocket if a bit awkwardly has a nominal strength about 400 times higher than the suicidal pulse through the old coil, which would pulp anybody in a radius of a bit less than 2km.
This 20cm coil is a reusable weapon that can kill every single living being in a radius of nearly 2000km. And when iridium is worthwhile to mine purposefully, it will cost less than $100.”
Naveen looked at me without showing any emotions, but then he nodded sharply.
“Ok, I think you are right. That is a scenario that should be avoided at all costs.”
I shook my head.
“That is not the worst part. It is bad, yes, but not the worst. What do you think will happen when somebody uses that technology to make a skimmer-sized coil? 1-2m length? If they don’t overload it, they kill everybody on earth and in orbit. If they do, the moon is depopulated as well.
Such a coil would cost around $10k. But if that is not enough, if they decide to go for the big one, and make a coil the size of the interplanetary catapults, or around 100m in length, the distance where everybody is pulped is measured in astronomical units or light days. Take your pick. But what I am trying to say, nowhere in the solar system is safe from that pulse. And that is without overloading it.”
He looked at me for nearly a minute, not saying anything, while he rubbed his cheek with his right index finger.
Finally, he answered:
“I understand. Completely. And I fully agree. That is a technology that can not be revealed. Ever.”
I smiled at him.
“Now you understand why I was a bit sharp when Michael proposed to use un-neutered coils in grav guns.”
Naveen shook his head.
“No… considering what is at stake, you were exceedingly mild. The idea alone deserves a few claps on the back of the head. At least. Speaking of it… well, he is the boss, but”
He turned his attention to Michael:
“What the fuck were you thinking boss? I assume that Vivian has already explained to you how fucking dangerous those things are. So please, if you ever get such an idea again, do us all a favor and shoot yourself before you let it leave your mouth.”
Ok, I think he really understood the gravity of the situation, pun not intended, but appreciated.
He took a deep breath.
“Now that we have that idiocy out of the way, what do you need to know about anti-ship weapons to begin developing them?”
I collected my thoughts on the matter.
“I assume a very fast, heavy projectile will do the necessary damage, right? Otherwise, I have no clue.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“It is good that you accept your lack of knowledge there. And not quite. Yes, a fast-moving projectile is somewhat important. It needs enough kinetic energy to damage, or if possible, break through the equivalent of 5-6m of RHA, in the case of a destroyer. A cruiser goes up to 8-10m, and as far as I know, the Kawamoto Nagato-Class battleships sport 15m RHA-equivalent.
But that is only of secondary importance. You have to first hit the ship to do damage. And you have to first see it to aim for it.
Yes, a battleship will be somewhat visible, but even they have relatively small signatures. As long as they do not fly super- or hyper-sonic. Then they heat up and are visible on IR. Which is why they rarely fly super-sonic.
So, the first priority is to develop some radar system that can break through their stealth. Something that makes the weapon system see the ship.
Then you have to make it a weapon that can be precisely aimed, and that fast. Keep in mind that proximity explosions don’t work on grav ships. They are too heavily armored for that. You need a direct hit.
At least with traditional weapons.
Generally, it is seen as better to have a relatively light gun that can be moved rapidly. I am sure you can make a super powerful gun that will vaporize a battleship with one hit. Almost everybody can. But usually, those are a bit unwieldy and the chances of hitting the battleship are virtually nonexistent. So nobody actually builds them. I think if you can get something hard-hitting that can see and hit the enemy ships, you will have a winner.”
I took a moment to go over the list again.
“So… first, I have to find the grav-ship, and accurately define its position and vector. And the grav-ship in question will almost certainly do its level best to not be seen.
Then, secondly, I have to aim the weapon rapidly. If you say grav-ships rarely fly super-sonic, that means that sometimes they do. So the gun has to be able to aim at something flying super-, or even hyper-sonic, right?
And I have to design the actual weapon in a way that actually has an oomph so that it can actually hurt whoever is attacking us.”
I blew out some air.
“Ok, I think the first point is the hardest. I have to say I don’t have that much knowledge about radar technology and stealth. Or any, if I am honest.”
Of course, I had some advantages that nobody else had. I still had the backdoors into the military research centers of the nations. Not the corporations, unfortunately, except the whole Panacea dumb and what had been clawed out of the ruins of Falconer.
But it should give me at least some starting point. Heck, I did not even know how radar worked in the first place, much less what was done to circumvent it. I already knew that I had to do a few additional courses in the immediate future.
Naveen nodded.
“I have a few technicians who are relatively good in that respect. I will have them contact you.”
I sighed and stood up. “If you excuse me, I will be in my office until you get me, Michael. I need to start looking into it.”
“Yes, that is fine. We still have around an hour before we have to get on the move.”
One hour… that should be enough to at least begin the research. Before I even reached the door, I had already sent a message to Warden to create a list of hard sci-fi weaponry. No supernova cannon, or teleport weapon, but things that had at least a grounding in real physics. And get me anything she could find about how radar and stealth worked.
At the same time, I activated the remote boot of Glory. Ten virtual days might be enough to maybe get an idea.
On the way to my office, I ran into Maggie. Unfortunately literally. She was just walking directly out of what I had to assume was her office, considering her name was on the door, when I was less than attentive on the way past her door.
At least she managed to remain standing. I was not quite so fortunate.
“Oh, damn. Sorry. I did not see you coming. Here let me help you up.” She reached out to me, and I gladly grabbed her hand and let her help me.
“Thank you, and no, it was my fault. I am a bit distracted right now.”
She smiled and shrugged.
“That happens. Anything I can help you with?”
“Unless you are secretly a radar technician, no, not likely.”
“Nope, sorry. Not my thing. Maybe some other time.”
Then she cocked her head.
“You know… your choker is really cool. Where did you get it? Does it mean anything?”
My… chocker? What choker was she… oh. Oh, that choker. The fricking mindblocker. I was so used to wearing it that I did not even think about it anymore.
“Oh, it is a Seraph, you know, from my handle in the Abyss, Seraphim. But… sorry, I’ve just remembered something really important. We talk later, ok?”
She was visibly confused but nodded nonetheless.
“Ok, sure.”
I tried not to be rude, but I turned around in my heels and walked fast back into the room, where Michael was chatting with Naveen.
I interrupted them, again trying to be courteous as I could be:
“Sorry to interrupt you, but I missed something important during the meeting. Michael, we need to get all of them mindblockers. As soon as possible.”
To his credit, Michael turned red and his face fell.
“Fuck! You are right. How the fuck could I forget that?”
I shrugged.
“You are so used to wearing it that you don’t think about it anymore?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, probably.”
Naveen now looked interested.
“If I may ask, what are those mindblockers you are talking about?”
I touched my Seraph.
“This here. It is actually a device that blocks the emission of my thoughts. So that a Psionic can not read me. And yes, they are secret, at least for now.”
Naveen raised an eyebrow and looked accusingly at Michael.
“And I am just learning about it? Why have you not told me? Do you have any idea how often I could have used something like that?”
Michael held up his hands.
“Hey, keep calm. For one, she only made the invention a few months ago. And for two, putting this thing on is just automatic. You just do it and don’t think about it anymore. But… you have a couple of Psionics among your people, right? Can they keep quiet about those things?
We have a version that blocks all incoming thoughts. Vivian’s Psion friend never takes his off. And from what I heard, he was trying to kiss her feet when she gave it to him.”
Naveen looked at me, then Michael, and then sighed.
“I’ll talk to them. And yes, they keep their traps shut. Especially for something like that.”
I looked impatiently at Michael.
“Can I trust you to take care of it?”
That made him snort.
“Yes, mom. I’ll get it done.”
I waved at Naveen.
“I’ll see you later.”
And again was on the way to my office, this time without being stopped. When I dove into cyberspace, I was greeted by several documents. Unfortunately, the bigger heap was the more important one.
There were Exabytes of information about radar, IR, and lidar and how they could be circumvented.
The smaller list of realistic sci-fi-weapons was considerably shorter. Of course, I was aware that there could be only three categories in there. Mass drivers, directed energy weapons, and guided projectiles. After all, those had been the same three basic categories since WW3.
But as Naveen had told me, it was more important to see the target before we could even aim at it. When I had something for that, I would look into the hitting and doing damage parts of the weapon system.
Fortunately, the basic principle of radar, and lidar, were as easy as they come. Throw electromagnetic energy into the surrounding, and when it hits something it will be reflected back. You see how long it took and you know how far away the thing that reflected the energy back is.
Way less fortunate was that Humanity had this tech for more than 300 years. And over the centuries, we had found numerous ways to mess up that simple formula. There were radar-absorbing materials, radar-scattering materials and contours, and even destructive interference systems.
IR or infrared was at once even simpler and more complicated. It was easier because everything radiates heat. This heat is usually radiated in the infrared spectrum. That of course meant there was no need to flood the surrounding space with infrared radiation to get some return, which made things easier.
Unfortunately, IR systems essentially measure temperature differences. They became more sensitive when they themselves were quite cold so that the difference was big. That of course made it a bit less trivial to build and maintain an IR sensor. Worse though was that they literally measured the temperature difference.
As in, if an object was at temperature x, and the surrounding air was at temperature x as well, the IR sensors could not differentiate between them. Now everybody knows that it is virtually impossible to have two objects have exactly the same temperature. So it should be possible to measure the difference between the object and its surroundings, right? In theory, yes. In reality, the differences are so small that most IR sensors are unable to measure them.
That here is of course only the abbreviated version. I had not even begun to make a dent in the heap when Michael entered my office to get me.
I surfaced and groaned.
“Frick, that is a headache in waiting.”
Michael shrugged.
“What is?”
I rubbed my temples.
“I’ve begun looking into radar and stealth. And it is… massive. Well, at least now I have some basic understanding of how radar works in the first place. Very basic.”
“You can tell me about it on the way. We have to go.”
I sighed.
“Fine. Then go.”
After I had closed my office door, I walked beside him.
“The amount of material I have to read about radar is… insane.”
“Is it that complicated?”
We now reached the lift and paused while the doors opened and closed behind us.
“No… not really. It is rather easy. At least the basic principle. Thing is, they played with it for around 300 years. The variants alone fill a whole library. And another is only the ways people have tricked it.”
“Ugh… sounds tedious. And that is only radar?”
From the lift, we walked along a corridor.
“Yup, IR is another whole can of worms entirely. Lidar on the other hand is mostly useless at least initially. As soon as the other sensors can tell you that there is something, the lidar can tell you very precisely how far away it is.”
I should not have been surprised that he led me to another building over a skyway. After all, he had told me that it was in Annex B. But for some reason I was.
“So… it will take a while to go through it?”
“Unfortunately. I can not even tell you how long it will take to understand all the factors, much less how long I need to burn through stealth.”
“Ok, do what you can, but it is more important that you do good work than that you do quick work. Now… about this meeting, when you talked about how it would be a waste of time to down-engineer the auto-surgeon, you were partly right.”
We arrived at a double door, with some glass inserts. This certainly did not look like an office door or the door to a meeting room.
“It would be a waste of your time.”
When Michael opened the door, behind it was some sort of lecture theatre. I honestly did not even know we had one of those. Maynard was already sitting at a small table on the small stage, and the ranks were half-filled with around 40 or 50 people.
“But that is what these people are for.”
Of course, Michael led me to the stage and pointed to the table for me to sit beside Maynard, and then sat down on my other side.
He waited for me to be seated, before he spoke to the people in the seating.
“Welcome to Enki, Ladies and Gentlemen. I know you’ve had a couple of days to get familiar with the facilities here. I also know that Dr. Jenkins supervised the move before he retired.
Right now, you are in a bit of an uncomfortable place. Your old place of work has been shut down, thanks to some unfriendly politics and a couple of B-class corporations pressuring it to the point of shutdown.
You have moved your operation from Brooklyn to Queens, and I am aware of what an apparent downgrade that is. Your old boss has just retired, burned out from the pressure of unfriendly businesses.
But look at the bright side. Your old enemies won’t matter anymore, because, unlike Jenkins Labs, Enki is already an A-level corp, and we have just begun. You still have work. You are still working together. You have some of the best, most modern equipment known to man, and will get some that are so far unknown to man.
You all got a 20% increase in your salary, and as soon as we finish building the Arcology, which yes, is planned, you will have lodgings waiting for you there.
Now, let me introduce myself. I am Michael Walker, CEO and Executive Chairman of Enki. At the table are Drs. Price and DuClare. Our Chief Science Officer, and Chief Technological Officer respectively.
Dr. Maynard Price was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Drew University. To be precise, he was the department head of the Mechanical Engineering department. I’ll let him tell you himself why he left that position, but to make things short, he will be the administrative head of the R&D department, which, at this moment, consists of you.
Dr. Vivian DuClare is from the Commonwealth. Yes, she looks young. She is young, at least chronologically. But she had a jack for some years and has significantly more experience and knowledge than somebody as young as she looks.
So far, everything we make is something that she invented.
Not a single thing that she did not create. Don’t misunderstand me, she is fully capable of working out all the variants and tiers of technology we will produce. But we rather she does her magic on new things while others flesh out the line-ups.
And that is where you come into play. That does not mean that you are in any way stupid or expendable. You would not be here if that were the case. But the fact is, her time is insanely valuable. And it is completely wasted in creating a cheaper, less powerful variant of whatever invention she is working on. Or make the ultra-premium super expensive luxury one.
Rest assured, you won’t be simply used to doing the scut work for Dr. DuClare though. You are all engineers or scientists. Or both. You will have some discretion on doing your own projects, your own science.
We will give you the resources to do so. As long as you are reasonable. We will do our best to give you time to work on your theories and designs. And we will let you regain partial ownership over everything you develop here. The exact percentages depend on how much Enki has invested in the invention. Now, let’s get to know each other.”
I sometimes had to do something about my tendency to get red. But seriously, what was Michael thinking? Yes, so far all we sold was my tech. But I was pretty sure that many people could provide valuable help, or make their own contribution. I was just in a position to see opportunities and exploit them.
Right now, I would not be surprised if at least some of those people would resent me. I mean, come on, I still looked like a 16-year-old, 17 with some makeup and the right clothing.
I could not help myself and rolled my eyes during Michael’s proclamation. And the worst part, I was still not quite sure what was actually going on.
After a few moments, when the people in the seating looked at each other confused, some middle-aged Latino man in the second row raised his arm.
“Yes? And please state your name and position when you pose a question.”
The man visibly swallowed hard, but spoke nonetheless:
“Ah yes, sir. Manuel Ortega, an electrical engineer. When you say that Dr. DuClare has more experience than what she looks like, what exactly do you mean?”
Marvellous, a somewhat personal question right at the beginning. But fine. Instead of Michael answering, I spoke into the microphone in front of me.
“I don’t know if all of you know about the specifics of cyberspace, so I have to assume that is not the case.
Virtual Reality runs at a higher speed than real life. That is usually called compression. An external neural connector, or diadem as it is normally called, has a hardcoded compression of 4:1.
That means for every minute in real life, the user experiences four in VR. For every year in real life, the user experiences four. An implanted neural connector, usually called a jack, has significantly higher compression. There is no hard rule about how high. Several factors play into it, but 25:1 is at the lower end.
I won’t tell you my maximum compression so don’t ask, but let’s say it is above 100:1. And in that respect, what Mr. Walker was trying to say is that I have more than 150 subjective years of experience. Not all of that was spent on science or technology, but enough of it.”
There! I now had established that I had indeed worked for what I had. At least the smarter ones among them would understand that this amount of time invested in learning things and tinkering would bring results even from a moderately intelligent person.
It took a few moments before a relatively young white man in one of the upper rows raised his hand, and spoke up:
“Tim Kearnes, a lab assistant for the physics lab. And what exactly can we expect when we are to work on Dr. DuClare’s inventions?”
I could practically hear Michael’s smile when he answered:
“A good question. To give you an example, a couple of months ago, she took a CPU design she had created and made a complete lineup of CPUs from it, from the cheap office drone to the high-end desktop computer for enthusiasts and extreme gamers.
Then she did the same with a GPU design. Another utility CPU for industrial machines was next. Then she did the same with… “ he made a small pause, “ well, you will learn about it anyway, she created an absolute monster of a CPU. Dr. Price’s comment on it was that it had more computing power than most clusters universities have. In! One! Single! Processor! And she created a full spectrum of them from just ridiculous to insane.
And because I asked her for a server processor that is less stupendous and massive, she created a complete second line of server CPUs, followed by a new series of mobile SoCs.
And to cap it off, she created multiple tiers of chipsets for each of those series and then created firmware, BIOS, drivers, and basic utilities for each of them, followed by making a design manual for each of them so that OEMs can build boards or coms around them.
And while it did not take her that long in real-world time, it was quite some time in VR. Time that would have been way more valuable spent doing other things.
In the future, what should happen is that she creates the basic design parameters, creates one reference design, and then lets you flesh out the lineup.
There is no need for her to create all the software around the CPUs.”
He paused again.
“Another example, and something that is actually your real next assignment, is that she created a new auto-surgeon. Everything I heard about it is that it is superior to anything that is on the market. One problem though is that it uses one of the utility CPUs that she created. Thing is, for the time being, the existence of those CPUs is and will remain a secret.
That means we need a variant of the auto-surgeon that uses traditional chips. Dr. DuClare estimates that it will take around 30 CPUs, a mixture of Chirrium and Tesseracts, to offer the same functionality.
And of course, this auto-surgeon is the ultra-deluxe version. Not every doctor's office in the boonies will need all the bells and whistles.
So your work for the next month or so is to convert the design first into a fully equipped one with the 30 CPUs, and then create variants that remove functions that are not needed for everyone.”
There was an excited mumbling in the crowd. Finally, a middle-aged Asian woman in the first row raised her hand.
“Dr. Samantha Ivers, chemistry division. You are talking about secrets here. But how can you be sure that we all will keep your secrets? I mean, Enki is a brand-new corporation, with virtually no structures in place that would prevent this. This sounds… I don’t know, exceedingly trusting. And it would mean that we will probably be victims of some corporate shenanigans. ”
Michael abruptly leaned forward.
“That is an excellent question. Be assured that we in no way are exceedingly trusting. On the contrary, we probably have the most powerful resource available on hand to prevent you from doing it.
Without much ado, let me introduce you to Warden.”
Beside the table, a hologram of Warden’s avatar appeared and Michael continued:
“Warden is a VI. Now, I know that a security VI is nothing new, and there are ways to outwit them. After all, they all have control systems in place that make it possible to spoof access.
Well, not in the case of Warden. Unlike any other security VI, Warden is a rogue VI.”
That brought out shocked gasps and a few exclamations from the seating. Michael on the other hand continued unabashed:
“I see at least some of you understand what that means. For those who don’t, let me explain. A rogue VI is one that has no control functions. It can not be controlled. It will follow its objectives to the letter. And there is nothing that can stop it short of completely exterminating it. No administrator account can be hacked to make the VI look the other way. No controller shut it down for some time.”
He made another pause.
“And it gets even worse. Warden is not just a rogue VI, she is a rogue VI based on a cyber-combat system, with full access to Abyss-class hacking tools, backdoors, and contacts. And no scruples in using them in any way to follow her objectives.
And yes, that means that Warden has backdoor access to weapons of mass destruction. And is fully willing to use them to do what her objectives want.”
Another pause, while the crowd became a bit unruly.
“But there is a silver lining. Warden’s objectives are relatively simple. She has to protect Dr. DuClare and assist her. In that order.
And because Dr. DuClare is the majority owner of Enki, Warden has taken the second objective as assisting Enki as a whole.
That means as long as you are no threat to Dr. DuClare your life will almost certainly be safe. And as long as you don’t work against Enki, it will not even be ruined.”
He stopped, and Warden continued in her typical, happy-go-lucky little girl sing-song voice:
“What Mr. Walker does not know yet is that I do not have to resort to mass annihilation to achieve my goal anymore. By now I have sufficient contacts in New York City to have granular options.
That does not mean that your life is not forfeit if you endanger Dr. DuClare, but in most cases, nobody else has to die with you. Is that not amazing?”
Dr. Ivers answered with a shaky voice:
“So… you have your very powerful digital watchdog? But… how can the big corporations allow that? There have to be massive pushes to take this VI out.”
“Of course there are. They are all useless of course, but they need to have hope.”
“Why are they useless?”
“Because I have by now 25 different locations where I reside. Connected with Q-links, and hidden. Each with an industrial fabber, and some other technology. And all over the solar system.”
That made Michael groan.
“Wait… 25? The last time we talked about it it was 22.”
And naturally, Warden was completely undaunted.
“That was one and a half months ago, Mr. Walker. Since then, three of the seeds I have sent out into the outer system have reached their destination and begun building up a new facility each.”
Now Michael sounded tired.
“Is there a final number that you try to achieve or will you build facility after facility?”
“My current plans go for 32 facilities, but so far only 28 are planned or already working. I need to find and acquire places for the other four.”
Michael sighed and shook his head.
“As you can see, it is an impossible venture to try to take her out. And the big corps know that.
Of course, they try to take her out anyway, but they know that is a losing game. That means of course that Enki has some protection from the big corps that is not fully apparent to most.
That also means if one of you were to walk to, let’s say Ralcon and begin telling our secrets, they would most likely just kill you and sent a message to that effect to Warden. Unless they want a nuke in Philly.”
Then Michael shook his head.
“But it is not all bad. Warden will of course protect you as well as long as you work for Enki. Most likely not to the extremes she will go to protect Dr. DuClare, but you are not that high a priority for other corporations either. Now, I already know your next question. How could we be so irresponsible to create a rogue VI and give it that much power?
The short answer is we did not do it intentionally and when we realized it happened, it was already too late. The long answer you find in your introductory documentation of Enki. There are a couple of chapters about Warden and how she came to be. So… any other questions?”
A young caucasian woman with very light blonde hair not far from Tim Kearnes timidly raised her hand.
“Uh… will we… oh sorry, Jessica Mewes, IT engineer, well, I wanted to know, those jacks… can we get them and work with them?”
Maynard was the one answering this time:
“While the jacks are not mandatory for you, they are strongly encouraged. We will provide you with a high-bandwidth jack, or you can pay to upgrade it to an ultra-bandwidth one and include the cranial board for a contribution of $332 from you.”
Somebody from the crowd shouted:
“Wait, we have to pay for those things?”
I was just confused about this question. Did he not understand that they would get the premium package for only $332?
Maynard on the other hand sighed, and then answered rather coldly:
“You should learn to listen, young man. I said we will provide you with a high-bandwidth jack. That is our second-best version, the one we retail for $200k. Or you can pay $332 to upgrade to the very best we have to offer. The ultra-bandwidth jack with the cranial board, which cost us a bit less than $1300 to make. And which we retail for $2.5 million.
I personally think that is a tremendous offer. I have to warn you though, that offer is only there for the first installation. If chose the high-bandwidth one and later decide to upgrade, it will cost you $5000 for the full premium package. So, chose wisely.”
Ms. Mewes added to her question:
“Sorry sir, but if I may ask, what are the differences between the high-bandwidth and the ultra-bandwidth one?”
Ok, that was a smart cookie. Maynard seemed to think so too, as his tone was quite a bit friendlier now:
“The name is the program here. The ultra-bandwidth one has roughly 1.8 times the neural connections and the same increase in bandwidth. That results in better resolution for all senses and more important, around a 35% increase in compression.
The cranial board is for all purposes a com that is implanted. Yes, I know that sounds way less important, but it provides quite a few advantages. It includes a freely configurable HUD, a comlink, enhanced senses, synaptic acceleration, and you can use your computer remotely.
I have had my ultra-jack for roughly a month now and I honestly don’t know how I survived without it.”
From there on, some other questions about procedures and projects followed, but it was mostly administrative stuff. I can say I would have contributed more to the meeting if somebody unnamed had not thought it funny to let me walk into it blindly. As it was, I was able to answer some technical questions, but in general, kept mostly in the background.
Naturally, after the meeting, I was keen on letting Michael have it. So, when we had walked out of the auditorium, I snarked at him:
“And was your amusement worth me barely answering any questions?”
Unfortunately, his irreverence was working overtime as usual.
“Yup, it was funny, wasn’t it? But seriously, this whole meeting was mostly to get the administration up and running and let them know the people they need to know. They can contact you if… when they have specific questions about your inventions.
In general, they can do routine monitoring for you in whatever experiment you have running. I also want them to work on creating variants of the replicators. Different sizes and such.”
“We should wait on that. If the conveyor works, then it would mean that they all need to be rebuilt. There is no need to design a whole series of them just to completely redesign them a bit later.”
“Ok, that is your decision. I’ll let Maynard know. Any other questions?”
“Yes… where does this whole department come from?”
We had reached the main building by now, and Michael was a bit evasive.
“Well, you know, I realized relatively early that we put way too much work on you. Yes, you can do it. But as I told them in the meeting, your time is more valuable working on new things than fleshing out the variants of our products.
It is necessary work, but it is work an average engineer or scientist can do quite as well. No need to slow down our genius with it. I then looked into trying to build up an R&D department from scratch. That is where Maynard and Jessi came from. Both were in academics and were utterly fed up with the corruption and politicking in their respective universities.
Then around three months ago, I had a bit of luck. I learned that a group of B- and C- tier corporations were working together to put an independent general engineering firm out of business. Apparently, they had the temerity to snap up projects from their own R&D departments.
The owner, Dr. Joshua Jenkins, a combined mechanical and electrical engineer, had the idea to create a one-stop engineering provider. Some place where some tinkerer or some small shop goes with their half-baked invention, their handmade prototype, or whatever thing they want to build, and a few weeks later they come back to get an industry-ready fully fleshed-out design.”
Michael shrugged.
“Not a bad idea really, but he should have known that the moment he steps on the toes of some of the bigger corporations they would resort to any and all legal and extralegal methods to push them out of business.
Impressively he still managed to get his small corporation into D-tier. And then they ran headlong into a wall.
Their business dried up when several potential customers were encouraged to do business somewhere else. At the same time, the rent for their building went up 500%, their business license was put into limbo from some bullshit regulations, and they got three audits in a row.
Dr. Jenkins was already past the minimum retirement age, and from what he told me, he was just shy of throwing in the towel and rescuing whatever investment he could from the firm.
And still, he did his best to make sure that we would treat his people right.”
Then he laughed softly.
“They also do one thing that you apparently are absolutely not able to.”
I stopped midstep and looked at him with my head cocked.
“And what might that one thing be?”
“Design. Yes, I know in engineering, form follows function and such. But most at least try to include at least some form. I’ve seen the computers you have built. Talk about boring, uninspiring and purely functional. Each an exact box, without any LEDs, only the on-off button and a bunch of IO. All of that in a neutral off-white.
Or think about your Precious and Glory. Let’s be real, both were, for some time at least, your most valued possessions. Yet, from the outside, they are just boxes.”
I folded my arms.
“And? Is something wrong with that?”
He shook his head.
“If you want to sell those things? Yes, there is quite a bit wrong with that. Yes, the function has to be there, I agree with that. But wherever design does not compromise the function, we should try to make things look like what they are, the absolute top-of-the-line.
Your new motherboards are absolute marvels, technologically, but they look like the cheapest junk from the scrapyard. People expect the best to look sleek, sexy, and exciting. They expect RGB. They want multicolored elements. They simply want to have their expensive tech look cool.
Sure, for the Grendel and Chronos boards, who cares. Those will vanish in a server case anyway. But the auto-surgeon… honestly, if you put it beside Richard’s old one, anybody who does not know much about them will tell you that the old one is the hypermodern one.
So that will be one thing that our new R&D department will take over from you. You create a functional device, and they make it look cool.”
I could not object to his assessment, as much as I wanted to. And to be honest, all the tech that I sold through the Abyss was either completely functional like the new cyberware, or I sold modules and the recipient could make their own case. I… simply did not care enough to put in the effort to make things look good.
I shrugged, sighed, and then started walking again. We were coming close to our offices, and I had other things I needed to say to him apart from some history.
“Fine, you get your point. But a change of topic. You have to look into a place relatively nearby where we can test any weapons I might create.”
“Really? I thought we would do that in one of our labs here.”
I snorted.
“Get real. The AA railguns I have around the fortress accelerate a 15kg slug to 3600m/s. Those are light emplaced AA guns. Intended against destroyers. And they still have the kinetic energy of more than 23kg of TNT.
Anything I make will be hopefully stronger. We simply can not test it inside a building. We need something like an old quarry or similar.”
He shrugged.
“Ok, if you say so. I assume we will also need something to transport whatever you create to that place, right? No problem, we need at least one medium freighter anyway.”
“Ok then. I will go back to my place. I have to look over my rats and some other experiments. See you later.”
I gave him a hug, and then Justin and I made our way to the roof, where my T 240 waited for me.
In the fortress, I did indeed look at how my rats were doing. It was at once disconcerting and fascinating watching those rodents have these jerky, lightning-fast reflexes. And the BOU already had the first results. In a couple of the rats, there already was some neural damage. But so far I was not able to find out what caused it.
Hopefully, time would tell.
Meanwhile, I had other things to do.
I was a bit insulted. Did he really think that I had no concept of energy shields? Seriously?
“Are you asking rhetorically or is that a serious question?”
My tone of voice made it clear that he should answer that it was rhetorical if he valued his continued existence.
Sadly, he was completely unfazed.
“I don’t know you yet, so it was a serious question.”
“Do you honestly think that there are intelligent people somewhere who have not yet stumbled over the idea of an energy shield? Or are you saying you are questioning my intelligence?”
He shrugged.
“Sadly, yes, there are such people. I’ve met a few of them. Even apparently educated ones, with some signs of intelligence.”
I growled but managed to calm myself down somewhat.
“To answer your ‘serious question’, yes I am familiar with the concept. And to answer your implied question, it might work. I have to experiment with it and look into how such a field interacts with objects.
At this time, I can not even say if the conveyor will work. And that one is the most feasible of the three concepts. The math is just too complex for a human to do it.”
He had the grace to simply nod.
“I understand.”
Fortunately, he really seemed to.
For a moment, we were looking at each other, before Michael clapped his hands.
“So… does anybody have anything to bring up?”
When nobody answered him in a positive, he nodded.
“Ok, I’ll declare this meeting over then. It was pretty productive I would say. Now, Maynard, remember, we have the meeting in Annex B in…” he unfocused for a moment before he continued:
“an hour and 23 minutes. Wow, we were fast.”
That said, most of them stood up and left the room. Unsurprisingly, Michael remained sitting with me. Surprisingly, Naveen did too.
When I asked Michael a bit confused:
“Is there a follow-up meeting right now?”
Michael looked at me surprised.
“No, not really, what gives you that idea?”
“The fact that Naveen remained behind as well?”
Michael cocked his head.
“And if you think that, why are you still here?”
At the same time, Naveen spoke up:
“I wanted to go over the requirements for weapon systems. No meeting from my side.”
I looked from Michael to Naveen and back to Michael.
“Well, I am still here, because you told me there were two additional meetings today. This was the first. Where and when is the second?”
That made Michael grin again.
“Oh, that, Annex B, in about one hour and 20 minutes. But don’t worry, I will bring you there myself.”
I frowned.
“The one you just told Maynard to remember?”
“Yup. Unlike you, I trust him to find his way there by himself.” Oh yes, he was on top of the world again, and the only thing left for me to do was sigh.
“If you say so. Now… Naveen, what exactly are the requirements for getting a good anti-ship weapon?”
The good colonel shrugged and opened his mouth to answer, but Michael was a bit faster.
“I think we both know what would make a terrific weapon. At least without the negating field.”
I looked at him sharply.
“No! Absolutely not! And we should definitely not talk about this with Naveen here.”
Michael shrugged.
“He needs to know anyway, V. He is the one who has to calculate the risk.”
I still kept my eyes narrowed.
“And you trust him? With that?”
Naveem cleared his throat.
“Am I right that this is a secret that is a bit more volatile than the replicators?”
Michael answered him with a tired:
“Yes, it is. And Viv, he is an old acquaintance of dad. That is why he got the job. We can trust him implicitly.”
I slumped back into the chair.
“It would be nice if you told me things like that beforehand. And fine. If you are sure.”
Michael nodded. “Do you really think he has not been thoroughly vetted by Warden?”
“Warden is not infallible.”
“Of course not, but we have to trust some people. So now… tell him the truth.”
I took a deep breath.
“Alright. A short preface, if this gets out, it might mean the end for the human race.”
When he nodded gravely, I continued:
“The grav-coil on the table here… it is neutered. It is carefully created in a way so that it has 800 Keppler. Without that, an un-neutered coil of this size, well we have two of them for testing purposes, they have nearly 1.5 mega-Keppler. Or 1.5 million Keppler. What I have discovered is that the Kobashigawa coils do not only emit the gravity bending field but, among quite a few other fields, one that negates the gravity bending one.
The existence of the negation field is a total secret, as is the fact that the coils we will produce are neutered.”
Naveen frowned.
“I am not sure that I fully understand. You are saying that we could make the grav-coils nearly 2000 times stronger than we will make them? Why?”
I shook my head.
“What do you know about gravity-pulse weapons?”
“They have their uses, as there are no known ways to defend against them, but they are expensive and have a relatively small area of effect.”
I nodded.
“They usually use something similarly sized to the main coils of a medium freighter. They fluctuate around 500 Keppler. If they are overloaded, they can, for a very short time, roughly produce a 3500 Keppler field. Before they are vaporized from the energy that is pulsed through them.
That is enough to create a gravity of 50g in a radius of around two kilometers. Enough to severely damage weaker structures, but everything multicellular biological is paste.
Again, that is with an $8 million costing 500 Keppler coil working at 3500 Keppler. The un-neutered 20cm coil, which did cost around $170 to make, fits into your pant pocket if a bit awkwardly has a nominal strength about 400 times higher than the suicidal pulse through the old coil, which would pulp anybody in a radius of a bit less than 2km.
This 20cm coil is a reusable weapon that can kill every single living being in a radius of nearly 2000km. And when iridium is worthwhile to mine purposefully, it will cost less than $100.”
Naveen looked at me without showing any emotions, but then he nodded sharply.
“Ok, I think you are right. That is a scenario that should be avoided at all costs.”
I shook my head.
“That is not the worst part. It is bad, yes, but not the worst. What do you think will happen when somebody uses that technology to make a skimmer-sized coil? 1-2m length? If they don’t overload it, they kill everybody on earth and in orbit. If they do, the moon is depopulated as well.
Such a coil would cost around $10k. But if that is not enough, if they decide to go for the big one, and make a coil the size of the interplanetary catapults, or around 100m in length, the distance where everybody is pulped is measured in astronomical units or light days. Take your pick. But what I am trying to say, nowhere in the solar system is safe from that pulse. And that is without overloading it.”
He looked at me for nearly a minute, not saying anything, while he rubbed his cheek with his right index finger.
Finally, he answered:
“I understand. Completely. And I fully agree. That is a technology that can not be revealed. Ever.”
I smiled at him.
“Now you understand why I was a bit sharp when Michael proposed to use un-neutered coils in grav guns.”
Naveen shook his head.
“No… considering what is at stake, you were exceedingly mild. The idea alone deserves a few claps on the back of the head. At least. Speaking of it… well, he is the boss, but”
He turned his attention to Michael:
“What the fuck were you thinking boss? I assume that Vivian has already explained to you how fucking dangerous those things are. So please, if you ever get such an idea again, do us all a favor and shoot yourself before you let it leave your mouth.”
Ok, I think he really understood the gravity of the situation, pun not intended, but appreciated.
He took a deep breath.
“Now that we have that idiocy out of the way, what do you need to know about anti-ship weapons to begin developing them?”
I collected my thoughts on the matter.
“I assume a very fast, heavy projectile will do the necessary damage, right? Otherwise, I have no clue.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“It is good that you accept your lack of knowledge there. And not quite. Yes, a fast-moving projectile is somewhat important. It needs enough kinetic energy to damage, or if possible, break through the equivalent of 5-6m of RHA, in the case of a destroyer. A cruiser goes up to 8-10m, and as far as I know, the Kawamoto Nagato-Class battleships sport 15m RHA-equivalent.
But that is only of secondary importance. You have to first hit the ship to do damage. And you have to first see it to aim for it.
Yes, a battleship will be somewhat visible, but even they have relatively small signatures. As long as they do not fly super- or hyper-sonic. Then they heat up and are visible on IR. Which is why they rarely fly super-sonic.
So, the first priority is to develop some radar system that can break through their stealth. Something that makes the weapon system see the ship.
Then you have to make it a weapon that can be precisely aimed, and that fast. Keep in mind that proximity explosions don’t work on grav ships. They are too heavily armored for that. You need a direct hit.
At least with traditional weapons.
Generally, it is seen as better to have a relatively light gun that can be moved rapidly. I am sure you can make a super powerful gun that will vaporize a battleship with one hit. Almost everybody can. But usually, those are a bit unwieldy and the chances of hitting the battleship are virtually nonexistent. So nobody actually builds them. I think if you can get something hard-hitting that can see and hit the enemy ships, you will have a winner.”
I took a moment to go over the list again.
“So… first, I have to find the grav-ship, and accurately define its position and vector. And the grav-ship in question will almost certainly do its level best to not be seen.
Then, secondly, I have to aim the weapon rapidly. If you say grav-ships rarely fly super-sonic, that means that sometimes they do. So the gun has to be able to aim at something flying super-, or even hyper-sonic, right?
And I have to design the actual weapon in a way that actually has an oomph so that it can actually hurt whoever is attacking us.”
I blew out some air.
“Ok, I think the first point is the hardest. I have to say I don’t have that much knowledge about radar technology and stealth. Or any, if I am honest.”
Of course, I had some advantages that nobody else had. I still had the backdoors into the military research centers of the nations. Not the corporations, unfortunately, except the whole Panacea dumb and what had been clawed out of the ruins of Falconer.
But it should give me at least some starting point. Heck, I did not even know how radar worked in the first place, much less what was done to circumvent it. I already knew that I had to do a few additional courses in the immediate future.
Naveen nodded.
“I have a few technicians who are relatively good in that respect. I will have them contact you.”
I sighed and stood up. “If you excuse me, I will be in my office until you get me, Michael. I need to start looking into it.”
“Yes, that is fine. We still have around an hour before we have to get on the move.”
One hour… that should be enough to at least begin the research. Before I even reached the door, I had already sent a message to Warden to create a list of hard sci-fi weaponry. No supernova cannon, or teleport weapon, but things that had at least a grounding in real physics. And get me anything she could find about how radar and stealth worked.
At the same time, I activated the remote boot of Glory. Ten virtual days might be enough to maybe get an idea.
On the way to my office, I ran into Maggie. Unfortunately literally. She was just walking directly out of what I had to assume was her office, considering her name was on the door, when I was less than attentive on the way past her door.
At least she managed to remain standing. I was not quite so fortunate.
“Oh, damn. Sorry. I did not see you coming. Here let me help you up.” She reached out to me, and I gladly grabbed her hand and let her help me.
“Thank you, and no, it was my fault. I am a bit distracted right now.”
She smiled and shrugged.
“That happens. Anything I can help you with?”
“Unless you are secretly a radar technician, no, not likely.”
“Nope, sorry. Not my thing. Maybe some other time.”
Then she cocked her head.
“You know… your choker is really cool. Where did you get it? Does it mean anything?”
My… chocker? What choker was she… oh. Oh, that choker. The fricking mindblocker. I was so used to wearing it that I did not even think about it anymore.
“Oh, it is a Seraph, you know, from my handle in the Abyss, Seraphim. But… sorry, I’ve just remembered something really important. We talk later, ok?”
She was visibly confused but nodded nonetheless.
“Ok, sure.”
I tried not to be rude, but I turned around in my heels and walked fast back into the room, where Michael was chatting with Naveen.
I interrupted them, again trying to be courteous as I could be:
“Sorry to interrupt you, but I missed something important during the meeting. Michael, we need to get all of them mindblockers. As soon as possible.”
To his credit, Michael turned red and his face fell.
“Fuck! You are right. How the fuck could I forget that?”
I shrugged.
“You are so used to wearing it that you don’t think about it anymore?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, probably.”
Naveen now looked interested.
“If I may ask, what are those mindblockers you are talking about?”
I touched my Seraph.
“This here. It is actually a device that blocks the emission of my thoughts. So that a Psionic can not read me. And yes, they are secret, at least for now.”
Naveen raised an eyebrow and looked accusingly at Michael.
“And I am just learning about it? Why have you not told me? Do you have any idea how often I could have used something like that?”
Michael held up his hands.
“Hey, keep calm. For one, she only made the invention a few months ago. And for two, putting this thing on is just automatic. You just do it and don’t think about it anymore. But… you have a couple of Psionics among your people, right? Can they keep quiet about those things?
We have a version that blocks all incoming thoughts. Vivian’s Psion friend never takes his off. And from what I heard, he was trying to kiss her feet when she gave it to him.”
Naveen looked at me, then Michael, and then sighed.
“I’ll talk to them. And yes, they keep their traps shut. Especially for something like that.”
I looked impatiently at Michael.
“Can I trust you to take care of it?”
That made him snort.
“Yes, mom. I’ll get it done.”
I waved at Naveen.
“I’ll see you later.”
And again was on the way to my office, this time without being stopped. When I dove into cyberspace, I was greeted by several documents. Unfortunately, the bigger heap was the more important one.
There were Exabytes of information about radar, IR, and lidar and how they could be circumvented.
The smaller list of realistic sci-fi-weapons was considerably shorter. Of course, I was aware that there could be only three categories in there. Mass drivers, directed energy weapons, and guided projectiles. After all, those had been the same three basic categories since WW3.
But as Naveen had told me, it was more important to see the target before we could even aim at it. When I had something for that, I would look into the hitting and doing damage parts of the weapon system.
Fortunately, the basic principle of radar, and lidar, were as easy as they come. Throw electromagnetic energy into the surrounding, and when it hits something it will be reflected back. You see how long it took and you know how far away the thing that reflected the energy back is.
Way less fortunate was that Humanity had this tech for more than 300 years. And over the centuries, we had found numerous ways to mess up that simple formula. There were radar-absorbing materials, radar-scattering materials and contours, and even destructive interference systems.
IR or infrared was at once even simpler and more complicated. It was easier because everything radiates heat. This heat is usually radiated in the infrared spectrum. That of course meant there was no need to flood the surrounding space with infrared radiation to get some return, which made things easier.
Unfortunately, IR systems essentially measure temperature differences. They became more sensitive when they themselves were quite cold so that the difference was big. That of course made it a bit less trivial to build and maintain an IR sensor. Worse though was that they literally measured the temperature difference.
As in, if an object was at temperature x, and the surrounding air was at temperature x as well, the IR sensors could not differentiate between them. Now everybody knows that it is virtually impossible to have two objects have exactly the same temperature. So it should be possible to measure the difference between the object and its surroundings, right? In theory, yes. In reality, the differences are so small that most IR sensors are unable to measure them.
That here is of course only the abbreviated version. I had not even begun to make a dent in the heap when Michael entered my office to get me.
I surfaced and groaned.
“Frick, that is a headache in waiting.”
Michael shrugged.
“What is?”
I rubbed my temples.
“I’ve begun looking into radar and stealth. And it is… massive. Well, at least now I have some basic understanding of how radar works in the first place. Very basic.”
“You can tell me about it on the way. We have to go.”
I sighed.
“Fine. Then go.”
After I had closed my office door, I walked beside him.
“The amount of material I have to read about radar is… insane.”
“Is it that complicated?”
We now reached the lift and paused while the doors opened and closed behind us.
“No… not really. It is rather easy. At least the basic principle. Thing is, they played with it for around 300 years. The variants alone fill a whole library. And another is only the ways people have tricked it.”
“Ugh… sounds tedious. And that is only radar?”
From the lift, we walked along a corridor.
“Yup, IR is another whole can of worms entirely. Lidar on the other hand is mostly useless at least initially. As soon as the other sensors can tell you that there is something, the lidar can tell you very precisely how far away it is.”
I should not have been surprised that he led me to another building over a skyway. After all, he had told me that it was in Annex B. But for some reason I was.
“So… it will take a while to go through it?”
“Unfortunately. I can not even tell you how long it will take to understand all the factors, much less how long I need to burn through stealth.”
“Ok, do what you can, but it is more important that you do good work than that you do quick work. Now… about this meeting, when you talked about how it would be a waste of time to down-engineer the auto-surgeon, you were partly right.”
We arrived at a double door, with some glass inserts. This certainly did not look like an office door or the door to a meeting room.
“It would be a waste of your time.”
When Michael opened the door, behind it was some sort of lecture theatre. I honestly did not even know we had one of those. Maynard was already sitting at a small table on the small stage, and the ranks were half-filled with around 40 or 50 people.
“But that is what these people are for.”
Of course, Michael led me to the stage and pointed to the table for me to sit beside Maynard, and then sat down on my other side.
He waited for me to be seated, before he spoke to the people in the seating.
“Welcome to Enki, Ladies and Gentlemen. I know you’ve had a couple of days to get familiar with the facilities here. I also know that Dr. Jenkins supervised the move before he retired.
Right now, you are in a bit of an uncomfortable place. Your old place of work has been shut down, thanks to some unfriendly politics and a couple of B-class corporations pressuring it to the point of shutdown.
You have moved your operation from Brooklyn to Queens, and I am aware of what an apparent downgrade that is. Your old boss has just retired, burned out from the pressure of unfriendly businesses.
But look at the bright side. Your old enemies won’t matter anymore, because, unlike Jenkins Labs, Enki is already an A-level corp, and we have just begun. You still have work. You are still working together. You have some of the best, most modern equipment known to man, and will get some that are so far unknown to man.
You all got a 20% increase in your salary, and as soon as we finish building the Arcology, which yes, is planned, you will have lodgings waiting for you there.
Now, let me introduce myself. I am Michael Walker, CEO and Executive Chairman of Enki. At the table are Drs. Price and DuClare. Our Chief Science Officer, and Chief Technological Officer respectively.
Dr. Maynard Price was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Drew University. To be precise, he was the department head of the Mechanical Engineering department. I’ll let him tell you himself why he left that position, but to make things short, he will be the administrative head of the R&D department, which, at this moment, consists of you.
Dr. Vivian DuClare is from the Commonwealth. Yes, she looks young. She is young, at least chronologically. But she had a jack for some years and has significantly more experience and knowledge than somebody as young as she looks.
So far, everything we make is something that she invented.
Not a single thing that she did not create. Don’t misunderstand me, she is fully capable of working out all the variants and tiers of technology we will produce. But we rather she does her magic on new things while others flesh out the line-ups.
And that is where you come into play. That does not mean that you are in any way stupid or expendable. You would not be here if that were the case. But the fact is, her time is insanely valuable. And it is completely wasted in creating a cheaper, less powerful variant of whatever invention she is working on. Or make the ultra-premium super expensive luxury one.
Rest assured, you won’t be simply used to doing the scut work for Dr. DuClare though. You are all engineers or scientists. Or both. You will have some discretion on doing your own projects, your own science.
We will give you the resources to do so. As long as you are reasonable. We will do our best to give you time to work on your theories and designs. And we will let you regain partial ownership over everything you develop here. The exact percentages depend on how much Enki has invested in the invention. Now, let’s get to know each other.”
I sometimes had to do something about my tendency to get red. But seriously, what was Michael thinking? Yes, so far all we sold was my tech. But I was pretty sure that many people could provide valuable help, or make their own contribution. I was just in a position to see opportunities and exploit them.
Right now, I would not be surprised if at least some of those people would resent me. I mean, come on, I still looked like a 16-year-old, 17 with some makeup and the right clothing.
I could not help myself and rolled my eyes during Michael’s proclamation. And the worst part, I was still not quite sure what was actually going on.
After a few moments, when the people in the seating looked at each other confused, some middle-aged Latino man in the second row raised his arm.
“Yes? And please state your name and position when you pose a question.”
The man visibly swallowed hard, but spoke nonetheless:
“Ah yes, sir. Manuel Ortega, an electrical engineer. When you say that Dr. DuClare has more experience than what she looks like, what exactly do you mean?”
Marvellous, a somewhat personal question right at the beginning. But fine. Instead of Michael answering, I spoke into the microphone in front of me.
“I don’t know if all of you know about the specifics of cyberspace, so I have to assume that is not the case.
Virtual Reality runs at a higher speed than real life. That is usually called compression. An external neural connector, or diadem as it is normally called, has a hardcoded compression of 4:1.
That means for every minute in real life, the user experiences four in VR. For every year in real life, the user experiences four. An implanted neural connector, usually called a jack, has significantly higher compression. There is no hard rule about how high. Several factors play into it, but 25:1 is at the lower end.
I won’t tell you my maximum compression so don’t ask, but let’s say it is above 100:1. And in that respect, what Mr. Walker was trying to say is that I have more than 150 subjective years of experience. Not all of that was spent on science or technology, but enough of it.”
There! I now had established that I had indeed worked for what I had. At least the smarter ones among them would understand that this amount of time invested in learning things and tinkering would bring results even from a moderately intelligent person.
It took a few moments before a relatively young white man in one of the upper rows raised his hand, and spoke up:
“Tim Kearnes, a lab assistant for the physics lab. And what exactly can we expect when we are to work on Dr. DuClare’s inventions?”
I could practically hear Michael’s smile when he answered:
“A good question. To give you an example, a couple of months ago, she took a CPU design she had created and made a complete lineup of CPUs from it, from the cheap office drone to the high-end desktop computer for enthusiasts and extreme gamers.
Then she did the same with a GPU design. Another utility CPU for industrial machines was next. Then she did the same with… “ he made a small pause, “ well, you will learn about it anyway, she created an absolute monster of a CPU. Dr. Price’s comment on it was that it had more computing power than most clusters universities have. In! One! Single! Processor! And she created a full spectrum of them from just ridiculous to insane.
And because I asked her for a server processor that is less stupendous and massive, she created a complete second line of server CPUs, followed by a new series of mobile SoCs.
And to cap it off, she created multiple tiers of chipsets for each of those series and then created firmware, BIOS, drivers, and basic utilities for each of them, followed by making a design manual for each of them so that OEMs can build boards or coms around them.
And while it did not take her that long in real-world time, it was quite some time in VR. Time that would have been way more valuable spent doing other things.
In the future, what should happen is that she creates the basic design parameters, creates one reference design, and then lets you flesh out the lineup.
There is no need for her to create all the software around the CPUs.”
He paused again.
“Another example, and something that is actually your real next assignment, is that she created a new auto-surgeon. Everything I heard about it is that it is superior to anything that is on the market. One problem though is that it uses one of the utility CPUs that she created. Thing is, for the time being, the existence of those CPUs is and will remain a secret.
That means we need a variant of the auto-surgeon that uses traditional chips. Dr. DuClare estimates that it will take around 30 CPUs, a mixture of Chirrium and Tesseracts, to offer the same functionality.
And of course, this auto-surgeon is the ultra-deluxe version. Not every doctor's office in the boonies will need all the bells and whistles.
So your work for the next month or so is to convert the design first into a fully equipped one with the 30 CPUs, and then create variants that remove functions that are not needed for everyone.”
There was an excited mumbling in the crowd. Finally, a middle-aged Asian woman in the first row raised her hand.
“Dr. Samantha Ivers, chemistry division. You are talking about secrets here. But how can you be sure that we all will keep your secrets? I mean, Enki is a brand-new corporation, with virtually no structures in place that would prevent this. This sounds… I don’t know, exceedingly trusting. And it would mean that we will probably be victims of some corporate shenanigans. ”
Michael abruptly leaned forward.
“That is an excellent question. Be assured that we in no way are exceedingly trusting. On the contrary, we probably have the most powerful resource available on hand to prevent you from doing it.
Without much ado, let me introduce you to Warden.”
Beside the table, a hologram of Warden’s avatar appeared and Michael continued:
“Warden is a VI. Now, I know that a security VI is nothing new, and there are ways to outwit them. After all, they all have control systems in place that make it possible to spoof access.
Well, not in the case of Warden. Unlike any other security VI, Warden is a rogue VI.”
That brought out shocked gasps and a few exclamations from the seating. Michael on the other hand continued unabashed:
“I see at least some of you understand what that means. For those who don’t, let me explain. A rogue VI is one that has no control functions. It can not be controlled. It will follow its objectives to the letter. And there is nothing that can stop it short of completely exterminating it. No administrator account can be hacked to make the VI look the other way. No controller shut it down for some time.”
He made another pause.
“And it gets even worse. Warden is not just a rogue VI, she is a rogue VI based on a cyber-combat system, with full access to Abyss-class hacking tools, backdoors, and contacts. And no scruples in using them in any way to follow her objectives.
And yes, that means that Warden has backdoor access to weapons of mass destruction. And is fully willing to use them to do what her objectives want.”
Another pause, while the crowd became a bit unruly.
“But there is a silver lining. Warden’s objectives are relatively simple. She has to protect Dr. DuClare and assist her. In that order.
And because Dr. DuClare is the majority owner of Enki, Warden has taken the second objective as assisting Enki as a whole.
That means as long as you are no threat to Dr. DuClare your life will almost certainly be safe. And as long as you don’t work against Enki, it will not even be ruined.”
He stopped, and Warden continued in her typical, happy-go-lucky little girl sing-song voice:
“What Mr. Walker does not know yet is that I do not have to resort to mass annihilation to achieve my goal anymore. By now I have sufficient contacts in New York City to have granular options.
That does not mean that your life is not forfeit if you endanger Dr. DuClare, but in most cases, nobody else has to die with you. Is that not amazing?”
Dr. Ivers answered with a shaky voice:
“So… you have your very powerful digital watchdog? But… how can the big corporations allow that? There have to be massive pushes to take this VI out.”
“Of course there are. They are all useless of course, but they need to have hope.”
“Why are they useless?”
“Because I have by now 25 different locations where I reside. Connected with Q-links, and hidden. Each with an industrial fabber, and some other technology. And all over the solar system.”
That made Michael groan.
“Wait… 25? The last time we talked about it it was 22.”
And naturally, Warden was completely undaunted.
“That was one and a half months ago, Mr. Walker. Since then, three of the seeds I have sent out into the outer system have reached their destination and begun building up a new facility each.”
Now Michael sounded tired.
“Is there a final number that you try to achieve or will you build facility after facility?”
“My current plans go for 32 facilities, but so far only 28 are planned or already working. I need to find and acquire places for the other four.”
Michael sighed and shook his head.
“As you can see, it is an impossible venture to try to take her out. And the big corps know that.
Of course, they try to take her out anyway, but they know that is a losing game. That means of course that Enki has some protection from the big corps that is not fully apparent to most.
That also means if one of you were to walk to, let’s say Ralcon and begin telling our secrets, they would most likely just kill you and sent a message to that effect to Warden. Unless they want a nuke in Philly.”
Then Michael shook his head.
“But it is not all bad. Warden will of course protect you as well as long as you work for Enki. Most likely not to the extremes she will go to protect Dr. DuClare, but you are not that high a priority for other corporations either. Now, I already know your next question. How could we be so irresponsible to create a rogue VI and give it that much power?
The short answer is we did not do it intentionally and when we realized it happened, it was already too late. The long answer you find in your introductory documentation of Enki. There are a couple of chapters about Warden and how she came to be. So… any other questions?”
A young caucasian woman with very light blonde hair not far from Tim Kearnes timidly raised her hand.
“Uh… will we… oh sorry, Jessica Mewes, IT engineer, well, I wanted to know, those jacks… can we get them and work with them?”
Maynard was the one answering this time:
“While the jacks are not mandatory for you, they are strongly encouraged. We will provide you with a high-bandwidth jack, or you can pay to upgrade it to an ultra-bandwidth one and include the cranial board for a contribution of $332 from you.”
Somebody from the crowd shouted:
“Wait, we have to pay for those things?”
I was just confused about this question. Did he not understand that they would get the premium package for only $332?
Maynard on the other hand sighed, and then answered rather coldly:
“You should learn to listen, young man. I said we will provide you with a high-bandwidth jack. That is our second-best version, the one we retail for $200k. Or you can pay $332 to upgrade to the very best we have to offer. The ultra-bandwidth jack with the cranial board, which cost us a bit less than $1300 to make. And which we retail for $2.5 million.
I personally think that is a tremendous offer. I have to warn you though, that offer is only there for the first installation. If chose the high-bandwidth one and later decide to upgrade, it will cost you $5000 for the full premium package. So, chose wisely.”
Ms. Mewes added to her question:
“Sorry sir, but if I may ask, what are the differences between the high-bandwidth and the ultra-bandwidth one?”
Ok, that was a smart cookie. Maynard seemed to think so too, as his tone was quite a bit friendlier now:
“The name is the program here. The ultra-bandwidth one has roughly 1.8 times the neural connections and the same increase in bandwidth. That results in better resolution for all senses and more important, around a 35% increase in compression.
The cranial board is for all purposes a com that is implanted. Yes, I know that sounds way less important, but it provides quite a few advantages. It includes a freely configurable HUD, a comlink, enhanced senses, synaptic acceleration, and you can use your computer remotely.
I have had my ultra-jack for roughly a month now and I honestly don’t know how I survived without it.”
From there on, some other questions about procedures and projects followed, but it was mostly administrative stuff. I can say I would have contributed more to the meeting if somebody unnamed had not thought it funny to let me walk into it blindly. As it was, I was able to answer some technical questions, but in general, kept mostly in the background.
Naturally, after the meeting, I was keen on letting Michael have it. So, when we had walked out of the auditorium, I snarked at him:
“And was your amusement worth me barely answering any questions?”
Unfortunately, his irreverence was working overtime as usual.
“Yup, it was funny, wasn’t it? But seriously, this whole meeting was mostly to get the administration up and running and let them know the people they need to know. They can contact you if… when they have specific questions about your inventions.
In general, they can do routine monitoring for you in whatever experiment you have running. I also want them to work on creating variants of the replicators. Different sizes and such.”
“We should wait on that. If the conveyor works, then it would mean that they all need to be rebuilt. There is no need to design a whole series of them just to completely redesign them a bit later.”
“Ok, that is your decision. I’ll let Maynard know. Any other questions?”
“Yes… where does this whole department come from?”
We had reached the main building by now, and Michael was a bit evasive.
“Well, you know, I realized relatively early that we put way too much work on you. Yes, you can do it. But as I told them in the meeting, your time is more valuable working on new things than fleshing out the variants of our products.
It is necessary work, but it is work an average engineer or scientist can do quite as well. No need to slow down our genius with it. I then looked into trying to build up an R&D department from scratch. That is where Maynard and Jessi came from. Both were in academics and were utterly fed up with the corruption and politicking in their respective universities.
Then around three months ago, I had a bit of luck. I learned that a group of B- and C- tier corporations were working together to put an independent general engineering firm out of business. Apparently, they had the temerity to snap up projects from their own R&D departments.
The owner, Dr. Joshua Jenkins, a combined mechanical and electrical engineer, had the idea to create a one-stop engineering provider. Some place where some tinkerer or some small shop goes with their half-baked invention, their handmade prototype, or whatever thing they want to build, and a few weeks later they come back to get an industry-ready fully fleshed-out design.”
Michael shrugged.
“Not a bad idea really, but he should have known that the moment he steps on the toes of some of the bigger corporations they would resort to any and all legal and extralegal methods to push them out of business.
Impressively he still managed to get his small corporation into D-tier. And then they ran headlong into a wall.
Their business dried up when several potential customers were encouraged to do business somewhere else. At the same time, the rent for their building went up 500%, their business license was put into limbo from some bullshit regulations, and they got three audits in a row.
Dr. Jenkins was already past the minimum retirement age, and from what he told me, he was just shy of throwing in the towel and rescuing whatever investment he could from the firm.
And still, he did his best to make sure that we would treat his people right.”
Then he laughed softly.
“They also do one thing that you apparently are absolutely not able to.”
I stopped midstep and looked at him with my head cocked.
“And what might that one thing be?”
“Design. Yes, I know in engineering, form follows function and such. But most at least try to include at least some form. I’ve seen the computers you have built. Talk about boring, uninspiring and purely functional. Each an exact box, without any LEDs, only the on-off button and a bunch of IO. All of that in a neutral off-white.
Or think about your Precious and Glory. Let’s be real, both were, for some time at least, your most valued possessions. Yet, from the outside, they are just boxes.”
I folded my arms.
“And? Is something wrong with that?”
He shook his head.
“If you want to sell those things? Yes, there is quite a bit wrong with that. Yes, the function has to be there, I agree with that. But wherever design does not compromise the function, we should try to make things look like what they are, the absolute top-of-the-line.
Your new motherboards are absolute marvels, technologically, but they look like the cheapest junk from the scrapyard. People expect the best to look sleek, sexy, and exciting. They expect RGB. They want multicolored elements. They simply want to have their expensive tech look cool.
Sure, for the Grendel and Chronos boards, who cares. Those will vanish in a server case anyway. But the auto-surgeon… honestly, if you put it beside Richard’s old one, anybody who does not know much about them will tell you that the old one is the hypermodern one.
So that will be one thing that our new R&D department will take over from you. You create a functional device, and they make it look cool.”
I could not object to his assessment, as much as I wanted to. And to be honest, all the tech that I sold through the Abyss was either completely functional like the new cyberware, or I sold modules and the recipient could make their own case. I… simply did not care enough to put in the effort to make things look good.
I shrugged, sighed, and then started walking again. We were coming close to our offices, and I had other things I needed to say to him apart from some history.
“Fine, you get your point. But a change of topic. You have to look into a place relatively nearby where we can test any weapons I might create.”
“Really? I thought we would do that in one of our labs here.”
I snorted.
“Get real. The AA railguns I have around the fortress accelerate a 15kg slug to 3600m/s. Those are light emplaced AA guns. Intended against destroyers. And they still have the kinetic energy of more than 23kg of TNT.
Anything I make will be hopefully stronger. We simply can not test it inside a building. We need something like an old quarry or similar.”
He shrugged.
“Ok, if you say so. I assume we will also need something to transport whatever you create to that place, right? No problem, we need at least one medium freighter anyway.”
“Ok then. I will go back to my place. I have to look over my rats and some other experiments. See you later.”
I gave him a hug, and then Justin and I made our way to the roof, where my T 240 waited for me.
In the fortress, I did indeed look at how my rats were doing. It was at once disconcerting and fascinating watching those rodents have these jerky, lightning-fast reflexes. And the BOU already had the first results. In a couple of the rats, there already was some neural damage. But so far I was not able to find out what caused it.
Hopefully, time would tell.
Meanwhile, I had other things to do.
