Melinda had agreed to let Scott have a few days in Mexico before heading out to Poland. Scott was not looking forward to another trip, but he was glad he could afford the lay-flat seats in Business class. He had even briefly considered leasing a private jet. It was amazing to think that a year ago, Scott would sometimes eat meals at Melinda’s homeless shelter because he couldn’t afford food.
Scott used his time to catch up on a few projects. Carl’s ‘brilliant’ ideas kept on coming, and Melinda seemed to think it was funny to assign them to him. Scott would quickly split these up into tasks he could farm out to others. Matt’s gaming project was more interesting, and Scott enjoyed designing content generators. The programmers they had hired knew a lot more about this type of programming than Scott, but they respected his ability to break the problems down into smaller pieces. He was also skilled at using code generators to handle a lot of the more tedious parts, which his team appreciated. Scott found that his tricks for memory and mental organization helped him keep track of what everyone was working on, so he could minimize the coding overlap that would bloat a large project like this. After working on Carl’s projects, Scott was a lot more confident picking programmers who could actually work well as a team, and he trusted Glitch_HR skill training to fill in any gaps in their knowledge.
Scott was working with a Russian guy named Timur Delgova who had an amazing depth of knowledge about modeling natural systems. Mr. Delgova’s productivity was so exceptional, it almost seemed like he had a team of experts helping him. The man seemed have odd questions about the game, and he had been eager to come visit Proteus. Scott wondered if this man was the spy. He hoped not, because the guy was so good at his job.
His phone rang, showing a video call from Angela Stein. Scott was a bit nervous; the woman had flirted with him in the past, but he didn’t want to be rude since she was Melinda’s best friend.
“Hello,” Scott answered, his voice wavered a bit.
“Hi Scott. First off, I wanted to apologize for making you uncomfortable in our earlier meetings. I had too much to drink, and I’m probably a bit too used to the aggressive work culture at my previous jobs. When I heard from others you were scared of me, I felt awful about it." Angela explained.
“OK, apology accepted,” Scott said. “It wasn’t the worst thing to have an attractive woman flirting with me, but I’m still not used to that kind of attention. At first, I thought people were making fun of me. I’m still not sure how to deal with it. Anyway, I hope I can get over my issues because I think we’ll need to work together as long as you are good friends with Melinda.”
“I’ve really enjoyed having her as a friend. She never had any real friends until you helped her communicate, so I think she likes having me around. Melinda is so funny and smart! I’ve really enjoyed hanging out around here.” Angela smiled, looking away a bit. “Anyway, I’m also calling because of some business.”
“Sure, what can I help you with?” Scott asked, puzzled.
“As you probably know, my investments in your businesses are doing well, and some other people have been begging me to get in on businesses related to your companies. We pulled a lot of money out before the big crash once I caught wind of some of what was going on at the investment funds. I’ve been looking at a lot of investments in this part of Mexico. I’m focused on encouraging locals who will provide services your companies will need with small loans or direct investment. I’ve always taken pride in helping guide the companies I invest in to help grow their businesses. I think I can do even better with your help!” Angela said, getting more excited as she went on.
“Sounds like you want to use my HR software," Scott guessed.
“Exactly!” Angela agreed. “I was thinking you could release a limited version. Melinda showed me some of what it does, and I am totally in awe of what you built! Oops, sorry, that probably sounded like I was flirting again,” Angela looked down in embarrassment.
Scott attempted to ignore that last comment. “There are reasons we can’t just sell the software to other companies.”
“Right! Melinda explained that some of the data was not acquired legally. That’s why we need a limited version. The program can still use your amazing AI algorithm to rank people and find suitable skill training. We would just hide information that is not public, free or legal to have. Skill training would be limited to public sources or items that could be purchased. You would link to the site where they are sold instead of the hacked dark web version.”
“This is a fair amount of work. Are you wanting to sell this to companies world-wide, or limit it to our local area? How much are you wanting to charge for the software?” Scott asked.
“Great questions!” Angela said, still excited. “We sell the hiring module but limit how many jobs they can fill using the tool. Maybe we have a small, medium and large company pricing tier, and they pay a license fee per year whether they hire anyone or not. Skills training can be a yearly fee per employee. We’ll need to see how well it works once you limit the sources. I think we could charge a yearly access fee of $50k for small companies, $250k for medium, and $2 million for large companies. Also, I think $1k per employee for access to skills training. I already have about 20 small companies lined up locally who I want to work with and using your software will be a requirement if they want my investment.”
“That’s decent money, and I can see it growing quickly if most of those initial companies are a success," Scott admitted. “Still, I’m doing well on money now, and there are a lot of projects I need to work on. Assuming Melinda is OK with this, I can hire people to do some of the work, but it’s a core asset for our companies, so it will take a lot of my effort to make sure I’m not giving away the whole code base.”
“Right, I’ll set up a company for this. You get 70%, I get 30%. I’ll act as CEO and handle sales, accounting, legal and any hiring. I’ll put up any money needed to hire the programmers you need to get this ready. You just need to get the software ready with the changes we discussed,” Angela offered cheerfully.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Scott knew it wouldn’t cost much to make the changes. Angela already admitted her initial sales would be easy and benefit her directly, so he countered. “It’s my program. There needs to be language in the contract that this company does not own the software and is only selling it. Plus, I want 80%”
Angela smiled, “We have a deal! I’m impressed you caught on about keeping ownership of the program. Melinda would never have let me slip that in.”
Scott thought she agreed too quickly and realized he could have kept a larger share. Angela was mostly interested in how this would help the companies she was working with. “You would have agreed to 90-10?”
She winked, “Possibly, but there should be enough money to go around. Let me know when you have a plan for getting the software ready. I’ll send out a contract for our new partnership later today and make sure Melinda gets a copy.”
----------------------------------------
“Sir, we have a situation,” Anita Luciana had called Sergio Guerra, the head of security for the Genysis companies. Guerra was a former cartel enforcer who made a name for himself, crippling dozens of opponents instead of killing them. Anita was one of many new hires in his group. She was an engineer who had built a homemade sonar system they were using.
Sergio took this announcement very seriously. They had been surprised by the intensity of the Russian attack, and he had spent most of his time since then attempting to anticipate and counter potential threats to the home base.
“We are getting a contact 80 clicks out. This is well inside Mexican waters, but they don’t have any submarines that size. The active array picked up the contact, and then we sent out a big pulse to get a good look at it. Looks like it is about 350 ft in length, so probably an attack class sub from the U.S., Russia or China.”
Sergio made a call to the robotics lab.
“Phillip, I hope that robot of yours is ready. We have a possible hostile contact heading our way,” Sergio explained. Phillip had been testing an underwater combat robot. It looked like a large metal snake, but it had turbine blades along its different segments. It could travel in a loud mode using the turbines at up to 50 knots, or in a silent mode where it moved like a snake at lower speed. Sergio thought Philip’s robots were overly complicated, but he had to admit the fluid, organic movements of his creations were a bit terrifying.
“OK, I’m ready to go. Just uploaded a new software package.” Phillip replied.
“Great, I really hope it works better this time,” Sergio replied. The last time they had tested the machine, it ended up swimming in circles for a few hours until they found nets strong enough to hold and retrieve it. “Please send it out with the warning protocol.”
Controlling an underwater robot was a challenge. On land or in the air, they could broadcast encrypted radio signals and control their machines from several miles away in real time. Underwater, they could use long wires if it was within a few hundred meters, but further away the robots had to rely mostly on programming. They had some codes that could be sent by sonar, but these could be easily intercepted and copied. The speed of transmission was too slow to handle an encryption handshake, so they used stream encryption. Stream encryption used a starting key that was agreed on at launch and generated a stream of new keys based on how much time had passed since the starting point. It was nearly impossible to break but was complicated by the time delay between when a signal was sent and received. You couldn’t trust the signal to timestamp the code, so they had agreed on a system with time granularity of about 10 seconds and used relative position and the speed of sound in water to estimate the correct origin time.
The system did not allow real time control, and the time delay would be a challenge, but the system allowed them to issue some basic commands like setting a new target, returning to base or changing the action mode. The robot had several modes - observation, warning or attack. Currently, the robot was approaching the submarine in warning mode. This meant it was moving quickly without attempting stealth. It was also broadcasting messages in four languages on a repeating loop.
“You are approaching Proteus Base in Mexican waters. This is a restricted area. Please return to international or home waters or move to a designated shipping lane.”
Sergio hoped the submarine would not test their defenses. They currently only had the one robot prototype and a few inferior torpedoes that Matt’s team had rigged up. They had a couple flying vehicles that could drop depth charges, but he didn’t like their chances if the attack sub started firing at them. Sergio’s group had worked hard to build up their defenses both underwater and above, but it would be a few more months before they could make a good showing against a determined attack from one of the major powers.
Sergio looped Melinda into what was going on. They waited for a few tense minutes while the submarine continued to approach, despite the warning.
“They are probably just testing our defenses,” Melinda speculated. “I bet they are wondering what that robot is and if it will be a threat.”
“The submarine has changed heading and put on speed. It is heading East, parallel to the coast, but not away from the base.” Anita announced, having received another pulse from the sonar.
“How is the Phillip’s robot doing?” Sergio asked.
“It changed heading and is continuing towards the submarine at top speed. Still sending out the warning.”
They all continued watching for about ten minutes.
“They launched some decoys. The robot is ignoring them and keeping distance in case they are mined. The sub is taking evasive maneuvers. I bet that turn shook them up a bit.” Anita announced.
A few minutes later.
“They fired a couple ATTs” (anti-torpedo torpedoes). The robot evaded them. It looked like it just disappeared between the sonar pulse, then popped back up 300 meters away.” Anita continued the play-by-play. The robot was programmed to evade interception by turning off its turbines and then moving like a snake to change direction and move silently in a random direction. Lacking a large air pocket like a submarine, the small side profile of the robot was nearly invisible to active sonar outside a few hundred meters.
“The robot has latched onto their hull.” They could hear the message that it was broadcasting change.
“You have ignored our warning. You have 60 seconds to set a bearing away from Proteus Base or your vessel will be destroyed.” The robot repeated the message in four languages, counting down the time.
“Looks like they are leaving. Send the message for the robot to return home.” Sergio ordered as the group cheered. The submarine had been testing their defenses, and they had performed very well. Sergio would celebrate with his team, but he worried that they had drawn the attention of a more dangerous opponent.