The Unexpected
Copyright© 2025 by Technocracy
Chapter 7
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 7 - "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
MIT, Cambridge, Ma - 19 April 1999
Benny exited from the UROP d-lab, emotionally exhausted from guiding and tutoring and mentoring undergrads. Seeing his bicycle, a brief positive surge came from finding his bike intact, and his two locks unmolested. As he stuffed the locks into his shoulder bag, movement brought Benny’s awareness up a notch. About ten meters to his right, two men were observed, their style of dress seemed to have been copied from ‘Men In Black’. He ignored the men as he mounted his bicycle, getting ready for his next Monday obligation.
“Mister Harrison. Could we have a few minutes?”
A mid-aged man had emerged from behind the two ‘Men In Black’. Benny’s immediate deduction was that they were, yet another, member of the numerous feds that infested the campus.
“Uh, I got another appointment in about fifteen minutes. Sorry, sir, gotta go.”
Benny backed his bike away as the two MIBs moved to block his path.
“Mister Harrison, I am David Briggs, Lincoln Laboratory Director.”
Benny had no idea why the big cheese for the Defense Department’s biggest pile of crap on campus would have an interest. Benny did not care that they had any interest.
“Uh, nothing personal, but not interested in you people. I don’t do any radar stuff, and I do not know anything about weapons systems design. Have to go, sir. I have several undergrads waiting.”
“We will get you there in time ... Captain, please get the cart and load Mister Harrison’s bike. Where are you going?”
Benny decided to play their stupid game, at least for a short while.
“Uh, building seven sir, top floor.”
“Yes, I love that building. What will you do there?”
Benny wondered why this high-level Defense Department official would be asking. He obviously knew where he had been for the last three hours, so he obviously would know where he was scheduled to be for the next two hours. But he continued to play their silly game.
“Teaching an undergrad seminar.”
“Ah, yes. That would be the statistical analysis workshop for sociology, and other humanities majors. Most impressive.”
Benny had no idea what was impressive about helping the idiot socio and psych majors with math. Benny found it to grate on his common sense, and insulting to his intellectual decency.
As the golf cart drove down the sidewalk, the three-piece exec started his spill.
“I have read your three published research papers and the two patent applications. And have noted that your incorporation includes all hard-science academics.”
“Uh, yes, sir. That is correct ... Doctor Briggs, just what do you want?”
“Good. To the point. We estimate that you are within two years of receiving your doctorate. We would like to finance a post-doc at a school of your choosing, and to provide your company with a Defense Procurement listing. The latter could be effective immediately.”
“Uh, interesting, sir. But I still do not know what we could do for the military.”
“Futurism, Mister Harrison. Mapping the future.”
“Does my thesis supervisor and does the school admin know about this?”
“I have the full support of President Vest and Provost Moses.”
It did not escape Benny that Doc Sorensen was not in the loop. Benny’s only possible conclusion was that the school was making another attempt to shanghai his IP.
“I do not understand the context of ‘futurism’. Nothing we do predicts any future, our research is intended to develop systems to monitor and analyze existing data.”
“The mathematical models that yourself and Mister Spoons have developed for measuring trade flow, is based on the orthogonal volume and value vectors. This is most interesting. You should know that there has been an increasing number of discussion on the meaning of your PDEs that support your second patent. We brought in a few physicists, all of which were surprised at the way you were able to map laminar flow deviations into the rate of change for trade volumes and values. Oh, and I should apologize for this in advance, but the body of your two patent applications have been removed from the PTO and further publishing will be disallowed.”
“They were freaking removed!?”
“Son, this is a national security issue.”
“Doctor Briggs. I would prefer not to discuss this further until I talk to my lawyer.”
Benny jumped off of the golf cart, his action an obvious expression of his displeasure. When the golf cart stopped, Benny removed his bike and started to pedal the short distance to the rear of building seven, until someone got vocal.
The, previously silent one of the two MIBs, shouted to Benny in strangely accented English of tortured diphthongs.
“Where does you going?! Come to back here!”
Rattled from the weirdness of the encounter, Benny stalled his progress and turned to look at the MIBs. Feeling disconnected from his sensibilities and realities, Benny dismounted the bicycle, and approached the two MIBs.
“Do you two people have federal identification?”
The shorter MIB pulled out his badge carrier, pushing the photo ID towards Benny’s face. The badge and the particular agency’s ID card was not known to Benny.
“So you people are federal-types? What is your purpose for being at MIT?”
The taller MIB, that had been addressed as ‘captain’ answered succinctly. Benny noted that this particular fed had not provided identification.
“DoD project security.”
“What is your name, sir?”
“Smith.”
Benny was taken by the incredulity of the whole scene; the name ‘Smith’ adding to the totality of the ridiculous factor. Benny was in a full fit of laughter as he replied.
“Smith? You people are incredible; quite literally...”
Benny arrested his laughter. Talking around the to MIBs, Benny addressed the Lincoln Lab director across the short distance to the golf cart.
“Doctor Briggs, it has been interesting, to say the least. As for these two, does Chief Zed know that they are moonlighting? Or did we have a recent bug crash onto campus?”
Benny tacked away from the three baffled men, not understanding the MIB allusion. Disappearing into the rear entrance of building 7, Benny was, strangely, looking forward to the normalcy of conducting another mind-numbing undergrad seminar session.
Building 7, MIT - 19 April 1999
Throughout the semester, the two diminutive young women had sat together, in front, seeming to never miss an equation or a single explanatory word emitted from Benny’s mouth. Of the eleven 2d and 3d-year undergrads, Benny believed that only these two would be able to put the ‘science’ into social science. One was Indian, the was other Chinese; and both spoke English better than most Americans, much to the amusement of Benny.
“ ... I still do not understand why we cannot say there is causality.”
Benny caught himself, as he had dozens of times, wanting to lead with, ‘Ah yes, grasshopper’. Probably because of the many times Harry Spoons had retorted with that same cliched phrase.
“Let us return to the original problem that was cited in your text book. To paraphrase, the text stated that probabilities are an attempt to make a rational argument for the calculations. But the data sequences are based on a premise. The stated conclusion can be accepted only if the premise has been proven, hence the rationale for calculation has merit. But what gives the methodology merit? How do we measure it? We have a causality dilemma; that is, the chicken and egg problem.”
Benny could see his two star pupils were not about to give up on their assertion. It was not an uncommon fallacy for a research scientist to be married to an ‘obvious’ solution, such that their research methodology had been bent to serve their purpose.
“For our purpose, a probability is simply a relative frequency within some reference class. The data class that we choose to count affects probability values. So unconditional probabilities, that is, those not explicitly within or correlated to the reference class are of no use.”
“But that is not the case, Benson. The probabilities did not reduce to a modal frequency.”
“Exactly, so the method did not represent the reference class. I have found that research data for most studies of the human psychology and society have a prior or posterior that cannot be computationally reduced to anything other than multi-modal. There may be broad indicators where N equals an order of the, let us say, sixth magnitude, where we have normal distribution...”
“Such as IQs?”
“Exactly. But few studies include greater than a second or third magnitude sample. In the end, The reference class problem is a common issue, such that relative probability assignments are not repeatable.”
“Benson, did you just dismiss the social sciences in toto?”
“If I did it was a Freudian slip.”
The group laughed at the irony, but Benson knew that the two women wanted The Secret to finding The Truth.
“I do not see that, Benson. If we must have an N of intractable size, then what about singular priors? Such as a firm Bayesian prior?”
“Just about all correlations can give rise to a relative frequency, hence a probability. But correlations that have no true causal relationships have no predictive value. Determining what the causal relationships are in a given situation is extremely difficult. The level of required research is never trivial. Otherwise there is room for an alternate hypotheses about the causation, which will yield a different value for any elemental probability.”
“But you did not address Bayes theorem.”
Benny reached for chalk as he turned to the small chalkboard.
“Quite true. Let us simplify Bayes’s theorem. Consider the version...”
Benny hoped that his Bayesian simplification was not too contrived, but he did not have the time to introduce Linear Algebra, set theory, Discrete Math, and other such complications. He scribbled across the center of the chalk board:
P(E) × P(H|E) = P(H) × P(E|H)
“This allows us to find the value of P(H|E), but in our degenerate case we have 0 times P(H|E), which equals whatever. So the equation does not allow us calculate P(H|E), which, loosely, means that we have zero probability for the event, making us unable to track and update our probability sequence for the reference set. Not to mention that dividing by zero is indeterminate.”
Benny hoped that he had not made his charges too despondent per the limitations of the mathematical tools available to their major. But he did want them to able to detect bad data and poor methodologies.
As Benny and the students packed their papers, the Indian girl boldly asked of her seminar instructor.
“Benson, I saw you talking to Doctor Briggs. Are you also doing research for the military?”
Benny recognized the concern in her voice.
“No. Never met the man before today. He wanted me and my research partner to work for him.”
“You would work on weapons?”
“No. My research has nothing to do with military stuff. I have no idea why they wanted to talk to me.”
“Doctor Timson says that they always steal the best of the engineering and the hard-science people. She also said that the school should not allow them to operate on campus. Why are they allowed to be here?”
Benny looked at the girl in disbelief of her naivete.
“The bottom line, Miss Satpathy. Regardless of MIT’s tax-exempt status, the school is a capitalistic endeavor. The Lincoln lab has been here since the dinosaurs; they bring in millions in R&D grants, much of which goes into the admin and the endowment ... Got to go.”
Benny exited through the front of building 7, then riding hard, directly to Harry’s place.
Cambridge, Ma - 19 April 1999
Doris Sotherly, Harry Spoons, and Harry were gathered around the kitchen table, talking to their legal counsel, Robert Northrup, with the phone on open speaker.
“ ... so there is nothing to do?”
“There certainly are channels to appeal such issues, but national security is a black box. That what can be seen, the administrative law and statue, is but a surface veneer. Much of their regulatory structure is hidden. For now, there is nothing to do ... Harry, how much will your thesis depend on the rationale for the patents?”
Harry shrugged to Benny as he answered the lawyer’s question.
“Some of the foundational math, but that has already been published in our three papers. The cat’s been outa the bag for some time.”
“That is good ... Benson, what about the third patent that I am working on?”
“Same situation as Harry, the equations have been out there for over two years. As for national security, it is not as if I have published the plans for a nuclear weapon.”
“Logically, I would agree. But there is no certitude when it comes to matters of national security. As I said, it is all a black box. In any case, I am uncertain as to the loss of income from future patent rights. We will have to re-run the financials.”
“Uh, about that, Robert. Wny don’t y’all wait a while for that stuff?”
“That would not be prudent, Harry.”
“Wanna tell him, Benny?”
“Not now. How about we have the gang over this weekend? An informal board meeting. I would prefer not to talk about any projections over the phone. Saturday at ten okay for you?”
“That is fine, Benson. Shall I send notifications?”
“No, sir. Definitely not. I will let all know within the next two days.”
“Understood. I will be there. Bye.”
As Harry hung the receiver, Doris alternated between Benny and her mate, projecting a firm stink-eye as she questioned the two men.
“What’s the big secret? Why the cloak and dagger for calling a special board meeting?”
Benny nodded an affirmative to Harry’s questioning gaze.
“Gonna be a crash next year, babe. Really freaking big, house-of-cards type of crash.”
Fresh off a Harvard economics degree, Doris’s thoughts were seperated between the traditional principles, and the new metrics of the market place that had been invented by Harry and his friend. Doris did not know that she had been holding her breath until she asked Harry.
“Why? Because of the slow change of rates?”
“It’s contributory, babe. But isn’t nearly the main theme of this dog and pony show. Ya been reading Krugman lately?”
“I have. You and Benny are basing all of this on Paul Krugman?”
“Just on Krugman? Not a chance, babe. We’re looking at real-world data in real-freaking-time. Think about the spreads, the capacities, and the utilization curves. Look at Qualcomm. Hell, look at those AOL clowns. Look at the build-out for comm infrastructure between the beltway and the rest of Virginia. Then look at the growth curves of the GDP compared to the NASDAQ PEs. Benny? Got the charts from our last run?”
“They are on your desk, Harry. You two economists can discuss this among yourselves. But I am going home. I will see you on Saturday, Doris.”
Needham, Ma - 10 July 1999
Lizzy stared into the computer monitor, not seeing the text of her source code, but listening to Benny and Andrea discuss her future. Lizzy knew that she had manipulated Benny, and she knew that Benny knew. Lizzy did not care, as she needed someone on her side.
“ ... she is your child, thus your decision.”
“When she is not sitting in front of that computer she’s at your place soldering stuff or sitting in front of your computers. Take a stand, Benny. Please, help me.”
Benny shrugged in resignation. Thinking ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’, Benny stepped into Lizzy’s bedroom doorway.
“Lizzy, come out here. State your case.”
Lizzy shifted uncomfortably while looking at the floor. Knowing Benny was right, that she would have to make her case.
“Mom, I have learned more from Benny and my two semesters of community college than my previous nine years in school. Like Benny said, our high school is behind the curve. So why don’t I take the GED, then study with Benny for about six months, then take the college advance placement tests?”
“You are avoiding people, meu anjo.”