Julius leapt out of his car, crossed the small plaza and parted the twenty foot-tall glass doors with a raised palm. It was a regular ceremony where he tried to enter fast enough or erratically enough to trip up the system. It was how he tested the health of the AI, a gesture that was barely necessary anymore. The building knew his schedule, sensed the arrival of his autonomous and anticipated his approach. At the precise moment when he began to raise his palm the building had already calculated his gait and opened the doors to let him pass. Anyone following him would have walked directly into closed doors. But Ross strode quickly across the lobby and into an elevator that stood, doors open. It ascended to the floor prescribed by Julius' schedule.
Julius burst into the cavernous control room he called Big Think, where he could observe his empire from its most global scale to its most microscopic. Julius was instantly annoyed. He wanted to be met with a juice but the AI couldn't order people the same way it could move robotics. “Juice. Green.”
He was greeted by his second in command. This was their daily review—and Julius had some vexing news he wanted to address. Looking up at the cinematic map on the wall, Julius commanded, “Show me the journalist, Eva Robertson.” The map automatically zoomed in to a residential area of Manhattan, then to a single block. A flashing red dot told him an ambulance was parked in front of a house. “I saw the notice. Play me the call.”
The recording of the ambulance dispatch played. The dispatch was to 1111 W. 10th Street, the home address of Eva Robertson. It was an apparent stroke; aspirin had been administered.
The second in command added, “That was twenty minutes ago.” The red dot began to move rapidly down the street and turned right.
Julius turned to whisper, “You know what to do.”
The second in command nodded to Julius, then spoke to the AI. “Impede, level 7.” As the red dot moved up Sixth Avenue, cars bunched up in its path, stopped at lights, slowed to turn, and mysteriously were unable to pull out of the way, forcing the ambulance to slow and slalom through recurring traffic roadblocks.
Julius watched the jumble of cars blocking the ambulance’s path and addressed the chaos that was unfolding on the screen, “Thank you for that insightful company exposé last month.” Then, still watching the screen, he ordered, “Now, find me Senator Crowley.” The screen zoomed out, then into a residential area of Alexandria.
“Floor view.” The wall image duplicated on the floor and Julius leaned over it. “Crowley announced today that the next mission crew would have to be Marked so they can manage the Martian technology. I want us to have mission specialists on that next flight.” He paced around the house at the center of the floor screen. “So, how do we move the good Senator to our side?”
The second in command responded, “That's the home of Susan Button, a lobbyist for different business interests. Sensors on the auton confirmed it was Button who answered the door, but we can't sense activity inside. We could drone ...”
“Not necessary,” said Julius. “We know what's going on. Cross-reference with other data for the two of them. Shadow Button's tablet. Keep a file.”
“Yes, sir. Something else. I thought you'd want an update on this person of interest: Burke.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Julius continued to watch the display.
“You asked us to distill on any associations around Elizabeth Nasri.”
“He's the mission communications officer. Of course he shows up.”
The second in command stepped closer. “Yes, but the frequency of offsite meetings—meaning outside of NASA West—and the distribution pattern away from that area raised a flag.”
Julius turned. “Hotels? Apartments?”
“Restaurants. Coffee. Beach.”
“Then get to the point.”
“And a weekend trip to Santa Barbara two weeks before her pre-launch quarantine.”
Julius wasn’t impressed.
The second in command continued, “If you want to get to her, he may be a pressure point.”
“Do we have any communications between Burke and Nasri?”
“They have been friendly but not suggestive. During the mission, they are on a secure link. And of course, the spacecraft isn’t on our autonomous network.”
“And the source of the video hack?”
“Not yet.”
Julius left without saying another word. In the hallway outside of Big Think, he called to Katya Temple’s office.
“Katya. Meet me in my conference room right away.”
She was there when he arrived. Her office was near his for a reason. Katya had always been the pointed end of the spear for him. She drove the profits. She killed the competition. And soon, she would run his greatest experiment.
Julius strode to the center of the room. “Katya. We’re going to Mars.”
Katya said nothing, but simply tilted her head with interest.
“Crowley announced today that the crew members for the next Mars mission will need to be Marked—not an issue for us, but any organization could meet that standard. I think I know a way to blow the competition out of the water and so completely overwhelm the NASA selection board that awarding the work to Logisen will be a foregone conclusion.”
She stayed seated at the conference table while Julius walked deliberately to a control panel. A screen behind him lit up and showed the rigid procession of DNA across the screen.
“I had my genome mapped.” He highlighted a single base pair in a strand of DNA and poked his finger at it. “That minute variant in my DNA makes me vastly different from 80% of the people on Earth. Ever since I saw it, I knew I could leverage this to our advantage. NASA wants Marked astronauts? I’ll bring them a Logisen infrastructure division made up entirely of Marked employees.”
Katya eyed him.
“Two days ago, I saw something no one else outside of the highest echelon of NASA has seen. I saw Nasri putting on her headpiece for the first time.”
“We’ve seen her wear it,” Katya retorted.
“Not the first time. The recording I saw showed how the headpiece locked into her neurons. She freaked out like a lab rat. But I know what was happening. It was searching and making connections. The Martian variant is how it plugs into her brain.”
Katya shifted in her seat. “So, you’re saying this is more than a movie playing in her head.”
“It’s directing her. She doesn’t know it, but the headpiece, the stones, have identified her and mapped her brain. She thinks she’s watching a recording; it is presenting her with situations that lead her down a path. There’s a Sentient Control Center somewhere on Mars, and Logisen is going to master how it works.”