Scott was on another long trip, but he was grateful his company could afford the business class pods, so he could sleep comfortably. The food was pretty good and there were several movies he had not seen. He had been so busy with work the past year that he had missed out on the new television and movies that had been released. Even with the luxury seating, there were two layovers, one in Houston and another in Amsterdam, followed by a long drive from Warsaw to his destination south of Bialystock. The trip left him exhausted, and he wondered how much a private jet actually cost. During the trip, Scott managed to spend a few hours working on a project
Scott’s current assignment was working on a report tracking usage of various Glitch_HR training materials. They already had a system where users would mark when an article was helpful. This allowed the machine learning system to greatly improve the accuracy of its recommendations. Scott remembered when they first started that roughly half the articles were useless, but now he found it was uncanny how the system seemed to be guiding employees down career paths which matched their skills and interests.
The report was designed to quantify useful page views or video minutes and allocate the minutes between their various companies. The woman Scott would be visiting here, Nadia Kucharska, was actually in the top three providers of useful training resources across their companies. Her articles on training your brain had really helped Scott and others improve their memory, perception and analytical skills. Scott still practiced several of the exercises daily, and he had an intellectual crush on the woman who had helped him so much.
Scott would issue the first check to Nadia when he met with her. The numbers were a bit fudged because they were based on Melinda’s estimate of profit for the upcoming quarter.
Scott still had trouble getting his head around the numbers. Between seven profitable companies, they were estimating about $370 million in profits. Nadia’s intellectual royalty was about $140,000 out of a pool of $37 million they planned to pay out. Scott looked through the list of all the people who had unwittingly contributed to Glitch_HR training. Many would be getting checks less than $1000, but even a few hundred dollars before Christmas would be welcomed by most people.
Scott’s driver parked in front of an understated duplex home in the lower middle-class suburb south of Bialystock. He found himself growing nervous as he approached the door. This was someone he idolized, possibly the smartest woman in the world (in his opinion).
A heavyset woman holding a toddler answered the door. She asked him something in Polish. Scott had even worked through an article by Nadia about tricks for picking up languages quickly. His Spanish was coming along nicely, but he had no idea what the woman had said.
“Sorry, my name is Scott Henderson. I work for Genysis companies, and I’m looking for Nadia Kucharska.”
“An American,” the woman switched to heavily accented English. Scott heard a baby squalling in the background. She continued impatiently, glancing quickly over her shoulder. “I’m Nadia, what do you want?”
The woman was not at all what Scott had pictured. He had pictured a distinguished gray-haired scientist instead of this frazzled looking housewife. Flustered, Scott continued.
“Um, I have an intellectual royalty check for you. Also, can I talk to you about something? Maybe we could meet up when you aren’t so busy?” Scott stammered, fumbling with the packet Melinda had given him.
The woman eyed him for a second, cocking her head. The toddler reached out, trying to grab the envelope. “You are built like a thug, but your posture says you are scared of me. OK, you come in and help me, and I’ll look at your envelope.”
Nadia took the envelope and handed Scott her son, who seemed fascinated by the muscles on his arm. The boy poked him several times, curiously. Scott awkwardly followed Nadia into a small kitchen, where a baby was sitting in a highchair. The curly haired, red-faced girl had clearly not appreciated the interruption in her feeding. Her face was tear streaked, and she immediately started throwing cheerios off her tray. A small, scruffy brown dog sniffed the offerings. The dog did not seem impressed with the food or the intruder and went to lie down on a blanket.
“Scott, please feed Martyna,” Nadia ordered, pointing to a bowl of green mush on the table.
With one hand occupied holding the toddler, he picked up the bowl and set it down on Martyna’s tray, intending to switch over to hold the spoon. Martyna spotted the opportunity with glee and launched the bowl of mush onto Scott’s shirt. The little hellion immediately stopped crying and laughed at him.
“Sorry!” Scott apologized. He looked around frantically for something to clean up the mess.
Nadia laughed, “Obviously you haven’t been around small kids. There are towels in the drawer left of the sink. More mush in the fridge. I make it myself because the store-bought stuff is too expensive.”
By this time, Nadia had opened the envelope and read the cover letter Melinda had written. Her mouth was hanging open slightly, and she didn’t say anything for a few long seconds.
“Is this real?” was all the woman could manage.
“Oh yes! We are a huge fan of your work. The check is just a token of our appreciation to you and some others who shared valuable information.” Scott managed. He had practiced that line the night before and managed to get it out, despite being covered in green mush. The small boy he was holding decided that getting covered in goo was no fun, and he was squirming to get out of Scott’s iron grip.
“Yeah, you can let him go.” Nadia pointed absently to the toddler, looking stunned.
“We’re planning to send out checks like that every quarter. We calculated how popular your articles are and allocate a share of what our companies make based on employee usage of your materials. I expect since we are still growing, the checks will continue. To be clear, I’m here because we want you to work for us, but the checks will keep coming even if you turn us down.”
“I was paid about $30k per year when I worked at the research institute when I wrote those articles. My husband makes about $40k working at the factory, and money has been tight since I quit to take care of the kids. I have four of them, but two of them are in school right now.”
“We’d really like you to come work for us. My boss said we will buy you one of our housing units and pay for your move. You would have to move to Yucatán.”
“When you say ‘buy’, you mean I get to live there rent-free or that I would own it?” Nadia asked.
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“You would own the property in full after you complete one year of employment. It’s a new community we are building called Proteus. It is hard to explain, but I have a video I can show you.” Scott picked up the laptop he had set down after he cleaned up some of the mess. Martyna had quieted down now that her mom had returned. Even though no one was currently feeding her, she seemed content to watch their conversation.
“Ok, I’ll watch your video. Please feed my daughter but keep the bowl out of her reach. If you can’t handle that, I don’t want to work for your company.” Nadia grinned.
After a few minutes, Nadia had some questions.
“I didn’t see anything about schools at this place. If I’m going to work for you, I want a nanny who speaks Polish. My husband will also need a job - I’m not going to have him sitting around the house living it up while I have to work.” Nadia continued. She was closely studying Scott’s reactions. Nadia picked up that schools were an issue they hadn’t figured out yet, but the other requirements were not a concern.
“We don’t have a school set up yet,” Scott admitted. He assumed the people who moved in were concerned about it but didn’t know who was handling things like that. Maybe Adriana would know more. “I’ll make sure it’s a priority when I get back. The other items are no problem. I’m good at finding employees with special skill requirements, and we have plenty of jobs available. I’m sure I can find something for your husband.”
Nadia paused for a few seconds, considering. The housing they were promising looked very nice, and these people obviously had money.
“I have many friends and family living in this area.” Nadia stated. She was also thinking that the money Genysis had already given her would allow her to get out of debt and live comfortably.
Scott, seeing she wasn’t convinced, thought about what he could offer. “I can’t offer to buy homes for all of your friends, but I am willing to offer loans if anyone wants to buy housing. We require that at least one family member accepts a job at one of our companies to get the discounted rate. It’s the same offer we gave to our own friends in Texas.” This was the carrot. Now the stick. “Also, you are probably aware of the new aggressiveness of Russia. They recently stole some advanced military technology from us, and we think they are going to step up their pressure on Europe within a year. We think this area is at a high risk, and you and your friends would be safer at Proteus.”
“Do you really have space and jobs for a several dozen immigrants?” Nadia asked. Scott’s negotiating was a bit unsophisticated, but she could tell that he really wanted to make a deal that would benefit them both.
“Yes, our first section still has room for about 500 more families. We are starting work on two more sections. One will have a lower population with more luxury homes. Sorry, but I can’t afford to offer you housing in that section.” Scott said.
“OK, you’ve made a good case. I will talk to some people. I will need at least two weeks to make a decision. Will you be staying in town for long?”
“I’m flying out tomorrow afternoon. If you know of any good restaurants nearby, I’d be happy to take you and your family this evening. Please invite anyone else you think might be interested in moving.” Scott offered.
Scott spent the evening with Nadia and her extended family, plus several of their other friends. They knew the owner of a local restaurant and reserved a large section. Scott enjoyed the Golabki cabbage rolls and some potato pancakes. He still had no idea if Nadia would be willing to move. He didn’t think many people would just take a risk and move to another country because someone gave them a big check and asked nicely. The people at the dinner were interested in what Scott had to say about the city they were building in Mexico. Many of the people here were unemployed or struggling financially. Scott also had the impression that quite a few had picked up some of Nadia’s mental tricks. This group looked like ordinary blue-collar workers, but they had a broad range of interests and strong foundational knowledge about many of the technologies Scott’s companies had developed. He got the impression that they were frustrated with their current economic situation, and he thought many were willing to make the move if Nadia recommended it.
Scott paid the bill, thinking idly that a year ago he had been worried about paying $20 for a Wedge pizza buffet. Now, it was no big deal to pay for 40 people to have a nice meal.
The next day, as Scott was getting ready to leave for the airport, he received a text from Nadia.
“I’m in. I’ll still need two weeks for the final headcount. Your company will pay moving costs and make sure everyone can sell their homes at the average price from last year.”
The economy must be causing people a lot of hardship if they were willing to move to another country after a short conversation with a stranger. He hadn’t looked at the news in a while and did not really trust it, but he decided to catch up a bit while waiting for his plane. The tone seemed a bit more serious than what he was used to. There was some talk of food shortages and worries about famine over the winter. The big story was a domestic terrorist attack on Washington D.C.
The attack had happened the day Scott was traveling. A coordinated attack hit five sets of electrical transformers surrounding the D.C. area. The power system in the area was designed with massive redundancy, with a ring of high voltage lines feeding power from all directions. Hitting any one of the electrical stations would not have caused major issues. However, the transformers were within sight of public roads and the attacks coordinated simultaneous handheld rocket launches that damaged the equipment at all five stations, synchronized within a minute. This caused power outages over the whole area including the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, the Pentagon and Quantico. These strategically important locations could all run from backup generators, but the city was in chaos as their staff and surrounding businesses were unable to function. Large utility transformers were difficult to replace, and Scott saw they estimated much of the city would be without power all through the winter.
There was talk on the news that the attacks were organized by militants from Texas who wanted to secede. This didn’t make sense to Scott, so he called Melinda to see if she knew anything about what was going on.
“Hi Scott, nice work recruiting Nadia. I think we are going to need someone like her more than ever.” Melinda said, after her usual pause while the software interpreted her.
“I saw the news about the attacks on the electrical system around Washington. They are saying some radical Texas secessionists did it,” Scott said skeptically.
“Right, I have more information than what they are saying on the news,” Melinda replied. They were using her heavily encrypted phone application, so Scott was hopeful it was safe to talk. He was currently in a lounge available to the first-class passengers, but he looked around to make sure no one appeared to be listening in on his conversation.
“I’m listening, but I’ll try to watch what I say since I’m in a public place.” Scott replied cautiously.
“The attacks on the power system were just a distraction. Some guy had a nuclear warhead in a truck about one mile away from Congress. The attack was timed for the middle of the week when most of them would be in the building,” Melinda explained. “His conscience got to him. Apparently, he ate at a diner on the way and a cute kid made him think twice about killing thousands of people. He drove the truck up to a police station and turned himself in!”
“Wow! How did they even organize an attack like that? How did they even have something like that?” Scott asked, trying hard to avoid saying words like nuke or bomb while at the airport.
Melinda explained, “When the gangs were causing all that trouble a few months back during the collapse, a few warheads went missing from a base in Texas. Some of the soldiers disappeared around that time and turned up later in one of the gangs that the National Guard put down. The nukes were never found. No surprise this wasn’t announced on the news, but the real mystery is how they were able to crack the security codes to arm one of the devices. There are strong fail-safes that should destroy the device without detonating if someone tampers with it.”
“This doesn’t sound like some random group of rednecks who don’t want to pay taxes.” Scott agreed.
“Right! I was curious how hard it would be to override the security codes. Since you have an hour before your flight, would you research this a bit for me?” Melinda asked.
Scott groaned. “I am not going to search for that on the internet. Someone would probably arrest me before I left the airport. I’ll poke around a bit in Glitch_HR, but I can’t promise anything. I am not calling anyone it recommends.”
His shoulders slumped a bit as he hung up. Scott pulled up a search for the best experts in cryptanalysis. It wasn’t a surprise that many seemed to be employed in the NSA, or the equivalent in China, Russia and other countries. Scott noted that about four of the top twenty were working for Strategic Planning Artificial Intelligence in New Mexico. This was a big red flag. That group was the mysterious employer that he had learned about from tracking down a strange text from Theofanis Zervou (his sometimes employee and rival). Scott strongly suspected SPAI had launched a complex attack to cripple the US government and frame Texas. He noticed his hands were sweating, and his stomach churned as he started to think about how bad this could be. Before boarding his plane, Scott forwarded what he found to Melinda in an encrypted email. If their encryption was not enough to stop a hostile AI, Scott wondered if it would consider him a threat.