Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller Read online

In addition to studying the Bible; Elisha loved science, technology, and history. The latest high-tech advances always permeated his churches. Recently, he initiated a Bitcoin donation program and was excited to launch a fleet of driver-less cars. The autonomous vehicles would gather and distribute donated food. He called the food ministry, ‘Elisha’s Chariots.’ It was a play on words. Chariots only raptured Elijah, not Elisha. Elisha had to carry on the ministry, while his boss rode away to heaven in a fiery chariot driven by my ophanim.

  Ever since she could remember, Elisha told Becca that the Bible and science were in complete harmony. Becca did love the fact that her dad could talk about science—from particle physics to astronomy. However, she thought there were a lot of contradictions in the Bible. Most of all, Becca couldn’t get over the inability of the healing pastor to save his own wife.

  It made the numerous reports of Elisha’s healings seem fake. Some people get better just by taking placebos, thought Becca. Becca had witnessed his healings. They seemed real. But, he must have been curing people of psychosomatic disorders.

  “My message was that time Daniel was prophesying about, some 2500 years ago, is at hand. Now is the season of the End Times. Our remaining time is short. Daniel wrote his book from captivity in Babylon. Babylon is 50 miles from Baghdad, Iraq’s capital.

  “I talked about how many brainy men like Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and Bill Gates were deeply concerned about AI causing the end of time for human beings—a time in which strong AI overtakes the human race. Then it can squash us like bugs.

  “I talked about Ray Kurzweil’s notion of the singularity. You know. The idea that accelerating returns from exponential increases in all fields of technology—AI, robots, nanotechnology, and genetics—inexorably lead us to an instant of time in which everything changes. They think everything changes when computers become as intelligent as man.”

  Becca was used to this. This was her dad. “Geez Dad, that's a hell of a sermon. I’m sure people were streaming to the altar after that.”

  Elisha chuckled. “No, that was just the intro. My point was that everyone sees the results of these exponential advances. But we live linearly. We live day-to-day. The pace of change is accelerating faster and faster. We aren’t progressing so quickly. God has His own concept of a singularity. Time is moving faster, because we’re getting closer to the end. That’s the real singularity—in my opinion.

  “In the first maps, the Middle East was drawn as the center of the world. And Jerusalem was the center of the Middle East. Isn’t it amazing, after all this time, that the Middle East is still the center of the world? Sure, for a period of time, other places seemed like they were the center. Places like the Soviet Union or China. Over time, they fade in importance. In the 1950s, we were worried about the Communist century. In the 1990s, we worried about the Japanese century. Today, many fret about the Chinese century.

  “Mark my words; this century is not going to be the Asian century. The Middle East will be the focal point of the next 100 years. Our time will revolve around the fate of Israel, and the future of Jerusalem. Look how often the Caliphate talks about Jerusalem.”

  “Ok, Dad,” said Becca, treading carefully. She didn’t want to get into an argument. “I don’t understand how that’s a sermon?”

  “I’m getting carried away. I drank too much coffee,” he said, with a hearty chuckle. “The meat of my sermon was to contrast Peter and Judas. Both men saw Jesus. Both men were Jesus’ disciples. Both men sinned. Peter denied Jesus three times. Judas betrayed Jesus. Both men knew they sinned. The difference was their actions after the pain set in.

  “Peter repented. Peter reached a personal singularity. After that, his life was never the same. Judas didn’t repent. His pain led him to hang himself in a potter’s field. So be like Peter. Give your pain to God. And live. That’s the only way to get on the right side of history. Your personal singularity will prepare you for the coming historical singularity—the day that everyone, even unbelievers, see coming.”

  “How was it received?” asked Becca.

  “Well, that’s the best part. For the last year or so, I’ve really felt this nation is undergoing a profound spiritual revival. Other colleagues in the States and around the world have noticed the same thing. I had eleven people give their lives to God. Then, I asked if anybody wanted to come to the altar for an extended time of prayer. Many did. I felt God’s Spirit impart a word of wisdom to me. It pertained to a woman who was standing on crutches around the altar. God impressed upon me to tell her to forgive her mother, who hurt her so long ago. Unforgiveness was blocking her from receiving her healing.

  “I approached the traumatized woman. I told her what the Spirit related to me. It was clear that this woman had experienced a lot of suffering. The deep lines etched on her face told that story. I have no idea what her mom did. But, I knew that she’d been carrying the pain for years, maybe decades. She fell to her knees and began to weep. Then she stood straight up, without her crutches, and hugged me.”

  During the story, Becca got angrier and angrier. Everything in her wanted to shake her father and say, If God could lead you to heal a perfect stranger, why didn’t He—why didn’t you, heal mom? I refuse to believe your fables.

  Elisha continued, “The woman said, ‘I know this is from God. That’s exactly what God’s still small voice whispered to me during your sermon. I’ve never gotten past what she did to me. It’s like an open, festering wound I’ve had for 35 years. I’ve tried to bandage the pain with men, and whiskey, and cocaine. I’ve hurt so many people. I became my mom. I need to be forgiven. But, I’ll start by forgiving my mother.’

  “After she said that, her face changed. She looked 10 years younger. I told her, ‘Sister, forgiveness is a process. Make sure you continually bring this before God until you feel released from the burden of unforgiveness.’”

  Becca smiled crookedly. “That’s great Dad. I’ve got to get back to work. It was good to see you.” I need to get out of here before he drones on about Smith Wigglesworth or John G. Lake. If I hear those names again, I’m going to lose it.

  “Becca, one last thing…I’ve started writing a book. I’m calling it, Quantum Faith. I want to examine quantum mechanics and string theory in light of Scripture. My book will discuss what the quantum world tells us about God, Creation, and faith.”

  “That’s interesting Dad. I’ve got to go.”

  *

  Becca was thankful to be done with that. She could only take so much of her father.

  She used the Uber app to request a ride back to the Accelerator. Maryland was one of the first states to allow fully autonomous, driver-less cars—automobiles that could drive the road without any human driver.

  Within five minutes, an Uber-owned, robot car arrived. If the taxi cab companies hated Uber and Lyft drivers, they really hated autonomous cars. There were numerous reports of taxi cab drivers deliberately hitting self-driving cars and falsifying accident reports. However, in states that allowed autonomous vehicles, ride-hailing was much cheaper than owning a car. For the average person, car ownership was their second biggest expense, after housing.

  Becca stepped into a driver-less, Tesla Roadster 2. In the last few years, battery prices for electric vehicles had declined significantly. Electric cars were more affordable than they’d ever been before. Becca began the 35-minute drive back to Defense Innovations Accelerator. Along the way, she dialed Josh. In the past five days, Josh and Becca had exchanged texts and talked via phone a number of times.

  “That was good news in your text,” said Becca.

  “Yeah, it’s awesome. I’m getting some insanely good results with this new deep learning algorithm. I think I’ll be ready to leverage your API next week.”

  “That’s great! I’m on my way to the office from lunch; I’ll be there in about 30 minutes.”

  “Oh, alright…” said Josh, sounding somewhat deflated.

  Becca perceived the difference in the pitch of his voice.
Yes, she thought. He’s a little jealous. “I had lunch with my dad in Baltimore.”

  “How was that? I feel like I owe him a royalty for the idea of using Bibles to train the deep learning algorithm.” Josh’s tone was noticeably rosier.

  “You don’t owe him a royalty, silly. He didn’t do anything. You owe me a royalty; it was my idea to use them for your ground truth.” She giggled. “He’s great. But a little of my dad goes a long way. Somebody always ends up healed, except my mom...” Becca’s voice trailed off.

  “What?” asked Josh.

  “Never mind.”

  Becca and Josh continued chatting for a good portion of Becca’s trip. She got back to the office it was a little before 3:00 p.m. It was odd that Samantha, Ali, and Saul were all gone. Nobody left early from Gamification Systems. Especially, since everyone was preparing for next week’s Gecko demo.

  Becca sat in her chair, opened up her Mac laptop, and began to work on a section of source code that dealt with non-player characters. Source code was the actual collection of instructions written in a distinct programming language. Because Becca’s code interacted with the Unreal Engine, her source code was written in C++. She wanted to make sure this section of code was rock solid, just in case the need arose for the G-Master to spawn a character in the Gecko demo.

  To perform her work, Becca needed to inspect some of Saul’s G-Bridge code. Her code sent messages to Saul’s code. Becca browsed to Gamification’s GitHub repository. She located the right module of Saul’s code. Unexpectedly, she saw many changes in the various files that comprised the module. Saul updated the files—just five minutes ago. Becca carefully examined the modified files. She ran a diff command to see the exact changes. The only thing different about the code was newly added comments.

  In source code, comments were only meant to make the code more understandable to humans. The computer completely overlooked the comments when it compiled or executed the code. The same comment was attached to a number of method declarations—‘Make sure works with Velocity.’ An odd feeling enveloped Becca.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ali. As Ali moved past her open office door, she greeted him. Ali looked as if he’d just met the President. “Did you see the guys from Velocity Games? They’re here to meet with Samantha and Saul. I shook their hands in the reception area, when I was running to my car. John Vincent and Corey Lawson! Those guys are the gods of gaming.”

  Vincent and Lawson were the two Co-Founders of Velocity Gaming Studios, located in Bethesda, Maryland. Velocity was the first gaming company to fully incorporate all aspects of virtual reality gaming. Other companies simply ported over prior games to VR worlds. Velocity built VR-optimized games—from the ground up. Fog of War had broken all the video game sales records and won numerous awards.

  “No,” replied Becca. “Where are they meeting? Why aren’t they meeting in our conference room?”

  “I don’t know, when I got back, they were gone. Obviously, they’re meeting somewhere in this building. I do know that I want to play me some Fog of War tonight.” Ali entered his office. As he took his seat, he looked at Becca. Then, he pretended to shoot at her, with the rat-a-tat-tat of an imagined machine gun.

  “Great,” said Becca, loudly. “A software engineer went postal today after he met the Co-Founders of Velocity Studios. No one knows if the two incidents are related. By the way, let’s run through the demo tomorrow morning. I want to double-check that your code for spear phishing is working.”

  “Ok.” A few minutes later, Ali cursed loudly.

  “What’s the matter?” yelled Becca.

  “None of my music works in A-Tunes. Nucleus’ last update applied the music Blockchain to all of my songs. It broke everything.”

  Becca chortled and walked to Ali. “Is it possible that you own pirated music?”

  “Whatever,” said Ali, in a snit.

  “Music labels and movie studios are using the Blockchain to stop piracy,” Becca said. “They love the Blockchain because it allows them to control music distribution and royalties with smart contracts.

  “You can’t play your music unless A-Tunes locates a record of your purchase on the Blockchain. You can still use streaming services, like A-Radio, but now the hottest music is only available for purchase via the Blockchain. After they’re old, the albums move to the streaming services.”

  “Thanks for the tech update, Professor Buzzkill.”

  Becca continued, “I just read an article detailing how artists love the Blockchain too. Not only do they thwart pirates, but they can also control who listens to their intellectual property. And they can more easily pay creators and producers. If the song changes by one note—with remixes for example—it’s a new creation on the Blockchain. Everything starts over for that song.”

  Ali made a face. “You’re full of good news. Becca, you’re a hacker. Hack A-Tunes and make my music work.”

  Becca laughed, “I’ve already spent plenty of time with the FBI.” She returned to her office. 90 minutes later, Becca saw Samantha Powers and Saul Abrams.

  Samantha stopped outside of Becca’s office. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” said Becca. “I feel excellent about next week’s demo for Gecko. I’ve got to talk to Saul about a couple of things, but everything is working. And Ali tells he’s 100% sure of his code changes. We’re going to run through the demo tomorrow morning.”

  “Ok,” replied Samantha. “Why don’t you and Ali run through the demo with me tomorrow afternoon. I want to see it work for myself. Will you also look at Lou’s PowerPoint for Gecko? I want you to do a sanity check on the technical details. We’re going to start with the PowerPoint, you’re going to do the demo, and then finish back up with the PowerPoint.” Lou Skaist was Gamification’s Vice President of Sales.

  “Sure,” replied Becca.

  “How’s the CyberAI stuff coming?”

  “Josh just told me it’s going well. Once we get this demo done, I can start to work with him more closely. I’m going to have to get Saul more involved.”

  Samantha nodded her approval and began to unlock her office door.

  “Why was Velocity here?” asked Becca. Becca was sure Samantha heard her. The CEO breezed into her office and shut the door. A few moments later, Becca’s phone buzzed with a text from Josh.

  ‘Are you available tonight???’ Becca replied, ‘tnite not best…who about 2moro?’ Then, noticing the misspelling, she texted, ‘grrr—how, not who! ’

  Chapter 13 – TextWorld

  6:15 p.m. (EDT), Friday, July 31, 2020 – North Laurel, MD

  Josh Adler’s Apartment

  Becca thanked her Uber driver and knocked on Josh’s door. She imagined the Founder and CEO of CyberAI lived in something bigger. Maybe the startup life was not as glamorous as she thought.

  “How are you,” said Josh. “Wow, you should wear a sundress more often!”

  “It’s better than a flannel?”

  “Much,” Josh replied, with a broad smile and a wink.

  “Thanks for being so understanding and stopping by to see the progress I’m making. I haven’t left this apartment since Tuesday. I want to knock this out as quickly as possible, so I can show you a proper first date.”

  Josh Adler’s three bedroom apartment was more like a computer lab, with a kitchen and couch. Flashing green, blue, and red lights flickered everywhere among the line of rackmount servers. Wires ran from all angles. Whiteboards, chock-full of diagrams and mathematical equations, adorned every wall. There wasn’t a personal picture or memento to be found.

  “Why isn’t all this stuff at your office?”

  “My dad gave me most of this equipment—when we were still talking—and I didn’t want to make it a part of the company. Sometimes, when I’m in a zone, I need to be in my own place, with my own stuff.”

  Josh brought Becca to his central work area. Becca scooted a chair next to him. “Look at this. Becca, the computer is learning! I’ve trained the neural
network on Bibles and commentaries. I’ve also included some ancient texts, like Philo and Josephus.”

  Josh pointed to the two NVIDIA DGX-1s in the server rack. “These boxes processed the text and created the neural network, using my deep learning algorithm. Because the math of deep learning is relatively straightforward, GPUs are much faster at creating neural networks than CPUs. My neural network is still a work in progress. It’s not perfect. I want to ask General Shields if I can get time on NSA supercomputers. But the results are still astonishing.” Josh maximized a window on his computer screen. The monitor displayed a bar chart.

  “I’ve gone from 83% recognition of cyber-events to 91.5%. And I’ve only been working on this for a week! My last demo for General Shields was such a disaster, because month-over-month, the results improved less than one percent. Now I can show him substantial progress. And it’s all due to you.”

  Becca smiled. “Josh, you did this. Not me. These results are epic. You’re getting close to your 10X metric of 95%.”