The Unexpected
Copyright© 2025 by Technocracy
Chapter 18
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 18 - "If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out, and difficult." -- Heraclitus of Ephesus
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Heterosexual Fiction Violence
SIG, Needham, Ma - 7:05 AM, 11 April 2006
The SIG conference room had a slow file of people walking in, finding chairs along the room’s perimeter. The employees that were in a supporting billet, that chose to attend, were a bit more than just curious. They wanted to know about the core technology that was driving the small company’s investment engine; that and for a few idle hours and a choice of fine breads and pastries, specially baked for the event by Jose and Miguel.
By 7:25 AM, Larry Page and Marissa Mayer had assumed positions at the opposite end of the table as Benny, saying nothing as they observed Benny and Harry set up two projectors and several computers. The others in the conference room filled their coffee cups and browsed the side tables of treats.
Benny paused, looking down the opposite end of the long conference table, to lock eyes with Larry Page, raising a questioning Vulcan eyebrow, knowing that Page and Mayer would not have a clue as to the mathematical basis of the material to be discussed. Giving credit where due, Page nodded to Harry, with a mild awkwardness, coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that Marissa may not be as smart as he had thought. Page was hoping that his significant other would listen, and learn her limits.
Benny was pleased to see that whatshername had stocked the tray of each whiteboard with several boxes of dry-erase markers, and placed an additional coffee machine in the conference room, adjacent to four large trays stacked with goodies. When Benny noted that a third computer had not been able to connect to the file server, he wracked his brain, attempting to remember the admin assistant’s name. The first thing his occupied mind could recall resulted in muted laughter from the troops.
“Mynameiscindy, please tell Nancy that we need another static IP that is sand-boxed, and return with the number.”
Cindy Havershime nodded to Benny, thinking that his demeanor was a marked improvement since his return, as he had said ‘please’ and remembered, somewhat, her name. As she exited the conference room, Cindy whispered to the other admin assistant.
“Did you see that both of the Google execs are here early? Do you know who these visitors are?”
“Some professor that Doctor Spoons thinks is a god. He must be important, all managers got here very early.”
Harry had made Hinton’s pending visit to SIG known to all SIG employees, expressed as a combination of the second coming of Jesus, to include in-person levitations of a Buddha, along with a personal visit to be chosen by Allah’s prophet. Harry’s invitation to attend had been extended to all full-time employees of SIG and on-site googlers.
Upon Dr Hinton arrival, Harry dragged Benny out into the windy 7C morning, to properly greet the esteemed professor and researcher, and his associates.
Henry suppressed a grin as he watched Harry’s excited progress down the sidewalk to greet the visitors. Harry came to a sudden halt, in awe of Geoffrey Hinton, the writer of many seminal papers, and the originator of the back-propagation algorithm. Hinton exhibited a full shock of thick, graying hair. Of thin build, he moved with an ease of someone younger than his reported late middle ages.
“Doctor Hinton, I am honored. Your paper on down-layered neural networks was a principal inspiration. Benny and myself cited much of your work, sir. Oh yes, and this is Benson Harrison.”
The older man smiled at the younger man, waving away Harry’s deep respect and admiration. Hinton stood, with a sense of pride, to introduce his two younger colleagues. Also behind him, stood Colonel Stewart and another person.
“Doctor Harrison, Doctor Spoons, may I introduce Toniann Pitassi and Richard Zemel.”
Benny immediately recognized the ‘Zemel’ name, making his respect known.
“Doctor Zemel, I have read some of your research on machine learning. I was surprised when you did not go with Doctor Hinton’s move away from neural networks.”
“I’m afraid those ACM articles, among others, were quite the hyperbole. Geoffrey did not abandon neural networks, and neither did my work not extend into symbolic processing.”
Small talk was made among the five academic researchers as they went into the SIG building. What was not said, as was noted by both Henry and Benny, was that there had been no introductions of Colonel Stewart and the civilian that walked with him into the SIG building.
Marissa Mayer did a quick scan of the people gathered in the ‘spectator’ seats along the east wall. She sneered at the technicians and administrators and logistics personnel, thinking that they would not have the mind, nor the education, to grasp the complex circuits, algorithms, and equations. Mayer understood little of the SIG trading systems, so she was certain that few, if any, of the gathered non-principles would have any understanding.
Mayer’s attentions to the trading systems tutorial drifted intermittently, swapping in and out of her first-order consciousness per the emotive weighting of her other problems: her legal issues, the mandate by Schmidt to efficiently administrate SIG, and the long-distant management of her west-coast projects.
“ ... diminishing returns mapped to a zeta function. Which, of course is the basis for a consideration of this analytic continuation.”
Benny paused to grab a red dry-erase marker.
“So I take this as a zeta function of a mathematical operator, where I resolve the eigenvector.”
“Why the eigen?”
Benny’s mind briefly flashed to Andrea’s form and his post-coital thoughts, a few months back, that had led to this particular allegorical instructional vehicle.
“Because the models are based on the physics of two or more masses exchanging energy; that is, the diffusion and conduction of heat. Heat kernels with defined boundaries. None of this is required for models of simple, unitary trades, which are scalar, and are proximate to linear in the short term, per the use of the simple time-series graphs one sees in common financial publications.
Dr Hinton was quick to question the progression.
“But you’re using spectral analysis. That’s not time domain. And I was not able to see your S-domain mirrors in your previous set of equations.”
“It is, sir. As it is governed by simple Newtonian mechanics. We wanted to avoid the computational budget required for a Laplace operator. Obviously, we still required the frequency-domain. Thus, we settled on an analytic continuation. Furthermore, note the reflections from the Z to the S-planes.”
Hinton and his two fellow academics exchanged glances of confusion.
“I don’t understand.”
“Remember the fifth derivative, sir?”
“I still do not follow.”
“Think about the requirement to identify divergence per unit mass flow without the computational expense of a finite element analysis. And all without a Laplace transform? Our solution was ridiculously simple; a zeta function. To be precise, the spectral zeta operator. We can map unlimited folds in O(2n), which is not computationally expensive for on an order of days, or perhaps for a projection of weeks.”
The unknown woman with Stewart, spoke for the first time.
“And where your models are not limited by real-time requirements, and you are still doing delimited projections?”
“That is the reason for our array of sim-servers, where we do runs that take days, perhaps a week, to do stuff for a forward interval that will exceed 100 days; and we have done sim runs to attempt thousand-day projections. But getting the necessary data to fuel these longer projections is difficult, and the results will rapidly diverge, in a non-linear fashion, per the quality of data.”
“What about longer projective intervals?”
“We have recently put together a rack of Xeon boxes. It will provide the computational power to do temporal-vector magnitudes of, perhaps, up to 2000 days. We are guessing on the order of 100-hour run times. Again, just because we can run the sim numbers in a finitely-defined space, does not mean we will get meaningful results.”
Nancy Mines perked up at Benny’s admission of standing up high-performance servers off-site. She immediately connected the new GPS receivers and satellite antennae, that she had helped install on the building’s roof edge, to Benny’s clandestine works. She further wondered if the distrust sowed by Google managers had ruined any opportunity for her to become a company insider and to learn the advanced networking technology being used for the trading machines. It had greatly disturbed her that her people had been limited to pushing boxes into racks and stringing cables when it came to supporting the actual trading stacks.
“But it could be used for longer-term contingency planning? Conditional multi-variates. For playing ‘what-if’?”
“Of that, I am not certain. There are diminishing returns mapped to a zeta function. That would delve into the realm of the philosophical. Perhaps Harry could provide guidance on the efficacy of such long-term economic projections via these particular modalities of simulations.”
Harry took up the speaker’s position, re-hashing his three principle economic theorems for his esteemed guests, while the civilian that had a accompanied Colonel Stewart took copious notes.
The last session was handed off to Mike Frothers. Mike had no idea why Benny gave him the task of presenting an over-view per the analogics of the three system-level synchronizations. He felt he had no place in front of these academic heavy-weights.
Unlike most of the support personnel that were hired as Google employees, Angela Striker and Gary Ferguson were two of the few non-core employees that found the presentations both fascinating, and humbling. Angie whispered to her favorite IS tech, asking an earnest appraisal.
“Am I right? Is this for real, Gary? These people, if not already, will have more money then there is white on rice.”
Gary smiled at the metaphor, with the irony of it coming from the whimsy of a black woman. Garry nodded an affirmative. Angela continued her whispered comments.
“Doris said we’ll have a big bonus check this quarter if Mayer don’t screw it up. Did you know that Mayer woman spent several days in city lock-up for stealing shit from Benny and Harry?”
“For real? Where did you hear that?”
“Mason.”
“If anyone knows the story, he’s the one. How’s he doing?”
“Haven’t heard about any episodes for a while, but he’s not around here much. Talked to him when he dropped Lizzy off at work last week. Seemed okay.”
“Mason still seeing someone?”
“Yeah, he’s got a regular counselor at BU.”
“Good. I like the guy. You vets deserve a lot better than what we’ve done in the past. Speaking of vets, how about it, Angie? Want to go out for subs at the lunch break? I’ll buy if you drive.”
As people filed out of the conference room for their lunch destinations, Mike Frothers noticed his technician and the IS support tech, once again, engrossed in private conversation. He figured the two nerds were well-matched, but doubted the efficacy of intimate relations formed within the work-place.
Marissa Mayer confronted Doris as Benny, Harry, Dinton, Colonel Stewart, Toniann Pitassi and Richard Zemel, and the unknown woman, packed into the larger SIG Ford passenger van.
“I have made reservations at Mistral for lunch. Where is Doctor Spoons taking them?”
Doris shrugged at the presumptuous executive.
“Not certain, probably something local.”
“Something local!? There is nothing suitable in this town.”
Doris, having grown up in a wealthy family, knew the attitude well. She quickly recognized the basis for the gulf of misunderstanding that had formed between Benny and Harry, and Marissa Mayer.
As Harry sat in the van he saw that Brandon was the security person in the driver’s seat.
“Hey, Brand. Henry not coming?”
“Nope. He and Brian and Nancy got a lunch meeting at the taco truck.”
Harry and Benny exchanged questioning glances.
“Okay, ya up for Carla’s?”
“Yes, sir. Definitely up for an excellent burrito.”
Benny corrected the security man.
“Not necessarily ‘excellent’, Brandon. But their food is good as can be expected for east-coast Mexican cuisine.”
“Y’all have to excuse Benny. My man’s from SoCal. He doesn’t like the weather, and he doesn’t like the food. He’s only here for the women. Or woman ... Uh, did ya remember to call her, Benny?”
“Oh?! ... Damnation...”
“Thought so. Doris said she will call when we leave.”
Colonel Stewart had a burning, essential need to always know all of what was transpiring.
“Others will join us for lunch, Doctor Spoons?”
“Yep. Benny’s better half, her kid, and perhaps someone else.”
Stewart nodded, no longer alarmed, as he had already back-grounded the two women.
“Mrs Paucho and her daughter Isabelle?”
“Yep. You spy-guys know everything, don’t ya? Except how our systems work...”
Harry turned his attentions to the unknown woman sitting on the rear bench seat.
“So how ‘bout it, colonel. Ya gonna tell us about your super-secret scribbler lady?”
“Of course. This is Doctor Karen Velasco. She is a theoretical mathematician, and is currently on loan to the Disruptive Technology Office.”
“So what you people planning on disrupting today?”
Karen Velasco smiled at Harry’s rhetorical question. But answered anyway.
“Today, Doctor Spoons? Hopefully nothing of import. In the years ahead, hopefully most of the human societies.”
The conversation ended when the van turned off the street, into a parking lot behind a row of non-descript small businesses.
Carla’s Restaurant, Needham, Ma - 1215PM, 11April2006
Andrea, Lizzy, and Mason were waiting in an ante-room, off from the main dining area, with three tables pushed together. It did not surprise Benny that his technician and Lizzy were seated close enough so that they were touching.
Andrea rose to greet Benny with a quick kiss.
“Andy, these people are Doctors Hinton, Pitassi, and Zemel. And that is Colonel Stewart and his colleague Doctor Velasco...”
Benny gently pushed Andrea towards the group, his hand at the small of her back.
“And this lovely lady is Andrea Paucho, owner and proprietor of Bonifacio’s Market, Sanchez Bakery, and Leo’s Barbershop. All fine establishments of Needham. Where is she? ... Ah, yes, and this young lady is Isabelle Paucho; currently of the Boston University ... Mason, where are you going?”
Benny saw Mason Johnson making for the door, confused as per his determined exit. Lizzy called out to the former Marine.
“Mason?! What ... Where are you going?”
Johnson froze, then turned to face the group, having been unable to exit undetected. Stewart, using a low toned conversational voice that no one had previously heard, intervened with a non-explanation.
“Doctor Harrison, please allow Corporal Johnson to leave of his own volition. I would not want my presence to make his lunch unpleasant.”
Benny did not understand the title of a rank that had been used for his technician. He did understand that Mason had no desire to be around the Marine officer. Benny was abrupt in manner when things were not right with his people. He took control of the situation.
“Mason, please come with me. Colonel, if you would follow?”
Brandon stood, ready to follow.
“It will be fine, Brandon. We will be outside.”
The parking lot was quiet, but for the occasional traffic noise, largely shielded by the buildings. The three men stood towards the rear center of the parking area.
“I will require an explanation, Colonel.”
“Corporal, I will release you from your non-disclosure. You may explain if you so desire.”
“I will not, sir.”
“Understood ... Doctor Harrison, Corporal Johnson was involved in a triumvirate of unfortunate misadventures.”
“Dispense with the indirections, colonel. Tell me what I should be allowed to know about Mason and yourself.”
“Very well. Johnson was at the receiving end of a severe intel lapse. I was responsible, in part, for the attack on an expeditionary airfield that Johnson’s detachment was operating out of, such that, my intel unit was blamed for the deaths and injuries to his squadron-mates and himself.”
“I still do not understand any of this military stuff ... Mason, do you think that I should not trust the colonel?”
Mason said nothing, waiting a few seconds to look Colonel Stewart into his dark eyes. The uneasy delay prompted Benny to ask again, disregarding the presence of Stewart.
“Mason, I need your opinion before we get deeper into this messy quagmire of government interests. I need to know who and what I can trust. Help me.”
Mason turned to face the colonel.
“With all due respect, sir...”
Mason then turned to address Benny.
“Doc, Colonel Stewart is an honest man; he has never lied. Colonel Stewart is also a self-serving asshole who would fuck over his mother and shoot his dog to accomplish his mission. He is a man without a soul. Regardless of his fuck-ups, he was probably the most competent intel person that has ever advised my squadron.”
Stewart did not flinch. He had been called much worse. His respect for Johnson did increase a notch or two.
“Colonel, to say that I have no understanding as to the full effect of these events to the concerns of SIG, would be a gross understatement. Per these revelations, it would be logical for me to assume that you are running something for US intelligence that is much bigger then my little company and whatever profits we are able to extract. To that end, I must know if members of my company, or my close friends could be in physical danger from your manipulations.”
Colonel Stewart composed himself to face Benny with sincerity.
“Doctor Harrison, it would be against my interests, and that of our country, to allow harm to come to your loved ones or your corporate interests. Sir, you have no comprehension as to the magnitude of the influence your research may have on the machinations of equities, securities, and currencies. Do you know why Google bought your subsidiary from Goldman Sachs?”
Benny looked at the Marine officer as if he was asking a monumentally self-evident question.
“To make their corporate executives lots of money.”
“No, sir. They bought your company because the NSA told them to bring them under their sphere of control. Mister Schmidt may have believed that it was his idea, but he has limited vision, and is unable to see raw potential. He is quite unlike yourself and Doctor Spoons, or for that matter, Brin and Page.”
Benny was surprised that he was not surprised by the revelation.
“So I should not trust Marissa Mayer or Eric Schmidt?”
“I would not. But Mayer can be useful to us, in her own way. Consider it the ‘Peter Principle’.”
Benny nodded his head in acknowledgment, wondering just how machiavellian he was willing to allow this to go. Stewart was fully expecting, and ready, for Benny’s next question.
“What is your end-goal for SIG, colonel? And what about the safety of my people?”
“The immediate goal is to be able to track the transfer and flow of wealth, to know where the money is coming from, to know where it is going to, and to know why the money is flowing in any particular direction.”
“Immediate? What is your ultimate goal, colonel? You did not answer about the security of my people.”
“Immediately? To prevent the pending collapse of the American economy. We are aware as per the details of Doctor Spoon’s projections. For now, your people are in no danger.”
Mason Johnson wondered why they were discussing high-level stuff in his presence. He was uneasy with the knowledge that the highest levels of the military’s intel community had been this deep into corporate America.
“Uh, doc. I don’t think I should be hearing this shit. I’m outa here...”
“Mason, it would upset Lizzy if you did not stay for lunch. On that subject, I would like to talk to you about yourself and Lizzy.”
Colonel Stewart saw the direction of the conversation and returned into Carla’s Restaurant. Mason laughed as Stewart entered the back door.
“That man can handle all sorts of heavy-duty shit, but can’t do the personal shit. So you gonna do the ‘big-brother’ shit on me? And, in case you’re wondering, I haven’t banged Lizzy, and I have no plans to.”
“You are not attracted to her?”
“Get real, doc. She’s totally hot. Too hot. Like, outa my league hot. But the truth is, I’m up to my asshole and elbows in too much bad mental-shit to be in a relationship. I’m just too fucked up to put my stupid shit onto someone as good as Liz.”
“PTSD?”
“That’s what the shrinks call it, doc. And no, I ain’t no psycho. I’m a bit trashed from seeing my friends get fucked up. Nothing else.”
“As my employee, you have full medical coverage. Do you want to see a therapist?”
“Been there, done that. Seeing a shrink at BU.”
“You are a good man, Mason Johnson. Take your time with Lizzy. You will know when, and if, the time is right to go further.”
“Yeah? Easy for you to say as much, doc. You got your shit together. You’re making millions, you’re a fucking genius, you have a hot woman, and you got the whole fucking U.S. government wanting to kiss your ass.”
“As you would say, I was also ‘fucked up’, but nothing as traumatic as your experiences. It took time for me to accept stuff and grow. But I did recover my self, my sense of control.”
“How did ya do it, doc? Ya know, fix your brain-housing group?”
“I was not able to fix anything. Andrea Paucho did it.”
Mason acknowledged his boss, then returned to the restaurant.
Lizzy was relieved when she saw Mason and Benny return from their ‘off-line’ discussion. She was uncertain on whether to ask either Benny or Mason as to the content of the discussion. As her beau re-seated, Lizzy leaned into Mason to discretely converse.
“Everything okay?”
“It’s all cool. Benny is a good man, Liz.”
“I know ... Mason?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you tell me if something is not right? Maybe I can fix it.”
Mason smiled at Lizzy, having heard almost the same words from his boss.
“It’s cool, Liz-lady ... So what’s the chow like here?”
Lizzy felt her warmth rise from Mason’s endearment, knowing that it was intended only for her.
Harry, and the four visiting academics, hoisted their beers in a toast. The others hoisted non-alcoholic beverages to the toast.
“I give you the chaotic market-place. May quantum mechanics fix humanity’s mess. In the interim, may we fill our bank accounts.”
Benny noted that Brandon and Colonel Stewart sat to the edge of the table corner, not toasting, and exchanging an occasional comment.
The various conversations, where some of the subjects were fueled by alcohol, continued into the afternoon. Harry was not one to hold back, sober or otherwise, without the ‘restraints’ that would have been enforced by the presence of his spouse.
“ ... and we used to make stuff in this country. We built stuff. Now all we do is put our hand in the next guy’s pocket. Tell me that’s not what we’re doing here.”
Dr Hinton quoted various statistics in support of Harry’s broad supposition. The conversation continued until it turned dark, into those paranoic recesses that most civilized academics do their best to ignore. Harry retorted, with respect to Hinton.
“And that data comes from the feds. Sir, we gotta remember that government is not your friend, it’s not meant to be, and never has been. It’s a machine of control.”
Hinton nodded in tacit agreement as he furthered his questions.
“But what would you propose as the counter-balance?”
“I’m not sure. But it needs to be held in constant restraint by the population. Obtaining more control is the expected behavior of those who come into power, shown through all of history.”
Hinton pretended to be the ‘gilded’ academician. Again he played the peoples’ advocate.
“Harry, that it is elemental to avoid corruption, have we not been, thus far, able to mitigate?”
“No, sir. And we never will be able to unless we effect the force of an over-whelming majority. The American political system has always been corrupted by money, but modern technology has enabled a logarithmic increase in the scale and efficiency of such corruption. It used to be said, ‘all politics is local’, but now it might be said that all politics is international. We stop the system from going south with the efforts of the majority, or we accept the status quo.
“Again, Harry. What would you have the citizens do? Are you espousing a revolution?”
“Nah, nothing like that. The voting booth, that’s the secret arsenal of America. Vote them turkies outa office.”
Harry paused, then openly posited a thought to his friend.
“Benny, how ‘bout us funding a voter’s rebellion? We’ll find some good candidates that can understand how to mitigate market manipulations by the power brokers.”
The mathematician lady from the Disruptive Technology Office entered the conversation when her blood-alcohol content reached that level where judgement is overridden by passions.
“Harry, do you not realize that half of all people are below average? Basic stats. The standard distribution does not lie. So half of people may not be able to cast an informed vote. How do we influence the half that is easily influenced by the charismatic sociopaths that run the market-makers?”
“Dunno, maybe we go back to the Hamiltonian principle for allowed voters?”
Dr Valasco was aghast at the thought.
“Landowners and men only? And the senate elects the president? Most would consider that to be elitist, Harry.”
Harry waved a piece of his empanada around as he made a point, answering the mathematician’s assertion.
“It is. But think in the context of the 18th century. Who were the landowners? Who were the business owners? They were the educated. The lawyers, doctors, proprietors, educators. Were they self-serving? Yep, they were. But their self-serving interests were ultimately to preserve and protect their market-place; that is, the American colonist. And remember that the senate of that era were not professional politicians. They were those same doctors, businessman, educators, shop owners, builders, farmers. They were the John Jays, the Robert Morris, the Joseph Warrens. This was the type of upper class that wants, and needs, a healthy middle-class. It is the type of upper class that does not exist in modern America.
“They were still elitists, Harry. All males of European descent.”
“They were. They were the peoples with the most to lose, yet they chose rebellion against the crown, which was their principle trade partner. If the rebellion had failed, the founders would have been in deep doo-doo, losing the total of their wealth, property, and status. It was the common man that had to be convinced to go to war against the king, not the elitist. Wanna know who the original elitists were? Educated land-owners such as Washington, Jefferson, Sherman, Randolph, Wythe, and Madison. And think about the behavior of these elites before and after the revolutionary war. Washington chose to not stay in power. Wythe fought public opinion and economic realities of the era to free his slaves after the war. Madison chose to defer to Jefferson, an intellectual that, at that time, had no real economic or political power. Adams chose Jefferson to write the most important document our country has ever produced. Many of our founders would find our modern corporate and political leaders to be foreign to their interests; the elites of 18th century America were NOT corporate moguls with big egos.”
The lady mathematician was not about to concede to Harry’s idealist version of America’s founders.
“And they were all slavers, Harry.”
“They were. If they had decided to nix slavery immediately after the Declaration of Independence, the southern states would have sided with the crown, and the south was less impacted by the crown’s new taxation.”
The mathematician shook her head in a forceful negation to Harry’s supposition.
“Sounds rather machiavellian to me, Harry.”
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