The Human League

 

1. EMBRYO (2023)

It all started simply enough, as all ideas do. 

Terry Moorehouse had just received his Master's degree in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His major was, as most majors were these days, in Artificial Intelligence.

But Terry was not someone you would have pegged as any kind of geek. He was tall and handsome, with long dark hair and rimless glasses that made him look more like a shortsighted high-fashion model. 

Terry didn’t talk like your average young geek either. His grandmother, Olivia Moorehouse, had raised him after his parents, Stephen and Judith, were killed in a freak storm while they were sailing in the Atlantic off Martha’s Vineyard, where the family’s summer home was located. She tutored Terry on the essentials of having a sophisticated vocabulary.

‘People are lazy, Terrance.’ she would tell him, ‘They use a hip shorthand language that seldom actually communicates coherently. They think they are being cool, but in fact, they are cretins and part of the demise of intelligence in America.’

Terry always paid close attention to his grandmother. He instinctively understood that her degrees in history and philosophy had made her one of the more literate and intelligent people in his life. He was regularly intellectually challenged by her and took it as a matter of pride and devotion to always listen to what she had to say. Because, although there was a generation between them, Terry knew how wise his grandmother was. But more importantly, he respected it and had, at an early age, resigned himself to learn as much as he could from her.

Olivia Moorehouse was the head of the mid-sized Moorehouse empire, which included several textile mills all through New England, a large printing operation in Boston specializing in academic books, and a mid-sized digital marketing company that Olivia was steering into the twenty-first century. Terry was being groomed to take control of the digital wing of the Moorehouse business mansion. 

Olivia was quite young when she married David Moorehouse, who passed away at the age of fifty-four from a massive stroke, leaving her and young Terry, then only thirteen, to fend for themselves in the world and the entire Moorehouse business empire in her hands.

Terry and Olivia shared a large house in a gated community on the shoreside of Plymouth, about twenty miles south of Boston. Olivia had sold her Martha’s Vineyard house a few years back, citing too many memories that made her sad. She also sold her townhouse in Boston and commuted for a while. Then, Terry set up her computer at home, so she could run the entire company remotely. All through Terry’s high school, Olivia lived in the main house and Terry in the guest house. But they ate almost all their meals together. 

Olivia was an excellent business owner and trusted her management teams implicitly. She had never been any sort of social butterfly, and because she was an introspective person at heart, this quiet life suited her just fine. Over the years, she had become interested in and then obsessed with gardening, and spent most of her free time, in the good seasons, out tending to her plants and flowers.

She jogged a few miles along the shoreline every day, read a lot and spent at least an hour or two a day making sure that her businesses were running well.

~ 2 ~

One night in early August, at dinner, Olivia brought up the subject of what Terry would do with all his education. 

“You do have a whole digital marketing company in place that you could take over and shape any way you choose.” Olivia said.

“I know, Gram. My problem is that I’m not really sure just yet what I would turn it into.”

“Well, you do know a lot about the AI world. I should think that would be a good direction to take it.”

“That’s true enough. But I keep thinking about what one of my professors told me while I was doing my master's. He said ‘The key to success is learning how to zig when everybody else is zagging’. Right now, everybody and their uncle is trying like crazy to be the next big thing in AI. What they are completely ignoring is the astounding amount of human displacement all this new tech is going to create. It feels like that’s the last place I’d want to be. Because sooner or later the government is going to have to start laying down rules, and a lot of that boom is going to bust.”

Olivia just stared at him. If nothing else, she knew how bright and intuitive her grandson was. “So the question is how do you zig?” she said.
“Exactly,” Terry said. “And believe it or not, I have an idea about just how to do that. The only thing is that it’s not exactly…ethical.” 

They talked about Terry’s idea for another half hour or so, and by the end of it Olivia was convinced that not only was his idea a sound one, but it was also completely necessary, and that she could help make it happen.

For the next few weeks, Terry did a lot of research on disruption and formulated a battle plan. During his research, he came across the name of a person he had been at MIT with. He didn’t know her very well, but well enough, he figured, to reach out and invite her for coffee. The video article he saw with her mentioned had to do with the future of AI. She was one of several MIT grads interviewed. As he listened to the interview, he became intrigued and thought about how they had first met.

~ 3 ~

Shawna Lennox was one of the minority of women at MIT engaged in computer science. But she was more than enough of a nerd to hold her own in any conversation or tutorial. With long auburn hair, fashion-model facial features and a body to match, she was good-looking enough to command the attention of any gathering of nerds you could name. 

Terry and Shawna had had a few brief conversations, mostly on walks through the campus, and Terry was always impressed with her well-reasoned skepticism about AI and its place in the lives of the human race. This, he reasoned, would make her an ideal partner in the kind of company he was envisioning for Moorehouse Digital.

They met on a bright Tuesday afternoon at the Tatti Bakery and Cafe on Summer Street in Boston. They both ordered large lattes, the grabbed a table by the window.

“So,” Shawna said, “Have you figured out what you want to do with your life yet?”

“As a matter of fact,” Terry said. “I have, well, sort of. But first, I’d like to know about you. What are you doing?”

“Mostly just waiting. Sent out a lot of queries. But you know the megacorps. They always take their sweet time. So I’m mostly just hangin’ around the house. Messing around with a few ideas.” She took a sip of her latte. “Your turn.”

Terry took a deep breath. “Well, I don't know if you know this about me, but my grandmother is the CEO of Moorehouse Industries. Big in textiles, book printing, and digital marketing. The digital marketing business is smallish right now, mostly just managing websites, but it was given to me to run.”

“So are you offering me a job?”

“No, Shawna, actually, I’m suggesting a partnership. Something you and I can work together to build, with the resources I already have in place and whatever else we need.”

Shawna’s guard went up immediately. Nobody takes a newly minted graduate out for coffee and offers them a partnership in a going concern. She found herself shaking her head. “Why me? I mean, we knew each other in school, but not that well.”

“Call it a hunch. Call it intuition. But I think you and I want the same thing.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that, pray tell?”

“We both see the insanity that’s going on right now. And we both want to do something to at least slow it down or get it under control. You’re on the record in several places echoing that sentiment.”

That stopped Shawna in her tracks. This guy had East Coast aristocracy written all over him. He’s the last person she would have pegged as any sort of AI anarchist. She stared at him for the better part of a minute while she sipped her latte and the wheels in her formidable brain turned.

“I suppose you have some sort of plan in mind.” she said.

“As a matter of fact, I do. And I need someone like you to help me refine and actualize it.”

“And where would this all take place? I mean, you live down in Plymouth, right?”

“Yeah. And the business is there too.”

“So you’re asking me to move to Plymouth?”

“Or commute. The drive is not so bad. But I have a pretty massive house, you could live there.”

“So you’re not just offering me a job, you’re asking me to come live with you too.”

“No. I don’t live in the big house. I have a smaller house out back. My grandmother lives in the big house, and she would love to have the company.”

“How is it you have a big house with a smaller house in Plymouth?”

“When I was thirteen, I lost my parents in a boating accident. They left their entire estate to me. My Gram moved into the big house and stayed there. She runs her entire business out of there now. I sleep in the pool house out back.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about your folks.”

“Thanks.”

 Shawna said nothing for a while. 

“You know, Terry, I’m a little confused. You’re obviously a rich guy. Yet you sound like you’re really concerned about the world.” 

“When I was twenty-one, in my senior year at MIT, my trust fund became available to me.”

“How much, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Currently, a little over fifty-four million. With easy access to half of it.”

“Well, that explains the little house big house thing.”

“Look. I know this sounds weird. I’ve never tried to hire someone before, but my feeling, at the moment, is that you and I could really build something great.”

Shawna leaned back in her chair and thought about it. But not for too long. She wasn’t an impulsive person by nature. But there was something about this that intrigued her. She did a little math in her head, then said. 

“So how much is this partnership worth?” 

“Two hundred thousand a year guaranteed and twenty-five percent of any net profit we turn. The other twenty-five percent is mine and the remaining fifty percent belongs to my Gram.”

Shawna was floored, but worked really hard to keep a straight face. Two hundred thousand guaranteed was about twice what she would earn starting as a drone with any of the biggies. She stared at Terry, looking hard for some kind of chink in his emotional armour, but he was rock solid, as he sipped his latte and waited with the patience of Job.

“Okay, big boy. Drive me home. I’ll get packed and kiss my folks goodbye.”

And with that, they were off to try and give the dark side of the cyber world a black eye.

~ 4 ~

Olivia wasn’t at the house when they arrived. So Terry showed her around. Eventually, they ended up on the second floor, where Shawna was given her choice of bedrooms.

Then they hauled her bags up, and Terry left her to unpack and have a shower.

“My Gram has gone to a shareholder meeting in Boston. She’ll be back sometime tomorrow. Come down to the pool-house when you‘re hungry and I’ll take you to dinner.”

When she came down, Terry was sitting at a table beside the pool reading something on his Kindle.

She sat down beside him and looked out at the ocean. An hour later, they were sitting at a table in a restaurant called Martini’s in downtown Plymouth. Terry was drinking a beer, and Shawna was sipping a Long Island Iced Tea. 

“Your house is pretty amazing. Have you lived in it all your life?”

“Yeah. When I lost my parents, Gram sold her townhouse in Boston and came to live with me until I left for MIT. She commuted for a while, but then we had a chat and over Christmas that year, I set up and networked her computer to her businesses. It wasn't long before she got to love working remotely. Gave her a chance to spend more time in the garden in the warm months and more time to do other things in the cold ones.”

“She did everything I saw? I mean. It’s a showpiece.”

“Yep. She had a landscaper named Mel Thorpe, who helped her design the whole garden, but she takes care of it pretty much by herself. Gram is a very high achiever,” Terry said. “But what about you, Shawna?”

“Pretty ordinary by comparison. My mom is a public school teacher, and my dad works on the docks. He’s some kind of foreman. Spends his days loading and unloading ships. I have one brother, Shane, also a nerd. He fell in love with a girl from Canada and moved to Toronto. I got interested in computers watching him. He’s a wizard. World-class hacker, but doesn’t really take advantage of it. Just wanted to learn how to do it because he was curious. Guess I’m a lot like him in that regard.”

“So you’ve done some hacking.”

“Little bit. Just peeking though. No stealing. No sabotage.”

“How do you feel about hacking?”

“Well, it would depend on the reason.”

“How about saving the world?”

Shawna just laughed. Not too loud. But she definitely thought it was funny.

“Well, you’re gonna have to quantify that somehow, because that’s a pretty big statement.”

Terry leaned back in his chair. He took a deep breath. “Look. What we have starting in the AI world is kind of like a Wild West show. It’s a free-for-all. Everybody’s trying to carve out the biggest slice of the pie possible. And they’re doing it with absolutely no regard for the consequences.”

“I don't disagree.” Shawna replied. “The number of people who are eventually going to be displaced as a result of a lot of this stuff is staggering.”

“Right. And the reason this is going to happen is because governments all over the world are just sitting back and letting it happen. Because nobody’s lit a fire under their butts.”

Shawna stared at Terry for several seconds. “So are you talking about hacking the government, you know, to send them a message about how vulnerable they are? And using AI to do it?”

“Not quite. When my grandfather established this trust for me I was only about fourteen at the time. He told me that when I got older, I should use this money to do something good. Well, I’ve got fifty-four million and what I want to do is wake the government up. And if the US government wakes up, the rest of them will surely follow suit…at least that’s the theory.”  

“And you think we can do this, you and me?” 

“Yeah, I do with a little help from some friends.”

Just then the waiter came with their dinners. 

“Just think about it, Shawna. That’s all I’m asking.” Terry said. 

~ 5 ~

Later that night they sat at the table beside the pool. The air was cool and salty. They started to talk. And they talked until about one in the morning. 

The next afternoon, they went to the Rockland Trust Bank on Court Street and met with a lady named Gloria Rose, who was the personal banker for the Moorehouse family. She added Shawna to the payroll of Moorehouse Digital and arranged for a direct deposit to Shawna’s BankAmerica account in Boston. She slo issued Shawna a Moorehouse Visa Gold card.

They then walked down the street past all kinds of shops and restaurants. The street was bustling because it was summer and the town was filled with tourists and residents just enjoying the warm weather. As they walked, Shawna noticed that Court Street had changed to Main Street. They stopped at a large, beautiful white frame house on the corner of Brewster and Main.

They climbed onto the massive front porch and Terry used a thumb-print to open the front door. Inside was a small reception area, a wide staircase beside the partial wall of the reception area and a large open space, held up by pillars. There were eight multi-screen workstations, all manned by people Shawna and Terry’s age. 

“This is the bullpen where most of the day-to-day stuff gets done.’ Terry said. “These people are dealing with the three hundred-odd websites we maintain. There’s a green screen studio in the basement for shooting stills or making video.” 

They then climbed the stairs to the second floor, which was also an open lounge area with comfortable furniture and coffee tables. There was a line of glass-walled offices along two of the outside walls. At the far side was a large counter with a couple of coffee makers, two fridges, a stove, a microwave and cupboards. A couple of people were sitting at the counter, drinking coffee and looking at something on an iPad. 

A older lady, dressed in a stylish business suit walked out of the corner office. She and Terry hugged affectionately. Then Terry turned to Shawna and said. “Shawna Lennox, this is Jamie Goldman, she runs the joint.”

Shawna and Jamie shook hands.

“Welcome, Shawna.”

“Thank you. This is quite the going concern you have here. How many people in all?”

“Well, there’s the eight sloggers downstairs, who deal with website content, graphics and maintenance.” Jamie said. “There’s me, up here coordinating, I have two site designers and two app designers, but they work mostly at home. And we have three salespeople, who are on the road most of the time. Hence all the empty offices up here.”

“That’s quite an operation.” Shawna said.

“ Yeah, we try and have as much fun as we can. And keep the days contained to eight hours.”

“OK, so you and I,” Terry said to Shawna. “Will be working separately from the rest of Moorehouse Digital. Jamie has even given us our own small server, which we can cloak.”

“So Jamie knows what you’re planning.”

“Yeah, Jamie’s part of the family. She was Gram’s executive assistant in Boston and Gram gave her this company to run after she decided to be more hands-off. Jamie’s president. Gram is the CEO.”

“So what are you? I mean, what are we?”

“You can call yourself anything you want. Tell Jamie and she’ll put it on your business card. Mine just says, Head of Digital Innovation. That would be a good title for you too.”

Terry showed Shawna into one of the offices. There was a large desktop monitor and keyboard on a beautiful oak desk. Terry asked Shawna to sit at the desk. He reached over and activated the monitor. A small logo came up on the screen. Displaying the words ‘The Human League’.

“This is us.” Terry said.

Shawna smiled. Terry clicked on the logo and a page of text came up. 

“The Human League is dedicated to helping bring sanity to the digital future. Our mission is to create awareness, in governments around the world, of the threat that unbridled and unregulated AI development poses to humanity. We will do this with skill, cunning and in complete anonymity. The Human League will lobby governments to enact sensible and sane laws governing the use of AI.” 

Shawna looked up at Terry. “So this is more than just some idea you’re noodling.”

“A little bit. Yeah.”

Just then, a man entered the office. His name was Jackson Freeburgh. He looked to be cut from the same cloth as Terry, but about five years older. He was dressed in a beautifully tailored linen suit with a black T-shirt underneath. His hair was long and dark. His sunglasses were perched on his forehead. 

“Hey Cisco.” Jackson said.

“Hey Pancho.” Terry replied. 

The two men embraced. Then Terry turned to Shawna. “Shawna Lennox, this is Jackson Freeburgh. Jack is the third wheel in our little tricycle.”

Jackson shook hands with Shawna. “Wow, if you’re as smart as you are beautiful, we’ll be in great shape.”

Shawna looked completely puzzled.

“Jack is a lawyer. Harvard Law. He started his own intellectual property practice two years ago. Very well-versed in the AI community. Once we get the attention of the people we need to reach, Jack will do the talking. He knows his way around DC ‘cause his dad’s a Senator and he grew up there. Lots of solid connections. He won't just be our lawyer though. He will also be our writer and primary interface with the government.”

They moved to a small meeting room in the other corner of the house. Jamie Goldman joined them.

“Terry has briefed me fully and I’m totally on board.” Jackson said. He put his briefcase on the table, pulled out four sets of documents and distributed them. “These are non-disclosure agreements. They’ll keep us all safe from each other.”

They spent the next few minutes reading and signing documents, which Jackson then gathered up and put back in his briefcase. For the next few hours, they talked about the approach they would take. Jackson used the whiteboard on the wall to write it all out.

In a surprisingly short span of time, they had a plan of action, and everybody knew what to do. This was accomplished easily because all four people in the room only had one agenda and were all motivated by the same passion.

 After the meeting adjourned, Jackson took off, and Jamie headed downstairs to deal with some Moorehouse issues, leaving Terry and Shawna in the meeting room. 

“So now you’re in it, Shawna. Right up to your neck. How do you feel?”

“So far so good.’ Shawna replied. “Ask me again when the heat gets turned up.”

~ 6 ~

Olivia arrived home just in time for dinner, which Terry had ordered from Bark Barbecue. 

Half an hour later they were sitting in the dining room with a plate filled with ribs and baked potatoes and bowls of Caesar salad that Terry claimed was his only culinary capability.

“So we met with everybody today and figured out an action plan. You can look it over when you get a chance.” Terry said to Olivia.

“Are you happy with it?” Olivia asked.

Both Terry and Shawna nodded. 

“Well, then I guess we’re good to go. I will confirm it with the Senator and get you a time and place to meet.” 

The Senator in question was Virgil Roman, who was chairman of the communications committee and far and away the best target they could have picked. Olivia believed every bit as strongly as her grandson that a fire needed to be lit in Washington. So why not light it under the biggest tree? 

Shawna got to repeat her life story another time for Olivia, who marvelled at her determination. “You know it’s never been easy for a woman in this country.” Olivia said. “You have to fight tooth and nail for everything you get, and then you have to fight even harder to hold onto it.”

“I’ve always been pretty scrappy. So that doesn’t scare me. But I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t a bit frightened of getting caught.”

“Well, if you are as talented as Terry says you are, I don't think you need to worry about much. Besides, I don’t believe there’s a jury anywhere that would convict us of anything.”

“Well, let’s hope you’re right.” 

What Shawna then found out was that Olivia had already been to Washington and taken her old friend Virgil out to dinner. She knew that Virgil was not going to run for the Senate again and really liked the idea of going out with a bang. And this project suited him to a ’T’ on both the political and personal levels.

“The other thing that should allay your fear is that Jackson has already done some research on possible outcomes.” Terry said. “He figures that as long as we stay anonymous, nobody will come after us. Because the real target would be the Senator and what happens to him”

Shawna was floored. “You people have that much power?”

Olivia just smiled. “To quote the great Garth Brooks, ‘I’ve got friends in low places.’”

After hearing that, Shawna noticed that the little nagging voice in her head had gone silent. And for the first time since this whole thing started, she felt relaxed.

Three days later, Shawna and Terry drove to the Charles River Country Club, in West Boston, where Senator Roman had agreed to be videoed for the AI construct that they would produce. Before they entered the building, they both activated small digital cameras that hung on thin chains around their necks. This would allow them to video the entire setup process, which is something the Senator insisted on.

Senator Roman was a fit sixty-four years old. He reminded Terry of the golfer Jack Nicklaus, especially with his Lacoste shirt and dark slacks.

Senator Roman had reserved a private meeting room. He instructed his security people to stay outside while he did the interview. Terry and Shawna and their gear were thoroughly searched and then allowed to enter the room. Introductions were made and hands were shaken.

 As per the plan, the Senator changed into a suit jacket, white shirt and tie. Shawna set up a small set of lights and had the Senator sit in a chair at the table. On the wall behind him, Terry hung a green screen.

“Thank you for doing this, Senator.” Terry said. “If this works out, it will make your job of getting AI legislation passed that much easier.”

“I hear you, son. You know, I knew your folks. Met them at a fundraiser Olivia threw for me back when I was goin’ for my third term.”

“Oh yeah? I miss them a lot, sir.”

“They were good people, so you should be proud of them. You should also know that when my term is over next year, I’ll be settlin’ down in Plymouth. Found a nice house right in your neighbourhood. So I might show up for dinner some nights.”

Terry just smiled because he knew that the Senator and Olivia were much more than just old friends.

Once Shawna had the camera locked in place, she dug into her bag and pulled out three sheets of paper.

“Senator, I’d like you to read each short paragraph. Then speak it back to me looking at the camera. There are about three dozen short paragraphs. We’ll do a couple of different takes of each section. Just make them a little different each time.”

Gotcha.” The senator was no stranger to speaking from a script. He knew exactly what to do and exactly how to do it. “And that’s all you want me to do?” he asked.

“Yes sir. The paragraphs give us all the various words in the message you and Jackson have created and the sound recording will allow us to emulate your voice.”

“Goddamn, that’s pretty scary.”

“Yes, sir, it is.” Terry said. “That’s why we're doing this. When we’re finished you won’t be able to tell it wasn’t you.”

“And you’re stickin’ to the script young Jackson and I worked out, right?”

“Yes, sir. We’re just thrilled that you agreed to be part of this.”

“Well, something’s gotta happen. Maybe this will break the goddamn log jam.”  

“We hope so too, sir.”

They spent the better part of the next hour doing the lines, in both passive and aggressive voices. The Senator amazed them with his ability to look at the lines and play them back with ease and uncanny accuracy, and a good range of inflection.

Within an hour the Senator was shaking their hands and wishing them God’s speed. 

As they were packing up their gear, Shawna said. “Your family must have a lot of power. Getting a senior Senator to participate in something like this is no small feat.”

“I think he did this partially because he likes Gram. But also, if we pull this off, it’s gonna be the biggest crown jewel in his legacy and he knows it.. Hell, we might even get a whole chapter in his book.”

As they packed up, Shawna, who had been a loner pretty much all her life, genuinely felt she was part of something. It was a strange new feeling.  And it wasn’t even remotely unpleasant.

~ 7 ~

The next two weeks were a blur, as they worked to assemble the AI rendition of the Senator’s pronouncement. Shawna worked on digitizing the Senator's voice to the script that he and Jackson had written, and syncing it to his lip movements, then smoothing out any minor visual glitches and making slight corrections to the senator’s position. Terry drove to the Senator’s home in North Reading and photographed his study, which is where they would set the piece. Finally after thirteen days and almost as many nights they had what Shawna declared to be a fine cut.

They transferred it to an M-Peg file and sat down to watch the fruits of their labour.

The Senator’s AI-generated image and voice construct was flawless. All Shawna needed to do was insert the shot of the senator’s study behind his image.

“Good evening. As many of you already know

 I will be retiring at the end of my current term 

in office. But what you may not know is that I 

will retire a multimillionaire. The insider 

information that I have been privy to, as a 

result of the various committee positions 

I have held over the years, has enabled me 

to make a number of highly lucrative stock trades. 

These insider trades have allowed me 

to amass a fortune of more than sixty-three 

million. I am baring my soul because 

I can no longer live with the guilt. 

I would much rather face the legal 

consequences than carry this secret 

through my retirement. Thank you.”

When the video was done, Shawna and Terry looked at each other and realized they were now swimming in the deep end of the pool. They then drove up to Boston to show it to the Senator.

“My God, you kids are really something.” If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was the real thing.”

“Yes sir.”, Terry said. We’re quite happy with it. But, in truth, it was mostly Shawna’s effort and your effort that made it happen.”

“Well, this ought to really shake things up.”

“Yes sir. That's the whole idea.” Terry said. “And by the way, we are putting together the short piece on the making of this video. I’ll bring that to you once it’s finished.”

Sitting in the car in the Senator’s driveway, they talked about what they would do next. Terry’s thinking had changed somewhat. He was thinking it would be interesting to let this play out and see what would happen. He was convinced that America was a true ‘Everybody loves a winner’ country and he felt that there would be a ton of opportunity coming their way once people found out what they had done. 

But Shawna stuck to her guns. She was convinced that their identities needed to be kept totally secret. She was also convinced that, with the political state America was in at the moment, nothing good could come of anyone knowing that  they were participating in a hoax of this magnitude.

Terry thought about it for quite a while as they drove. He played through every negative scenario he could envision. And at the end of that little intellectual exercise, he came to realize that Shawna was right. 

Over the next couple of days, they finished the ‘How it was made’ video, disguising their voices and blurring their faces. They drove up to Boston and dropped it off with the Senator, who looked at it three or four times, then just smiled and thanked them for doing it.

“Just so you know, sir.” Terry said, “We have disguised our identities on the video for a reason. Shawna was concerned, and I agree, that while there wouldn’t be any legal issues, there might be any number of people who would be angered by our participation in it.”

“I can understand that, son. The worst it could possibly get in that regard is for you to have to testify before whatever committee is appointed to investigate this. I’m confident it won't come to that. And if it did it would definitely be a closed session. But these are crazy times and the people who control Congress right now are the craziest of them all.” 

~ 8 ~

That evening, they met up with Shawna’s parents Gary and Denise, at a place called Monument in Charlestown. Shawna told Terry it was their favourite place to eat on the rare occasions when they ate out. A lot of the dinner conversation had to do with sports, because Boston was one of America’s great sports meccas. Fortunately for Terry, his dad was a bit of a sports lover and took Terry to see the Red Sox and the Celtics quite often. Terry was not a hardcore fan. But like any resident of the Greater Boston area, he followed the ups and downs of all the major league teams and managed to fake a half-decent conversation with Gary. All Shawna’s mom wanted to be sure of was that her daughter was okay. Shawna assured her that she was taking good care of herself. 

Later that night, as they were driving back to Plymouth, Shawna said. “I think they felt like I was auditioning you.”

“So were you?” Terry asked. It was the first time the notion of anything romantic between them was in the air.

“I don’t know. But if I was, I’m pretty sure you passed.”

They rolled along quietly for several miles. Even though the notion of a romance was cryptic at best, they both started to realize that maybe there was something there.

~ 9 ~

Congress was not set to resume for another couple of weeks, so Shawna and Terry had a bit of time to decide what exactly they wanted to do with the resources they had at their disposal. But first things first, so they drove down to New York and did some shopping. 

Shawna’s wardrobe consisted mostly of different kinds of jeans and shirts. Her natural beauty made it easy for her to look great in anything she wore. But Terry had convinced her that she would also need something a little more business like. . Terry booked an appointment with a company called Watson Ellis on 8th Avenue in Greenwich Village. They specialized in dressing women for business and according to Olivia, they were the best.

They arrived in Manhattan in the late afternoon and checked into the Hilton Inn in Chelsea. From there they could easily find great places to eat and it was a short walk down to Watson Ellis. 

Shawna noticed that Terry seemed to know his way around this part of the city. He told her that his Gram brought him here whenever she came to get fitted for a new business suit. While she was doing that, and visiting some friends, Terry wandered around the whole area. He had thought it might be a great place to live when he finished school, but the more passion he developed for programming, the more he realized that living in a place like New York would be too much of a distraction. 

Shawna was more or less of the same mind, thinking about how much more relaxed she felt in Plymouth compared to Boston. And New York, well that made Boston look like a small town. From about the time they hit White Plains it was pretty much wall-to-wall high-density civilization. A far cry from the place where she was living at the moment. 

That night after dinner, they wandered around some more. They held hands, and both felt comfortable doing it. Even though they had only been together for five weeks, it felt, to both of them, like it had been a lot longer. They were very comfortable with each other and, even though Shawna would not say it out loud, she was falling in love. She only hoped that Terry felt the same way.

Their room had two double beds. When they got back, they watched a bit of TV, but neither of them were TV people, so they both lay down on their separate beds and read for a while. 

Then Shawna scooched over to the edge of the bed and sat up. 

“Terry.” she said, quite softly.

Terry looked up from his book. “Shawna.” And a few seconds later, he was sitting opposite her. Their knees were touching.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship.”

“Oh yeah. And what have you been thinking?”

“I’ve been thinking that…” Shawna paused, looking for the right collection of words. “I’ve been thinking that we should, I mean if you feel the same way, I think we should, you know, try each other out. To see if it could be something.”

Terry smiled. “It may surprise you, but I have been thinking exactly the same thing.”

Shawna smiled. They both got up and moved into each other arms. They kissed, gently at first, then more passionately. And they knew right then and there that it could, indeed, be something.

Shawna ended up choosing three business suits, a beautiful evening gown and half a dozen silk T-shirts to go with the suits or be worn with anything else, three pinstriped dress shirts, and a beautiful pair of medium heels. 

They stayed in New York for three days, just walking and shopping, like most other New Yorkers. On the fourth day, they picked up Shawna’s wardrobe and headed back north. 

The weather had turned quite warm, as it usually did in late August. So they left the pizza they had picked up at Zesto’s Deli and went for a swim. Then they warmed up the pizza and ate by the pool with Olivia. 

They told Olivia that they were a couple and Olivia just smiled. “Shawna you two were a couple from the minute you said yes in Boston.” she said. 

“Yeah,” Shawna replied. “You just might be right.”

They spent the rest of the evening watching old movies in the big house.

The next day, they drove over to the local Toyota dealership in Providence where Moorehouse Digital had leased a Prius hybrid for Shawna to use. They then drove back in separate cars. When they got home Terry rigged up the battery charger and they plugged in the Prius, They had some dinner and drove downtown to the agency. 

~ 10 ~

Jamie and Jackson were sitting in the meeting room when they got there. The TV was showing a frozen image of Anderson Cooper, sitting at a desk in front of a screen. 

When everybody was sitting down. Jamie took the remote. “This is about two hours old.”  She pressed play.

‘At two o’clock Eastern time, this video arrived at CNN, as well as the offices of all the major TV and news networks. And, it’s a bombshell. 

Senator Virgil Roman, from Massachusetts, has confessed to having made millions from insider trading during the four terms that he served as a Democratic senator.  The video you are about to see is shocking, to say the least.’

The video then began to play. 

After it was done, Anderson Cooper came back on the screen. ‘Attempts to reach the Senator have proven to be fruitless. So like everyone else, we’ll be waiting to find out the story behind this bizarre event.’

The camera pulled back to reveal three other people sitting across from Cooper. But Jamie paused it. 

“Wow,” Terry said after the video had finished playing. ‘You know it’s one thing to listen to this over and over while you are putting it together, but when you see it after a few days, out in the world. It tracks flawlessly.” He looked over at Shawna who was smiling.  

“It’s going to be quite interesting,” Shawna said. “To see what kind of reaction the Senator gets when he plays the ‘making of’ video.”

“Nice work on the scripting.” Terry said to Jackson.

“Thanks.” Jackson replied. “I was amazed that the Senator would want to take things to that extreme. But he insisted, as not so much a threat as a warning.”

“He’s a very dedicated man.” Jamie said. “I’ve known him for quite a few years and he’s the rarest of rarities in Washington.”

They talked about next steps. But none of that would happen until the fake was revealed and the wound was exposed. Jamie had gotten one of the downstairs kids, as she called them, to compile a list of the owners and principals of the top 100 companies working in the AI field. 

The plan was to send them an anonymous message as the creators of this video, and remind them of just how easy it would be to abuse the power they have at their disposal.

~ 11 ~

The press coverage was virtually non-stop as the story rolled out across the country. But it was the reaction in Washington that was the real story. It was hard to spin this because this sort of corruption was one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets and now here it was out in the open with a confession from one of the most respected politicians in the country. 

Terry started to wonder if the good Senator was working to kill two birds with one stone here. He also wondered if the Senator would be making more enemies than friends as a result of it. He just prayed that the fake political scandal wouldn’t overpower the intended purpose. Of course, it was all totally out of his hands now. All he could do was hope for the best.

In the car on the way back home, Shawna picked up on Terry’s mood. 

“A little postpartum depression?” she asked.

“Naa. Mostly just a bit of sadness that we have to go to such extremes to wake people up to something that should be obvious to everyone.”

“Well, let’s face it. Not everybody is a multi-millionaire at twenty-four. I’m sure as hell not one. So I understand that these AI people are just trying to chop as much wood as they can before winter comes and we’re out there trying like hell to make it snow.”

They drove on without talking. Then, after they had pulled up to the house. Terry said. “You’re right. About the chopping wood. I’ve never had to chop wood, not in my whole life. But that doesn’t get them a free pass. There has to be some accountability. There has to be a system in place. There have to be rules, otherwise, they will just keep chopping and chopping until there are no trees left. And, who knows, maybe thanks, in part, to what we’ve just done, there will be some accountability, some rules and a system that works.”

“All we can do is what we can do. And in my book, we have done quite a lot.” Shawna said.

~ 12 ~

Senator Roman was, of course, detained, questioned, released and advised to get himself a good lawyer. Three days later, the “How It Was Done” video was released from the untraceable server on the second floor of Moorehouse Digital. 

The circus that followed was unprecedented in the history of the country. The American people, tens of millions of whom had seen both videos, were now frighteningly aware of the power of AI and the dangers that abusing that power represented. 

When the Senate reconvened, Senator Roman was given the floor, and used every bit of passion he could summon to point out to his fellow Senators that there but for the grace of God…

The result was the formation of a key committee to create a legislative roadmap for the new digital age in America. The committee would work on the details of the proposed legislation, then tighten them up in consultation with the heads of a dozen of the major players in the AI sphere.

While that was going on, Senator Roman took a small delegation on a round-the-world junket to meet with the heads of state of thirty different countries to sell them on the idea of standards for AI development. The president assured him that he would offer any US support necessary to help them get organized.

PART 2 -BLOODHOUND (2024)

~ 13 ~

The scam was dead simple, as most effective scams usually are.

The idea was to take a porn film, the kinkier the better, and then use a simple program like Synthasia or Capwing to create an animation. There was no shortage of rich debs whose parents would pay a lot of money to keep their daughters’ fake sexual exploits from becoming public knowledge and likely ruining their lives forever.

The perpetrators were confident that, nine times out of ten, they would be believed and the blackmail would be successful. 

These particular bad actors were a couple of Virginia Tech seniors who saw the burgeoning AI market through the demented sensibilities of the criminal mind. Why bother getting a job somewhere and pulling in a lousy hundred and a quarter a year when the AI world offered so much more to those who were willing to participate in a little extortion?

This is exactly what Carlos Montoya and Gerald Freelander believed, as they set to work on their first project. A deb from high school whom they both hated and whose arrogance, they believed, was off the charts. So not only was there money to be made, but a lesson to be taught as well. 

Source material on Rebecca Tyson was easy to come by. She was very big on selfies and videos that she plastered all over her Facebook and Instagram pages, so the modelling was no problem. The other source material was also plentiful because pornography was one of America’s largest underground industries.

The idea came to them over beers and pizza at the Mellow Mushroom in Blacksburg, right around the corner from the first-floor flat they shared there. 

Both Montoya and Freelander were from well-to-do families. They were eventually expected to use their high-priced educations to further their families’ business interests. But they had other plans. If they pulled off this scam and several others like it, they would be sitting on a good chunk of money that they could use to develop their own AI software. Then they were talking about genuinely big bucks.

The only thing they didn't factor into all their grandiose plans was a small group of people in New England, AKA The Human League.

~ 14 ~

After Senator Roman’s fake AI scandal broke and was revealed for what it was, a committee was formed to draft legislation that would put controls on AI development, and the market took a bit of a dip. But after that, and while the legislation was being put together and turned into law, most companies involved in AI development re-doubled their efforts, in order to capture as much of the market as they could before the shit hit the fan.

At the same time, the underground economy of the AI world grew exponentially. Many young programmers reckoned that potential job or project market would shrink substantially, and their opportunities along with it. Many of them realized that in order to really make their fortunes they would sooner, rather than later, be forced to live outside the law or at the very least, dancing on the edge.

Carlos Montoya and Gerald Freelander had come to that realization as they followed the Senator Roman story, which was the event that got virtually everyone involved in AI thinking twice about the best way forward. Fortunately for them, they were not constrained by fear of punishment. In fact, they both relished the idea of beating the law at its own game. They believed they were smart enough to cover their tracks and vengeful enough to have a cavalier attitude toward any of the rich girls whose lives they could ruin.

So they got to work on the Rebecca Tyson project.

~ 15 ~

Terry and Shawna Lennox had settled into a nice, comfortable life in Plymouth. They toyed around with several different AI-based ideas, being careful not to make them exploitative. They also followed the news of the Committee for Cyber Security, as it was called, in Washington and were painfully aware of just how slowly things were moving.

One day, as they were driving home from Boston and dinner with Shawna’s parents, Shawna said. “You know. I have been thinking a lot about fakery lately.”

“Oh yeah. And what have you been thinking?” Terry asked.

“Well I’m thinking that between the two of us, we might just be smart enough to create a program that can detect AI-generated images and text. Just a little app that everybody could have on their computer that they could use when they see stuff, you know, on social media, or that gets sent to them, and know whether it’s real or not. I think something like that would be really useful. And maybe it would make it that much harder for this whole culture of scammers that’s emerging.”

“So do you have any idea how we could build an app like that?”

“Not right at the moment. But it would be really useful, wouldn’t it? And we could give it away. We could give it to computer companies and let them build it into their operating systems. Give it to governments and let them disseminate it to the general public. Give it to other countries too.”

Terry didn't say anything for quite some time. If nothing else, he was constantly in awe of the way Shawna’s mind worked. If she thought something needed to be done, she would ruminate on it until she saw a way to make it happen.

Finally, he said. “I think you might be onto something, my dear. But I’d have a serious issue with giving it away. There has to be some value attached to because…well because everybody knows there’s no such thing as a free anything.”

“Hmmm. Well, you are the operations guy. If you say we make money with it, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“Got a name for it, this app of yours?”

 Yes I do. The name is “Bloodhound.” Shawna said nothing for a moment because her brain was working. “Bloodhound. Sniffin’ out fakes.”

“Sniffin’ out fakes?” Terry just laughed. But after thinking about it for a minute or so. “That’s pretty good. Let’s talk to the kids about it, ‘cause you’re probably gonna need some help with that.”

~ 16 ~

The kids were the eight site management people and the four outsourced suppliers who worked for Moorehouse Digital. The next day they all assembled in the lounge area. 

The next morning, Terry, Shawna and Jackson Freeburgh were sitting on office chairs while everyone else was perched on or sitting on the couches and in easy chairs.

Terry got up. “Good morning everybody.” He said. “We want to talk to you about the going-forward direction for Moorehouse Digital. But before we can do that, we need each of you to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Because we can't have anything that you hear this morning go any further than this room. I’m afraid this has to be mandatory, and I hope everyone will sign.”

The next twenty minutes were spent handing out non-disclosure documents and Jackson answering questions, much to the satisfaction of the entire group, because everybody signed their agreements.

“OK.” Terry said. “Thank you. Now you’re probably all aware of the recent scandal involving Senator Roman and the AI hoax that he pulled in Washington. Well, that whole operation was engineered by Shawna, Jackson and myself.”

The group was silent.

“As you can well imagine, if word of this ever got out into the larger world, there could be people who might bear us some ill will. Which is why we had you sign the agreements. Going forward, we are planning to formalize a new division in the company called The Human League. We will send you our mission statement then sit down with each of you, and you can tell us a) if you think you can contribute to the group, and b) what, generally speaking, you could bring to the party in terms of specific skills and desires. 

“Our overarching goal is to do what we can to help mitigate the deluge of AI-produced scamming that has already started to take root in this country and other countries around the world. We are hoping to have the complete support of the current US government, specifically through the newly formed Cyber Security Department.

“Once we have gone through our interviews and assembled our team, we will hire new people to replace those of you who will be part of The Human League. Take a few days to think about this offer and decide whether you can make a contribution and what that could be. If you feel comfortable just doing what you are doing here, that’s alright too. We’re not looking to downsize in any way. But we do want people who are sincerely interested in working in AI. That’s it. Check your inboxes and then think hard about what you can do to help make The Human League work. Thanks.”

Nobody applauded. To a person, they were all a bit stunned. This was and would be, for some of them, a real sea change. But Terry knew it had to be done. Nobody was going to lose their jobs but, according to the 80/20 Rule That Governs Just About Everything, Terry knew he could end up with at least a couple of good people. And that’s all he needed at the present time.

~ 17 ~

One week later, the team, which included four of the current Moorehouse staff, was set, salaries agreed to, and offices filled. Terry handed the four new Human Leaguers over to Shawna, who would put them to work developing the Bloodhound program. Terry arranged with his lawyer to have $5 million of his trust fund capital transferred to a payroll account for The Human League. Jamie Goldman, who was General Manager of Moorehouse Digital, would also take the same role of for The Human League. This left Terry free to troubleshoot inside and network outside on behalf of the organization. 

Terry was just about to set off on the road to Washington when he got a call from Senator Roman.

“Terry, how are things going with your new venture?”

“I’m just getting ready to head down to Washington to follow up on some of the referrals you’ve given me.”

“That’s good. But listen, son. I was wondering if you would do something for me.”

“You name it, sir.”

“I have a personal friend who is in a bit of a situation. I think he could use your help.”

“What sort of situation are we talking about, sir?”

“It involves AI and, well, I think it would be better if you talk directly to him. I’ll text you his info.

 The name the Senator texted to Terry was Arthur Tyson, with an address in Stamford and a phone number. Terry did a Google search and discovered that Arthur Tyson was a real estate tycoon, with literally dozens of commercial and residential building projects up and down the eastern seaboard. Terry wondered about what kind of trouble someone like this could get into, and even though he was pretty young, he could imagine at least half a dozen things.

Shortly after that, Terry got in his car and headed south. He stopped for lunch in New Haven and then pressed on to Stamford to call Arthur Tyson. About two hours later, he pulled into the driveway of a large, modern-looking mansion. Arthur Tyson was sitting on the front steps when Terry arrived. He was smoking a small cigar. 

Arthur invited Terry to sit down with him while he finished his cigar.

“I’m not allowed to smoke in the house.” he said. 

“Never been a smoker myself.”

“I limit myself to two or three a day,” Arthur said. “But that’s not why you’re here.”

“I have to admit I’m a little in the dark about that.” Terry said.

“Well, you’re here because Virgil says you know your way around the AI world.”

“Okay.”

“Well, right now, as we speak, I am being blackmailed by some people who have used AI to basically create a pornographic film starring my daughter, Rebecca. They are demanding ten million or they will release the videos on Rebecca’s’ social media accounts. This will essentially ruin her life. I can afford to pay them, but what proof will I have that they have actually destroyed the footage? And what’s to keep them from coming back for more?”

Terry looked over at Arthur. He could easily see the pain that he was in. At the same time, he thought, this is the beginning of it. Everything he wanted The Human League to be was embodied in the look on this man’s face.

“Have you gone to the authorities about this?” Terry asked. 

“No. They warned me against doing that. I told them I need at least a week to get the money together. That was yesterday.”

“And how are they communicating with you?”

“By email. A Gmail account.”

“And they sent you some sort of sample?” 

“Yes. It’s in the computer in my study.”

“Let’s go have a look at it.”

They got up and entered the house. It was big and screamed money and taste.

“What’s your business, Mr Tyson?” Terry asked just to try and put him at ease, because he was obviously very upset.

“I build subdivisions and retail shopping malls. “Tyson Homes. I’m pretty much hands-off these days. I went public a few years ago and have been spending a lot of time here trying to write the great American novel.”

They walked into the study. Lots of books, lots of dark wood, a real man’s den. Arthur pulled a chair in beside his office chair. They both sat down and Arthur opened up a MacBook on his desk. He clicked on his email program and then opened an email from something called Armageddon2. 

Terry read the text and then clicked on the attachment. It was a masturbation scene. He could see right away that the head of the model had been created through an AI imaging program using what he assumed was Rebecca Tyson’s likeness. The clip was only about thirty seconds long, and to the untrained eye, it would be quite authentic-looking. 

But Terry’s eye was anything but untrained. He could see the slightest differences in skin tone. He magnified the head and shoulders portion of the video and as he did, he pointed out to Arthur the differences in skin tone and a couple of instances where the blending was less than ideal. As he played it again, he noticed that the fake voice-to-picture sync was also a little off here and there.

“These people are not high-end professionals. They’re probably students. A lot of what’s wrong with this video are rookie mistakes.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Well, it gives us something to work on. If you don’t have a problem with it, I’d like to send this to my partner in Plymouth. She can figure out a lot more about the origins of it than I can here.”

Arthur looked at Terry, then took a deep breath. “This can’t get out into the world, son.”

“And it won’t, sir. But it all comes down to you and me and the trust you need to have.”

“Well, you do come highly recommended.”

Terry moved the laptop over and entered Shawna’s email address and forwarded the email to her. He then called her.

“Hi Shawna. I’ve just emailed you a video. We’re trying to find out where it came from. OK. As few eyes as possible on this. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“My partner will figure this out. Now normally, the thing to do would be to contact the police in their area. But, if you do that there’s no guarantee that this video will not get leaked through the police department.

“So what would you suggest?”

“Well, if I can track these people down, I could probably get the original and any copies they have. I don't have a lot of experience with this, but I’m willing to try.”

“Yeah. The last thing I want is to get the police involved.”

“Okay well. Leave it with me. I’m pretty sure my partner can get me a location from what we’ve sent her and the G-mail address they used.

“How old are you, son?”

“Twenty-four, sir.”

“Where did you get all this experience?” 

Terry chuckled. “Mostly just logic, sir. Now there’s no guarantee that we can actually trace this, but you only get lucky if you try.”

“Well, let’s hope we get lucky.” 

“But if we don’t, I would advise you to do two things. One is to agree to pay them. And two is to call the police and tell them everything. Whatever you do, do not agree to do a wire transfer. Make them come and get it or you deliver it.”

“What happens if they don’t agree to that?”  

“I honestly don’t know, sir. But they would have to be crazy to have come this far and then back away. ”

“Well, let’s just hope your partner is as good as you think,”

“I’ll get back to you as soon as we have figured something out. By the way, how is your daughter taking all this?”

“She doesn’t know. Neither does her mother. They are both in England visiting relatives.”

The two men shook hands and Terry headed to his car and started back north.

~ 18 ~

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. This is how Shawna’s mind worked. So the first thing she did when she got the email Terry had sent her was to send an email to Armageddon2. She sent it from a dummy email account that one of her newbies, Jason, had created for her, under the name of Phillipa Desmond. The text read. Ariana. Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking for you for two weeks. Please email me back and let me know you made it back from Paris in one piece. Love, Phillippa. 

It sounded innocent enough and the Armageddon2 people would obviously see it as a mistake. The question was, would they be dumb enough to open the email and dumber still, to respond.

Shawna didn't have to wait long for her answer. Half an hour later a message showed up in her inbox.

Phillippa, this is to inform you that you have sent an email to the wrong address.

The email that Shawna sent was embedded with a small virus that she had created back at MIT. What it did was pinpoint the approximate geographic location of the emailer’s computer. But it could only be activated if the recipient opened the email. She called the virus Boomerang, and this was the first time she had used it for real.

Once she had the approximate location, she emailed the geographic coordinates to Terry, who was actually sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts on East Main Street in Stamford with a large coffee and an orange crueller in front of him. He punched in the coordinates on his Google maps and they showed him an area of Lynchburg close to the Virginia Tech Campus at the far right.

He then called Arthur Tyson. “Mr Tyson. We have traced the email to Lynchburg Virginia. It’s very close to the Virginia Tech campus. I’m gonna head down there and see if I can locate them beforehand.”

“OK, that makes sense. Where are you?”

“I’m still in Stamford.”

“Listen, please stop by on your way down there.”

Terry was only a few minutes away.  When he pulled up to the house, Arthur was sitting on the steps again. This time he had a small case beside him. Terry got out and joined him on the steps.

“I have no idea how you do what you do,” Arthur said. “But if you’re going down to Lynchburg by yourself, I would feel a lot better if you had some protection.” 

He picked up the case before him and opened it up. “This is an unregistered 9-millimetre Glock. I used to carry it with me for personal protection when I travelled up and down the coast. I don't expect you will need to use it. But it will provide you with a certain amount of persuasiveness if you should find these clowns.” Arthur said.

Terry took the gun out of the box and hefted it. “It’s a lot heavier than it looks.”

“ It’s pretty much all solid steel.” Arthur took the gun from Terry and showed him how to load the magazine and cock the gun. Then he put it back in the case and handed it to Terry. He also picked up a piece of black cloth. “If you do have to use it, wipe it down with this cloth and leave it behind.”

“Let’s hope it doesn't come to that.” Terry said.

“It probably won’t. But you never know about these things.”

The two men got to their feet and shook hands. 

“I’ll keep you posted.” Terry said as he headed for his car and the long ride down to Lynchburg, Virginia.

Terry thought about a lot of stuff while he was driving. He knew he was overstepping his mandate somewhat, but he didn’t have all that much faith in law enforcement, especially when it came to cybercrimes. It wasn't their fault. There was just no playbook for this sort of thing. Not yet.

On his way, he called Shawna and thanked her for the quick work. 

“We just got lucky. These are amateurs for sure. Probably Virginia Tech students. Pros would never have gotten back. They would have just shut down the email and created a new one.”

“Well, let’s hope I can ferret them out before they do anything we can’t undo.”

“This is where I tell you to call the Lynchburg local police. But I understand why you can’t do that.”

“I’ll nose around and see what I can find out. Maybe we can head this off at the pass. I really don't want this stuff getting used as evidence at any trial. That would be just as bad as if they released it like they’re planning.”

“OK. Just be careful down there.”

“I will.” But deep inside, Terry felt this was, if nothing else, a hell of an adventure.

Terry found a motel just north of Baltimore. The next morning he was up early, fuelled up with coffee at a local Starbucks and was back on the road. By the end of the day he had made it all the way to Lynchburg. He ate a light dinner from a local Tai place, found a nice motel and crashed out from his marathon drive. 

He called Shawna just to say hi. But he was pretty wrecked from all the driving so they didn’t talk for very long. Ten minutes later he was asleep.

~ 19 ~

The Virginia Tech campus was large. But so was MIT, and Terry knew just where to start searching for his blackmailer or blackmailers. It was late July and it was warm in Virginia, but there was a nice breeze, and it was pretty comfortable as Terry made the long walk from the parking lot to the Computer Sciences building. Though the spring semester was over, there were still quite a few kids hanging around. Terry was amazed at how much older than most of them he felt.  He entered one of the labs, where several of the terminals were occupied. In a small office off to the side, sat a man about ten years older than Terry. 

The tech world being still relatively small, he recognized the man from a lecture he had done on AI modelling at MIT. His name was Jakob Stern, and he was a Professor of Cybertech. 

Terry knocked on the glass door and Professor Stern quickly swivelled in his seat. He stared at Terry for a moment.

“Professor Stern.”

“Yes?” he said.

“My name is Terry Moorehouse.” We met a few years ago at MIT when you gave a lecture on AI Modelling.”

Stern chuckled. “So many lectures. So many faces. Who can keep track?” Then he got to his feet. “Come in, Mr. Moorehouse. Have seat,” he said motioning to the spare chair. “What can I do for you?”

“I have a company, Moorehouse Digital. We are specialized in investigating cybercrimes. One of our investigations has led us here to the Virginia Tech campus.”

“Big place. Lots of nerds to choose from.”

“Yeah, I know. But these nerds are trying to extort ten million dollars from one of my clients.”

Stern let out an almost involuntary “Ouch!” 

“No kidding,” Terry said. “So here I am hoping to get lucky, and get back the AI they are using to blackmail my client with.”

“So, basically, what are they doing?”

“They have built a model of my client’s daughter based on a female masturbation scene from some porn flick.”

“Oh my.”

“Indeed. My client is willing to pay the ransom, but he sent me to see if I could short-circuit the whole thing.”

“And just how do you ensure that?”

“Well, putting the fear of god into them will help. It may be just as simple as the fact that I was able to actually find them.” 

“Good point. How did you end up tracking them to Virginia Tech?”

“My partner, Shawna Lennox.”

Stern closed his eyes. Then he opened them and smiled. “Now her I remember. A very bright light. And gorgeous. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if she hadn’t invented some sort of tracking device. She was very big on that as I recall.” 

“That’s right. She’s my business partner and my other partner too.”

“You are a lucky dog, Mr. Moorehouse.”

“Yes, sir. I am. So what do you think? Any suspects spring to mind?”

Stern rubbed his palms together. Then he pivoted around to his computer. “Where is this girl from, Mr. Moorehouse?”

“Stamford, Connecticut.” Terry replied.

“And she went to high school where?”

“Umm, good question. He pulled out his phone and called Arthur Tyson and asked him the question.

“Stamford Academy.” Terry said

Stern scrolled down a list on his screen and then stopped and turned to look out into the lab. There at one of the corner desks sat Carlos Montoya and Gerald Freelander.

“See those two?” Stern said pointing to Montoya and Freelander. “Carlos Montoya and Gerald Freelander. Couple of rich boys from New England. Inseparable. Live together off campus. Never go anywhere without each other. I thought they might have been a gay couple but they’re just a couple of nerds, probably stuck together all through high school. I could see them catching a lot of grief there.”

“Let me guess. Stamford Academy?”

“Bingo.”

“Are they smart enough to pull something like this off?” Terry asked.

“Oh yeah. But they’re also…not exactly what I would call criminal minds. They might be motivated by something other than greed. Maybe revenge. Retribution. How old was your client’s daughter?”

“She would be about twenty-three. Just got her masters from Columbia. Looking to teach. A scandal like this would pretty much derail that.”

Stern swivelled in his seat. In a few clicks, he had their profiles on the screen. 

“Yeah  probably would have been a year or two behind your client’s daughter.”

Terry pulled a card out of his pocket. “Thanks for your help, professor. If you think of anything else, please feel free to give me a call.” 

Stern just nodded. “Good luck, son. Give my regards to Miss Lennox.”

Terry, who was working hard to contain his excitement, got up, shook hands with Professor Stern and quickly left the lab, keeping his eye on both Montoya and Freelander, imprinting their faces.

Terry waited on a bench outside the building. He called Arthur Tyson and, careful not to raise any hopes, he just told him that he had a strong lead. Terry then called Shawna and reported in.

An hour and a half later, Montoya and Freelander came out of the building and headed toward the parking lot. They got into a Mazda Miata and headed off toward the downtown core. Terry followed them as casually as he could. But they were so busy talking with each other that they didn’t notice.

They stopped at a taco place called OleTaco and Montoya jumped out of the car. A few minutes later he was back in the car with a bag full of food and they were off again. He tracked them to a street lined with four-plexes. They parked a little way down the street and then entered one of the first-floor flats. Terry made a note of the number of the house and then headed back to the taco place and picked up some dinner of his own.

 After he had eaten some very good tacos, he went back to the four-plex and parked across the street. He kept his eye on the front window and could see both of them clearly. They were eating and sitting, staring at a computer screen.

After a while, Terry got bored and got out of his car. He walked down the street to an alleyway and ended up at what he was sure was the back end of their flat.

There was a small deck with a screen door. He climbed onto the deck and peered through the door. All he could see was a kitchen and a long hallway. He retreated and went back to his car. He sat in the car for quite a while thinking through all the possibilities. He finally decided on a course of action. He got the gun out of his trunk and tucked it into the back of his jeans like he had seen in a movie. He climbed onto the front porch, and knocked on the door. Montoya opened the door. 

“Mr. Montoya?”

“Yeah.”

“We need to talk.”

“Who the hell are you?” 

Terry pulled the gun out of his jeans. “I’m the guy with the gun. Now back up.”

Montoya was petrified. He backed up into the large living room that was really just a computer nest. Freelander was sitting at one of the computer stations. 

Terry held up the gun and pointed it at Montoya. “Sit your ass down.”

Montoya complied. Terry perched on the arm of a sofa. “I work for Mr. Arthur Tyson. I believe you know who that is.”

“Sorry Mr…?” Montoya said. “Who is that?” But the fear on their faces, when he mentioned Tyson’s name, pretty much indicated that Terry was in the right place. 

Terry shook his head. “Jesus Christ. You guys had better start looking for good day jobs when you’re finished at VT, because you really don't have the right stuff to be criminals.”

Montoya and Freelander said nothing.

“So here’s the thing. You’re gonna give me your backup drive, Then you're gonna destroy anything and everything you have on Rebecca Tyson.  And I’m gonna watch you. And I will know that you have done it right. Because I am one of you. Then you’re gonna swear to me that you’re out of the extortion business. Then I’m gonna leave. I’m not gonna call the cops on you because, well, you’re both from wealthy families and you could probably buy your way out of anything they might charge you with. But if my client hears another peep out of you, I will come back and empty this gun into both of you. And if you split and hide. I will find you, just like I did this time. Are we clear?” 

They both nodded and Terry could see they were scared shitless. Terry thought he really must have a pretty good tough guy voice.

“Now get to work!”

And they did. They trashed and scrubbed everything to do with Rebecca Tyson. Terry watched them closely, and then took the remote hard drive and got to his feet. 

“Okay. You may have figured out by now that this is my business and so if I get another call from someone with the same problem as Mr. Tyson, I’ll be back.”

“How…how did you find us?” Montoya asked.

“Trade secret.” Terry said

Terry left and crossed the street. He climbed into his car and took a deep breath, then he slammed his hands down on the steering wheel and let out a loud whoop. As he drove away, he began to tremble a bit. But he did a little deep breathing and got himself under control. He grabbed a coffee and caught Highway 91 heading north. He found a motel in Harrisburg and crashed. But before he laid down, he called Arthur Tyson and told him he would be returning the gift the next day. Then he called Shawna, who was sitting by the pool and told her what had happened. 

“You can’t see me, but I’m smiling, babe. You’re a true warrior.”

He slept until almost ten the next morning.

~ 20 ~

Terry arrived at the Tyson house mid-afternoon. Tyson was once again sitting on the front steps of the house puffing on a small cigar. Beside him was a small duffel bag. 

Terry joined him on the steps. He handed him the case with the Glock in it. 

“Got lucky.” Terry said. “Didn’t have to shoot anybody.” 

“You think they’ll try again with someone else?”

“I don’t know, sir. People are crazy and times are strange.”

“Dylan?”

“Yes sir. My dad got me hooked at a very young age. Dylan always seems to make a lot of sense to me.”

“He makes sense to a lot of us.”

Arthur then handed Terry the small duffel bag. “There’s a million in there. You saved me ten. I figure it’s the least I can do.”

“Fair enough.” Terry said. He knew better than to argue with someone who wanted to show their gratitude.

He put the bag beside him. “We’re working on a piece of software that will make it easy for people to detect fakes like this. I’ll put this money to work speeding up the process.”

“You do that, son. You’re gonna have a huge market for it, because I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people in this country, and all over the world, that are getting fucked over by these little sociopaths.”

“Not just them, sir. Sooner or later it’s gonna end up in the hands of organized crime and then the shit is really gonna hit the fan.”

They got to their feet. Tyson shook Terry's hand. “I can’t thank you enough for this, Terry. My daughter will be a good teacher, and she’ll never know it, but she’ll have you to thank for that.”

“We’re all doing what we can, sir. Hope you finally write that great American novel.”

“You don’t have an app to help me with that, do you?” 

“Naa. Some things are better left to the human brain.”

Terry got into his car and headed home, with a million dollars in the back seat and a very good feeling about what he had just done. As he thought about it, he realized it took a lot for him to step outside his comfort zone the way he did. 

But now that he had done it, he kinda knew how.

The traffic was light all the way up 95. But it was a Saturday after all. He made it home to Plymouth by about 9 that night. Another heatwave had started. So he grabbed a beer, changed into his trunks and headed down to the pool. He kissed Shawna, who was sitting on the pool steps trying to stay cool. 

“Good trip?”

“Yeah. Genuinely satisfying. The client was grateful. Gave us a million dollars in cash.”

Shawna laughed out loud. “You’re kidding me.” 

“Nope. It’s sittin’ on the kitchen counter.”

“What are you gonna do with it?”

“I don’t know right now. The other thing I got was all the software those clowns used to make the fake video. I was thinking you could take a look at it and see if there’s anything that would be useful for the Bloodhound app.”

“Well, if nothing else, we’ll have somebody else’s finished product to analyze. That could be very helpful, I think.”

They sat side by side in the cool water, while the warm breeze blew in from the ocean. 

They talked about the future and where they could take The Human League. Because the only thing that had occurred to both of them was that what they were doing was going to be increasingly more necessary as the whole world started to embrace the kind of technology that could easily become part of a massive new white-collar crime wave.

Two weeks later, to the day, Shawna and her team all sat down in the small boardroom with Terry and Jamie Goldman.

Shawna flipped on the program on her computer and it projected onto the wall. 

A graphic appeared on the screen. It was an image of a mature Bloodhound with its distinctive colouring, He was in a field on the hunt. His short tail was erect. His nose was to the ground. A few seconds later, the word mark, Bloodhound, appeared. And beneath it the line: Sniffing Out Digital Fraud.

The scene then dissolved into a logo which was designed to look like a woodcut, very old school. They then ran the demo video where the Bloodhound was able to detail all the fake elements of several different AI constructs.

At the end of the demo, Shawna got up and said: “First of all, I want to thank my team, whose ability to get on board and up to speed was astounding. They got what I was trying to achieve and I believe I would still be messing around with this if I hadn’t had their input. We have a prototype that has been tested against a dozen AI formats. The kinks have been ironed out. There’s still more work to do, because new AI programs are appearing every day. But, right now, this will be effective against the top 12 programs for sure.”

“Everybody clapped and whistled as Shawna sat down and Terry got to his feet. 

“Shawna and I will be heading to Washington,” Terry said. “To meet with the Cyber Security Department, and recommend that the Bloodhound program be made available to every government department on every level. We will make the individual user and business app available in all the online stores, and we expect it to be a huge revenue generator. We are happy to give this to the government in exchange for the PR value that doing that will provide us. 

“We will be getting a ton of business from this, at least according to Senator Roman. So we’re gonna need to start staffing up. I will be recruiting from MIT and NYIT primarily. But if any of you have a friend who you think would be a strong addition to the team, let Jamie know. We’ll be starting our interviewing as soon as the applications start arriving. 

“I also just want to say how proud I am of everybody here. The Moorehousers who have kept the digital business flowing and growing and the Human Leaguers who have got us off to a hell of a start. But mostly I want to thank Shawna, who told me about this one night on a drive back from Boston. All I could think of was, man, I really made the right choice when I chose her.”

After the champagne and the backslapping and everybody had gone back to work, Terry sat in his office with Shawna.

“Well, it looks like we’re good to go.” Shawna said.

“Almost.” Terry said.

“Almost? What’s almost?”

“There’s one more step. It’s an acid test. But we have to go to New Jersey to get it done.”

“New Jersey?” Shawna asked. “What’s in New Jersey.”

“It’s a surprise. But you’ll like it. I guarantee.

Because Terry was a real measure twice, cut once kind of guy, he had one more thing to do before they would take it down to Washington and unleash the Bloodhound program on the world. And he knew that if it got the seal of approval from the folks he was planning to see, they would be away to the races. Because their weight in the digital world was considerable.

So the next morning, they packed up, got in the car and headed south.

 

PART 3. JACKPOT

~ 21 ~

The drive to New Jersey took pretty much the whole day. So they found a nice hotel, checked in and went looking around for something to eat.

Anchor 44, the group they were going to see, filled a large house on the New Jersey shore in an area called Asbury Park, which was made famous back in the day by Bruce Springsteen, whose first mega-successful album was titled ‘Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey’. 

Anchor 44 was primarily a think tank for the digital industry. A few years earlier they had partnered with a couple from Virginia Beach, Penny Jones and Deacon Fredericks, and developed one of the most successful AI business programs to date. Everybody involved with the project ended up getting extremely rich. 

Anchor 44 was four partners who had been together since their days at MIT, and for people like Terry and Shawna, Anchor 44 was everything that they wanted their little company to be. When Terry was at MIT, he became friends with a guy named Charlie Drake, who was the younger brother of one of the Anchor 44 partners, Damon Drake, and through that connection, he managed to wangle a meeting with the Anchors, as they were called.

Terry wanted to show them the demo of their Bloodhound app and see if they could poke any holes in it before they took it down to Washington and got the government involved. He also had something else in mind.

At dinner that night, Shawna was particularly quiet. 

“Are you alright?” Terry asked.

“Yeah. I’m…Terry, I really don't like surprises. I need to know who we’re going to see. I need to be mentally prepared.”

Terry to a sip of his drink. “When I was at MIT, I was friends with a guy named Charlie Drake.”

“I know Charlie. Not well, but he’s a very smart guy.”

“Yeah, well what you probably don't know is that Charlie’s older brother is a guy named Damon Drake. And Damon is partners with three other people in a little company called Anchor 44.”

Shawna said nothing for a few seconds, then realized she had forgotten to breathe. Then she took a deep breath. “The Anchor 44?”

“Yep. And my pal Charlie talked to his big brother Damon and got us a meeting to preview the Bloodhound program.”

“Holy shit. Anchor 44. Those guys are legendary. They’re all multi-millionaires from Lilliworx. I wrote a paper on Lilliworx and Anchor 44 in my senior year. I knew who Damon Drake was. But I never made the connection to Charlie.”

Terry just smiled. He could see how impressed Shawna was that he was able to engineer this opportunity.

She looked at him some more without saying anything.“We’re going to show it to them. Terry said, “And then, if they like it, we’re gonna suggest a partnership. Say sixty-forty. With their clout in the industry, we can open many doors.”

“I don’t know whether to kiss you or kick you. This is amazing but I’m so pissed you didn’t tell me sooner.” Shawna said

“The look on your face right now was worth it.” Terry replied.

~ 22 ~

It was a beautiful summer day in Ocean Grove. Across the street from the big frame house that held the Anchor 44 Group, the breeze blew in from the ocean and created substantial waves and the paradoxically soothing sound of crashing water. 

Damon Drake was sitting on the porch steps as Terry and Shawna walked up to the house and introduced themselves. Damon was about the same height as Terry, but he had the lean, wiry frame of a runner. High-end nerds were of two basic types. The kind that sat around all day munching on all manner of confection, and the opposite, the ones who ran or worked out or shot hoops while they were thinking. Terry pegged Damon for a runner. 

“I did a little research on you both after Charlie called me. The Senator Roman thing was a work of art. You should be very proud that it finally got the government off its ass and doing something about all the hucksters out there.”

“I’m not gonna ask you how you found out about that,” Terry said. “But that’s part of the reason we wanted to see you. Shawna has come up with something that could take a big bite out of that activity.”

“Well, alright. Come on in and meet the gang.”

While Shawna and Terry got their coffees together in the kitchen, Damon rounded up the crew. A few minutes later, they were all seated in the large back porch, which served as their boardroom.

“So this is the core of our company. Tina Marshall is from Toronto. Dimitri Yelovich, Istanbul. Joseph Lee, Tokyo. And finally,” Damon said, gesturing to one of the monitors, “Ray Conlin is our legal counsel. He’s in New York. Ray is our patent attorney, business coach, and a pretty shrewd financial guy.”

“OK. It’s great to meet you all.” Terry said. “I’m Terry Moorehouse from Plymouth Mass., and this is my partner in crime, Shawna Lennox. Our company is called The Human League, we have about six people at the moment, and we are getting ready to go to Washington to present this idea to the Committee For Cyber Security. If they buy into the program, the dam will bust open and this software will be made available to anyone who wants it. We’re hoping that it will turn into a pretty decent money-maker around the world. Why we're sitting here with you is that we both consider you to be the best people in the country to advise us on moving forward. We’re happy to pay for that advice. We would even be willing to partner with you if you’re at all interested in doing that. So that’s my piece. I’ll turn it over to Shawna because this is her baby.”

Shawna looked around the table. “You probably hear this a lot, but you guys are gods to people like Terry and me. So I am honoured that you would take the time to see us.” 

With that, Damon connected Shawna’s laptop to the large monitor and she went through the entire demo presentation that they had prepared for Senator Roman’s committee.

The demo only lasted a few minutes and included six examples of the analysis it would perform.Two each on text, stills and audio/video. Shawna was very confident about this, having rehearsed the hell out of herself in anticipation of going to Washington.

Shawna explained to them that the Bloodhound program was designed to be an app that worked in more or less the same way as Grammarly. It functioned by flagging indicators of plagiarized or fake material, in text, audio and visual formats. 

Its main strength was its Wikipedia interface and the speed with which it could find counterfeit data and graphics. She also explained that, her team back in Plymouth were working on adding substantially to the information database and the licensing required to use certain other databases.

The Anchors sat there and simply marvelled at the brain it would take to figure all this out and then do the lion’s share of the work to program it.

When she was finished, the Anchors all looked at each other, wide-eyed. Then Damon spoke. “Almost four years ago now, another couple about your ages, sat where you are and showed us an idea that ended up becoming not just the industry standard, but the beginning of a whole new category of Business AI.” 

“Penny Jones and Deacon Fredericks,” Shawna said. “I wrote my Masters paper on Lilliworx.”

“Well, they say that lightning never strikes twice in the same place.” Damon said. “But I think they were wrong. This could certainly be refined a bit and the database, of course, expanded ongoing, but kudos to you Shawna. This is really something special.”

It was all Shawna could do to keep from crying, after all the work she had put into developing this software without showing it to anyone but her team and Terry.

“Thank you,” was all she could muster and still keep her composure.

Then Terry said. “So the real questions are: What’s it worth? How much more work needs to be done. How do we get it out there? And, do you guys want to play?”

Damon looked at his partners. Then he turned to Terry and Shawna as the printer at the far end of the room came to life. Damon got up and retrieved several sheets from the printer. 

He handed one to everyone. “This is our standard non-disclosure agreement. We will all sign it, and you can leave us a copy of your prototype and we’ll analyze it and give you our recommendations and our decision within a week from today. But yes, we are very interested in what we saw.”

And with that, the agreements were signed. Shawna gave them a thumb drive with the program demo on it, and the meeting was over.” 

As they walked to the door, Damon said. “After our next meeting, to hopefully to go into business together, we should be able to do the rest of what needs to be done remotely, so we’re not spending valuable time on travel. AI has turned into a virus, and a program like this will be worth its weight in gold to anyone who uses a computer for almost any reason.” 

“Understood. That’s really the main reason we’re doing it. Profitability is just the icing on the cake.” Terry said. “And thanks for your interest. It means the world to us.”

“We’ll give this our top priority, guys. And thank you for thinking of us. This comes at a very good time for us as well.”

Terry and Shawna climbed into the car and took off. As they did, Shawna burst into tears. She was six different kinds of happy. Terry just smiled and held her hand pretty much all the way to New York City.

~ 23 ~

Charlie Drake was a younger version of his older brother, Damon. Terry and Shawna met him in the lounge of the Pierre Hotel, where they were staying on their way back home to New England.

Shawna could see that these two guys were tight. And as they told their stories she could see why. They were, indeed, kindred spirits. 

“So, New York, huh?” Terry said.

“Fish where the fish are, amigo’. Charlie said. “The incompetence here is just as great, if not greater, than anywhere else. So many fires to put out, so little time.”

“Terry has told me almost nothing about you, Charlie. What exactly do you do here?”

Charlie took a sip of his beer. “Misconception and willful ignorance, my dear Shawna, are everywhere. But in New York, it happens to be packed in tightly and most of it is within walking distance of my apartment. Right now, I’m doing a lot of course correction for businesses that thought they knew a lot about AI, but in actuality knew next to nothing. These folks have been sold a bill of goods by the new charlatan class. These are next-generation scammers. Most are just crooks who flunked out of the big tech schools but tell everybody they graduated because most people don’t bother checking education creds. You kinda are what you tell people you are. 

“Anyway, sooner, more often than later, these companies find themselves in a complete mess. I started early this year just cold calling big IT departments. I got almost every meeting I asked for because the little dweebs in these companies realized almost from the get-go that they were in way over their heads. So I held their hands, set them on the path to glory and sent them a whoppin’ big bill for my time, which they pay it almost instantly. In just six months, I’ve already sewn up training and troubleshooting contracts with a dozen companies and have my number on a couple dozen more rolodexes. Life is good thanks to the criminal element of the AI universe.”

“Whoa.” Shawna said. “I had no idea.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s not like they’re broadcasting it. These companies, they call them early adaptors, are really just greedy little American predators trying to maximize their profits and minimize their overhead. Simple greed economics and nobody does it like the good old USA.”

“So I guess offering you a well-paying job in an out-of-the-way place like Plymouth, would be an exercise in futility.”

Charlie just smiled. “I’m flattered, but…thanks but no thanks. Everybody’s got a tolerance for this city, and mine is pretty high. Maybe after a few years, when it all settles down and some rules get written into law.”

“At least let us take you out to dinner?” Shawna said. 

“I’d love it.”

They finished their drinks and headed down to 58th Street and then east to an Italian Restaurant called Serafina where Terry had reserved a table the night before. He knew that Charlie loved Italian food and always raved about Serafina.

As they walked along Charlie said. “You know, my brother called me the minute you guys left to tell me how pumped he was. He hasn’t been this excited since the Lilliworx days. I think they want to make you a partnership offer.”

“Yeah?” Terry said, pretending to be surprised. 

“Yeah, they’ll probably want 40% but they will cover off all the marketing, sales and service.” Charlie said. “They’ve got the best network in the country by a long shot. All really smart people. All reliable. Try and build a network like that yourselves you’ll go nuts. I know the Anchors almost did when they first started.”

Shawna said. “We were hoping they would like the program enough to want to partner up for that very reason.”

“If this goes the way of Lilliworx, you can look forward to a lot of travel. They don’t like being out in front. They’ll want you guys to do all that.” Charlie said.

They arrived at the restaurant and stood at the bar for about twenty minutes with another drink. Then they got their table and proceeded to get stuffed on veal scallopini and Valpolicella wine. 

As they said goodbye to Charlie, he said. “You know who might love to be part of your group is Kyle Jameson.”

“Kyle? I thought he was teaching?” Terry said.

“Naaa…we keep in touch. I think his tolerance for young idiots is all used up. I’ll text you his number.” 

~ 24 ~

The next day they headed back to New England. All the way back, they talked about their battle plan for the best-case scenario, which was a partnership with the Anchor 44 Group.

“Did you know that Deacon Fredericks wrote a book about the whole Lilliworx thing?” Shawna asked.

“I knew about Lilliworx,’ Terry said. “Charlie told me about it. I understood the programming. But that’s really all we talked about. He told me the lady who created it lived down in Virginia somewhere. But he never mentioned a book. Was it good?”

“Yeah. I read it as part of my Master’s research. It was quite thoughtful. They’re really and truly in love, Deacon and Penny. They had twins about a year after they sold the rights to Apple. They named the girl Lilli and the boy Daniel.

“That was a big deal sale. Biggest thing Apple had ever bought at the time.”

“Yeah, and Penny and Deacon created a huge foundation with the money they made.”

“You want to do something like that? I mean, if we get that big?” Terry asked.

“I don’t know what I want, Terry. But my dad always told me to keep my dreams to myself. That way if they don’t come true, you can always just say, oh well, it was just a dream. Let’s wait and see how this works out.”

~ 25 ~

They slept late the next morning because it was a Saturday. Shawna drove into the office to spend some alone time with the Bloodhound software, to double-check on any possible glitches before they, hopefully, brought the program down to Washington and to also do a security check on The Human League server.

It was then that she discovered the hack. Someone had sent Judy Stoneman, one of the Human League programmers, an email. It looked a little odd, so Shawna took it apart and sure enough found a small Trojan Horse embedded in it. The Horse would give the user access to any and all information that was on the server. It was hard to tell what, if anything, had been downloaded, but Shawna didn’t care. This was an invasion of privacy and she was totally pissed. 

Since very few people actually knew about the Bloodhound program, she realized that Judy Stoneman must have inadvertently, she hoped, opened the email and unleashed the hack.

Shawna called Judy and told her what had happened. She wanted to see her reaction and figure out if it was just a mistake or not. Judy was genuinely upset but Shawna calmed her down and told her she was on top of it.

‘Hacking a hacker,’ Shawna thought to herself, ‘Now that’s a bonehead move.’ 

Shawna spent the next half hour finding and then tracing the origin of the hacker’s email. She ended up with a location in Boston. She opened her Google Maps and saw that it was a row house in the north end of the city.

She then called Terry and explained what had happened. “Do you know any tough guys, guys that would put the fear of God into someone?”

Terry thought about it for a few seconds. “Sure. Artemus Briggs.”

“Call him, and ask him if he’s up for a trip to Boston.” 

~ 26 ~

Artemus Briggs was a childhood friend of Terry’s. They’d hung out all through high school. The Nerd and The Hulk was how they were known, because Artemus had a growth spurt that ended up turning him football big. Even at sixteen, nobody was gonna even think about messing with Artemus.

Artemus didn’t go on to college, because he had other plans. He became a bouncer for a local club in Providence, then he started dealing weed, which was on the cusp of being legalized. Arthur told Terry about his plan to open up a weed shop in Providence. He wanted to call it. ‘Ya Put Yer Weed In It.’ He remembered it from an old Mike Meyers movie called Wayne’s World. Terry loved the idea and loaned Artemus three hundred thousand to get started. 

Since then, Artemus had gone on to open stores in Brockton, Worcester and Marlborough. He was slowly and steadily paying Terry back. So when Terry called him and asked him if he’d be willing to trade the last thirty grand he owed Terry for a trip to Boston with him to just to be there, Artemus jumped at the chance.

On the way up to Boston, Terry told Artemus the story of the hackers from Virginia Tech. Arthur slapped him on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you, my son.” he said. 

“Yeah, well I kind of knew who I was dealing with. But this is a bit of a mystery.”

“Hackers are hackers, Terry. The reason they’re hackers is that they’re more like you than they are like me.”

“Good point.”

They got to the house around three in the afternoon. The neighbourhood was nothing to write home about.

“Good old Boston.” Artemus said. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

They knocked on the door. There was no answer, so they walked down the street and into the laneway behind the houses. They climbed up onto the back porch. They looked in the rear window and could see all the way through to the front of the house. They saw the computer screens glowing in the shaded front room.

“Oh yeah.” Artemus said. “Nerds live here.”

Artemus tried the door. It was locked. So he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather wallet. He extracted a couple of lock picks and went to work on the lock. Fifteen seconds later the lock clicked and in they went.

“I didn’t know you could pick locks.” Terry said.

“I have many hidden talents, grasshopper.”

Artemus kept an eye on the front door while Terry looked around on the computer. It didn’t take long for him to find the Bloodhound file and a bunch of other stuff he recognized. He deleted the files and emptied the trash. He then looked through the hard drive to see where this creep kept his hacking software. He finally found a folder labelled  HCK. He opened it and saw at least a dozen hacking applications. He trashed those as well. He then looked for a cloud server but it was password protected. 

Just then, the front door opened and a tall, thin man who looked to be in his early twenties came in carrying a bag of groceries. 

Artemus grabbed him with his vice-like hands, led him into the living room, then sat him down on a chair. 

“What’s your name, kid?” Terry said, trying out his tough guy voice again. 

The kid, and he was a kid, was petrified. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked.

“We’re the Better Business Bureau. And we’ve come to revoke your hacker’s licence.” Terry said. “Are you familiar with a program called Bloodhound?”

“Oh fuck.” the kid said.

“Oh fuck is right,” Terry said. “What do we call you? And no bullshit.”

“Josh. Josh Devlin.”

“Well, Josh,” Terry said, keeping his voice even and firm. “You have stepped in a pile of shit.”

“What are you gonna do?” Devlin was terrified.

“Me, I’m not gonna do anything.’ Terry said. “But all I have to do is say the word and my friend here will hit you harder than you have ever been hit before. And he will keep on hitting you until your little hacker brain is forever scrambled.”

Josh Devlin looked up at Artemus who smiled and nodded.

“So now,” Terry said, “You are going to give me the password to your cloud server and I’m going to put you out of business. You can start over again, and you probably will, but I would think twice about it, I really would, because we’re not that far away, Josh. And I would hate to see you turned into a vegetable. But at the same time, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it either.” 

Josh coughed up the cloud server password and Terry proceeded to delete everything there.

Terry went over to the computer with a fine-toothed comb and deleted everything he saw that could be dangerous or stolen, Terry then took one of Josh’s business cards from a little cardholder on the desk.

“Get a job, Josh. Use your skills to help people instead of ripping them off.”

A few seconds later they were crossing the street to Terry’s car.

 “Did you smell something funny?” Artemus asked. “I think he might have crapped his drawers.”

Terry just chuckled. 

“Where’d you learn all that tough guy talk, Terry?”

“Humphrey Bogart movies. Full of world-class tough guys.” Terry said as he started the car and pointed it toward Plymouth.

~ 27 ~

On Monday, Terry gathered everybody together and told them what had happened down in New Jersey. 

Then he said. “OK, going forward, regardless of the deal we make with Anchor 44, we need to start gearing our business to become more AI solutions-oriented with our own clients. We’re bringing in a guy I went to school with who is way ahead of the curve. His name is Kyle Jameson and he’ll work with each of you for a day, one on one, and give you all the basics. Then he will take over the AI operation for both Moorehouse Digital and The Human League. When the Anchor 44 deal goes through, Shawna and I will be hitting the road to sell Bloodhound in Washington and then nationally. 

“Now Kyle is a really good guy. Super nerdy, uber smart, but very user-friendly. He was running tutorials in his first year at MIT. I’ve hired him for a year, but if it works out, maybe he’ll sign on for longer. We’re gonna jump methodically into the AI world. And Kyle will make sure we all land on our feet.”

Terry answered questions, but there were only a few. Everybody was already starting, in their own ways, to figure out AI and how to use it, so with Kyle’s help, Terry figured he could have a super productive workforce in just a few months. 

After the announcement, Terry and Shawna met with Jamie Goldman and talked about finding a new place for The Human League to operate. That way, she could have room for the expansion that would hopefully materialize when the when things got completely up to speed.

Jamie was kind of relieved. “It really is starting to feel like a sardine can around here, “ She said. “I’ll call Beth.” Beth was Beth Slattery, was Jamie’s life partner and had been since Boston. She had been a ReMax agent in Boston, and when she got to Plymouth, she transitioned to her own private agency. Over the past few years, she had gotten to know the Plymouth area quite well. 

Beth showed up a couple of hours later and Terry and Shawna told her what they were looking for. She left after half an hour and promised to start sending them some ideas the next morning.

That evening, Terry and Shawna walked over to Senator Roman’s house, which was only a few blocks from their house. 

The Senator had retired from politics. His only Washington gig was as godfather to the Committee for Cyber Security, which he was able to do from home thanks to Shawna and Terry wiring him up after he moved in.

 Terry and Shawna shook hands with the Senator and hugged Olivia, who had been living with the Senator for a month now.

The Senator threw some steaks on the barbecue and then joined them at the table. The evening was cool. But they were all hardy northeasterners. A little cool weather didn’t bother them at all.

Shawna told them all about their trip down to New Jersey and their meeting with the Anchor 44 group. Olivia picked up on her excitement. 

“Anchor 44 is an interesting name for a company. How’d they come by that?” the Senator asked.

“Well, according to one of the partners,” Shawna said, “It was something they all came up with over a couple bottles of wine. In numerology, which I know nothing about, the number forty-four represents what Damon says is the inexhaustible potential that all human beings have. So that was the forty-four part. The Anchor part was added to always remind them to stay grounded and in control.” 

“That’s an interesting way to look at a lot of things.” the Senator said, as he got up to check on the steaks.

When the Senator came back to the table, Terry asked him how his book was going.

 “When I started writing it, I quickly came to realize how much we actually do in our lives and that the ability to remember even a fraction of it is something of a gift.”

“I write everything down in a journal on my computer.”  Shawna said. “I try to write in it every day, even on the days when nothing much actually happens?”

The Senator chuckled. “Kinda wish I had done the same. Be a lot less slave labour writin’ this memoir.”

Terry asked the Senator how the Committee For Cyber Security was doing. 

“You know Washington.’ The Senator said. “Have to kick and kiss a whole lot of ass to get anything done. But they’re plowin’ along, probably faster than usual because the horror stories are startin’ to mount up. It won’t be long before the Republicans start dialling up their usual bitching. Thank the Lord for a majority government.”

“Well, we’re moving our software release as quickly as we can. But we really need to make sure it will do all we think it will.” Terry said.

“The country’s weathered worse shitstorms than this, Terry.” the Senator said. “But you’re smart not to release it until you know it will do the job. And the government won't get behind anything that’s not totally idiot-proof.”

The Senator got up the tend to the steaks. Shawna got up and wandered around the yard sipping her wine.

“This is a good thing, you and the Senator?” Terry asked his grandmother.

“Oh yes. He’s got a pretty hard shell from all those years in D.C. But underneath it all, he’s a real human being.”

Terry leaned in and took his grandmother’s hands. “Well, I’m glad. You deserve all the happiness you can get.”

“We all do, dear.” And then she got to her feet and headed into the house to get the rest of the meal.

As they ate, Terry told them about the plan to relocate The Human League to their own space so that Moorehouse Digital would have room to expand.

Olivia just smiled. She had a good feeling about giving over the digital business to Terry, and he was proving her right with every move he made.

Terry could see that his grandmother was happy. He saw the way she looked at the Senator. Not like someone would look at a powerful political person, but the way someone would look at the person who completed them. He looked at Shawna that way. He knew the look and he understood the feeling.

~ 28 ~

The week flew by, as they packed up and moved the Human League operation to a house just three doors away from Moorehouse Digital. 

The Human League would have the entire first floor for their offices and part of the basement for their server. The second floor was occupied by a lady named Florence Chisholm, who was a historian and had authored several books on the history of New England. She also taught American History at Quincy College on the UMass campus, which was just a short drive away. 

Terry assured her that other than the occasional celebration, they were a pretty quiet group. Florence just chuckled because she knew that anyone under thirty in America was anything but quiet. But that didn’t bother her. She knew Olivia quite well, and she knew all about Terry too. 

Once they were all settled in their new offices, Terry got a call from Damon Drake. They arranged to meet up in three day’s time in Ocean Beach. 

The next day, Kyle Jameson showed up. He had a one-hour meeting with Terry and Shawna. He was introduced to The Human League people and then they walked up the street to Moorehouse Digital and met the rest of the peeps.

They then drove to Terry’s house and Terry offered Kyle the pool house to live in, which Kyle cheerfully accepted.

Kyle travelled light, computer-wise, like most geniuses, he worked almost exclusively from a high-end laptop, and a tablet which he took with him everywhere. Other than two full suitcases of clothes and runners, he was completely moved in within half an hour.

After dinner downtown they went to The Human League office and Terry got him to sign a non-disclosure, Shawna took him through the Bloodhound demo. 

“That’s pretty impressive, Shawna. And you built this yourself?” Kyle asked.

Shawna just smiled and nodded. 

“Well, I think you guys are gonna make out like bandits with this.”

“So tell me, Kyle,” Terry asked. “What do you think something like this would be worth? We’re trying to figure out a valuation. I’d really like your opinion.”

“It’s not so much the dollar value for the software,” Kyle said “As it is the costs incurred with setup, training, upgrading and troubleshooting that are gonna make this work. And then you have to factor in the size of the user company because that will determine a lot of things as well. In my opinion, you’re probably better off finding a business that needs it and going through the process with them. I would think that a group like Anchor 44 would likely see that as a logical first step. Then, of course, there’s the individual consumer market. Within a year from now, I think you will be seen as riding in on a white horse with this app.”

Kyle rubbed his brush-cut head. “Long and short. Let the Anchors deal with the B to B, and then just sell the app for, you know, twenty bucks on the app sites. The consumer market alone for this will make you tens, maybe even hundreds of millions. That’s the best I can do without more real-world info.”

Terry and Shawna had been thinking along the same lines. It was reassuring that someone they both respected was giving them more or less the same advice.

 “Also,” Kyle said, “If the Anchor 44 folks don't want to play, which I can’t see happening, I can put you in touch with a few people I know with the network capability to make this work. Not quite in the same league as Anchor 44, but then, nobody really is.”

While they were getting ready to head out on their trip south, Terry called his family lawyer, Angus Styles. Angus had grown up with Terry’s grandfather and managed all the personal and business affairs for the Moorehouse family. He gave Angus the Coles Notes version of the deal that they were trying to put together with Anchor 44. He also gave Angus Ray Conlin’s information and Angus told him he would be in touch with Mr Conlin, just as soon as a deal was agreed to.  

The next day, they packed their bags again and piled into the car. They were bound for the Jersey shore, leaving their company in the capable hands of Terry’s old pal, Kyle, who promised not to destroy anything, fire anyone or make anyone cry.

~ 29 ~

Things went pretty much as expected with Anchor 44. They had tweaked the copy of Shawna’s program to give it more of a user-friendly interface, which would make it easier for presenting Shawna loved it. They also told them they would set up a training model that could automatically transfer any offending material to a kind of  ‘prison,’ which would be a site where anyone could go and look at fake materials, especially programmers, writers and designers, who could then determine whether or not they wanted to sue the offenders. This was something that neither Terry nor Shawna had even thought about.

They presented a budget for the entire support program sales effort and marketing campaign. The entire cost for the first year of activity was close to six million. But they were more than amenable to a cost sharing/profit sharing split of 30/20/50. For their thirty the Anchors would include development of all training materials, sales management, and installer/trainer training for the B to B market. For the consumer market, they would be responsible for training manuals and video, sales management, customer helplines and troubleshooting. The twenty would be to cover employee salaries and freelancer fees . The fifty was the Human League’s. They spent an hour on the nuts and bolts. After that, Ray emailed the contract to Angus Styles, who reviewed it immediately and then called Terry and told him he was good to go. 

Half an hour later everybody was sitting around the big board table, drinking wine and talking. Both Terry and Shawna had to keep on reminding each other that this was really happening.

The next morning they woke up to the sound of waves crashing on beach below their room at the Ashbury Ocean Club. 

The Anchors wanted to put a presentation together for Shawna to leave with the Washington people, and so they found themselves with another couple of days to kill. 

They drove down to Atlantic City and walked around in the casinos, fascinated by all the noise and music. They walked the famous boardwalk from end to end. And they ate a little too much. Two days later, while they were heading back to Ocean Grove, Shawna said. “I kept looking at all those people in the casinos, you know, especially the ones playing the slots. After a while, it started to feel like we were in a bad movie. The people all seemed like robots, pulling the crank on those machines hoping for….I don’t know, some kind of miracle.”

Terry looked over at her. “In a way, that’s the beauty and the curse of this country. They sell you on the dream. They get you to go after it for all you’re worth. And then they just keep moving the goal line.”

“Yeah.” Shawna said and then leaned back in her seat and just watched the ocean.

~ 30 ~

Two days later they were sitting in a meeting room in the Capital with the six members of the Committee for Cyber Security. It was headed by a young Congressman named Tom Wheeler from Indiana.

Shawna hooked up her laptop to the projector and began taking the Committee through the program, slowly and methodically. She stuck closely to the script that she had worked out with Damon Drake. As she rolled through the presentation she was buoyed by the attention that everyone was paying. 

When she was finished. She simply sat down and shut off the projector. 

Then Terry spoke. “We have a partnership with a group called Anchor 44 up in New Jersey. They will be handling the B-to-B testing, marketing and sales. In fact, they are actually implementing this with a couple of the larger companies they work with. So we will get a lot of good learning from that. They are also fine-tuning and creating versions of an app that we will be selling through the Apple app store, the Microsoft Store, The Chrome web store, Softronic, Ninite, FileHippo and a number of others. 

“Our projections are that, within a year, if we push hard, we should be in slightly more than half the major businesses and about the same percentage of personal computers in this country.

“The main reason we are here today is because we want to provide this software to the government. Senator Roman believes that it will be, as he puts it, a shot in the arm for your Committee and a real concrete first step in getting some laws written to start protecting individuals and businesses from the onslaught of fakery that’s just getting underway.

“We don’t need the government on board to make this happen. But having you with us will help make it happen faster and bigger. And frankly, faster and bigger is what this country needs right now. 

“So here we are, in 2023, with probably the biggest single threat to our society that we have ever faced, with a solution. How good a solution this will be depends on its acceptance, and that acceptance will be helped along, to a great degree, by you and the automatic PR you generate through the news media. That’s it. That’s the whole enchilada.”

Tom Wheeler got to his feet. Then he clapped his hands. In a few seconds, everybody else was on their feet applauding as well. 

Thirty seconds later everybody sat back down.

“You know,” Tom Wheeler said. “When Senator Roman told me about you and what you were doing, my first thought was, how the hell are they gonna pull that off? And my second thought was, well, what’s in it for us? Seems like you answered both questions. We were hoping that someone would step up with a solution like this. Feels like the whole damn AI business community is obsessed with making as much money as they can as fast as they can, with little regard for any collateral damage they might create.

“So our answer is yes. We will take this forward and push it as far as we can. You get out there and build a consumer and business market for this and we’ll all end up smellin’ like a rose. Thank you for coming and giving us a very powerful weapon in our battle to get some serious protection into place.”

Hands were shaken all around and the meeting broke up. Terry and Shawna then spent some time with Harold Firestone, who introduced himself as the token nerd in the group. Harold would be the interface between the Anchors as well as the government and the AI community. He would also oversee the implementation and training of trainers in the government.

“I just want to say, I have been praying for something like this to happen ever since this committee was formed. So thanks for showin’ up.” Harold said. “This will lead to legislation, and the government will be seen as playing a huge part in cleaning up the AI world.”

~ 31 ~

The next year of their lives was spent on the road. Talk shows, podcasts, corporate trade shows, and Board of Directors meetings. They called it the Terry & Shawna Travelling Medicine Show. 

After almost exactly a year they stopped, and went back to Plymouth where Shawna got to work on the next generation of Bloodhound, because the revenue it was generating allowed them to hyper-expand their data

base.

Terry and Kyle Jameson worked on growth management planning for both Moorehouse Digital and The Human League. Kyle loved the work and so Terry and Shawna offered him an extremely lucrative contract to stay on and continue to manage both businesses. 

A few weeks after they had come off the road. They had dinner with Senator Roman and Olivia. 

The Senator brought out a bottle of champagne and poured everybody a glass.

“I found out today,” The Senator said, “That the Cyber Security legislation we have been working on for the past year, made it through the final hoops of fire and was signed off by the President. It will soon be the law of the land.” 

Terry and Shawna just sat there, dumbfounded.

“The wheels of government turn painfully slow,” the Senator said, “But the good news is that they do turn. So here’s to all of us for pushing as hard as we did. And here’s to the country that’s finally gonna be able to tame this AI beast. Hopefully, the rest of the world will follow suit.”

They all raised their glasses and drank a toast.

~ 32 ~

When the news got out about the Bloodhound program and the government’s rules implementation, the major computer companies made royalty agreements, through Anchor 44, to include Bloodhound in all new computer operating systems. Apple, of course, led the way in acceptance. The company did a massive advertising campaign to announce it. Soon after that, the rest of major computer companies all fell into lockstep.

The acceptance of Bloodhound, in both the consumer and business markets, was much higher than anticipated. So much so that several of the major tech schools created Bloodhound training and management courses. Within three years, only a small percentage of all the computers in operation in the US were not Bloodhound-equipped. And the majority of businesses had a Bloodhound expert/trainer on retainer.

Shawna was not interested in going back on the road, so she left that job to Terry. She stayed home and kept control of the business and her growing team, supervising the development of several beneficial AI ideas that had come to her while they were travelling. 

Terry was an excellent spokesperson for the company because he had the computer knowledge and the salesmanship in one package, so he stayed on the road for another year. 

After he came off the road, Terry looked long and hard and was finally able to clone himself three times over. These people were all program-savvy and had great sales personalities. They were thrilled to be part of one of the country’s great success stories. And off he sent them to England, Japan, and Europe to build the Bloodhound market worldwide. 

Terry then took a trip down to see the Anchors and negotiated a foreign language construction and distribution deal, which would be more of an equal partnership, that accounted for the salespeople and trainers in various languages. Terry was surprised at how well the Anchors knew their way around the world.

In each of the following two years, Shawna and the Anchors worked out two upgraded versions. And their market continued to grow. New profits for both years were in the sixty to seventy-five million dollar range. And because they had done such an effective job of selling through and cornering the market, they quite literally owned ninety percent of it.

One night, as they were driving back from Boston after dinner with Shawna’s parents, Shawna was unusually quiet. 

“What’s up, buttercup?” Terry asked.

“Ahhh, just thinkin’.”

“Oh oh. Dare I ask what you’re just thinkin’ about?”

“I’m thinkin’ about the environment.” Shawna said.

They drove on through the New England night and started to talk about it.

FIN