Forever Yours
©2025 Elder Road Books - Lynnwood WA
Chapter 52: Ask Alice
“WELL, HOW GOES the start of a new year?” Henry asked his development managers when they all returned to the office after the first. “Nathan?”
“We’re ready to deploy a perimeter around Page Services,” the retired general said. “The ISP hosts over 1,000 clients now and those clients are subject to as many as one hundred attempts to invade each day. So far, we’ve used Delphos installed on all servers to reject the attempts, but we only use the zero degree response. And we don’t use a strong counterattack. We simply disable the computer’s ability to access the box it has attacked.”
“What will the difference be when you deploy a perimeter?” Conrad asked.
“One of the reasons Delphos is set to such a low level of response is consideration for the companies being hosted. It is part of a basic tier service package and is a selling point for the ISP since it’s included with any hosting package. But the people at Page Services have to monitor all the boxes 24/7. That’s a huge commitment of personnel. With the perimeter guard posted, the attacks should never reach the servers. It will stop attacks outside the farm and require fewer people to monitor.”
“So, we’ll be putting how many people out of work?” Henry asked.
“We hope to not put any out of work. We’ll keep the service at the ISP, but move some of the personnel to the perimeter. As we deploy additional perimeter guards monitoring different companies, we’ll transfer existing personnel to the new system. The functionality is close enough to the same that we should be able to make transfers with minimal losses,” Nathan said. “The new system should stop attacks before they are ever detected by Delphos.”
“I’ll run it past the board for final approval at our meeting tomorrow,” Henry said. “We’ll plan on launching Monday. Conrad?”
“You created quite a wave with your ideas for limiting Forever Yours,” he said. “We’ve been brainstorming ideas every day and think we have a way scoped out that will work. The guys want to run a couple of sample tests and will be ready to float the whole plan to you Friday.”
“That’s good news. I’ll look forward to seeing it Friday. Include Nathan and Dale on the invitation. How about updates to the search and optimization tools?” Henry asked.
“Will do. For S and O, the upgrades should be ready on schedule near the first of March. They include better modularization of the pieces, so we won’t need to upgrade the entire package each time we have a new virus to combat. The AIs are doing a reasonable job of scrubbing new threats, but eventually, we need to give them better tools to work with. You’ve all seen the spec.”
“Okay. I’m good with this. Questions, anyone?” Henry asked, then moved the meeting along. He was of the opinion that the less time spent in meetings, the more productive his team would be. “Dale?” He turned to his former college advisor.
“The road paver project is proceeding as fast as we can expect it to at this stage. Right now, we’re focused on turning requirements into specifications. Even the developers and fabricators are getting impatient to start building instead of writing. The number of detailed drawings that need to be made to hand off to machinists is staggering. We’re preparing to create a mini version of the paver by printing the parts in 3D. I’m not talking about something as large as a sidewalk paver. This would simply follow instructions to pave a path about a foot wide. It’s too lightweight to cut through old pavement and reuse the materials, so it will need to be fed as it goes. It will be a good test of the requirements for the whole project. Still, that’s not going to be ready much before summer. By that time, we should also have a power cell that can fuel the miniature device. Negotiations on that front are going well and we’ve coordinated the design of the cell.”
“Are we testing the early development with an entry into the robotics race at the university?” Henry asked.
“Definitely. We’d love to enter the paver, but we’ll have an entry that follows the route and does minor alterations as it races.”
“Sounds like fun. Anything else?”
“One thing. The informal get-togethers we had over the past couple of months revealed some other possibilities. It’s having the desired effect of getting the software guys in synch with the hardware guys. One of the people on our software team found out about an experimental tech one of the designers at ARDC was working on. This isn’t protected IP,” Dale said. “It’s a garage project and we could do much worse than simply hiring the two guys to do the creation in-house here.”
“What are we talking about?”
“A kind of AI powered hologram. Farrel Scott is our developer and he started working with a brilliant guy from the ARDC team named Jason Wilson. Frankly, I think they’d both be more valuable working on this new project—completely housed under Open Cloak—than working on the joint paving project,” Dale said.
“Have the two of them prepare a proposal for next week. We’ll say Wednesday,” Henry said. “Be clear that they are presenting for possible acquisition, not a joint venture.”
“Will do. I think you’ll be amazed.”
Porcupine Perimeter Defense launched its first installation at Page Services on Monday. Attacks on the server farm clients dropped to zero at once. The new cyber defense system picked up the burden and they soon saw a reduction in the overall number of attacks directed at the server farm.
“What happened?” Henry asked Nathan when they spoke on the phone. Nathan was at the San Jose facility.
“Since the PPD is not attached to any of the ISP servers and does not reflect directly on any of its clients, we felt confident in increasing the level of severity of our response and bumping it to one degree of separation. As you know, that is typically enough to affect around ten or maybe a dozen connected computers in an attack,” Nathan said. “We saw that neutralizing any one attack on the perimeter would take out multiple attacks at the same time. We’d theorized that multiple servers were being attacked by the same group of hackers and they were getting back online soon after they were repelled because the level of response was light. PPD is eliminating all the attached computers in a single counterattack and it is taking much longer to get back online as they need to reconstruct their entire directory systems.”
“So, it not only consolidates the defense, but consolidates the counterattack as well!” Henry said. “Well done!”
“As soon as I’m back, I want to get a perimeter around all our in-house networks. I think we might face a new wave of hacking attacks because of the success of PPD.”
“I hear you. I’d like to rest a little easier at night.”
“I’ll stay out here a few days to monitor the system and record any fine tuning I think we need,” Nathan said. “Leanne is running diagnostics on traffic into the utility company. It looks like their company leaks like a sieve. It’s amazing how much consumer data is bled out of it. The sooner we get a wall around that company, the better.”
“Do you think other utility companies are as bad?” Henry asked.
“I fear the worst.”
“Well, let’s make getting this one inside a fortress a priority,” Henry said. “I’ll see you next week.”
On Wednesday, the board of directors met in the large conference room on the second floor, instead of in Luke’s office. The main order of business was to look at the proposed AI powered hologram. Farrel Scott introduced his co-developer, Jason Wilson.
“Okay, Farrel. The floor is yours. Show us what you’ve got,” Henry said. In addition to the board, Conrad, Darrel, and a couple of other senior developers were invited to the presentation.
“Thank you, boss. You all know Jason and I have been working on the paving team, but we discovered a common interest in holography. Currently, holograms are strictly recordings that are played back using a light interference pattern on a projection surface. The highest quality holograms are recorded and projected using lasers. What we have developed, using the same basic AI that drives Pythia Speaks, is a live hologram. It is not recorded, though for our research purposes, we’ve been recording interactions so we can review them later.
“Pythia Speaks is an AI service that handles over two million queries each day, worldwide. But Pythia lacks a visual presence for her oracular sayings. We’re not suggesting that should change. We recognize the decisions that went into that limitation. I’m only using her as an example of a service that does not depend on any physical contact with objects or people and which could have a visual and audio component.
“I’d like to introduce you to Alice,” Farrel said pointing to a mesh screen at the end of the conference table. A hologram of a woman’s head appeared there. “Say hello to the people, Alice.”
“Hello. I’m Alice: version alpha of an interactive hologram.”
“How old are you, Alice?” Farrel asked.
“I have not been assigned an age in human terms,” she said. “I was initially activated on December 22, 2029.”
“Alice, I’m going to let others ask you some questions. You won’t recognize the voices, so just continue to respond to the questions.”
“Okay, Farrel.”
“Henry? Would you like to interact with Alice?”
“Alice, whose face are we looking at?” Henry asked.
“I do not share your perspective in order to verify what you are looking at. If you are asking about me, I was created from recordings of Alice Scott, Farrel’s wife,” the hologram replied.
“What data are you accessing?” Henry asked.
“I was trained on the same wall as Pythia Speaks, but I can access additional data added by my creators.”
“What should I name my baby?” Isobel blurted out. She was in her eighth month now and just a week from her twenty-second birthday. There was always a note of panic in her voice.
“Names are very personal,” Alice said. “Perhaps you should ask yourself what you want your child’s name to mean and look up possibilities from there. Something will resonate with you.”
Isobel sat back unhappily. She and Luke had been discussing the naming issue at length.
“Alice, what good are you?” Chastity asked, causing Isobel to brighten a little.