CHAPTER 10
AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
A WEEK LATER
Steve was at the highlights. Everyone was onto him. One day, he received a highly encrypted email only a tech genius could hack into, to see the content. The sender wanted to make sure no one else read it. Considering that the MIT is where the best tech geniuses were, the encryption had to be customized for the best of this particular group. It had been designed to self-destruct itself if it was not cracked in less than an hour which was almost impossible. Fortunately, as Steve had created in all secrecy, he had the help of his Quantum Computer whose Operating System was AIDI, so in 2 seconds, the email was open. As soon as he opened it, a group of highly trained man entered his room, shot him with a tranquilizer and he fainted. Someone made him smell something and he woke up. It was a huge compound.
There were 6 people who had their heads and faces covered. A very young and tall man took the hood out of Steve’s head and started talking to him.
“Welcome, Mr. Steve Lotch. Sorry for the drama and mystery but we had to be careful. I am Jed Henchman, and I will be the one you talk to. I am also the person who designed the encrypted email.”
“What do you mean encrypted?” Steve sarcastically asked.
“I see you have a sense of humour. Cracking my code in 2 seconds, I have got to admit, I am impressed but I am also aware that the only thing that would crack the code in less than a minute is a quantum computer ran by an AI but that’s just fiction. Unless you have recovered the AI.”
“So it was you who modified my prototype.”
“You have your secrets but keeping secrets is our job, Steve. It was my opinion that made AIDI accepted as an AI and it was me who convinced you to come to MIT.”
“You are the boy at the workshop and the MIT engineer? You created a person who doesn’t exist and you somehow managed to look and speak just like Mark in order to make me go to the MIT. You are really my groupie. You clearly don’t work for the USA intelligence because if you were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, much less in front of these people. Who are you?”
“No, we don’t. We are part of something huge. We are the men behind the men who are behind everything. We make the world’s rules. No politics, no bureaucracy, no nationality, no taking parts, nothing. Sometimes we work with countries but only sometimes like when I wanted to use the prototype to lighten North Korea up and somehow you managed to destroy the version I had. I am still curious on how you did that but that’s not the matter here. The world is dying, Steve. Global warming, Demographic Density is increasing exponentially, meaningless wars, animals are becoming extinct, capitalism is making the world colder and the difference between social classes has never been greater. The world needs to be reborn. It needs us.
“OK, I have been a fool, walking the path you outlined for me. I admit. I am doing exactly what you wanted but who’s ‘us’?”
“We like to call ourselves the ‘Alchemists’. I know you must be wondering why Chemists would reach out to a Technology expert like you but you also have Chemist roots and even if you don’t use your expertise, Chemistry has been your life for many years. Your father’s and grandfather’s influence I believe. Your own IQ was chemically fabricated for Christ sake. Do you know that your grandfather was once part of ‘us’?
“What do you mean?” Steve asked in genuine surprise and with a genuine look of ignorance, one he almost never displayed.
“Of course you don’t. One of these chairs once belonged to your grandfather, Arthur Fliegel, until in one of his research projects in Africa, he got in love with a black woman from an African tribe who happens to be your grandmother. In his situation, having a family was asking for a tragic end that includes deaths so he became the only man to ever manage to quit the team. How, you ask! Well, he cloned himself. He engineered his clone to grow 20 times faster than a normal human being. Two years and 6 months later his clone was 50. He killed his clone and made us believe he was dead. It actually worked. Isn’t that genius? The alchemists found his clone dead and he became a free man. Then he went to live in Africa, Mozambique for the rest of his life and changed his surname to Lotch. He had your father there.”
“Then why leave the woman he left everything for?”
“Twelve years later, the Alchemists managed for the first time to repeat your grandfather’s deed, fast growing human cloning. That’s when they found out that his clone was the one buried there. He knew they had found out so, to protect your father and your grandmother, he left. He went to Argentine, planted enough evidence that could make the alchemists find him but also think that he lived there all these years with several IDs from several countries and lots of money. The Alchemists inevitably found him and they asked him to help them on the human cloning project which he obviously denied. He was held captive until he died of a heart attack 3 years later. So, you see, this is your legacy!”
Steve started to think and connecting the dots, the Chemistry, the sudden disappearance of his grandfather, his black African mother, his own super intelligence and everything suddenly started to make sense. So he rose up his voice and asked, “Alright Jed, you got my attention. Where do I come in?”
“We, ‘Alchemists’, are responsible for diseases like AIDS, cancer, Ebola, and much more but we are also responsible for the cure of many more diseases. For decades we have been cloning animals that people think they are extinct. We could turn the statue of liberty into pure gold if we were so inclined. Each one of us has his own clone, mind, and body. We are from no country. We are from earth. What we need from you is quite easy. We want you to create a biological device that bonds to a specific genome sequence and gives feedback on everything back to us. All you have to do is use the internet to expand our range. Imagine: terrorists found, children saved, population density controlled, social classes extinct and everyone will be the same, diseases detected, the whole world connected into one single point.”
“So you want me to help you become Gods? You want to monitor everybody?”
“No, Steve. We want you to help the world reach a utopia, a world without unnecessary pain, where everybody is in perfect harmony.”
“And here I thought the very concept of utopia was being unreachable. I don’t think I can help you, Jed!”
“I don’t believe you understand me, Steve. These people upon you are neither presidents nor entrepreneurs. They are above all that. They are visionary just like you. No one understands them just like no one understands you. They have many virtues but patience isn’t one of them. Saying ‘no’ wouldn't be a healthy decision.”
“I can think of the job proposal on my way home. Although quite tempting, I have to consider the odds. High IQ habits I guess.”
Jed waved his hand and two men came close to Steve. When they grabbed his hand, they fainted almost instantly. Jed was unimpressed because he knew that Steve’s body was vibrating at a frequency that could make a human being faint but the rest of the men were clearly frightened. Steve stood up and started to speak.
“Time’s up,” Steve stood up and said, “I have got a place to be. Suppose that I have failed the job interview or whatever this was. Understand this; I know every single one of you.” Then he started to name them one by one, “Tao Kamoto, Dennis Lennix, Guillermo Justus, Kofi Govich, Ken Lang and Mark Eisenstein.” They were in shock. None of them ever knew the other members’ real identity.
“You must be wondering how I know,” Steve resumed, “Well, when you kidnapped me here, you didn’t give me time to put my computer to sleep so you triggered an automatic response.” “From the AI. You have fixed it,” Jed commented.
“It remotely activated a location chip imbedded in my blood system.”
“Nanotechnology, impressive.”
“It also activated my lenses for VVP so I know where we are right now.”
“Visual Video Projection, an interactive display panel, wow.”
“I am tired of impressing you, Jed. I have got a Nobel to refuse. In literally a blink of my left eye, I can give an order and from this compound, only memories will remain. So, Jed, I suppose we won’t be seeing each other again.”
“Don’t be so overconfident Steve. Although you did capture all pawns and one of the rooks, I still have the other rook, two deadly bishops, and the queen.”
Steve understood the metaphor but enjoyed the triumphant moment. He went straight towards the door guiding himself by the 4D plant of the compound displaying on his lenses. The soldiers intended to capture Steve but Jed ordered against. Judging by his brief concealed smile, it seemed that it was all part of a plan and that Steve’s participation in it was crucial.
Steve got out, a flying vehicle came and picked him out.
An hour later, Steve's ship reposed in Switzerland. He stepped out of his ship and entered the hall. He knew that the president of the US and his minions would be there but he also knew that they wouldn’t do anything to him in public. Jed was utterly amused. He had other plans in mind. It was time for the cataclysmal bishops. Each one with his designed directives and each one more devastating than the other.