Crystal Deception Read online

  Crystal Deception

  Doug J. Cooper

  Crystal Deception

  Copyright ©2013 by Doug J. Cooper

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Published by: Douglas Cooper Consulting

  Book editor: Tammy Salyer

  Cover design: Damonza

  ISBN-10: 0989938107

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9899381-0-5

  Author website: www.crystalseries.com

  ~~~

  for Fran

  who couldn’t wait

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 1

  Peering into the secure booth through a thick glass window, Juice Tallette studied the object of so much effort. “You’re going to change the future of humanity,” she said to the crystal. She tried to focus on positive outcomes, but her mind kept drifting to the more worrisome ways it could all play out.

  Expectations were through the roof for this new release from Crystal Fab. The four-gen prototype was so advanced, it should have the thinking and reasoning capability of more than a thousand human brains, all working as one in perfect harmony. No bigger than her fist, Juice saw it as a perfect geometric crystal wrapped in a fine lace mesh. Others might reasonably describe it as a cloth-wrapped lump.

  She turned when she heard the lab doors hiss open and watched as Mick weaved his way through the maze of instruments filling the room. He carried a coffee cup in each hand and gave her one as he slid into his bench. He tapped the bench surface, and an array of colorful images lit up and floated in front of him.

  “What’s the good word?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.

  “I’m almost finished with the analysis. The prototype is green and clean on every spec. I should have the complete profile by the end of the day.”

  “That’s what I want to hear,” she said, studying the images for a few moments more.

  She turned back to the booth, sipped her coffee, and let Mick focus on his work. He was the best crystal technician in the business and had been at her side from the first days of the fourth generation SmartCrystal project. If everything continued to check out, the four-gen prototype would soon be ready for a real-world test drive.

  The current project timeline was to finish the lab tests and, if rumors were correct, install the prototype in the operations center of a massive government complex for a final assessment. If it performed well in that setting for three months, the four-gen SmartCrystal would move into full production.

  “The restrictor mesh looks good.” She put her face up to the glass to get a closer view. “Do you think it’ll work as advertised?”

  “The crystal or the mesh? Either way, the answer is yes.” He turned to look at her. “Don’t you have a big presentation today?”

  “It’s this afternoon. I present to the board, and then I meet with Sheldon right after.”

  “You’re going to tell him?”

  “I have to say it. I’m really the only one who can.”

  Juice loved this job and believed that her work would prove beneficial to society. The politics of pleasing bosses and boards made it a little less fun, but she knew she was on the verge of something big. It was a great feeling.

  She reviewed the notes for her talk one last time, and then went for her noontime run. In spite of the heat, she pushed herself hard. Running was her stress management tool, and with the stress of a board presentation followed by a possible confrontation with Sheldon, she needed the calming effect that her routine provided.

  She ended her route with a short walk, hands on her slim hips, while she let her heart rate settle. Then, turning toward the gleaming Crystal Fabrications headquarters, she wound her way up the landscaped walkway and entered the front door, self-conscious of being in her exercise clothes in the building’s public lobby.

  “Hello, Dr. Tallette,” called security as she scurried around the corner and toward the changing room.

  “Hello,” she called over her shoulder, though the security SmartCrystal wouldn’t have cared if she responded or not.

  She cleaned up, changed into what she thought was a smart-looking suit, and exited out a back door leading into a central corridor. She reached the conference room, grabbed a cup of water, and slipped into her chair just as Brady Sheldon started the meeting.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” Sheldon said to Crystal Fabrication’s board of directors. “Welcome to our discussion on the pending release of our fourth-generation SmartCrystal.”

  Sheldon, president and CEO, had founded the company twenty years earlier and been a key member of the original research team that pioneered the SmartCrystal concept. His belief in the idea, combined with his single-minded perseverance, had brought him to today, heading a company so technologically dominant there were no real competitors.

  He moved through some general business and then shifted to the main agenda item. “I’ve asked Dr. Jessica ‘Juice’ Tallette to give us a technical status update. You all know that Dr. Tallette has been leading the four-gen crystal development program since its inception. Before she begins, please permit me this opportunity to brag about her.”

  He’d recruited Juice to the company and was now acting as her mentor. He believed in her vision, knew her success was his as well, and was anxious to help her move the project forward in any way he could.

  “Juice joined us three years ago, right after earning her doctorate in engineered intelligence from the Boston Institute of Technology. Since her arrival here at Crystal Fab, she has pioneered the concept of using a cluster of three-gen crystals to orchestrate the design of our four-gen prototype. In my opinion, she’s the world’s leading expert in artificial intelligence crystals.” He beamed as he motioned Juice to join him at the head of the table. “I’ve asked her to be brief, so we’ll have plenty of time for discussion.”

  Juice stood at the front of the table and scanned the group. She was pleased to see that everyone’s body language was friendly and welcoming. A few leaned forward, indicating a certain enthusiasm for her briefing.

  “Hi, everybody.” She gave them an anxious smile as she willed her nerves to settle, then started her presentation.

  “Crystal Fab has produced more than a million of our third generation, or three-gen, SmartCrystals. Each of these crystals has a synthetic intelligence that’s roughly equal to a typical person.

  “They’re installed in operations that range
from hospitals and sports arenas, to manufacturing plants and Fleet military spacecraft. For any of these, they’re assigned tasks in specialties ranging from security, communications, maintenance, financial, and more. With a million such implementations, SmartCrystals are impacting our daily lives.”

  She paused and scanned the group to make sure she still had their attention. The members of the board could be placed into just a few categories. There were three techies—and they were already bored but would be patient with her. There were three business types as well. They only became excited when talk turned to things like cash flow and quarter-over-quarter growth.

  And there were four members from what Juice called “the connected.” They had many politicians and admirals and CEOs as friends, and earned their fat board stipends simply by taking a moment at a party to introduce certain people to certain other people. This was the group Sheldon wanted her to focus on in this discussion.

  “Years of experience have shown the three-gen to be predictable and compliant,” she continued. “We’ve never had a report of unexpected behavior as long as they were used as intended.”

  “Wait,” said one of the connected. “Has someone used a crystal not as intended and had an adverse outcome?”

  She paused, unsure how to answer, and Sheldon stepped in to rescue her. “Thanks for catching that, Robb. We know of no unreported cases. We do know that a three-gen was being used as a medical doctor in an antiquated clinic without any human supervision. The clinic is in a village somewhere in South Asia. Very mountainous and remote, I understand.

  “Apparently, it’d been performing quite well for a few years, then it made a bad decision and someone died. Its success record was better than any of the clinics in the neighboring settlements. But the local population is antagonistic to technology. The mistake reinforced their beliefs, and we had no choice but to shut it down.”

  “What’s the clinic doing for a doctor?” asked one of the techies, who somehow thought the question was relevant for discussion.

  “It’s being covered by a few caregivers who walk a circuit among the neighboring villages in a cooperative arrangement,” Sheldon assured him.

  When Sheldon returned to his seat, Juice sought to speed things along. Too much time was being spent on background information. “As we considered our next release, we set our sights on a game-changing technology leap. The solution we came up with is simple and elegant. What we did was gang together one hundred of our three-gen crystals into a cooperative network and then tasked them with creating an improved crystal design.

  “The ‘gang of one hundred’ as I call them, went to work. As a team, they designed the four-gen crystal template. Their creation is a thing of beauty. Our analysis indicates that our new crystal is a thousand times more capable than a three-gen. We’re in a final review period, and the four-gen prototype should be ready for live testing in a few weeks.”

  There were nods from most of the board members. Then one techie asked, “You said ‘their creation,’ as in, like, the gang of one hundred three-gens created this. Is this your design, or is it theirs?”

  Juice pasted a smile on her face, but her mind was frantic. Here it was, the topic she wanted to talk with Sheldon about—but she wouldn’t discuss it here. She was, first and foremost, a team player.

  “My goal was to design a tool that could then be used to design the next tool.” It was the best she could come up with on the spot, and she thought it sounded pretty good. “This is how technology has advanced throughout all of time.” That last part was pure nonsense, and she hoped she wouldn’t be called on it.

  Seeking to change the subject, she pointed to a business type with his hand raised before the techie could press his line of questioning any further. He asked, “If a four-gen is equal to a thousand three-gens, will we have to charge a thousand times more to make any money? We won’t sell as many if they’re this powerful. What’s the thought process here?”

  Sheldon stepped up to handle this question. Juice was there for technical information. The board drifted into what became an hour-long discussion on the economics and business plan for the revolutionary new product. The momentum of the meeting shifted to a commercial focus, and time ran out before any more uncomfortable technical questions could be asked. Juice was relieved.

  “Nice job back there,” said Sheldon as they walked into his office. “Would you like some water? Coffee?”

  “No thanks,” Juice said, sitting down at a small table next to his desk. As Sheldon fixed himself a coffee, she weaved her finger in a circle around a lock of hair, twirling it up until it slipped off her finger and unraveled. It was a nervous tick she hated but couldn’t seem to stop. She repeated the hair-twirling process over and over until Sheldon sat down.

  She’d left the director’s meeting satisfied she had avoided putting Sheldon on the spot in a public forum. Now that they were alone, she would voice her concerns and get his support for a solution.

  He took a sip as he looked at her. “You made this sound urgent. You haven’t been offered another job, have you?” He was only half joking, always worried about losing key people.

  “Nothing like that,” she said, shaking her head. “This is about the four-gen. You know I have reservations, and as we move closer to going live, they haven’t diminished. I’m hoping you’ll have some words of wisdom for me.”

  He watched her and waited. Given the investment by Crystal Fab to date, failure at this point would be financially devastating for the company. The four-gen wasn’t just the most important project in the company’s development pipeline, it was really the only one of any substance.

  “The guy who asked if I’d designed the four-gen prototype scored a bulls-eye.” She knew he wouldn’t be happy with what she was about to say and sought to buy some time. “Can I have a glass of water?”

  Sheldon retrieved a glass of chilled water from his service unit, setting it in front of her as he retook his seat. He did not talk, giving her the opportunity to say her piece. She liked that about him.

  She picked up the glass, held it for a moment, and put it back down without drinking. “Think about it, Brady. We’re about to release a crystal that has the intelligence of a thousand human brains. We don’t really know what that means. And we both know that I didn’t design the template for the four-gen.” She shook her head as if both to state and deny a personal failing. “A room full of crystals did. I pretty much just watched. And while I worked hard to understand what they were doing, I can’t sit here and say that I’m in command of the details.”

  He remained quiet, and she continued. “Once the four-gen goes live, we’ll have given birth to an entity that is a thousand times smarter than us. Even that number, the thousand, is made up. That’s how little I understand about this prototype. I feel certain that it’ll have conscious thought. It’ll become self-aware and then become self-directed. But how do we know if it’s operating properly? And how do we stop it if we decide it isn’t?”

  Sheldon folded his arms across his chest. “Wow. You really undersell yourself. I’ve brought an endless stream of visitors to see the gang of one hundred development lab. That facility is technology leadership at its best, and it’s your work. I’m amazed at what you’ve accomplished.” He furrowed his brow. “So I have to admit I’m frustrated when I hear you say that you ‘just watched this all happen.’ ” He signed quotation marks in the air with his hands as he finished the phrase.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” She was determined to move the conversation back on track.

  “So what’s going on? Are you saying it’ll go rogue on us?” He acted surprised, though they had discussed this concern before.

  “No. I don’t think so. Not in my heart.” Her finger twirled in her lock of hair. “I’ve worked hard to understand the gang’s template. The three-gens are predictable and compliant, and this four-gen has a similar design. So I’m ninety-nine percent certain it will have a comparable disposition.” Spell it out,
she commanded herself. “What I’m also saying is that there’s still that one percent chance that things could go wrong. In the unlikely event that things spin out of control, I feel it’s our duty to have thought through the options.”

  “Isn’t this why we added the restrictor mesh a few months ago, at quite a significant cost I might add?” He was referring to the lace-like mesh that was wrapped around the crystal, added as a fail-safe system earlier in the year at Juice’s insistence.

  The mesh, controlled by a simple switch, had three positions. Off, where it would do nothing and the crystal would function at full capability. It could be set to Isolate, where it would allow the crystal to freely scan the web for information but restrict it from sending any outbound signals, thus rendering it largely impotent. And it could be set to Kill, which was exactly as it sounded.

  Juice took a quick breath, then plunged. “I was certain the mesh was the solution. But now I don’t think it will work as I’d planned.”

  “I don’t get it. Three positions—off, isolate, kill. What’s not to work?” Frustration was creeping into his voice.

  “Okay, suppose I’m the one at the switch. I’m watching its behavior, I grow concerned and decide to kill it.”

  Sheldon nodded to show he was following, though he visibly winced when she said the word “kill.”

  “The crystal will have access to the same information I have. It will see everything I see, know what I know, and conclude on its own that its behavior makes it a threat. It will know.”

  “So what if it knows?”

  “It’s much faster than me, Brady. In the fraction of the second that it will take me to decide I must act, the crystal will already know I am about to conclude that termination is necessary.”

  “Again, so what if it knows?”

  “It will stop me,” she said.

  Sheldon sat back in his chair and stared at her. He kept at it until she broke eye contact and looked down at the table. “This would be your so-called god crystal.”