Lara sighed. It just wasn’t enough. The new projections showed the “recession” lingered, and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Something had to change. She took off her headset and placed it on the desk in front of her. The projections faded from her eyes as she did.

She took a moment to study the headset. Not much more than a pair of eyeglasses, really. Inexpensive materials. Not as robust as a VR gaming or data helm, but more than capable of meeting the needs of a corporate exec in a position like hers. At one time, she had thought it would be the key that helped move society past the longest depression since the dawn of the industrial age. But the computing infrastructure and support networks simply weren’t broad enough. The UBI didn’t reach far enough. Consumer demand wasn’t what it was in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It wasn’t enough to lift the economy up. Too many people were being left behind.

Sighing again, she got up from her desk and went to her window. Croft Computing & Data Solutions wasn’t at the top of the office building, but it was high enough. Her office wasn’t even on the top floor of the company. She had a view of the Bay, Oakland, and Berkeley. Treasure Island was just a speck peaking out of the water with the rise of global sea levels over the last century. That was an expensive adaptation, but some people had idle money to play with. She’d never been to one personally, but the underwater condos were supposed to be spectacular. The remnants of the Millenium Folly showed a hole in her cityscape view. That had been expensive, too. At least the Transbay Terminal had survived and recovered. The Aquarium by the Bay had relocated there after sea-level rise claimed the Embarcadero.

“Andre, can you spare some time?”

“Of course, Lara.”

She stepped back to retrieve her headset and opened the window panel/door to the balcony outside her office. Andre joined her on a deck protected by windbreaks and outdoor heaters to ward off the chill that came with the height. From the deck, the view extended from the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin Headlands on one side to the South Bay Shore on the other.

“I’m reviewing project statuses and could use an extra set of eyes. Time to play Devil’s Advocate and Deluded Visionary.”

Andre smiled his infectious grin and dimples creased his dark face. His hazelnut eyes sparkled as he answered, “Certainly. Do you want Accounting, Legal, or Mad Scientist first?” It was a game they shared at times when the numbers and reports were inadequate to the moment.

“Let’s start with an Accounting foundation and see where the lack of oxygen at this height can take us,” Lara returned his grin. “Let’s do a quick run-by review of the major department projects, near releases, and then new ventures.”

Both their headsets flashed as data projected in time with Andre’s recitation. Gaming. Hardware. Communications. Education. Philanthropy. CCDS was at the forefront of a lot of technologies built from the gaming foundation her parents had established. Along with that went joint ventures and political connections. All that made for a prosperous, influential company in the modern age.

In uncertain times, many were envious of CCDS’s position. Many executives would be satisfied to maintain and exploit the status quo. But Lara was neither content nor satisfied. She could see Potrero Hill to the south. From her vantage point, she wasn’t high enough to see Starr-King Elementary or the Starr-King Open Space on its southern side. The Open Space that had essentially turned into a homeless refugee camp for over one hundred families and the school that made sure they had at least two hot meals outside of school hours. No, she was neither content not satisfied.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Starr-King, both the school and the Open Space were included in CCDS’s philanthropy projects.

“Back up a second, Andre. The Dot Project. Where do things stand on that?”

“According to today’s brief, the first test cohort is being paired with their AI’s today. We’re scheduled to be part of a project board meeting in two days for the preliminary status report.”

“What’s the latest from our techs on the development team?”

“Looks like data is meeting or exceeding projections so far. Connection speed is better than hardwired VR helms and even full immersion VR rigs. Minimal metabolic side-effects so far, well within projected safety margins. Data throughput appears to be remarkable. It looks like they think it would be better than petabyte both upstream and downstream. Of course, this is all within the closed project facility. The project schedule calls for controlled, real-world testing to begin in five to seven days.”

"Wait. Petabyte throughput?!? Per second? Can the human brain even handle that?"

"Apparently, given the right circumstances."

“Ok, moving on. Projections on commercial opportunities or potential for economic disruption?”

“Outside of the tech team’s purview and we won’t have additional data for our vision team until after the project report from the board meeting.”

“Speculation?”

Andre paused to consider before answering. This was the Devil’s Advocate/Deluded Visionary moment Lara had sought him for, and he had followed her gaze toward Potrero Hill. His own thoughts followed along to his extended family, cousins who still lived in long-time family homes in Bayview. He looked across the Bay to see the Oakland cityscape. He had a comfortable home there with his wife and son. His son in his junior year in high school. His son’s classmates who didn’t share his advantages, but for whom the UBI had at least created a stable life. Really, the question was direction after high school and competing with AI’s and machines that kept their society from collapsing after the climate wars and pandemics of fifty and sixty years ago.

“It looks like there will be integration opportunities for our gaming and education products. There could be disruption with some of our hardware products. It’s too early to accurately predict how much, but it could be a game-changer. The question becomes how we position ourselves to ride the wave.”

“You know the constraints and opportunities of working with the UNARPA project team as much as I do. It’s why we took this gamble, and are likely to again on future projects.”

Andre knew Lara could see as well as he could the data suggesting a jump in technology as great or greater than the moves from punch cards to vacuum tubes and magnetic tapes from vacuum tubes to microchips, from microchips to multi-core microchips that pushed Moore’s Law to its limits, from multi-core chips to quantum core chips that shattered those limits. It was a two-sided question: first, the impact on their existing hardware and how to integrate, take advantage of, or minimize the damage from new tech. Second, how to exploit the new tech itself to their benefit.

“What are you thinking of, Lara?”

“I am in agreement with you on the potential for disruption in the hardware lines. It looks to me like it’s a question of the degree and speed of disruption. The dot is still far from general release, so we have a bit of time to get additional data and plan accordingly for integration or phase-out of old tech. What intrigues me is the prospect of new tech ushering in a new paradigm.

There are new materials in the dot. While preliminary data suggests it’s not viable to produce those materials at scale for industrial uses, are there other uses we can find at the nano-scale that are viable?

The premise of the Dot Project is that the need for support infrastructure is minimal, but what about special facilities like the Dot Project Facility itself?

Finally, the Dot part of the Dot Project. A global information technology revolution to give even the poorest access to information and education previously out of their reach. Handled properly, perhaps a chance to start chipping away at some of these inequalities that have been holding us back for over sixty years. Mishandled, and it’s another opportunity lost.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s time to make space for the entrepreneur again.”