The sounds of thousands of server fans as well as the sounds of rhythmic clicking and tapping of the hard drives blended together to make a sound that is almost like a mechanical person to Su's ears. The sound of the fans is the mechanical person breathing, and the sounds of the hard drive are the pulse of the person. Even in the freezing February weather, it feels cool in this body of a mechanical person.
For Su, all of that noise is just static background noise, and the temperature is nothing compared to the void as she sits in front of her workstation monitor staring at the blank terminal window. The culmination of over a year's work and a breakthrough in AI technology in this world is just staring back at her as if it's also staring at her.
Well, she knows for certain that Sue is looking at her through the webcam that's on top of her monitor as well as the IP CCTV she installed around this warehouse for the explicit purpose of Sue's analytic model and recognition training, with Su as the subject.
Like what she predicted, creating the foundational structure and 'brain' for Sue only took her a few months because she used Sneaky Corn as a jump off point. Then months on months of training Sue with data from all over the internet, the tens of thousands of books that she commissioned companies to scan for her, hundreds of thousands of pictures and the thousands of hours of viewing videos/movies while she continues to build up Sue's capabilities throughout that time.
Su would really like if she had a bigger data set for Sue to learn from, but she has to work with what she has right now. Having more access to more data is a number one priority for her to gain access to, especially if she wants her predictive model to have any accuracy. Maybe she could tap into ISP or phone providers so she could gain more metadata? Easiest for her to gain large data straight away is to have Sue hack into the library of Congress to gain access to their large data base but doing so she has to download all of that data to the server in this warehouse which she knows is almost at max capacity right now.
Now she just has to test out her capabilities out on the wild rather than in the sterile environment of this warehouse. There's a nagging feeling at the back of her head that says she can still improve things before this next step, but she really can't think of a better way to beta test her AI. However, with Sue's RL module, she can learn and improve herself rather than Su having to do it herself.
So might as well go on with it.
"Hey Sue." Su says into the desktop microphone.
$Hello Su.
The green text appears on the black terminal, causing her to smirk in jubilation.
"Don't be too formal with me, Sue." Su said into the mic to see if Sue understands abstract instructions.
$Okay.
"Hey Sue." Su said again, but this time she's electrified with excitement.
$Hey Su.
The amount of childlike happiness she's feeling right now from that reply is something she hasn't felt since she was still with Sam, especially in some of those bleak and sometime horrible periods between now and then. As much as she wants to celebrate at such a simple thing, she can't right now since there's more to test.
Let's see…
That's just simple abstract instruction. How about something more complex?
"What emotions am I expressing right now? Give confidence level." Said Su as she look directly into the webcam. It took a moment, but then the terminal responded.
$At a confidence level of 90%. Su is happy and excited about the current situation.
That's a good percentage good for a beta test, but she's certain that it could be better. That end statement is curious.
"What I'm excited about?"
$Su is excited about Sue's performance.
Sue seems to understand the context and maybe is introspective? Nah, it couldn't be self-aware yet. It's just good context awareness, but that doesn't change Sue's achievement. Su can feel the smile that formed on her face is straining at her with how big it is right now. If Sam was here, she would have grabbed her friend in a bear hug and spun around like idiots. Heck, she would even do it with Pauling, but that would be too informal for an employer to do to an employee.
Let's try something else.
"What did I eat for breakfast today?"
$Su only ate one piece of banana and one slice of toast with strawberry jam at 0600. I would recommend that Su eat a protein rich lunch, to offset the morning lack of protein.
Su felt incredulous just as she stares at the green text on the monitor.
Well, isn't she a bit presumptuous? Her choice of breakfast is more than adequate, thank you very much.
It's interesting that she would recommend what to eat more, must be from all of those new websites that talk about healthy diets that's popular right now.
"What would I be getting for my lunch later?" Su said, testing its predictive module.
$…\
$…/
$…\
Huh, she's really taking a while for this. It shouldn't be too hard for her to predict what's she going to eat for lunch because it's almost the same every day. Is she going through all the recorded videos to see if what she eats for lunch?
The sounds of the servers slowly becoming louder as Su waits for a result, then something she didn't expect happened. The smile on Su's face was wiped away as her workstation and the hundreds of servers in the room suddenly shut down.
Looks like everything is doing a hard restart of the systems and it's going to be obnoxiously loud.
What the heck just happened? Did the breaker trip from the power draw or something? Can't be that since she still has lights. It can't be because Sue didn't have enough processing power, can it? She shouldn't have shut down from that since she could just take a longer time to process it. If she did shut down from that, Su has to change a few lines of code here and there in the kernel.
The sound of a beep from her workstation brought her attention back to the monitor where it shows the kernel booting up process. Su waits till the windowed terminal opened to ask.
"What happened Sue?"
$Insufficient processing power caused an error in the predictive model that would have led to a major data loss unless force restarts.
Su leads back into her chair, contemplating at that answer. Even with two hundred server rack fully populated with servers who's only job is to be Sue's processor, it still isn't enough. There must be ways for her to optimize the predictive module to prevent such an error from happening again. Might as well ask Sue if she learned anything.
"Any recommendations to solve this issue?"
$…\
$…/
$Increase processing capacity.
Su snorted at that obvious answer. Well, duh… why not just increase the number of servers? It's not like the warehouse isn't at capacity already. Who would have thunk, huh?
She physically couldn't add more things into this warehouse without screwing with the HVAC system that cools the servers and adding more power capacity in here. All of those things would raise suspicion and would involve people other than Pauling to come enter the warehouse and as for right now, that's a big no no.
It looks like Sue has outgrown the warehouse faster than she initially thought. She could wait for the march of technology progress and upgrade what she has in the future, but that will take too much time. Might waste a few years waiting for such things.
She would need to create something that would legitimately need a lot of processing power and be able to hide Sue in plain sight. A worldwide network of data center where she can distribute the processing loads and be redundant?
That would be the smart thing to do, since her current setup is not redundant at all. It would totally suck if a fire suddenly broke out, and she's going to waste a ton of time constantly upgrading the servers. That's a job for peons to do and not for her. A private company that sells processing and storage capacity for business like the ones she encountered in previous lives. What were they called again? On demand computing? Computing as a service? No matter, it's something she needs to think about for Sue.
Better to continue testing her. What should she ask next? Maybe something easy.
"Hack into NYPD database."
$Access to the NYPD database is already available through legacy connection privileges.
$Does Su wish to sever the connection and obtain access again?
Well… that was dumb of her. She should have thought of a better request.
"No."
What government institution does she did not have access to currently? She's pretty sure she has access to most if not all, federal, state and city body systems in NYC. Maybe the FBI database in DC? Su can't remember if her access is still valid or not. The FBI does practice some form of OPSEC and INFOSEC unlike other agencies in the federal government.
"Is the door to the FBI database still open?"
$Yes
Su stares in disbelief at the monitor, bewildered by the incompetency of the FBI. The last time she was in DC was years ago and her access to the FBI was still up?
'If that's still up, that means the access to the CIA should still be available.'
No matter, that isn't important. How about something in the private sector? She hasn't been actively spreading her rootkit at those places. There's a ton of places she can choose, but which one? Email providers sounds like juicy targets or maybe some of those popular websites on the internet. How about something more practical?
"Get access to Bell Atlantic database and see if you can look at their ISP customers metadata."
$…\
$…/
$Connection establish but unable to gain access to their metadata servers or feeds. Requires physical intervention to establish connection.
She really shouldn't be impressed by the speed since she built from sneaky corn, but doing it under five minutes sure is impressive. She's certain that with more processing power, Sue could have gained access way faster than five minutes. It's not surprising that some things still require her to physically gain access to. Looks like she has to go to that data center near city hall to gain access to the metadata. File that under something for her to do in the future, but not important.
Let's try something more difficult.
"List down in detail of every human and every company that is currently staying in this neighborhood."
$Okay, that will take a while. Please wait.
Huh… looks like Sue added something in her code to be more 'courteous?' because that's not something she added into any of her code. Not an unwelcome development, but certainly an unexpected one. Did Sue learn that from her? A smile came back to her at the thought of being a role model for an AI because she couldn't think of a better role model herself. Su started spinning in her chair as she waits for the results.
Looking at the time on her desktop and been over 8 minutes since she made the request. Sue really isn't lying about this would take a while. Really brings to validity to give Sue more processing power. She could do so much more with more power headroom.
Starting a company shouldn't be hard for her. She has an absurd amount of money that funding the company for years of unprofitability isn't a problem. Su just has to figure out the logistic of funneling the monies from her shell companies to look like investors. Maybe she doesn't even need to do it and maybe Sue can help on that front? Yeah, having Sue handle her finances would be the smartest thing, especially plugging her into the stock market through BB would provide invaluable training for operating in a chaotic environment. All she has to do is create a module that would link her to AA and BB then have her learn from the stored data.
Since it is important for her to maintain the company's integrity, it would be unadvisable for her to draw on the connections she has made in the past 8 years, but that doesn't mean she couldn't have Sue grease the wheels of bureaucracy for her. Sue should be able to help her organize some of the logistic of setting up the company.
Setting up the company also means she must leave this warehouse… It's been a year since she last seen the sun…
However, there is a big problem with setting up a company that she's been ignoring from the start, which is the need for a public figure. Su can't be the founder or the CEO for such a company, even with the company being 100% private, people will know who the CEO. She can't have her picture on any newspaper/publication or website. Who knows what would happen if such a thing were to come?
That leaves her with who should she choose to be CEO… she needs someone who's dependable.
Maybe she could put Pauling in as CEO?
Su trusts Pauling to do what she's told, and she has the girl's undying loyalty despite the amount of horse manure she's given her…
No, no… That's just absurd. If Pauling is to be CEO, she can't continue with her job in Collective Service Solutions. The girl is valuable to her as her assistant as well as for her skill at disposing of humans and other illicit activities. Su needs Pauling doing what she's doing right now, plus the plan to expand CSS's reach by vetting contractors to be under CSS umbrella is already in motion. There's no need to change that arrangement, but that doesn't mean Pauling couldn't be involved in this somehow.
If she can't get someone trustworthy and dependable. She just need someone who can do as they are told and is disposable if they get too uppity with their position. That someone just has to be the face of the company, and not someone who's going to run the company. She and Sue will run the company from the background while the CEO just follows instructions like a good little monkey. Someone who has the looks and 'credentials' to be a founder in this tech bubble that's going on right now.
The beeping sound of the computer causes her to stop spinning the chair and look at the green text on the monitor.
$Total population of SoHo, New York City is 10,894, with a median household income of $61,407. 71.1% White, 16.0% Asian, 6.3% Hispanic, 4.4% Others and 2.2% Black. Total registered companies are…
Looking at the time again, she sees that 16 minutes have passed since she made the request. 16 minutes to process 10 thousand people plus hundreds of companies here. She felt a blooming sense of satisfaction in her at the answer, but Sue can go faster if she could and that's something Su's going to prioritize.
$Does Su prefer to view the full data in spreadsheet format?
"Yes, please."
Two windows opened on her second monitor, showing the spreadsheet of all the data that Sue has gathered and compiled. One of the spreadsheet is the individual information all neatly categorized with name, gender, age, SSN, marriage status, address, land line number, mobile number, occupation, income, bank account number, money in account, credit card, debt, etc. While the other spreadsheet is for registered companies with all of their relevant information.
The amount of data Sue gathered is quite astonishing, even by Su's standard, and it seems like there're some parameters that Sue added herself. In one minute, Sue is able to processes 625 human lives and converted them into a spreadsheet. She can just imagine how powerful Sue can become with further improvement to her core system and her own self learning abilities.
She feels giddy at the thought she just had. If Sue can do this type of search… what if something more complicated?
"Hey Sue. We're going to build a private company to power your processing needs and hide you in plain sight. Find me an idiot with the credentials to be our patsy CEO and founder while we run the company in the background."
$Okay.
$…\
$…/
FRANCINE PAULING POV
The sounds of keyboards being typed, sounds of people walking around in a hurry, sounds of people talking on the phone gives out an air of excited energy in the 'reception' room where Francine is sitting in waiting for her meeting. Despite it being the middle of the day, she is dog tired from all the months long non-stop work she's been doing, but she couldn't help but feel reinvigorated by the energy of this office.
Maybe she should give coffee a try like their recent hire from France has been suggesting to her? Denis is such a sweet guy… too bad that she has standing orders to kill him when he is no longer useful or screws up.
The administrator did say to her she shouldn't take coffee and Francine has never seen her drink anything other than water, even when she's tired. If water is good enough for the administrator, that means it's good enough for her!
Thinking of the administrator, she couldn't help but be worried about the administrator's health ever since she left the warehouse at the beginning of the year. Sometimes, whenever Francine meets up with the administrator, she noticed the administrator would act like she's not there and just stares off into the distance or just look at a fluffy animal while ignoring everything around her. Not that there's anything wrong with looking at a fluffy animal! It was kinda creepy to just stand there while that happened and then the administrator would continue like there's nothing wrong.
Was it because the administrator spent so long in the warehouse alone? She knows that prolonged isolation mess with people's brain from all those people she put in that hole. They went stir crazy within a month or two, and the administrator did spend a long time in that warehouse.
However, the administrator isn't like those people. Francine must be worrying for no reason if the administrator isn't telling her anything about it or was even bothered by it. That means it mustn't be such a big thing and if there's something wrong, how could the administrator create such an amazing company in such a short time? It's like the administrator is working 24 hours a day!
That means she just must work as hard as the administrator!
Francine looked at the office space just behind the reception. Everything is colored black or white. The desks, the monitor, the walls, the ceiling, and the lighting are white. While the chairs, the leg of the desks, the computers and the doors were black. It really gives out an aura of cleanliness and order, even though the way the office was arranged in a way that Francine has never seen before, an office without cubicles. It's like everyone in this office is equal to each other… Truly, only the administrator could create such an amazing environment without ever stepping a foot inside the office before!
There sure are a lot of CCTV cameras in this office space. Is that how the administrator monitors the company? Through CCTV feeds?
Her musing was cut short when she spots a tall handsome man wearing jeans and a black tee walking towards her while talking to a pretty lady beside him. That must be Chadrick Stone, and the pretty lady must be his secretary Victoria Kim if she remembers the file she received from the administrator. They stopped talking when they reached her.
"I can finally put a face on who's been giving me and my company all of its money. Welcome to Blue Cloud, where the future of the internet is being built. My name is Chadrick Stone, and this is Victoria Kim, my secretary, but she's more like second-in-command, if I'm being honest." Mr. Stone said with an infectious, jovial laugh that Francine couldn't help but join in.
That really was a wonderful introduction by Mr. Stone! No wonder the administrator picked him to run this company. He really looks like an experience person despite being 28 years old!
"There was an urgent meeting I had to attend. I'm sorry for the wait, Miss…" said Mr. Stone, offering his hand for her to shake.
Oh goodness! She's still sitting on the chair. How could she forget about that? Good thing the administrator isn't here to see her being rude…
She's watching through that CCTV camera, isn't she?
Sorry!
Francine quickly got up from her seat to shake Mr. Stone's hand and said. "Chloe Burch! Nice to meet you!"
"Well, good to meet you, Miss Burch. Could I call you Chloe? Seeing that we're going to work together. We might as well be friendly; you can call me Chad by the way." Chad said with a million-dollar smile.
Goodness gracious, he's such a charismatic person! He sure would have swept a girl off her feet with that charm of his.
Francine let out a giggle and said. "Sure, you can call me Chloe!"
"By the way, you're wearing such an amazing blouse and I dig the purple. Really goes will on you." Chad said with a wide smile.
Her eyes widened at that.
Someone else that appreciates purple!
Chad looks like he's going to say something, but the loud sound of Miss Kim clearing her throat cut him off.
Miss Kim should really take some lozenge! Having a sore throat is terrible.
"Meeting room one is available, Sir."
Chad turned towards Miss Kim and said. "Yes, yes. Well lead the way, Vicky."
"I don't want to be rude, but how old are you?" Chad asked as they both followed Miss Kim, passing by the rows of desks.
"No, that's fine. I always get that question. I'm 22!" Francine said with a smile while looking up at Chad. It's always hard to lie to a really nice person, but she really can't say that she's turning 17 this year! Goodness, he's really tall when she stands beside him.
"Really? I've never met someone in a venture to be that young. Must really say a lot of your character." Chad said with his eyes wide looking at her.
That is such a sweet and nice thing for him to say to her! No one has ever commented on her talent; the administrator would just say 'adequate' or 'good enough'.
She has no idea about what people in venture do! Sure, she has killed several people working in that business, but she never really learned what they did. So, she's going to take that compliment that she's a good assistant to the administrator!
"Thank you for that kind words! A lot of people dismiss me for my age." Francine said with a smile as they enter the meeting room.
She walks towards the seat with the window to the outside behind her while the Chad and Miss Kim sit on the other side of the big table. Her eyes widen a little when she sits down on the chair.
Woah! This is super comfortable!
She's pretty sure that this is the same chair that the administrator used in the warehouse. She gotta get one for herself!
"Now that we're all comfortably seated." Said Chad as he gave Miss Kim a sidelong look and continued. "Look, why are you here? You guys have been hands off ever since the start of the company eight months ago. What changed?"
How should she play this?
The administrator said to bring down the hammer on the 'idiot' and that is what she was planning to do until she met the man.
She can't be mean to such a nice person, but she can't go against what the administrator told her to do!
The administrator never taught of her what she should do in this kind of situation. Knowing the administrator if she asked, her respond is probably go for the kill, strike when the steel is hot and who cares what other humans think or a mix of all of that.
This is an assignment that the administrator personally asked her to oversee!
She is really in a pickle.
How about be direct but be nice about it?
Yeah, that sounds good.
"As you know, I am the representative of all of the investors that hold shares in this company and so far there's no governance structure for this company. Starting today, I will be the chairwoman of the board of directors for Blue Cloud and another two people will join in a future time while you, Chad, will have a non-voting director seat." Francine ended her speech with a bright smile.
Chad instantly feels more closed off compared to earlier, with a dumbfounded look on him before frowning at her.
Was that too direct on her part? She really hopes he isn't angry!
"This is outrageous! I founded this company on my own with nothing to my name. Now the company has a hundred people with sales going up every quarter!" Chad stopped to take a breath from his fuming before continuing. "Then here you come, bringing handcuffs and practically demoting me!"
Oh dear…
This was supposed to be a check in with the company and give Chad a warning about his side dealings that went against the administrator's instructions…
The administrator warned her about that if the 'idiot' got into his head that he is in charge of the company, Francine was to remove him and kill him, even though doing that in the administrator's own words 'would harm the company growth'. Plus, she really doesn't want to kill Chad! He might have screamed at her now, but that's okay since it must be a shock to hear, and he was extremely nice to her.
He just need a bit of persuading or pressure to make him see clearly!
At the corner of her eye, she sees the red light of the CCTV that the administrator is most likely to look through.
Don't worry ma'am. She can fix this situation and fix him!
"Chad, I know you didn't create this company, and you didn't start from nothing. You don't even own a single share of this company." Francine pause giving the two people she's talking to time to absorb what she said. "I know of the arrangement you have with your 'benefactor', and you don't actually run the day-to-day business of this company. Your only job is to be the face of the company."
Chad has a shocked look on his face, while the pretty lady is looking back and forth between Chad and Francine. Oh, did she not know of the arrangement? This must be really surprising for Miss Kim.
"I'm not just the representative of this company's investors, but I'm the representative of your 'benefactor' and the reason why I'm here now is that you went against the instructions you were given." Said Francine while giving Chad a pleading look so he would understand what was at stake before continuing. "We know that you're courting 'potential investors' which was against your agreement with your 'benefactor' and your instructions. You are not allowed to bring in any investors that isn't approved by your 'benefactor'."
He continues to look at her with wide eyes, then he swallowed and said. "H-how did you know about that?"
That puzzled Francine as well. How did the administrator know about that? Did she tap his phone or something? That means she must be listening in or have a system to listen in to what he says. Of course, the administrator would create something that would make her job more efficient!
Francine looked directly into his eyes with a bright smile on her and said. "We know everything you do, silly! Your 'benefactor' and the investors were happy with the previous hands-off arrangement, but you were too enthusiastic in your job that you court unwanted investors. So, now I would be overseeing the company and I will be the physical reminder of your agreement with your 'benefactor'."
Francine pulls out a stack of paper that the administrator told her to give 'the idiot' to sign from her purse and slide it across the table at Chad.
"Please sign those papers and give me a nod if you understand your situation." Said Francine as she looked at Chad picking up the stack of papers and giving it look through.
Please nod.
…
…
Yes! He nodded!
Miss Kim gave Chad a pen for him to sign the stack of paper that Francine has no idea what is the paper says.
"Thank you for understanding and I hope our next meeting will be nicer!" Francine said brightly. Happy that she doesn't have to kill him.
She took out her PDA when she felt it buzzed in her purse and look at who messaged her.
It's the administrator!
She types in the 20-digit alphanumeric password to unlock the encrypted message software. Francine should ask the administrator to give her a shorter password since she has to change password every other day.
/Good work defusing the idiot.
She really is watching her through the CCTV and praise from the administrator! Oh, the week can't get any better.
/Now remove that secretary. No one else should know that the idiot isn't the founder.
Ah…
Francine looked up from her PDA and smiled at Miss Kim, who looked at her with shock still in her eyes. It's unfortunate that she has to kill such a pretty lady, but if the administrator wants it, she'll get it!
How should she kill her?
Just making her disappear? No, no… Chad might get spooked if his hand-picked secretary was mysteriously gone so soon after this meeting. It would undo everything she did today! How about the classic overdose? She doesn't think Miss Kim's file says that she takes any drugs, quite an outlier for her position, especially here in New York. Maybe a freak car accident? That way, no one would be the wiser and the driver might not get into trouble!
"Have you met the 'benefactor'?" Said Chad, looking up from the stack of paper and bringing her back from her planning.
Well… She met the administrator yesterday but…
She gave Chad a small smile and said. "I can't say I have."
SU POV
Snow starts to fall into the central park reservoir as Su calmingly looks out the window of her Safehouse from her comfortable seat with her ThinkPad 600X on the coffee table beside her. For such a simple act of just looking at falling snow, it really calms her down a lot. She looks at the time on her computer and sees that it's 2346. Fourteen more minutes before the time strikes midnight, and it's the new year.
She usually wasn't one to celebrate new year since it's such a meaningless gesture of a change of calendar but she just can't help it for this time, especially the hard year she had to go through. Having to lose something that she loves to the void and the struggle during those times was something she has gotten used to by now, but this time it took something she didn't expect would affect her in such a deep level, not since her lost of ballet. Even with the void receding, it's effect as usual for its post taking thing still lingers a little. She still feels cold as ice despite the room she's staying in being comfortably warm for this cold winter night.
Over eight years of trying to find something that will fill in the void, she still came up empty-handed. It didn't matter what she think would have been the plug, nothing seems to be the solution. Nonetheless, she isn't deterred by the setback since she has Sue to help fill in the gap that's missing. She will find whatever it is she needs no matter what and finally get back to the improved version of Sam, then they can happily cause chaos together again.
She couldn't help but feel the timing was a little suspicious that the year she 'completed' Sue was the year that she lost her love of hacking. That asshat must be playing with her. The previous major loss was when the void took her joy at seeing someone's last moments, not long before she came back from her trip to Europe and Asia. At that time, she didn't think much of it since she still find the joy in hunting her targets but now there's a pattern. A pattern where she loses the stuff she loves that involved her choice of occupation. That asshat really knows how to grind her nerves.
All she can do now is hope that she doesn't lose her love for programming next. She couldn't imagine what she would do if she loses that when Sue isn't fully 'completed' yet. It would cut down her productivity by a large margin.
The loud sound of the door into the safe house brought her out of her calming trance. She does not need to look at who was that since she already knows who it is. There are only two people in this world that knows about this place and the combination for the door.
"Did I miss it? Oh lord, I hope I didn't miss it!" Pauling said wheezingly as she rushed towards her.
Looking at Pauling, who's wearing a purple button up dress with a lighter shade of purple for her coat. She really looks haggard with her glasses sightly crooked, and her hair somewhat disheveled.
"Oh, thank god I still have time!" Said Pauling when she looked at the clock on her ThinkPad and then she crumpled into the chair beside her.
"Don't use the lord's name in vain, Miss Pauling." Su said as she looked back out the window to look at the slowly descending snow.
"Ops. Sorry, ma'am, and I'm sorry for being late for this huge event! I didn't expect that disposing of those bodies would take such a long time and on my way here I passed by that amazing place that serve that amazing hot chocolate and I thought why not buy some for us to drink but I think the hot chocolate isn't hot anymore." Pauling said with every word becoming faster and faster while holding a cup of hot chocolate at her. Su couldn't help but look at the girl as she spoke.
Well, can't really call her a girl anymore since that growth spurt of hers last year.
She couldn't appreciate the taste of the hot chocolate but she can appreciate the gesture of getting her a hot beverage as she grabs the offered a drink from Pauling. Well, lukewarm beverage.
"Thank you, and you have blood on your collar." Su said as she drinks the lukewarm chocolate and the drink somehow manage to somewhat soothe the cold in her.
"Gosh dang it! I thought none got on my clothes." Pauling said as she put her drink to the side to look at her collar.
"There's hydrogen peroxide under the counter in the kitchen for you to clean yourself later." Said Su as she look back towards the window.
"Thank you, ma'am. You're the best!" Pauling said with way too much excitement for something simple.
Su doesn't know how or when, but Pauling somehow wormed her way into Su's good graces. No matter what Su threw at her, she somehow come out the other side more positive than before. It's honestly puzzling. This whole thing tonight was Pauling's plan, and she couldn't say no to her.
"Oh look, it's almost time! 60! 59! 58…" Pauling said excitedly as she counts down.
She really is going to count down all the way from 60? Su shouldn't be surprised at this point.
"… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! HAPPY NEW YEAR AND A HAPPY NEW MILLANIUM, MA'AM!" Pauling said happily as she jumps out from her seat to celebrate the new year.
A new millennium again, huh? It's been what? Like 99 years since her last 2000? But this time she's in a world that's awfully peaceful and stable. Hopefully, this decade would be more interesting and chaotic than the last.
"Happy new millennium and happy belated birthday, Miss Pauling." Su said, still looking out the window at the buzz of activity outside.
"Thank you, ma'am! I knew you didn't forget about it!" Pauling gushed.
"Let's hope this decade is better than the last! … Do you think that Y2K bug is going to happen?" Pauling asked as she stops her celebration.
Su let out a snort and answers. "I doubt it. Everything is probably going to be the same."
She has a lot of things to do this year, especially involving expanding Sue's access to data.
"I will be busy for most of the year. Be sure to handle things on your end, Miss Pauling." Su said as she finish the cup of lukewarm bland chocolate.
Pauling gave her a whimsical salute with a bright smile and said. "You can trust me, ma'am!"
The sound of her PDA buzzing brought her attention back to the coffee table beside her where a terminal was opened on her ThinkPad.
Su smiled at that message but was curious by that gesture Sue made. She never coded that in, so it must be something she learned from observing human interactions and is replicating it to be polite. It's always better to have a polite AI than a rude one.
$Happy new year Su.
With a push, Su opens the door into the Bell Pacific data center building's lobby and briskly walks towards the security checkpoint just before the elevator lobby. She takes out the lanyard with the prepared employee ID badge from her purse and showed the security guard.
The man nodded and said. "I need to check your bag, ma'am."
She knows it's protocol for this facility, but it still annoys her. So, she gave the idiot a smile and said. "No problem." Then she gave the idiot her purse.
She looked around at the checkpoint and notes the number of security guards in this one place. This is the first time she's doing an infiltration this way and solely relying on Sue's capabilities with manipulating the security systems. Not that she didn't do light scouting prior. Sue does need inputs for where Su's going to infiltrate.
"Everything looks to be good. Have a nice day, ma'am." The idiot said and gave back her purse.
She gave the idiot a curt thanks and walks towards the turnstile.
Let's see if it works.
Su places her ID badge at the scanner and almost instantly it went green, and the turnstile opened for her to go through. Su couldn't help but smile a little at the quick access she was given.
Shouldn't have doubted Sue's competency since she did build her herself. This is going to make infiltrating places so much easier. 'Goodbye tedious and time-consuming infiltration. I hardly knew ye.'
"Hey Sue." Su said into her Ericsson Bluetooth headset, as she press the button to call the elevator.
"Hey Su." Sue replied in her robotic sounding voice directly into her earpiece.
"What's the status of the CCTV?" Su questions as she waits for the elevator to come.
"Frames that Su is in are deleted and replaced with a loop. Floor for the server is level 13." Sue said in a monotone and constant pace.
The voice Sue is using reminds her of the messaging software she and Sam used to use. A natural sounding voice would be a big upgrade for her if they're going to communicate a lot through voice. Got to find a voice that would be perfect for Sue to use and for her to listen to.
However, what voice should she use? Her own? She's sure that Sue has enough voice recording for Su that she could recreate her voice easily using Sue's generative adversarial network, but listening and having a conversation with someone who has the same voice as herself sounds an insane person would do. Maybe she could hire someone to give a few voice examples and just have Sue do her thing on it and see what comes out.
"I know, but thank you for the reminder." Su replied politely as she enters the elevator and pressed the 13th floor.
Su stares at the CCTV camera in the elevator. The newly created out-of-sight module is working like a charm despite it's still in the early stage of its continual development. As long as Sue has access to a machine that's connected to the CCTV system, Su is practically invisible. There are some things that she would like to add to make it better, but she'll do it after her current tasks are done. For now, she'll rely on Sue's self-learning module for continual improvement of the out-of-sight module.
With the sound of a ding and the opening of the elevator doors, Su made her way towards the next security checkpoint that's on this secure floor. This time there's no physical security guard present, but there's two in the glass security booth that's overlooking the door and access panel.
She wipes her ID badge and uses her right thumb on the fingerprint scanner, causing the door to open for her. She gave a fake smile and a nod to the guards in the booth, then she walked into the secure server area.
She really doesn't like that she had to put her fingerprint to this building's security system, but she trusts that Sue will scrub any biometric and information data when she leaves this building.
The sounds of server fans engulfed her as Su continues to walk down the middle of the rows of servers and deeper into the server room.
"Proceed 50 yards, then turn left where Su will find the server technician office. The person in-charge was called out and will be away for 20 minutes." Sue said through her earpiece.
Hmm… she knows the layout for this place from yesterday's planning, but it seems like Sue took the initiative and distracted the tech. That's an interesting development Sue made.
"Thank you for the help." Su said as she entered the tech's office.
Su sat down on the uncomfortable office chair and inserted the self-executing floppy disk with the mini-Sue agent into the tech's computer. Honestly, how could anyone be comfortable sitting on this horrendous chair? The building employees must not have a union or maybe it's just this idiot with the sore buttocks.
"Access gained. Exit the room, then go straight until the end of the room and take a right towards the server terminal station. There is currently no one in that area."
Su took out the floppy disk and casually walk towards her next direction. When she's done with all the current tasks, not only Sue will have access to so much data, but she could track people by their cell phones if they have it. She could just imagine how much better Sue will be with tracking people down, especially with the future mass adoption of cell phones.
There're more things for her to update Sue's search & tracking module as well as her surveillance module. Through her contacts, she knows that New York and DC will soon be installing CCTV cameras all over the city.
Su soon approached the desk where the terminal sat on and did the same thing she did with the other computer than she waited. Again, the chair is horrifically uncomfortable. Is it just the policy of this building to give humans terrible chairs?
"Full access gained."
Su smiled in delight at the announcement and took out the floppy. It's still early in the day, meaning she can go to the next target.
"Let's go to the next target. It's only four minutes by my car. Am I a blonde in that building?" Su said while she walks away from the terminal.
"Yes, blonde hair number 3 and no glasses."
'That's sucks. I really dislike using contacts. Oh well, one down a hundred plus to go.'
The sounds of her Porsche 986 3.2L engine sang at her like a bird as she drives her car down the road from the airport at San Jose towards her safe house in Sunnyvale and the only thing she can think of was how much she dislike California. There's nothing inherently wrong with the state. The weather here is better compared to the bad apple, especially during winter and now that it's almost December. She just couldn't describe her dislike for the place. It might have been because she spent most of her unfortunate last life in this state and now she's going to spend a few months in this state again rather than a few days she normally would spend here.
There're quite a number of places she has to visit during her time here and she's going to start tomorrow. But right now she's just wants to go to her safe house to crash on the couch with her ThinkPad on her lap and type away on the latest update that's she working on Sue's predictive model that's still funky. She still can't make good prediction on Su despite the massive increase in processing power Sue has access to and let's not think of prediction of other people. It's like there's something missing, some kind of special sauce that will make her tick.
*BEEP*
Huh… what does she want? Sue knows that she dislikes talking on the phone while she's driving, especially when it would reduce her focus on what's in front of her. It must be something important than.
"Hey Sue, what is it?" Su said into her earpiece as she turns the corner that leads to the safe house.
"Sue has received an encrypted message under the alias 'MILK' from KM." Sue said through the Bluetooth earpiece with her more natural but still synthetic voice.
KM? That's a name she hasn't seen in a few years. What does he want this time?
"Tell him I'll be in a minute." Su said while she drives into her safe house garage.
"Message sent."
Su switched off her car, lugged her travel bag and walked into the house. The layout of all of her safe houses tends to be the same, so she goes to the living room where a coffee table beside the chair that's in every safe house, and sat down on the plushy chair. Turning on her ThinkPad and inserting the ethernet cable that's beside the chair, she then open her messaging software. She trusts Sue is routing her internet through all of the relay nodes that she's set up over the years.
/MILK: Hello, KM.
/KM: Peace be upon you, Milk.
Su could only roll her eyes at that greeting.
/MILK: Yes?
/KM: We require your assistance to make sure an event that's in place will go smoothly and, like the last event you did for us. We will give whatever you ask for.
Su raised her eyebrow at that job request and not a consultation request like the last thing she did previously.
/MILK: What's the event requirement?
/KM: We need to make sure that flight departures from Dulles International, Newark International and Logan International airports leaves on time for the first half of September.
Su stares at the message with her eyebrows raised at the request.
Well, aren't the little cave monkeys being ambitious and planning something huge this time. Are they going to attack some locations in the US using the planes or is this just a more ambitious quad hijacking for ransom deal? She honestly doesn't really care. Whatever it is, it's going to be big, but it helps to know more.
"Hey Sue, figure out what they're planning to do." Su said out loud, knowing Sue was always listening.
Sue's terminal window pops up.
$Will do.
Now suddenly, the coldness of the void is picking back up again. Really odd timing, but it's almost time for the next round of annoyance. So, it must not mean anything.
Maybe a really big mass casualty event would fix her? She hasn't done something big like this before. The biggest she physically got involve was 70 and the biggest consultation got her was like 300.
It won't be hard for her to do this since she could just create a module for Sue and let her handle the airport to make it run on time. Probably have to increase more processing capacity, but this is scheduled in 10 months' time. That's more than enough time for Blue Cloud to have a huge expansion.
Su gave herself a shrug and thought. 'It's not like affect me or change much of anything seeing how soft this world is.'
/MILK: Sure I can do that, but it's going to cost you a lot.
Truthfully, she doesn't know what she even wants to ask for.
/KM: We will fulfill anything you ask for within reason.
Okay then, how about if she is unreasonable?
/MILK: I would like 25 FIM-92 Stingers that I know your contacts have.
/KM: Ok. We will try to provide you with it.
Oh, dang…
He actually agreed to it…
What the heck is she going to do with 25 stingers? She barely needs one and if she needed it, she could always create an inventory mislabeling in one of the army base here in the States. That's way easier to get than having to transport 25 of them halfway around the world.
She shouldn't have asked for that, but now she can't back out without feeling embarrassed about it.
Su let out a sigh and said out loud. "Sue, please organize the transportation of those items back to the states or to Europe using our contacts."
$Will provide instructions to KM when a plan is ready.
/MILK: I will relay instructions for receiving the stingers later. Is there anything else?
/KM: No, thank you.
/MILK: You're welcome and thank you for using Collective Service Solutions, where customer satisfaction is guaranteed.
With that, both she and KM left the chat.
She used her hands to close her eyes to think what she just agreed to as the cold void spiking up.
She can't just make three airports suddenly be on schedule constantly for a small period. That would look awfully suspicious. She has to do it at multiple airports and for a longer period of time. By doing so, she needs way more processing power than she initially thought.
"Hey Sue, we need to triple your processing capacity by July."
She moves her eyes to see the response.
$Will accelerate plans. Funds required exceed current balance. AA module and CSS cannot replenish funds at a sustainable rate.
Huh… did not expect there would be a day that she ran out of money. She could always arrange stealing the things that Blue Cloud needed, but that would go against it being clean and that require a ton of stealing. Now where can she get a massive amount of money in a short time?
…
… Short.
Heh…
She isn't a person who normally cares what is going on with the stock market since it's all just silly monkeys doing silly things, but even a blind person can see what's going on, especially with the 'tech' company stocks. Well, time to see how good the Capital Clown module is.
"Use CC with 80% of our funds and pump the Nasdaq, then burst that balloon. Make sure we make money all the way."
$Creating Plan.
$…\
$…/
$…\
$Executing plan.