Chapter 13
Half of the team was gathered for a meeting Stone hastily called. None of the junior associates were included. Assembled around the conference table were Long at one end, Stone at the other; Murphy was seated next to Long, Ralfs Bartulis next to her, ‘Kahuna’ Little sat next to Bartulis. Danders, Jain, and Summa were seated around Stone.
“A woman reporter from NBC came here today, looking for confirmation of our thought-reading project,” Stone said.
Silence then shock and disbelief came over the group. Bartulis was the first to speak.
“I don’t understand. How can a reporter, of all people, get this information?”
No one responded. Then it came to him.
“It’s one of us! Who is leaking this stuff?”
“It’s not me,” he shouted. Then he continued,
“How do we know that she didn’t hear a rumor and is trying to find out if it’s true?”
“She gave us details that only someone working on the project knows,” Stone said.
“What information did the reporter share with you?”
“The exact results from the recent test. She doesn’t know if the information is true or not, but she seemed to believe it wholeheartedly. And who knows how many people she has told.”
Stone looked at each person at the table, trying to size them up.
“Maybe someone told a spouse or a friend what we’re doing, without thinking about it.” He waited briefly before saying, “What we are working on is more significant than anything we will ever work on. None of us will jeopardize it through loose lips, I’m sure of that. We stand to become wealthy beyond imagination when we succeed, and remember, we signed confidentiality agreements before the project began, punishable by legal recourse, likely jail time, and heavy fines. I don’t think anyone has forgotten about those disincentives. This is a deliberate act. Why it was done is something I cannot comprehend.”
“Me either,” Murphy said. “I have a thought…has anyone brought home any project status information on a portable device? It could have been copied.”
Stone cringed at the thought.
“How can I be so stupid? Our confidentiality agreement does not permit any work to be done, or any information about this project to be stored anywhere but in our offices. I haven’t faithfully monitored what the staff has been doing. Someone could have gotten information out of here—not the coding, but the metrics and reports. Damn it! I let our small size breed complacency. If this weren’t my company, I’d be fired and sued. As it is, I, we, can lose everything. For the public to have knowledge that we are working on this project is enough to scuttle it.”
Hoping for a “tell” Stone, with an accusatory look, shouted,
“Who took something out of this office?”
Everyone jumped in their seats. They had never seen Stone so angry.
They all replied, “Not me.”
“One of you did and I will find out who!”
Alone a few moments later, Stone said to Danders,
“I don’t know if that reporter knows anything about the important enhancements to the eyeglasses our team is working on. She probably does, but let’s continue to keep it secret.”
“Of course, we have to, although I don’t think she knows anything. How about some good news? I think the glasses are ready to be used now. I’ve resolved the issue of interference of thoughts between the user and the subject that the original pair of eyeglasses had, so everything captured is only from the subject.”
“That’s impressive. I thought it would take you longer. No wonder you look so haggard.”
“Try living on three hours of sleep a night and drinking a gallon of coffee a day for a week. You, too, can look as good as I,” Danders said.
Stone nodded.
“How did you do it? Was it by following our design?”
“Say what?” asked a yawning Danders.
“The separation of thoughts.”
“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We finally figured out the answer to the frequency issue. We were hung up on distinguishing between the user and the subject, when all we had to do was define the subject’s frequency and have the program disregard any other, since everyone’s frequency is unique.”
“Sometimes the obvious is the hardest to see. You must have seen things through your child eyes. Nice going, but now you, too, need to get out of here and rest. I’m going to take the glasses and try them out. This is the only pair?”
“No, we made a second pair as well.”
“Great job, but we’re not quite there yet. We will need to allow more than one person to receive information from these glasses at the same time, you know for the people with locked-in syndrome…”
“Right, it’s occurred to me that streaming of a channel to selected users at the same time is required. With some tweaking of existing technology, I’ve got ideas on how to proceed quickly.”
“Don’t let those ideas evaporate while you thrash in your sleep. Go home.”
“I’m so beat I’m far more likely to be comatose than thrashing. Call you later.”
Stone took some comfort knowing now that the part of the project his team was working on, the creation of eyeglasses that captured neural output from the software Stone and Long had developed, was close to being functional in the design Stone wanted. Once the eyeglasses received the neural output, that information was read and interpreted by the eyeglasses software which then communicated it back as words displayed on the eyeglass lenses, in the built-in ear buds as sound, and to the recording system as both, with an accuracy rate of ninety-eight per cent.
Later on, he would sit with Danders and review the solution to the eyeglasses communication issue so that he’d have the ability to change the program if needed.
Having been the lead programmer on the thought-reading software, he would then be the only person with knowledge of all facets of their creation. It was not something he ever thought about, nor had it yet been revealed to him, but that made him God—not like a god, but God. He also didn’t know yet that he would have to deal with the devil who was out there waiting for his moment of weakness.