Kaitlyn''s mom pulled up in her crossover-wagon outside Sean''s driveway, promptly after breakfast as promised. She looked flustered, her blonde hair damp, but nodded absently as Sean slid into the passenger seat. The vehicle shot out of the subdivision, navigating turns, accelerating onto the main road. They sped up the eastbound I-95 entry ramp joining the throng of commuters toward New Haven. Mrs. Lambert scowled at slowing traffic that flared upin a constellation of red brake lights. She spun hard on the steering, weaving in and out of lanes in a squeal of tires and honking horns.
"Go takea joy ride elsewhere, asshole," Melissa snarled at a driver she passed,directing her ire at each and every car that dared slow her down, "Watch your blindspot, fuckwit."
Seangrippedthe door handletightly. Melissa suddenly blushedmortified, "Sorry, Sean. I''m kind of distracted having torush from gym. My schedule is less tight from tomorrow."
"Hmm," Sean gruntedwiththe bare minimumresponse that manners dictated. Thethought of Judithin hospital was a dullgnawing ache at the back of his mind.
"...to quit gym," Melissa muttered almost to herself, "Working outlike a maniac for months and nothing to show for it."
"Hmm," Sean acknowledged.
"...workout had no effect," Melissa sounded frustrated, "...my weight keeps going upthough Iwatch my calories. MaybeI''llgo on a diet... do I look fat, Sean? Be honest now. I can''t get a straight answer from my husband."
"Uhh... what, um..." Sean desperately searched for a response that would spare him from answeringa question that had no safeanswer, "What makes you think gym has no effect, Mrs. Lambert?"
"My weighthas been rising," Melissa repeated slowly as if to the dim-witted, "even after I started working out. I keep a log..."
"Is theriseratethe same after starting your excercise regimen, though?" Sean wondered aloud.
"Rate?" Melissa frowned.
"Imagine water in a can," suggested Sean, "the volume of waterrepresentsyour weight. You add some water each day which is your calorie intake.You make a hole on the bottom which leaks water at a fixed rate which are thecalories you burn from excercise. The water rises at a net rate that depends on inflow and outflow rates. If the outflow is less than inflow, the water will still risebut at a slower rate than without any outflow. To stop gaining weight, the outflowmust match inflow. A crude system dynamics model, but yousee the point."
"Oh," Melissa paused, giving Sean an odd look, "I never thought of it that way... but it''s obvious, isn''t it. And I thought you were going to say something deep. Hmm...maybeI shouldcontinue working out and cut down my calories a bit."
Sean shrugged, staring out the window at passing suburbs, unable to stop thinking of Judith fighting for her life in hospital... cordoned off from her family with only the buzz of life support equipment to keep her company.
"Have you been acquainted with my daughter for long?" Melissa demanded suddenly.
"Kaitlyn?... not really," Sean shook his head, surprised, "only since this school year... at Judith Fuller''s birthday party. Kaitlyn''s quick thinking saved my life at the Fuller factory. So when she asked me to help maximize her team''sodds of making it to soccer finals, I couldn''t very well refuse."
A light bulb went off in Sean''s mind. He suddenly understood the real reasonMrs. Lambert had offered him a ride to his impromptu internship. She was concerned his friendship with Kaitlyn might not be as platonic as it seemed and like any good mother had decided to grill him in person. Sean suppressed a snort, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He wanted to reassure the woman that he had no designs on her daughter,but wondered if she might rescind her offer of a rideif her fears were allayed.
"Randy has beencoding really hard over the weekend," Melissa noted, "He mentioned it was forhis sister''ssoccer game and blamed you forusing up his weekend."
"Then perhaps he shouldn''t make tall claims on my behalf," Sean grinned, "He''s the one who got me involved, so it''s only fair he share the pain."
"But what exactly is he doing?" Melissa glanced at Sean curiously. Sean gave her the two-minute version, reliving the weekend’s meeting in his mind...
#
“But, whatis it?” Susan Kaminsky had to raise her voice above the food court’s background teen-babble. Shefrowned at the paper sketch Sean had unfurled. Dirty styrofoam platesscattered on the cafe table reminded her that Wok stir-fry wasn’t conducive to staying awakeafter Saturday lunch.
”Yeah, what''s it, bonehead?” Phyllis Gibbs stareddubiously at Sean, appending an insult on principle despite being noticablynicer to him of late. She absently swung her Goyard satchelwhich terminated witha satisfying thunk against the side of Randall’s head.
”Ow,” Randall glared, rubbing his skull, “what did you do that for, bi...”
”Stop leering at me, code monkey,” Phyllispointed a finger dismissively. Mei Ling rolled her eyes, while Kaitlyn gave her brother an annoyed look.
Sean grinned sourly. Kaitlyn looked as exhaustedas he felt after their ordeal at Chem Lab last night. His mind still felt like molassesfrom the effects of whatever amnesia drug the Collection Agency had allegedly used on him. The police had questioned him all morning, again, shortly after their release from ER. He’d been tempted to skip this appointment with the varsity soccer captain, but didn’t feel like pissing off Susan. Not to mention disappointing Kaitlyn. Mrs. Lambert had initially refused to let her daughter out of the house, so soon after being discharged from ER. But Kaitlyn had thrown a tantrum and her mom had relented if Kaitlyn was willing to be chaperoned by her brother.
”Thanks for dragging me here, dude,” Randallmutteredto Sean. Sean’s grin widened. Phyllis looked stunning in Sean’s eyes. The raven-haired heiress wasfitted in a textured white peplum dress, no doubt the latest from Chanel. Probably purchased from Upper West Side during weekend shopping in her family helicopter. Her bodyguard/chaffeur hovered nearby looking like Conan the Barbarian in a suit, trying to blend innear a gaggle of teens, sticking out like a sore thumb. Sean realized he''d been staring for several seconds at Phyllis who was impatienty expecting a response.
"Oh, um... it''s a deep neural net," Sean stammered, tapping the A2-sizesketch before him, "a simplified model ofhuman frontopolar cortex. It''s a region of our brain implicated in making choices."
"You call that simple?" Susan sounded bemused,examining the highly detailed handdrawn schematic that looked like the world''s biggest shrub.
"It''s doable, relatively speaking," Sean looked at Randall, "I need you to code this ASAP. Susan has compiled videoclips of every penalty shootout ever scored bySeymour''s varsity kickers,captioned with their names. Make a neuralnet copy for each kicker and train themusing their respective video data. I want each copy to be able to predict where the kicker will send the ball, based on cueslikethe goalie''s position, stance, movement, whatnot."
"Wait... wait a freaking minute," Susan interrupted, "are you telling me you canguesswhere the penalty kickers are going to send the ball ahead of time? That''s... that''s bullshit, like trying to outguess a coin flip. The goalie makes a split-second decision based on her gut instinct and whatever cues she gets from the kicker''s leg. It''s astretch even for the goalie."
"It''s a longshot," Sean admitted, "but the kicker''s choice seems random to us because wecan''tread her mind. Heck, it may even feel random to her, if the choice is subconscious. But humans don''t carry a random number generator in their heads, no choice is truly random. Research shows that the penalty kicker''s choice is determined by visual cues that the goalie isn''t aware of.The goalie doesn''t realize she''s standingslightly offcenter of the goal, but the kicker notices and that subconsciously affects her choice. Is the goalie standing still or waving her hands? That affects kicker''s outcome too. But if the frontopolar model can map goalie cues to each kicker''s choices, then we can influenceSeymour''s kickers by making our goalie consciouslychooseher stance."
"Dude," Randall screamed in anguish, "it''ll take me all weekend to code this, never mind the training time..."
"Then you better get started," Seannodded unsympathetically, "It''s for your dear sister''s team, after all."
Kaitlyn pouted, "Do this, Randy, and I won''t tell mom what you were watching on your bedroom desktop..."
"OK, OK... I''ll do it," Randall muttered hurriedly, "but I needa ton of GPUs to train the deep nets and Greg''s the only one with that kind of hardware. He''ll want rental fees..."
"''l''ll take care of finances," Phyllis waved contemptuously with the air of someone used to thousand dollar allowances every month, "Money is no object, but don''t tell that to Greg or I''ll break your scrawny neck."
"About 75% of penalty shootout goals aren''t saved," Sean continued, "that''s three out of four. The four quadrants of the goal are roughly thechoices the kicker has. Leftor Right. High or Low. If Phyllis andone moreCardiff kicker can send the ball down the middle, that''ll keep Seymour''s goalie off balance and ensure we score allof our penalty kicks. But that isn''t much better than the baseline. It may help uswina best-of-five shootout, but I''d rather not just depend on that. One lucky save by Seymour can sendthe game into sudden death."
"But if our goalie canconsistentlyinfluence where Seymour will kick..." Susanmuttered slowly.
"...we are pretty much guaranteed to win the penalty shootout," Sean concluded, "And if Seymourgets awarded a free kick froman unlucky foul on our part, then we''re screwed unless our goalie cansave the kick."
"Winning the match during regulation play would be ideal," Kaitlyn sounded wistful, "but we better take it to a draw at the very least, or all this will be moot."
"Youcame up with this shit by yourself?" Phyllis sounded impressed despite herself.
"Mei Lingcompositedthe frontopolar model from neuroscience papers online," Sean blushed, "I... I translated it into a scheme that Randy could code. I cango over the details withyou, Phyllis, if you are interested... just the two of us... I mean, if you have time.."
Mei Ling rolled her eyes again.
”Yeah, that’s going to happen, Cook,” Phyllis snorted, “you and me.”
”That’s not whatI...” Sean’s face flushed. What the heck is wrong with me, his jaw clenched in self-loathing while his stomach fluttered with the all-too-familiar sensation ofbutterflies.
Susan stared at Sean. She found the boy disconcerting. Not on the surface, but the more she talkedwith him the more she saw the counterintuitive trailshis thoughts blazed, like untrodden paths illuminated in a lightning storm. Where other kids soughtfriendship, popularity orteamspirit; Sean spoke of incentive vectors and unstable equilibriums, as if he could visualizethe vector sum of people''s motivations. And what Susan found unsettling was thatSean wasn''t consciously trying to impress her, yetevery conversation was subtly mind-altering, like a scrubber stripping away unexamined assumptions. Except when hefaceda ''hot'' girl - and it was hilariously obvious that Sean consideredPhyllis ''hot'' - it was like a switch being thrown turning Sean into a melting puddle of cringy awkwardness. Susan''s lips quirked, as she wondered how much of Sean''s cooperation was from trying toimpress Phyllis versus his obligation to Kaitlyn whom he barely noticed despite the sophomorehanging around him like a devoted puppy.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“...so many applicationsif the cortex modelactually works,” Mei Ling jumped in to rescue Sean from humiliation.
”Exactly,” Sean brightened, with a grateful look at Mei Ling, “dating apps for instance. A guy wantsto saythe right thing to impress a woman? The cortex model will self-calibrate after observing the female subject...”
Sean trailed off as the atmosphere around the table grew chilly and he noticed Randall signalling him frantically.
”What did you say?” Mei Ling, Phyllis and Susan turnedin unison, their voices icy. Kaitlyn justlooked disappointed.
”Um... did you know Forever 21 is having a sale?” Sean grinned weakly.
“If you everpublishan app thataccurately models a woman’s feelings,” Phyllis growled, “l will hunt you down and break your legs.”
#
Kaitlyn''s mom dropped Sean off at the address Mrs. Thornton had provided. A two-storey concrete core encased in glass, housedthe Zero Sum Institute. Seanmade his waypastsculpted evergreen shrubsto glass doors stencilled insilverfont with the Greek Sigma and the numeral 0. The reception desk was manned by a bored looking manwith a buzzcut and ex-military written all over him. His eyes seemed todrill into Sean as he scrutinized the ID presented and then nodded toward the elevator. Sean stepped out into a fern-infested foyer surrounded by half-a-dozen glass-fronted conference rooms. Julia Thornton was in one of those addressing a gaggle of people. She spotted Sean and waved him over.
"You''re late, Sean," Julia gestured at the dozen or so people around the table, "Mr. Cook will be interning with us this week. He''s a junior at Cardiff High in Portsmouth."
Thefaces around the tableglanced at Sean with disinterest. Except for Mr. Turner who gavehim a wry smile that looked creepy with bug-eye glasses. Sean blinked in surprise and made his way to an empty seat beside his physics teacher. There was a pretty young woman seated two seats down from Turner and Sean had to make a conscious effort not to stare at her.
"You look surprised to see me, Sean," Turner whispered, raising an eyebrow, "I did mention that I moonlighted for Zero Sum."
"Yeah, but it''s a weekday," Sean whispered back, "Shouldn''t you been in class or something... sir?"
"I could say the same for you," Turner chuckled, holding up a hand, "just kidding, I heard about your... mishap. It''s my day off actually."
"...withthree teams deployed, we''re short-handed, forcing us to prioritize," Julia pointed to a world map on the wall display on whichcolored lights blinked seemly at random, "Conflict hotspots have been ranked by profit potential..."
Blue and green lights faded, leaving only the reds. Julia frowned at Sean''s raised hand, "Yes, Sean?"
"How exactly is stopping conflicts profitable for us... you?" Seanblurted.
"Going straight for the money, Mr. Cook?" Julia barked a laugh, followed by titters around the table, "There are many ways to profit from a credible track record. Here''s one, how much would Fuller Dynamics pay us not to stop a war?"
"But... " Sean stared at Julia appalled, "that''s war-profiteering. The humanitarian question..."
"Did I ever claim to be a humanitarian, Mr. Cook?" Julia snapped, "People have been slaughtering each other for ages. It benefits us to interfere sometimes, and sometimes not. If you''re serious about making a difference, I suggest you keep a lid onyour scruples."
There was no laughter around the table this time. Seanswallowed his disgust, glancing at Turner for support, but the physics teacher merely looked uncomfortable.
"Firsttopic on the agenda is South Caucasus Republic," Julia clicked a remote and the map zoomed in on a spotbetween the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, "Team Violet will present their analysis. Go ahead, Dawn."
The young woman presumably named Dawn, whohad caught Sean''sfancy earlier, smiled and nodded. She leaned forward totake the remote, pushing away strands of hair from her face, her fingers brushing golden locks that flaredintoa gleaming bell around her shoulders. A sharp slender nose was the axis of symmetry for hertwinkling blue eyes. But it was the mouth that sold Sean. Wide and warm, they dimpled her cheeks in a friendly grin ever so often. Her voicedripped likemetaphorical honeyinto Sean''s ears.
"...the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was the catalyst that fractured the Caucasus into warring states over the past two decades," Dawnbegan clicking through talking points, "...horrendous treatment of ethnic minorities by all countries in the region... significant refugeemigration both intoand out of South Caucasus Republic. Weexpect an imminentoutbreak of warbetween SCRanda coalition of its neighbours... whichcan only magnify the refugee crisis."
A flicker of sadness passed over Dawn''s professional demeanor.
"Major stake holders?" Julia barked.
"The usual suspects," Dawn continued, "the Russians obviously. Unusally though, they aren''t taking sides. All the players used to be part of the former Soviet Union and the Russians have an interest in a stableCaucasus. Theyhave agreed not tointerfere ifwe act in good faith. The US State Department has unofficially greenlighted the mission, though officially they''ll deny involvement. Armenia and Azerbaijan risk losing their own ceasefire if war breaks out in the SCR. And finally GORGON."
Sean felt a stab of disquiet as an angry red circleappeared overlaid over Eastern Europe. Red and black linesgrew radiating from the Caspian Sea all the way into Greece and Turkey.
"We theorize that GORGON has a stake in escalating conflict," Dawn hesitated, "to interrupt oil and natural gas linesfeeding the US Army offensive in the Balkans. But... the Caucasus is well beyond their sphere of influence and it''s not obvious whatGORGON can do. We''ve shared our concerns with the SCR leadership who assure us that security has been beefed up."
You better believe GORGON can ruin your day, Sean thoughtrubbing his cast. It was almost time for thebloody thing to come off. It wouldn''t be soon enough.
"It''ll have to do," Julia nodded, "Mechanism of intervention?"
"Information asymmetry regarding SCR military capabilities," Dawn clickedbriskly on the remote, "They are a new untested nation much like its rivals. And all players haveplenty ofcheap cannon fodder."
"Proposed action?" Julia lookedimpatient.
"A weapon demonstration by the SCR," Dawn finished dramatically, as a tiny regionflashed within the map, "Maly-Kavkaz Valley. Artillery shelling and probing infantry attacks occur at predictable times every week, such that a decisive technology demonstration should..."
"Surely that''s not effective?" frowned an earnest bespectaled young man in a plaid shirt, "when they''re already skirmishing..."
"Unless its a secret weapon the other side cannot obtain?" Sean muttered, "something that demonstrably increases the cost ofinvading the SCR. After all, if the cost of war is relatively low as measured inmilitary lives and SCR militarycapabilityis uncertain, then its actually rational for its neighbours to attack it instead of negotiating. They gain much by sacrificing a few soldiers."
Faces glanced at Sean in surprise.
"That''s correct," Dawn looked startled, noticing Sean more carefully this time, "Team Violet has negotiated ashipment of demo units that should reach onsite... the day after tomorrow actually."
"I''m quite aware of the intricacies of game theory," the young man''s voice was frosty, "but there are more cost effective ways to intervene. War is economics after all."
"Dude''s got a point," Sean shrugged.
"Is that so, Mr. Cook?" Julia raised a brow testily, “How would you go about it?”
“Um...” Sean considered the questionwarily, “Use aid organisations to dumpfree foodintothe region... using the refugee crisis as a pretext maybe?”
Some faces around the table heldconfusion now. The young man considered Sean thoughtfully with a faintly unpleasant smile. Dawn''slovely face spasmed with shock, quickly suppressed. These two are no fools, Sean noted.
"Ididn''tthink you were stupid, Sean," Julia spat sarcasm, "How does feeding refugees avert war? Are you hoping national leaders suddenlyget that we all belong to one big human family?"
"War is economics," Sean repeatedly softly, "Dumping free food will bankrupt local farms, destroying the region''s agricultural base. The cost of war goes upmany fold. Armies march on their stomachs after all. They''ll never know what hit them, because mostleaders don''tforesee unintended consequences. When systemsare highly coupled, we can never do just one thing."
The sudden silence was broken by Julia''s incredulous giggle, "How insidiously ruthless, Mr. Cook. And Ithought you were naive. But I''m afraid that approach, elegant as it is, will take too long in this case."
"And there''s a twistI didn''t mention," Dawn piped up, "Thedemo weapon in question is being supplied by Gibbs Consortium whois quite eager to break into the Eurasian arms market."
No doubt Gibbs is paying Zero Sum a hefty commission for facilitating this, Sean belatedly realized, even if Dawn left it unsaid. Sean shook his head ruefully,I''ve no clue about the wheelings and dealings going on behind the scenes. Perhaps his chagrin showed because Dawn gaveSean a brilliant smile that triggered his stomach butterflies. She really was quite attractive, he thought transfixed. She wore a snug sleeveless sweater top that nicely accentuated her mesmerizing curves...
"...aftera shortbreak ...Sean ...Sean?" Julia sounded faintly amused, "I asked you whether you had a chance to download and signourconsent form. Perhaps you''llcare to answer me, once you''re doneogling Dawn over there?"
Sean''s gaze snapped to Julia, his face turning a bright red, followed by chuckles around the table.
"I''ll let our weapons consultant go over the technical aspects after the break," Dawn looked slightly embarrased at Sean''s faux pas as she slid the remote over to Turner. Sean felt a flicker of confusion despite his burning face. When did his physics teacher become a weapons consultant? Turner grinned at Sean and got up to join the others filing out of the room. Sean was almost the last out the door, when Julia''s voice stopped him.
"Just a moment, Sean," Julia seemed to be enjoying his discomfiture, "I want to have a few words in private."
Sean sighed, sinking back into his chair.
"Do you want to be the creepy guy who leers at his female co-workers?" Julia looked at him quizzically, "I can''t have my male employees distracted from their best effort just becausetheycan''t keep their eyes off a pretty girl. Understood?"
"Easy for you say," spat Sean bitterly, "You know nothing about being male."
"Tell me then," Julia leaned forward with a sneer, "What''s it like being male?"
"It''s... distracting... demeaning," Sean took a deep breath and shuddered, "like having a magnetstitchedinto my brain, pullingmy gaze tothe nearestpretty face... what’sthe point of having a brainif I spendall my time thinking of girls... what''s the use of reason if I can lose it so easily by looking at a beautifulwoman..."
Sean stopped feeling faintly ridiculous. He''d never voiced aloud the frustration accumulated over years of adolescence. It felt petty towhineabout something that practically every boy went through and learnt to deal with eventually. Talking to hisdad might have helped, but his dad wasn''t around much. And his momwould have smiledsympatheticallyif she ever found the time to stop and chat with her son, but she wouldn''t understand, not really.
"My, what a uniquely tragic experience, Sean," Julia leaned back andcackled heartily, "having to lookat pretty girls all the time."
"You''re not helping," Sean scowled.
"Sorry, I shouldn''t have laughed," Julia''s mirth trailed off, "But jokes aside, I expect my field personnel to be on top of their game, even interns. I can’t have you distracted by a pretty face. Hmmm... mighthave just the thing for you."
"Uh?" Sean blinked.
"Something that bypasses your... baseimpulses," Julia drummed fingers on the table thoughtfully.
"Wh.. what do you mean?" Sean swallowednervously.
"Oh, nothing permanent, young man," Julia grinned and got up, "Stay here."
Juliareturned some minutes later, carrying a flat leatherbound case embossed with an unfamiliar logo. She sliddown back in her chair, sliding the case over to Sean who opened it. A flatmetallic cuboid sized like a portable harddrive, stenciled ‘ScupltSight PreProcessor v2.1’, laysnugly withincustom contouredfoam along with charging accessories. A smaller transparent casinghelda pair of tiny lenses that scintillated with metallic huesas Sean held it to the light.
”Contact lenses with embedded microcircuitry,” Julia waved, “a marvel of optical engineering.”
”What’s it for?” Sean’s confusion showed.
”AlteredRealitypiped directly onto theeyes,” Julia explained, “with theprocessor core wirelessly mediating what the wearer sees. Any imaginable criteria can be specified. Don’t like the crack on your window pane? SculptSight can airbrush it awayin realtime. Want to look like Brad Pitt in the mirror? SculptSight can createthat illusion for you. Your ''significant other'' isn''t sufficiently goodlooking? No problem, he or she can look like your favorite movie star through SculptSight.”
”Where did you get this?” Sean stared, “and what’s it got to do with me?”
"Not long ago I fundeda tech startup thatlaterwent bust," Julia sounded wistful, "but I never lost faith in its potential. As for its relevance to you... can''t you guess? I just told you, SculptSight canchangehow people look to the wearer."
"I canmakeSculptSightrender pretty girls into... not so pretty ones," Sean whispered.
"Beauty is an illusion," Julia''s smiletwistedinto a rictus, "just as SculptSight can creat illusions it can also erase them."
Could it be that simple?Seanclamped downa flare of hope. Like most people, Sean existed in uneasytruce with his own genes whoseinterests did not always coincide with his own. His genes wanted only one thing, to persist and replicate through the eons, and they had shaped hismind to that end. The allure of the opposite gender was an incentive vector that dominated his waking moments, which neither his superpowernor his newfound knowledge could switch off. More than anything, Sean feared his own weaknesses... his grandiose plans derailed because he couldn''t help obssessing over some ''hot'' girl. More and more often, he found himself in idle daydreams featuring one of the girls in school. The gossip insinuating that he''d infiltrated the Fuller Mansion to pursue Judith had stung, in part because there''d been a grain of truth to it. He''d seenfellow students fall into that trap, pining for someone they couldn''t have,pissing away their potential... No. If he couldn''t defeat his genes, he needed toshut outtheir siren song until his dreams were achieved.
"Why are you doing this for me?" Sean looked at Julia.
"As I mentioned, Idon''t like my employeesgettingdistracted," Julia got up, indicating the meeting was over, "but more than that, I wish to reshape the most promising students I can find into something better...something without human frailty. SculptSight is a smalltoken of what ZeroSum can do for you, if you prove useful."
END OF CHAPTER