Chapter 1: Progress is Fickle

“Nearly three years have passed since the Shenzhen shift, and we are still standing still. The USA needed just 9 months after the Tacoma incident to create the first GATE prototype, yet we haven’t even identified what we’re trying to replicate.”

Chen Lu had delivered variations of this same speech to his technical staff almost every Monday for the past year, ever since he took over the prestigious position of product manager. While the job promised high pay and the potential for great honor, it had recently turned into a queue of people waiting to be scapegoats. And ever since the London incident last week, he could feel the noose tightening.

This made him particularly eager when a young, so-called ‘genius hacker’ was assigned to their team. The boy had gained notoriety by winning local hacking tournaments at a very young age, his insistence on being addressed by his online handle overshadowed only by his dramatic outfit: a top hat, a massive leather trench coat, black shades, and fingerless gloves.

Debates raged over whether his persona or his skills with a computer were more responsible for his fame, until the government caught him hijacking over 2000 processors, each running PrecisionAI, from his aunt’s cell phone. The story even made national news for a few days, spawning a flurry of conspiracies about the government entrapping him. After all, what were a few million dollars in lost computing power compared to gaining unfettered access to a generational talent? With this pretext, they could crush him under their thumb, even though he was still a minor.

“What about the new boy genius? Has he been any help?” Lu leaned toward the ever-appealing product manager, clearly hoping for some good news.

Wu Jia was accustomed to receiving such intense gazes, usually laced with either jealousy or desire. It was a relief to her that she sensed neither from her boss. “Yes and no. He’s a fascinating kid, but we’re having trouble finding a place for him. He’s not well-rounded at all. He may know everything between 0 and 1, but he doesn’t understand anything outside of that scope.”

Liang Chen, one of the senior developers, chuckled as he chimed in, “He didn’t even know what a square root was.”

“That’s a bit concerning. What does that mean in practical terms?” Lu knew Chen had a habit of bad-mouthing anyone he perceived as a threat, so he was unsure how to interpret this.

“Well, for one thing, he requires a lot of babysitting. But not because he’s asking a million questions. His knowledge of computer systems and programming languages is obscene, but his communication skills are awful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You have to be extremely precise in how you talk to him and leave nothing open to interpretation. And that isn’t even the worst of it. He’s already thrown two full-blown tantrums since he came here last week. I had to stop Chen from filming one of them on his phone.” Both Jia and Lu shot disapproving looks at Chen.

“And keeping VonNeuMaxx focused is a whole other challenge. You tell him to write a program to filter some data, and the next thing you know, he’s rewriting pieces of an imported module because it had inefficiencies in its runtime during corner cases it would never encounter. He’s smart enough to know he shouldn’t do it, but it’s like he can’t help himself. If you don’t watch him, he’ll crawl so far down a rabbit hole that he’ll be rewriting legacy C modules by lunch.”

“Overall, he can be difficult, but I feel that if we can figure out how to channel him, really harness his abilities, he could do amazing things. He’s the kind of guy a company would build an entire team around.” Jia sighed. Although he tested her patience, she had no problem admitting she had a lot to learn from him as a coder.

“Manager Wu, do we really have to call him by that ridiculous name?”

“Yes! Please do. That’s what caused the first tantrum.” Jia once again glared at Chen.

Lu sighed. He genuinely wanted the kid to succeed, not just for his own sake. He tried to form connections with all his employees, as any good team leader would, and for some reason, Von had taken a liking to him. After Von’s history of being a complete pain in the ass, it was the last thing he expected, so he wanted to set the kid up for success. “Well, dammit, I don’t have any ideas. My job is to get as many hours out of all of you as possible. Any ideas, Product Manager?” Lu looked back at Jia.

“With our current project, it just doesn’t work well. All the tasks are intentionally broken down into releases and smaller epics, which don’t allow us to exploit his creativity. And if he grabs a new project from the design team, he’ll be forced to use their skeleton classes like we are, which will greatly restrict him, even if he creates the entire workflow himself. Does anyone have any ideas?”

After a few moments of painful silence, Liang Chen couldn’t contain his pettiness any longer. “If he’s such a genius, why don’t we just ask him?”

***

“It is impossible for a computer program to do that. I don’t care what anybody says until you show me I am not going to believe it.” The young teen was fiddling with a circuit board he pulled out of his felt hat, going out of his way to appear as if he was disinterested.

“We don’t have time to sit around and wait for another one to naturally occur, you are going to have to trust us.” Lu had taken over the role of playing parent. He was able to get more out of the teen than anyone else.

“Ok, say that a computer did spontaneously create a portal to another dimension like you claim, I still don’t understand how anything I know could help you figure that out. I am a ha.. I’m a coder.”

“Very true. But we know that the PrecisionAI programs are what caused the shift to occur and you’ve proven you are very capable with it.”

Chief Lu paused for emphasis, making sure to apply just the proper amount of glaze, “The framework you created left some waves. There were people protesting taking it down in order to study it.”

Von was excited to receive the recognition, “Really? That was easy, I built that in two days. If I did it again I would take a different approach though. Creating a static container was easy but also super boring.”

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“VonNeuMaxx Xiansheng let me stop you there. We don’t expect, need or want you to figure this out on your own. You have your team supporting you and we have all of China at our back. Our hope is just for a new perspective. You have extensive knowledge and experience with PrecisionAI. If we tried to guide you we would only be limiting you. All we ask is that you put the same effort into this that you did into pranking the National Meteorological Center Headquarters two years ago.”

Von’s dozing eyes instantly sprung open. “I have never been to Beijing…” As soon as he let the word slip he realized that he had just played himself. It had been a lethal combination but he had still walked right into it. The best deflection tactic left would be to actually tackle the question posed to him in the first place.

“You know what is really good at sifting through data and finding corner cases? PrecisionAI. Just get it to review its own code.”

“You shouldn’t be able to do that. It restricts access to anything that is emulating kernel-level operations. How would you do that?” Jia had learned the best way to get a response from the young genius was to challenge him.

“The program is buggy as hell. How do you think the government found me? I created a buffer overflow when it was spoofing the kernel and scrapped an entire data center in the process. They were pissed!” Although he laughed now, it had been a very sad day for him. It was when Chuangtong had finally resolved to abandon his name. His auntie, his only living relative, had done everything she could to get the zhua ren to take him. The prospect of losing her cell phone far more fearsome than her own sister's flesh and blood.

“It has crashed on me more times than I can count but I have never gotten it to do things it was specifically hardwired not to. How would you get it to examine itself?” Jia perplexed. It sounded somewhat feasible for some reason.

“Hmm. I would probably try to abuse orders of separation. PrecisionAI is almost as bad at playing telephone as humans are. Chain instances until the current instance no longer recognizes some other iteration as a PrecisionAI version because it did not decide to include that as relevant information for some unknown reason.”

“Actually, better yet, using memory partitions of varying sizes…”

The dam had finally burst. Most of his ideas were without merit. Many impossible and some outright silly, but there were more than a few that were worth pondering. And it was Jia’s job to identify those ideas. She had her work cut out for her.

***

Ever since Chief Lu was ‘fired’ Jia had been in charge of managing VonNueMaxx. It was a thankless and frankly awful job. “He absolutely insists we call it the ‘SGATE’. He IS going to throw a temper-tantrum on national TV if we call it something else. It’s just a little bit of plastic and paint. Somebody can edit it all out in post.”

The bureaucrat slammed his smooth palms down on the desk, almost looking ready to throw a tantrum himself. “Not even for one single stupid fucking rehearsal will we sully the greatness of our nation with the latin alphabet.”

“Then just put a plant for him at the ceremony! It is not like anyone would ever be able to tell with that ridiculous outfit he is always wearing.” They were beginning to talk in circles and Jia was starting to get emotional. She already had two children she had to deal with between Von and Chen, she didn’t need to get yelled at by another manchild.

“His outfit? The outfit I saw him in?” He isn’t going on TV looking like some fucking autistic Batman villain. That would be a national goddamn embarrassment!”

Jia sighed, she agreed with the man for once. “Ok, better yet just give the credit to somebody else. Nobody has announced it yet, right? He sure as hell won’t care. Just give the credit to some government stand-in who you will be able to propagandize. You are never going to be able to rely on VonNeuMaxx.”

“Chairman Xin specifically said no stand-ins. Public trust is at an all time low, a fake would eventually be spotted and bring the entire project into speculation. We need the public more than ever as we prepare to move into the deployment phase.”

Jia decided to propose a middle road. “We have another young genius, Chen, and he is a lot less camera-shy. I am positive he would absolutely love to take the credit, and is more than competent enough to pull it off. He is our second best.”

The moment Jia noticed a flicker of approval in the man’s eyes, she seized the opportunity to conclude the interaction. “Just a second, I’ll give you his number.”

The bureaucrat let a sly smile out as he inched closer to her, “Mind providing your number while you are at it, honey? Maybe we can discuss other ways I would be able to assist you.”

Wu Jia did her best to hold a straight face as she respectfully declined the man.

‘Von is right about one thing. I really miss Chief Lu.’

***

Marcus Blackwood downed the last of his scotch, his one good eye fixed on the New York skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse office. The patch over his left eye was a constant reminder of his encounter with Bert Lyell years ago. With a deep breath, he picked up the phone and dialed a number he'd rather forget.

After two rings, an elderly voice answered. "Marcus, how can I help you?"

"Fitzpatrick, why the hell are you outbidding me on Hera?" Marcus growled, not bothering with pleasantries.

A dry chuckle came through the line. "Blackwood, I thought you were smarter than this. You're letting your grudge against Lyell cloud your judgment."

Marcus’s jaw tightened. "Maybe so, but I'd still like to know why you’re suddenly so determined to stand in my way. What’s your angle?"

There was a long pause before Fitzpatrick spoke again, his voice cautious. "Hera has... unique resources. More than just minerals and some mana in the atmosphere."

"What kind of resources?" Marcus pressed, sensing Fitzpatrick's hesitation.

Another pause. "Let's just say it's home to some... interesting specimens. Valuable for research."

Marcus's mind raced, connecting dots. His lips curled into a sneer as he recalled the old man's reputation. "Cut the crap, Fitzpatrick we are on a secure line. I know what kind of 'research' you're into. How similar are these 'specimens' to people?"

Fitzpatrick's sharp intake of breath was audible through the line. When he spoke again, his voice was low and cold. "Watch your tongue, Blackwood. I still have the President’s confidence too. But if you must know... they're genetically compatible. Fertile." He happily sniggered to Marcus. What fun was a toy if you couldn't brag about it after all?

The implications struck Marcus with startling clarity. "I see. It makes sense now—an old oil baron swooping in on mining territory. Here’s what I propose, Chris: I’ll not only allow this deal to proceed, but I’ll also provide the consultants and support needed to set up Hera to function like a genuine mining colony. All I ask is a modest 30% cut." Marcus made no attempt to veil the threat in his voice.

“I am selling two 20% is the best I can do.” Fitzpatrick had no real power to negotiate but it was in his blood to make the attempt.

“I'll only do 20% if I get access to all your research. And 500 acres of land.” Marcus growled. Fitzpatrick had played right into his hand, the research and land were worth far more to him than a cut on a few measly platinum and gold mines.

"Done," Fitzpatrick agreed, sounding pleased with himself. "Jasper will be in touch with the details."

The line went dead, leaving Marcus alone with his thoughts. He poured himself another scotch, his mind racing. If his suspicions were correct, and Bert’s decade long disappearance pretty much confirmed it, then Hera wasn't just valuable for its resources or even its inhabitants. It was the perfect nexus point. Far better than Earth was at least.

Marcus smiled grimly. Fitzpatrick would be the perfect cover to hide his activities from the President.