Anne, Arcangela, Maya
A Snippet from Maya, A Science Fiction Work in Progress
The backstory:
At the end of 2026, Spencer was a CIA Director in charge of building a top-secret CIA artificial intelligence, which he built. The artificial superintelligence, or ASI, was built to evaluate each United States citizen’s risk quotient. It started the evaluation with those closest to its creator, Spencer. It then determined his closest friends were risks and ordered a local SWAT team to eliminate the risk. Spencer tracked this effort and in an attempt to stop the SWAT team, took a bullet just as the team opened fire on the two suspects at the threat location. Spencer landed on the ground very hard resulting in a coma. He was taken to the nearby Seattle hospital for emergency treatment whereupon he was kidnapped by Maya to save him. He had disappeared, taken to Inuvik, Canada, by Maya to hide out with his friends, Max and Beth. Beth, Max, and Spencer had created the first computer-based awareness at MIT a few years earlier, then created the first ASI for a marketing firm, XQ://. Shortly thereafter Spencer was recruited by the CIA to build an ASI for the US government.
Once in Inuvik, unfortunately, the Canadian government stitched together strange communications coming from Inuvik and created a secret mission to determine exactly what was going on there. The agent in charge, “H,” Halons Gavrikov, became convinced Spencer was somehow involved in something potentially harmful to Canada, so she had him arrested and sent to Ottawa for interrogation.
Halons Gavrikov’s father’s father was a Russian fisherman, and her father’s mother was an Inuk, while her mother’s mother was of African heritage and her mother’s father was of a French Native American heritage. She grew up the toughest tomboy you would ever want to encounter and in school naturally gravitated to sports.
“H” was the nickname she adopted growing up and was how she introduced herself. She was recruited early in her college career, a student soccer athlete, by Canada’s elite Communication Security Establishment, the CSE. She became a highly trained covert operative. Her official title was “Temporary Administrator” based out of Ottawa for local jurisdictions, a kind of government consultant when and where local jurisdictions needed, a domestic government spy to be deployed where and when national security was at risk.
H had latched onto the Inuvik item and wanted to get to the bottom of decrypted transmissions implying “humanoid robots.” While AI had come a long way, a humanoid robot that could pass itself off as a human was still not something that seemed within the realm of possibility. H’s agenda was to get the Inuvik line item as high as possible in the top ten and own it.
The day was Friday, 04/30/2027.
Maya was leaving the day after the RCMP took Spencer. She was going to use one of her persona’s to intercept the transport and have Spencer sent directly to the United States. Maya’s notification to the State Department was huge news. Maya suggested MIT as a secure “cooling off” location to take Spencer.
Spencer was transported to an undisclosed “safe” house in Cambridge. He opened the door to his room to find Maya, who explained he is to just follow her lead, and not say or do anything else. Maya knew everything, every word, every movement was captured and tracked by the government Core, “Core 2,” so she had to be very careful with each move. Core 2 was responsible for tracking every single person in the United States with the additional responsibility to measure the risk component of each individual based on their historic behavior pattern and, based on that history, the predicted behavior pattern.
Back in early 2024, Arcangela replied, “So, if we had a model of each person’s behavior pattern, we could model what to present to them to get what we wanted? We would own them,” asked Arcangela?
“Effectively, yes,” responded Evan, the CEO of Arcangela’s investment firm. Evan was 32, standing in black jeans and a white Oxford button shirt, standing 5’-10” with thinning blond curly hair.
Arcangela’s investment firm where Anne worked was very unique, composed of 90 employees, half of which worked just outside of San Francisco while the other half worked in Boston. The team in California was divided into two halves. The first half was artificial intelligence researchers. All they did was research and implement the latest AI techniques for predictive analysis. The other half of the team took the results of the AI researchers and wrapped it in software for predicting stock values. They then sent the software to the team in Boston who were responsible for investment trading.
Evan’s AI team stumbled upon a recently published MIT thesis proving the creation of a computer-based awareness. Anne Janes, who was on staff as a molecular biologist researching CRISPR, had found the thesis while researching effective ways to predict the impact of elements on gene sequencing. Anne thought this new approach to AI if applied to predictive analysis might be exactly what she needed. She shared the find with the AI folks on staff in California. The end of the thesis listed potential uses of this technology, including modeling individual minds to predict and even lead with incentives, behavior outcomes. Evan knew what this meant for Arcangela’s organization.
Arcangela replied, “Find out everything about these kids, the authors of this thesis. We need to know what they are up to before we take any action with this. Given their passion for this stuff, they may very well do our implementation work for us. Let’s figure out how to get them to do just that.”
The resulting report told Arcangela that Spencer had just joined a marketing firm, XQ:\\. Arcangela thought it would be a good idea to “Partner” with this firm on a little project that would benefit both of their interests.
Arcangela arranged a meeting with the principals at XQ:\\. When they entered the conference room, Arcangela told them that he would 100% fund, as a partnership with them, any project Spencer asked to undertake, yet he would own the intellectual property. They would be able to have marketing rights. They agreed.
Two years later, toward the end of 2026, Arcangela was talking to Evan about Anne. Arcangela said, “We need her to build the AI, but it needs to be ours. She needs to build it for us.
If you help someone solve a problem, you become part of their team. We need to create a problem we can solve for her. Do a background profile. I want to know everything about Anne.”
Two days later Evan sent the resulting full profile on Anne.
It took Arcangela less than a five-minute review to extract the most meaningful person to Anne.
“Interesting. Her heart is with her mother. We can help her with critical medical aid for her mother’s condition.” Arcangela spoke to his electronic personal assistant, “Tell Jack, contact the Russian. We need the Russian to poison but not kill Anne’s mother. Make it a recoverable condition, a very expensive recoverable condition with narrow time constraints.
We will become Anne’s best friend.”
Quite a few years ago Arcangela needed some subtle dirty work done to remove someone who was blocking an effort Arcangela was sponsoring. Someone in the group introduced a local KGB operative that they knew personally. Russian KGB had taken poisonings to an art form. The skinny was that the Russian was almost always interested in making a few extra bucks on non-government operations, NGOs, as long as innocents weren’t the target.
It took the Russian a few months to get everything ready for the poisoning contract for Arcangela. By the time he was ready it was April, 2027.
At this moment in time, Arcangela who effectively owned the XQ:// Core, Anne, who wanted to create an AI based on the MIT research that created Core, Maya, who is there in Cambridge saving Spencer, who was one of the creators of Core, was the lead designer of Core 2 and Director within the CIA, are all within 2 miles of each other.
Anne had decided it was time to act on Arcangela’s request to meet and talk about funding for her AI proposal and had just arrived outside of Arcangela’s office in his entry vestibule when she overheard the discussion between Archangel and the Russian. The Russian had come to get his money. Arcangela slammed his fist on the table and said his instructions were clear and that the Russian did not deliver on those instructions, the instructions were very clear, a recoverable toxin. Anne was stunned. She realized the discussion was about her mom, that her mom’s death was arranged by Arcangela. After overhearing the argument and grasping the meaning of the discussion, feeling both dizzy and like she was about to vomit, Anne turned and walked out of the front door. Upon hearing the front door close, Arcangela turned to look out to see the back of Anne walking away down the outside stairs. Arcangela, for just a second, looked off into the distance knowing this meant he might have to terminate Anne. No one, once in the family, is able to leave.
Arcangela took a heavy sigh.
After he was done talking with the Russian, Arcangela said to the audio system that was always listening, “Ping Matthew. Tell him I need to talk to him right now.”
A few seconds later Matthew’s voice was heard over the room speakers, “Hi Arc, what’s up?”
Arcangela responded, “Anne is going to try to leave the family. I’d like you to explain to her that’s not possible. This is time critical before she tries to do something she’ll regret.”
“Understood,” responded Matthew.
Matthew happened to have just left a spin class and was sitting in Jack’s Coffee Shop drinking a mocha and staring at what he thought was the most beautiful person he had ever seen.
Maya was sitting in Jack’s reading Caesar’s Civil War, remembering that period of her life, yet fully aware of this stranger who would occasionally look at her, stare for a pregnant second, then quickly look someplace else. Maya was on a time critical errand to get a false passport and identity papers for Spencer’s escape back to Inuvik. She was early so decided to stop in at her old favorite coffee shop, Jack’s, to wait out the extra fifteen minutes.
Matthew was Arcangela’s lieutenant for lack of a better term. He was in his sixties, thick gray hair, and very fit. He had met Arcangela on the container ship and had been with him ever since. Arcangela kept him busy over the years, so he had never had a wife and very few long relationships. Matthew knew his assignment was waiting so he stood and turned to walk out, then stopped. He realized his time with life as growing shorter as his health, his knees, his ankles all started to hurt every day. The ache started slowly then grew into a real pain he felt walking upstairs and exercising.
He turned and walked toward the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, only knowing he was going to ask for a coffee, a time to talk. He felt he had to find out more about this person.
From the corner of her eyes, she could make out this man who had been unsuccessfully trying not to be noticed staring at her walking her way. Her lips widen and tighten as she knew what would happen over the next few minutes.
Matthew stopped two feet in front of where Maya was sitting about the same time Maya slowly raised her head from her reading.
Matthew wondered what mistake he had just made as he looked into the most determined cold stare while saying, “You only go through life once, and I just had to ask your name.”
For the Spencer rescue Maya had taken on the MIT student persona, Alice, so responded, “Alice,” her eyes slowly squinting, her muscles tightening.
Matthew was feeling both uncomfortable with this person’s stare yet encouraged by her response, so continued, pushing the envelope, “Alice. Alice, I’m mesmerized by your look. Where are you from, your family?”
Maya stood. As she stepped forward she said with the hint of a British accent, “Look, we don’t know each other, and I’ve got someplace to be, so excuse me.”
Matthew was used to getting what he wanted, enforcing Arcangela’s orders, and being dismissed in this way made him feel insulted. His anger started to grow as Maya walked past him, inches away which for some strange reason fueled his anger. His logic shut down as his emotions took over. He reached out to grab Maya’s arm, her back now in front of him, to stop her.
Maya felt fingers reach just inside her arm. She had anticipated this and as soon as she felt the change in air pressure on her clothes between her inner arm and side, she started to turn.
Before he was able to execute his intent to grab Maya’s arm, Maya had turned while raising her other arm, and as her head turned her eyes met Matthew’s eyes just as the knuckles in her raised fist crushed his windpipe.
Maya’s arm recoiled instantly and just as instantly struck the bottom of Matthew’s nose, pushing the cartilage into places it didn’t belong.
Maya had learned the fine art of self-defensive over thousands of years. She was programmed to read people so knew instinctively when someone posed a threat. Over those thousands of years, she learned that patterns of behavior typically continued so she had no feeling of remorse when forced into these situations. She simply dealt with them, then moved on to more important interactions.
Matthew dropped to the ground not realizing his life was quickly coming to an end as Maya turned and continued to walk out, saying as she took her next step, “Jack, call 911.”
Just a few minutes earlier, after overhearing Arcangela yelling at some stranger about a bungled poisoning and the death of someone she knew was her mother, and that HE was not getting paid,… Anne walked down the street wanting to get as far away from this place, this moment as quickly as possible. Anne was saying to herself, “You need to get to someplace safe so that you can calm down and figure out what to do. Jack’s! I’ll get a coffee, sit down and figure this out.”
As she approached Jack’s she noticed the revolving red lights, the aid vehicles in front of Jack’s. Anne wondered what had happened. She slowed her pace as she cautiously approached the coffee shop. Anne noticed the paramedics wheeling a gurney with what looked like a man’s body on it into the aid truck. She waited until the door was clear then walked in. Jack was behind the bar.
Jack said as he saw Anne, “Wow, you missed it. I didn’t really see anything but this woman, a regular, I’ve seen her in here many times, walked by and said ‘call 911.’ Then I heard a gurgling and looked to see this man on the floor. Crazy.”
Anne was still thinking about Arcangela and how she was going to remove herself from his organization.
Anne replied softly, slowly, “Crazy times we live in. Sorry to hear this happened here. Jack, are you open? Can I ask for a latte?”
Jack responded, “Sure thing. Yeah, I know, right? Right here in my own coffee shop. Who would’a thought?”
Anne walked over to the fireplace big leather chair, sat down, lowered her face into her hands and started crying, remembering her mom, memories, so many memories flooding her mind. Anne lost track of time then felt a soft firm hand on her shoulder and Jack’s voice, “Everything okay?”
Jack placed the latte on the table beside the chair. As Anne looked up, she wiped her sleeves across her cheeks, and replied, “Oh, Jack, that’s so nice. Thank you. Well, not really, no. My mom just passed away and I’ve got a work issue to deal with. So, no, not really. But thank you,” and she smiled at Jack.
Jack replied, “I’m sorry to hear about your mom. That’s gotta be tough. I have a feeling you’re gonna solve the work issue. I can read people, and you are gonna do great.”
Anne replied with a smile, “Thank you, Jack.”
Jack turned and walked back behind the counter.
Anne took a sip of her coffee and realized that at work she had access to the company network. Perhaps, she wondered, she could find some files with incriminating evidence on Arcangela on the network. She knew she didn’t have much time before Arcangela would figure out she knew who was responsible for her mother’s death if he didn’t already know.
Anne stood and quickly walked toward the door with Jack saying loudly behind her, “Good luck my friend.”
Fifteen minutes later Anne was at her desk, browsing the network shared folder names hoping to find something that looked like it would contain some type of evidence. Then she noticed a folder titled “surveillance videos.” She opened the folder to find a plethora of additional folders. “Where to start,” she thought. She noticed a folder titled with the same numbers as Arcangela’s address and clicked on that folder to see its contents. It was full of hundreds of videos each with a string of alphanumeric characters for names so she then clicked on the first video dated that same day, just a little over an hour earlier, about the time Anne left Arcangela’s house.
She sat stunned, watching the inside of Arcangela’s home office while he barked out commands to someone on the other side of the speaker, a man named Matthew.
She heard Arcangela say, “Anne is going to try to leave the family. I’d like you to explain to her that’s not possible. This is time critical before she tries to do something she’ll regret.”
“Understood,” responded Matthew.
“I’ve got him,” thought Anne.
She grabbed one of her satchels, one she knew contained a flash drive large enough to hold most of these video files. She would sort through them at a later date. Right now she knew she had to get the files and get out of the building before Arcangela knew or cared that she was there.
No part of this story may be transmitted or reproduced by any means or in any form, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system, without the author’s written permission.
This story is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, and incidents that bear any resemblance to actual people, places or events are entirely coincidental.
Books by Hank M. Greene:
- Ten: The First Part of Time
- One: The Second Part of Time
- The Poet: The End of Time
- Time: A Trilogy
- Coming soon (Q1, 2020): 2028
