Two paper cups of hot chocolate sat on the low table, fragrant steam wafting through the air between the two well-dressed men. One dressed well out of habit, raised amongst wealth, and trained in its acquisition and tasteful display. The other dressed well as a form of protective camoflage. People were less likely to suspect his criminal tendencies when he did so. Both were well aware of the other's background.

"So what do you say, Bill. Shall we go into business together?" The criminal raised his cup and sipped while the other man considered the question.

"Business, Sure. We'll have legitimate offices, warehouses, distribution facilities. All perfectly legal and documented. The acquisitions from your side of the operation must not be traced back to us. Either it stays outside our network, or it dissapears inside it. We'll need a cover too. Something hopelessly idealistic to explain away irrational behaviors."

Rob chuckled. "Something hopelessly idealistic, Eh? How about interstellar travel. Just about everything can be 'repurposed' for that goal."

Bill sighed. "Idealistic indeed. We'll have to make at least a token effort." he sighed, then smiled as a thought crossed his mind. "We could get Lorian onboard."

"The Chick from that flight school you visited?"

"Yep. She helped present an otherwise dry lecture on Hyperspace theory. She wasn't interested in your jobs, thought they were to fishy. She liked the pasta, though."

"Will she remember you?"

"Maybe, but I didn't claim any association with the jobs. They were kept anonymous, just like you wanted."

"You just want to hire her because she was smokin hot," Rob said with a smirk.

"Well, there is that," Bill said, and raised his cup of hot chocolate. "To the future."

"To the future," Rob mirrored the gesture.

#

Lorian flashed her ID at the security guard in the lobby and made her way over to the elevators at his direction. She smoothed her dress and checked her mirror in the reflective wall of the elevator as she ascended to the twentieth floor and made her way to the well-furnished office of William Dare. She'd googled the name and address when she'd recieved the job offer through her social media accounts, and found that he was head of a recently founded tech company called Daedalus Enterprises. Recently being within the past year. Not much else to be found, seeing as he didn't use social media personally. The job offer had come through a company account. A financial degree from a university back east, but that told her squat.

Then Lorian recoginized him, as he greeted her and asked her to sit. It was one of the guys who'd taken her on a date, oh, a year ago, while she was finishing up flight school. She tried to remember what had happened on the date. Nothing came to mind, so she hopefully hadn't made a bad first impression.

"I'm so glad you've decided to give the position with our company consideration," Bill said.

"The idea of interstellar travel has fascinated me since childhood. I've been looking to get into some of the more established aerospace companies, but the competition is fierce."

"Indeed. There is quite a draw to the prestige. But here at Daedalus, we can pursue less conventional technologies. I recall you were part of a presentation on hyperspace theory about a year ago."

"Ah, yes. I'm no expert on the subject, but my friend Cass needed some help, and as I said, I've always been fascinated by ways to travel amongst the stars."

"Is Cass an expert in the field?"

"As much as anyone is. She's probably still in grad school. Last I heard, she was having trouble getting funding to test her theories."

"Well, we might be able to find her a spot when the dimensional research budget grows a bit. Currently our business mostly consists of modification to existing technologies, rather than the creation of new ones."

"And You'd like me to fly for you."

"Yes. And take a turn working on the machinery in between flights, but mostly fly. I'm of the opinion that systems are better operated when you know what make them work."

"I agree, to a point. It's impossible to retain all information about a system, once it reaches a certain level of complexity."

"Naturally. So, Miss Fate, are you in?"

"I'd like to look over the contract again before I sign."

"Certainly." Bill pulled out a blue folder with a gold greek letter Delta embossed on its face. Lorian read over the contract, then with a smirk, she signed and handed it back to Bill.

"It feels like I'm signing up for some supervillian scheme." she quipped.

"Oh no! We're discovered," Bill replied in a joking manner. "Thank you for your cooperation, and welcome to the team. My associate Rob is working on getting our test facility set up out where civilization won't take issue with it. Some of the modifications we make can have rather loud or bright effects."

"Like explosions?"

"Exactly."

"Well, I always did like fireworks," Lorian said, and stood to go. "I trust you'll email me the details?"

Bill tapped a key on his laptop, and Lorian's phone buzzed. "Just did. Farewell, Miss Fate."

"Farewell, Mr. Dare."

#

Cass grimaced as she left another unfruitful meeting with the university research board. No grant money would be coming to her this year. Instead, she had been directed to either help Proffessor Bloom with his research or pursue a more 'conventional' avenue of discovery. She was sure her theories were sound. And if they weren't then her experiment would prove so. But time after time, her proposal was rejected as "too expensive." It's not like the older profs didn't spend twice as much proving something absolutely useless. As Cass grabbed herself a cup of coffee from the administrative break room (Proffessor Cromwell kept a bit of the good stuff in one of the cupboards), A man in a well-cut business suit approached her.

"Miss Cass? Cass Weaver?"

"Who's asking?" Cass replied, nursing the cup of joe like a lifeline. Caffeine addiction seemed to be a symptom of college life in general. One of the proffessors had even undertaken a useless project to verify it. Why couldn't she have their funding instead?

"I represent Daedalus technologies. We're a relatively new company pursuing technological development with interplanetary and, ideally, interstellar applications. Your work on N-dimensional volumes was brought to our attention by a recent hire, and we were curious if you would be willing to present your research to our board."

"I'm afraid I have more theories than research at this stage, Mr?"

"Hood. Rob Hood."

"You ever get compared to Robin hood?"

"That'd be my nonexistent sister."

Cass shot the man a funny look.

"Apologies. Bill says I need to work on my humor. Even if your work is at the purely theoretical stage, We have an interest in it. We are in the process of hiring researchers, and, even if the board chooses not to fund your research, there may be a position available in our company."

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"When would you like to schedule the presentation?"

Cass pounced on the opportunity. She'd managed to read the implication that Daedalus might be willing to fund and/or hire her. Working for a tech company had to pay better than slaving away as one of Cromwell's research assistants for another semester.

#

Rob slid into a booth at a chinese restraunt, across from a young person of indistinguishable gender hunched over a laptop. The programmer he was meeting employed a wide range of gaming handles and disguises to keep their identity concealed. A reasonable precaution, seeing as they were a representative of the /Code/crystal/crypt, a darkweb entity that sold all sorts of illegal software, Data, and storage capacity. The illegal nature of the storage capacity was that it was usually on a server that didn't belong to /Code/crystal/Crypt.

"Whatchya want?" a digitally generated voice issued from the laptop as the programmer's fingers flew across the keyboard.

"Artificial intelligence. The entity I represent wants to run some heavy duty and unconventional physics simulations. They'll also want access to and the ability to make sense of the LIGO data."

"Please specify the nature of LIGO"

"The gravity-wave detector."

"That is a rather large dataset. Will the entity be using their own network for the simulation, or will C need to run it on third-party hardware?"

"The entity will be procuring its own hardware over time, but in the interest of expediency third-party hardware will be utilized."

"What interface level is necessary?"

Rob smiled as he sipped his drink. "It would be great if you could bake in full conversational capability, but I've been assured the entity can procure half-way decent civilian programmers. The research team has a bit of experience in rudimentary programming, but not in machine learning."

"You used to give me easy jobs."

"And you used to enjoy them. Tell me the truth, most of the business is automated now, isn't it?"

Rob recieved no reply. He carried on. "I mean, AI is next thing, right? The big corps are taking a crack at it, the government is itching to buy it, the civilians can't wait to get it on their phones, and nobody cares that it could totally play them like a puppet. If it were programmed to, of course."

"What do you really want?" the computer asked.

"Commander Data, skynet, a positronic matrix, a droid? A digital entity capable of learning and conducting research and administration. Capable of processing large datasets. Capable of interpreting conversational input correctly."

"An intriguing problem. One many would like to solve."

Rob shrugged. "Indeed. Lpook, the essentials are the physics modeling and the LIGO access. If it takes a programmer to shephard it, then the entity will make do. But this will likely be a long-term project. So long as whatever C makes does the job and doesn't mutate out of control."

"Work requires proportional recompense"

"So you'll take the job?"

The programmer sat back and gave an expressive shrug.

P"I'll give it a shot. Might be fun," the computer said, in the same even tone as it had delivered its previous lines.

#

Rose Maplethorne was in trouble. Her CIA handler had left the house to get takeout, and hadn't come back. The emergency line was disconnected, and She'd waited the two months he'd instructed her to. As a lead researcher on a classified bioweapons program, recently extracted after Russian agents torched her lab, she was not in the greatest frame of mind. Rose knew that her safest bet would be to lay low, get a job in an unrelated field, and maintain the cover identity the CIA had given her. But her work was everything to her. She didn't want to go back to the government. The lab had been interesting, the resources extensive, but the security had been restrictive. And there had been no recognition. Just another Black site where people went in, and came out somber, if they came out at all.

Rose decided it was time to join the private sector. But who was doing interesting research? Who would let her take 'liberties' with human research? Her internet search turned up a company that seemed ideal, except for one annoying factor. Daedalus technologies seemed intent on pushing the boundaries of technology, and had its eyes fixed on the stars. Their human augmentation program was just getting off the ground, but they hadn't ventured into genetic research yet. Well, Rose thought to herself, I can change that. Rose was quite a force to be reconed with when she set her mind to something. People saw her short, soft, sweater-glasses combo and thought 'harmless', never realizing the tenacity and unbending spine that lay beneath.

Rose stripped the safehouse she'd been staying at down to the walls, and left for the company offices with a U-haul's worth of loot to furnish her new condo. The HR lady was a cinch to win over, and Rose got all her ducks in a row to start the following monday. She was just getting ready to cook herself a house-warming meal when she heard a knock at the door.

"Coming!" Rose called out, setting down the dishes she'd just unpacked, and stepping to the front door. Peering through the peep-hole, she spotted a sturdily-built man in a well-cut suit. Unbolting the door, but not removing the chain she'd just recently installed, She asked through the gap, "Who might you be?"

"I'm Rob Hood, I'm a member of Daedalus Technologies security team."

"Do you have an ID on you?"

"Of course," The man produced an ID from his jacket and held it near the gap where Rose could see.

"One moment," Rose said, then unchained the door and opened it wide. "Do come in. Apologies for the mess, but I just moved in."

"I see," Rob remarked as he stepped inside and followed Rose to the living room, where she gestured to the couch she'd brought from the safhouse.

"Have a seat. What brings you here?"

"A few inconcistencies showed up when we were running your background check. Inconcistencies I'm quite familiar with. They do not cast doubt on your qualifications as a researcher. Our company is, however, involved in some rather proprietary and confidential work, necessitating secrecy and a high degree of information control. Tell me, Miss Maplethorne, have you recently left the employ of a classified government agency?"

"If I had, it would likely be against their rules to disclose such. Your HR department assured me your company was an equal opportunity employer."

"Indeed. We are. But security is of more concern than equality. If you do choose to work with us, Especially in the human augmentation division, you will be subject to a mandated weekly check-in where security personel will hook you up to a polygraph and ask you a series of questions. I just wanted to give you a warnign, since it's a relatively new procedure. No, you will not be the only one subject to weeklY check-in. There was a recent slip-up in the machine-learning division that has motivated the adoption of the practice."

"Well, I've already gotten the apartment, So I suppose I'll have to put up with it." Rose replied with a smile. "Will there be anything else?"

"I meant to bring a gift-basket, but I wasn't sure what to get. You wouldn't happen to like chinese, would you?"

"Fried rice is a favorite of mine."

"I'll see if I can drop some by your office come monday." Rob stood up to leave. "And, Ms. Maplethorne, Do take a close look at the things you brought with you. It'd be a shame if you had hitchhikers."

#