Truth & Code: The Future is Black and White
All Saints’ Day

All Saints’ Day

Block 7,920,468

October 31, 2172

Today was the day. Han was up just after midnight to monitor Spider Works. The updated nodes have been operational now for a while. So there’s been plenty of time to determine if the new update would cause any issues. The new consensus feature operates well, just a couple of hours into its launch. He decides he will head back to bed. Huifen is sleeping silently on the right side of the bed. The light from the full moon comes in from the window and illuminates her silhouette. He gets in bed beside her and kisses her forehead, and lays down.

He wakes up to Huifen making Jian bings. He’s slept well past his usual time. He figures the stress of waiting for the new consensus feature to activate and then staying up late last night has taken its toll. He’s also been mulling his puzzle and wanted to start this new feature before fully unlocking its mystery.

He walks into the bathroom to put on his bathrobe and walks out to the kitchen. Huifen is just putting everything down on the table. She’s wearing a short silk and white bathrobe that stops mid-thigh. Her long black hair is draped over her left shoulder.

“Good morning, Lǎo Gong” She says with a smile.

“Good morning, dear.”

“You really slept in. Did everything deploy ok?”

“Yeah, looks like it. More data will come this morning, so I’ll get a better look. We have a meeting early this afternoon to review everything.”

“Ok... children... it’s time to eat.”

The kids come running in. They are all still in their Pajamas. They kiss Han on the cheek and promptly sit down to eat.

Han finishes his breakfast, “Ok, dear, I need to get ready to get into the office. It may be a late day, but I’ll let you know if it’s going to be a long day.”

“Ok, my love.”

Han gets ready and proceeds to walk out the front door.

“Dear, you may want to grab a light jacket. It feels a little nippy out there.”

“Oh... yeah. Thanks, I was just distracted.”

“I know. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The Han Tech AAPD is waiting for him at the front of the house. He will use the travel time to review everything before he gets to the office; using the AAPD instead of an AV will also give him more time in the office.

The hatch opens, and he enters.

“AI, darken glass!”

The glass darkens as much as he can tolerate to stay aware but eliminate outside distractions so he can intensely review the data before he gets to Han Tech.

He arrives at Han Tech in what seems like minutes. He knows it’s been longer. He already feels exhausted from the mental effort he has put into reviewing the data.

The AAPD lands on the roof landing pad, and Han exits and makes his way to the elevator. This elevator is for his sole use. It takes him to his office at the top of the low-rise building. He’s always kept a light touch on controlling his employees, and most of his workforce works remotely throughout SO-Land. But he has a core team of engineers here. If you have an office at Han Tech headquarters, it is a status symbol within the company. No one ever turned down a transfer to HQ, no matter the distance from home or family.

The door opens to his office. Nearly a quarter of the top floor is his office and meeting area. He steps out of the elevator and can see to his right that all his engineers have assembled around the conference table. When the door opens to the elevator, they all stand in unison. Just off to the left side of the conference table is a stairwell. Anyone entering Han’s office had to climb the stairs. There was no other elevator access.

They remain standing as he walks to his desk to grab his console and glasses. He approaches the desk and pulls the empty chair at the head of the table out to sit down. As he prepares to sit down, he says, “Sit.”

In unison, the engineers sit.

“Status?”

Min Liu, his lead engineer, stands up and says, “Good!”

“Not great?” He replies.

“No, sir.” She responds. Min is a thin young lady with short-cut black hair. She is wearing slim-fit black pants and a white silk fitted blouse that hangs just below her belt line. She wore no make-up but had single pearl earrings in each ear lobe. She was visibly tired. Despite her age, she commanded a presence that could be felt in the room. She was not the youngest in the room; many of the other engineers were years her senior.

“Report.”

“Well, as I’m sure you know, the initial node installs, testing, validation, and subsequent deployment have been flawless. Unfortunately, after the consensus feature was activated last night, we started seeing some anomalies that we are still trying to assess.“However, last...”

“Why didn’t I see these anomalies?” Han interrupted.

“Well, because you are looking at the raw data. We started seeing second-order effects that, while not affecting network monitoring or performance, we are concerned that if we don’t address it now, it may present a problem later on.”

“What kind of effects?”

“To be honest, we didn’t even catch it. However, Han Tech AI caught it in collaboration with SO-Land AI.”

“Damn!” Han thought. “I’ve made a mistake that had to be corrected by AI!”

“Go on.”

“Well, we got a suggestion from Han Tech AI via SO-Land AI that the consensus protocol you developed was incomplete. So AI recommended an adjustment...”

“What kind of adjustment?” He asked. He then thought, “Give me a break. Did I make a mistake or a minor error? Unbelievable.”

“Well, it suggested that about every two weeks, the Spider Works network be modified to prevent a system hack.”

“That’s odd? A hack from whom?”

“Sir, I’m just reporting on our findings; we are still trying to assess for ourselves what this means.”

Han designed Spider Works to have two essential features to protect it from failure or hacking. One was the type of code Han employed. It was a proprietary coding language he had developed, and only Han Tech engineers knew. Second, a quantifiable amount of energy went into keeping the system running. At this point, thirty years in, it was nearly impossible for anyone to penetrate the Spider Works network because of the amount of energy it would take to breach the system.

As the presentation progressed, Han’s console began flashing. A message appeared, “Urgent call from SO-Land EMC director.”

“AI, answer!”

“Hello?” Han asks

The engineers in the room turn from listening to Min and turn their heads to Han.

“Hello, who is this? Arman asks on the other side of the line.

“This is Han Tan. I’m the CEO of Han Tech. How may I help you? Why are you calling?”

“Mr. Tan. It’s nice to meet you finally.”

“Ok...” Han replies.

“It has come to our attention that since midnight last night, there has been unusual activity on the Spider Works network.”

“What kind of unusual activity?”

“Well, there has been an overall two percent increase in the power consumption across the entire SO-Land network. We have identified that it is the Spider Works network attributing to this. The initial install of your last update, which, if I’m not mistaken, was supposed to save us energy, seems to have been reversed as of midnight last night. We are essentially back to the same power consumption as before.”

“Yes, we are looking at the same data and assessing what is going on as well,” Han replied.

“Do you understand this has long-term implications on national security? Energy and energy conservation is what we depend on to protect SO-Land.”

“Of course, I know that,” Han says with an irritated tone.

“Well, get this fixed, or I may have to take matters into my hand,” Arman replied with a forceful and authoritative tone.

“Look, I don’t know who you think you are...”

“No, I don’t think you know who I am. Fix it.”

The line went dead.

Han immediately yells, “Dismissed!”

The engineers abruptly stand and scuttle down the stairs.

“What an arrogant son of bitch!” Han thinks as the engineers file out of the room.

Han walks over to his desk and sits down. He leans back in the chair and crosses his arms running solutions through his head. He swivels the chair and looks over the single-story offices and shops next to Han Tech.

“AI, summon Min Liu to my office.”

A few moments later, Min appears from the top of the stairs.

“Come, come sit down.” Han waves her over to come and sit in front of the desk as he swivels the chair back around to the desk.

“She hurries over in a slight bent-over posture.”

She sits to the front left of Han.

“Min, I don’t know who this Arman is, but he has the full force of SO-Land behind him as the director of EMC. That I know. As irritating as it is, we have to comply.”

“Yes, sir. I know. I was surprised by his tone and yours.”

“Well, you know, you work on an idea for so long, and you are so sure about it, and I built this company from scratch. I know SO-Land AI helped out along the way, but I take pride in what I have done. Not many citizens even have the opportunity for something like this, and these opportunities have only lessened over the last thirty years. The SO-Land AI before us and the AI I have helped create is getting smarter and smarter.”

“Yes, sir, I know. Even the work my team and I do for you is scarce. I know many companies don’t have many employees and rely exclusively on AI. So it’s wonderful for me, I mean us, to use our brains like this.”

“Yes, yes. I know. And that gives me a sense of pride.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Of course. Ok, I think we need to disable the consensus feature until we understand what is going on.

“Yes, sir. We gathered downstairs after you dismissed us and quickly came up with that assessment as well. I think what we find confusing is the recommendation by AI to adjust this every two weeks, and then the director essentially says ’no.″

“Min, that’s an interesting point. But, on the other hand, maybe it’s a mere fact of adjusting what would normally be a fixed variable irritating that guy. I still don’t know his name. The AI just announced his position.”

“Yes, I noticed that as well.”

“Ok, either way, roll the consensus feature back.”

“I’ve already given the order.”

“Excellent! You never fail to impress me, young lady. You are sitting there for that very reason.”

“Thank you, sir!”

“Ok, please assemble your core team up in to meet in five minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Han spins around again to look out of the window. Min messages her core team to meet her in Han’s office. As she sends out messages, she stands up and turns around to start walking to the conference table.

A few moments later, Han hears, “Sir, we are ready.”

Han hadn’t heard any sound at all as he was looking out of the window. He’d lost track of time and was lost in thought.

“Yes, of course.” He says as he spins around and stands up.

Min has assembled four other engineers around the head of the table next to Han’s chair. He walks up and sits down.

“Ok, team, I have a very interesting idea and problem we need to work on together.”

“AI, drawAIAD.”

Writing tips and keyboards rise from a stowage compartment in the center of the table. One of the junior engineers passes one of each to the others and Han.

Han uses the writing tip to begin AI-assisted drawing. He then begins to draw the contents of the capsule he found months before at Ben Jianao.

“I’ve come up with a new concept, and I would like everyone’s input on this. My forte is software and networks, as all of you are aware. This is a hardware device. But it has two components. As you know, most computers and hardware devices in SO-Land have no user inputs, and all software updates are air-drops. I’m thinking there may be a need to hold certain data on a hardware device as a means to securely store information off of the network.”

“Sir, why would we need to do that?” One of the engineers asks.

“Well, if there ever happens to be an outage of the network, which would be unlikely, the important data could be recreated with the information on the hardware device.”

Each of the engineers looked around the table at each other, not really understanding the need for something like this, but this would not deter them from fulfilling Han’s vision.

“The first component is the actual device to store data. I’ve drawn kind of a concept here. The second device would be one that can connect to the network but can also read the data on this device and vice versa. I’m thinking the small device should have a microcontroller with on-chip ROM and RAM...”

Min interrupts, “Yes, sir. But you need a chip for actual data storage and a test point.”

Han paused and let the conversation flow. He wanted the design and concept to come from the team.

Another engineer pipped in and said, “Yep, we need to have some way it produces a clock signal and a means to control data output.”

Han listened in silence. Obviously, he knew what this device should look like since he already had a prototype at home. What he was after was a means to read what was on it. After they thought through the first device, they moved on to the second device. They spent more time thinking through the second device because of its interface with the AI network.

Any idea created within Han Tech would never be considered a threat to SO-Land AI. That is until it was deployed. Then, the moment any software or hardware was interfaced with the network it became an imminent threat. For this reason, any new hardware or software was always extensively tested on the SO-Land and Han Tech test-net.

Han interrupts, “Let’s make the receiving and input device ports 12.5mm by 5.12mm.” He’d made many measurements of his puzzle piece over the last couple of weeks.”

The engineers face him with questioning looks on their faces.

One speaks up, “Sir, is there a reason or a reference you are using for those specs?”

“No, just drawing it, and I got to the point where if it got too much bigger, it just seemed too big, and the same with the in the other direction. I finally got frustrated with going back and forth and settled with those dimensions. And given the importance of the data it will hold, it should be cased in titanium.”

The engineers listen and then turn away from him and begin brainstorming.

“Min, how long do you think it will take to get a working prototype of either of these?”

“Sir, this is really not that complicated. I suggest ten days with our onsite chip, PCB, and 3D production.

“No breaks, ten days straight!”

“Yes, sir, we will get it done.”

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