Jakob The Terrorist

 

                                                                    ~ 1 ~

It’s always a number of things that lead you to the life you end up living. 

For Jakob Franklin, there was always something inside him that told him that no matter how materially wealthy he became, he always needed to understand that there were others who were not so lucky and that any way you could help them was more than just the right thing to do, but a moral obligation. 

His father Ike, short for Isaac, Franklin had built an empire from the mine to the factory floor, building high-end machine parts, based on fair play and a keen understanding of the market. Jakob admired the qualities that took his dad down the road to all the wealth he would inherit. 

His dad had passed along his work ethic and his attitude toward all the people he did business with from suppliers down to the lowliest of his workers. He paid them excellent wages and gave them significant bonuses. He paid his taxes and never looked for government handouts, although a lot of the parts the company manufactured were designed for military and law enforcement, as well as car companies. Ike figured if he couldn’t make it on his own, he was just in the wrong business.

All these traits and qualities he passed down to both Jakob and his sister. Her name was Lila and she used her skills and talented to become a teacher and later on, the head of the Franklin Academy, a private trades college with a curriculum based on the belief system of their father. They turned out small but powerful groups of individuals that would carry decency and empathy with them into their various management and entrepreneurial careers.

As Jakob looked around at the work ethic that was being taught in Universities all throughout America, he was distressed. Jakob himself was a graduate of Yale in business management and was expected to take the reins at Franklin Industries. And that’s just what he did for two whole years.

Then his life changed because his father passed away before his time from brain cancer. To Jakob this was both a tragic event and a sign. 

~ 2 ~

Jakob has spent a good deal of time with his father in the days before he passed on. They talked about a lot of things. When his father was lucid, he was brilliant. When he was weak, he hardly made any sense at all. But in one of the lucid hours they talked a lot about the business. 

“There will be a lot of competitive pressure on you to automate as much of the business as you can.” Ike told Jakob. “You must resist this temptation. Because we are a company of people. And the amount of displacement that will be caused by this automation will slowly ruin the economy of the entire country.”

“After I pass on, you will be given a confidential document by our lawyers. You will have a considerable fortune at your disposal and with that is the name of a man who will help by giving you the  tools and information you need to get started.”

Jakob had always paid attention to his father. And he was bound and determined to fulfill his father’s dying wish whatever that could possibly be. 

Three and a half weeks later, Ike Franklin went to sleep and never woke up. Jakob and Lila took care of all the funeral arrangements and the cremation. They were not crippled with grief because their father had been ill for quite some time and they were, if anything, relieved at his passing and that he did not suffer in his final days. 

Five days after the funeral at the family home in suburban Pittsburgh, Lila and Jakob and their families gathered for the reading of the will. Jakob was in his early forties with a wife, Elizabeth, and two children in their teens. Lila was unmarried but lived with a man named Terry Allworth who was a childhood friend. They had been living together for six years and had no children, but had plans to adopt. Terry Allworth was a mystery writer and screenwriter who had had several of his novels adapted to mini-series and made a very good living from his writing and the residuals that the small screen adaptations provided. Allworth was also extremely well-educated, with a degree in business administration.

Lila was a teacher and ran the Franklin Academy. Jakob’s second wife, Elizabeth was a housewife and socialite who spent a great deal of her free time time working on raising money through local charity events. 

The Franklins were well known in the Pittsburgh area because their businesses employed a few thousand people and their social conscience gave them the respect and love of the community.

After the will was read, the Franklin family lawyer, Gerald Jordan, handed Jakob a sealed envelope. Jakob knew what was inside it, which was his father’s dying wish, so he merely tucked it into his jacket and thanked Gerald for his long years of service to the family for taking care of all of the estate planning details.

There was a large group of people on hand for the funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh, including all the executives and their families from the various branches of the the Franklin Empire. After the ceremony, the coffin was shipped back to the Barrett Funeral home and Ike was cremated. The ashes were later delivered the next day to Jakob’s home in Cannonsburg, where the post-funeral gathering had assembled. 

The ashes would later be scattered into the Ohio River by Jakob and his sister. Their mother, Amelia, had been gone for ten years, and she too was floating down the river. Now their father would join her.

That night after everyone had left and the kids and Elizabeth were in bed, Jakob went into his study and opened the letter from his father. 

My dear son

If you are reading this, I have passed on. I can feel the onset of the dementia as I sit here and write this letter. So I won’t go into any of the details. There is no need for that. You will find out the entire plan soon enough. 

There is a man named Joseph Butler. He and I have known each each other for a number of years, and we have a lot in common even though he is much closer to your age than mine.

Joe is a scientist of sorts. I have been funding his research for several years with my own money, which you and your sister have inherited.

I know that young Phil Rossman has worked with you long enough that he can take over the corporation for whatever time is needed to do what I want you to do. I will not spell that out for you, because it’s better to be told than to commit anything to paper or computer. But Joe knows exactly what needs to be done and what’s even better is that I’m pretty sure he has developed the means to do it. 

This is a serious ask, Jakob. But if you turn it down I will understand.

Sincerely and will much love, dad.

Jakob folded up the letter and was about to put it back in the envelope when a business card fell out. There was a logo on it. A stylized BE. Beneath it was

Butler Electronics

Joseph Butler Prop.

There was an address and phone number. No website or email address.

Jakob slid the card into the corner of his desk blotter.

The next day he called the number.

“This is Joe.” Joe Butler said.

“Mr. Butler, this is Jakob Franklin.”

“So the old man has passed.”

“Yes sir, the funeral was yesterday.”

“He was a good man. My sincere condolences.”

“Thank you. He left me a letter with your card in it.”

“Then I guess we’d better get together so you can get up to speed.”

They arranged to meet at Butler’s lab in Greensburg in three day's time. 

On the morning of the third day, Jakob went to the office in downtown Pittsburgh. The office staff all offered their condolences, which Jakob gratefully accepted. He then went into his office and called his second in command, Phil Rossman. 

Rossman was a little taller than Jakob and they were lifelong friends and as close as they could be. They had run the corporation more or less together for the past year in his father’s absence.

Rossman was holding two large cups of Starbucks coffee. It was a tradition with them, whenever they had to meet to discuss something important. 

Phil handed Jakob his cup and sat down in one of the two chairs opposite him.

“I’ll get right to it. My dad left me a letter attached to his will. He wants me to do something. I don’t know exactly what it is, but this afternoon I’m going to meet a man named Joe Butler, who seems to. I don’t know how long this will take me or what it will involve But it was my dad’s dying wish. So in my absence, you’ll be the Kahuna, Phil.

Rossman just nodded and took a sip of his coffee. “This Butler guy. You have any idea what he does?”

“Something to do with electronics.”

“OK. I’ll take good care of everything. Just stay in touch.”

“I will.” Jakob said.

They spent the next hour discussing the business and making some final decisions about several adjustments down the responsibility ladder.

~ 3 ~

Joe Butler’s workshop took up about twelve hundred square feet in an industrial cluster on the east side of the small city of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. There was no sign on the front door just a number, so Jakob simply knocked.

“Come on in.” He heard a voice shout from the other side of the door. He opened and looked inside. The room was rectangular and one long wall was covered from floor to ceiling with shelving. There were tools and books, small machines, and electronic gizmos and piles of paper all neatly placed organized On the other side was a long work table and a man about Jakob’s age sitting on a stool. He was wearing white lab coat and had a round, cherubic-looking face. He was short and slightly balding. He got off the stool and walked over to Jakob. Beneath the lab coat, he wore a green golf shit and a well-worn pair of jeans. The Nikes on his feet looked fairly new.

“Joe Butler. And you must be Jakob.”

“I am.”

The two men shook hands and Butler took a small pile of books off the second stool and pushed them down the work table. 

“Coffee? I have very good coffee.” Butler said.

“Sure.” 

Joe walked over to a small fridge upon which sat a very expensive looking coffee machine.

“How do you like it?”

“Just a little milk.”

“A little milk was added and Joe walked back and handed the mug to Jakob.

“Thanks.” Jakob said.

“It’s a Costa Rican blend. Mild and a bit fruity”

Jakob took a sip of the coffee. “Wow. You’re right. It’s excellent.”

“Life is too short for shit coffee.” Joe said.

Jakob took another sip and then asked. “So how is it you came to know my dad?”

“Well first of all,” Joe said. “My sincere condolences again. He was a good man. One of the best I ever met.”

“Thank you.”

“We met at an electronics show in Pittsburgh. Probably four years ago now. We were standing at the same booth looking at one of the first advanced remote control drones and we got to talking. Then we went for a coffee. Crap coffee at trade shows. Then about…six months later, he showed up here with this idea he had.”

“Okay…” 

Joe just looked at him. “You don’t know anything at all about this.”

“No, Joe. I was hoping you would fill me in.”

“Okay. Well, the long and short of it is your dad was quite worried about the speed at which AI was going to damage the job market. In all truth, it was just getting started. But your dad, he was a visionary, and he believed that if it continued to grow at the rate he thought it would, we’d all be pretty much fucked.”

“I can’t disagree with that.” 

‘Good. Because that means you’re a sane person. So your dad spent a good deal of time with me that day. We talked about a lot of different ways to slow things down. He was, as you well know, really rich and he basically wrote me a blank cheque to come up with something that would…umm, sabotage, I guess would be the best word, these robotics companies, with an eye to moving onto other AI businesses later on.

“He basically bought me for last three years. We would have regular meetings and discussions about different approaches or attack modes. And then about, I don’t know, nine or ten months ago, I had a breakthrough. Unfortunately, that was right around the time your dad started to get sick. He called me and told me to keep working on it and that he would pass it along to his son, Jakob. And here you are.”

“Okay, so you have developed some sort of method for disrupting these companies.”

“Yeah. I’ve had the basic idea for about a year and a half. The big challenge was to build it so it would be compact enough to be unobtrusively planted in the offices of the companies that were replacing people with robots. Our basic research indicated that there are about three hundred or so major companies and another fifteen to twenty thousand smaller ones. That figure might even be larger today. But our thinking was that if we could disrupt enough of the larger ones, the PR from that would have a rebound throughout the business world and the smaller companies would shy away from it. And let’s face it. The small business market in this country employs nearly 80% of the workforce.

“By disruption, what exactly do you mean?” Jakob asked.

“Well,” Joe said. “AI machinery is programmable. All the programming sits in a computer somewhere inside the company. So for the past year and a half, I have been focused on disruption in the relay from the computer to the actual devices.”

“Okay. I understand that. But how do you go about doing that?” 

Joe laughed a little. “The funny thing is that, in retrospect, it really wasn’t all that hard to figure out. At least for me. Building it was another matter.”

Joe held up his finger then slipped off his stool he walked to the back of his space and opened the door to a closet. Inside there stood a robot. It was about six feet tall and appeared to be made of chrome. Joe then came back to his workbench. 

 “That’s Jerry.” Joes said. “My experimental robot. A pretty basic model. He was made by US Dynamics and cost me about two hundred grand which, of course, included the program that makes him go. Now, I have this program in my iPad. I’ve converted it to audio so that I can move Jerry around by voice command.”

 Joe then opened a shallow drawer and Jakob saw what looked like a couple dozen iPhones lying flat on the bottom. Joe took one of the devices, switched it on and an icon menu came up. At the bottom of the screen was an icon called Jerry. Joe opened the icon. The screen displayed an image of Joe’s robot. Then talking into his iPad, Joe activated the robot.

“Jerry, walk to the geometric centre of this space.”

The robot began to walk until he got about fifteen feet past them and then stopped.

“This device is a hell of a lot more powerful than it looks.” Picking up the device he had just turned on. “I have been able to use this to disrupt Jerry here via my iPad from as far away as a thousand yards.”

“What do you mean by disrupt him?”

Joe clicked on the Jerry icon on the iPhone-like device. 

“Jerry, turn to your left and walk two steps.” Joe said into the iPad. But instead of turning left Jerry turned right and knelt down.

“Jerry, get up and walk to the front door.” 

The robot got up walked for about ten feet then turned left and walked to the shelf on the far side of the space.”

“Now I can’t tell you what exactly they will do when they are given programmed commands with the disruptor working,” Joe said, “But what I will tell you is that they won’t do what they are told. You can mess with the programming or reboot it all you like, but as long as this disruptor is within a thousand yards of them and active, they will do anything but what they are commanded to do, which, of course, makes them flawed and useless.”

‘Okay, and it works with any program on any kind of robot?”

“Well that’s why you’re here. Because you are gonna help me find out.” Joe said. “This is what your dad wanted you to do. I’m gonna give you three of these devices. Then you’re going to use your corporate clout to visit three different companies who are already using robots on a large scale. The vast majority of these robots come from three different major manufacturers. I hacked the other two companies and got hold of their basic operating specs. I also checked these target businesses out and they all give tours to owners for C-level people from other companies.”

“Okay.”

“So you will bring one of these disruptors with you when  you visit, hide it, activate it and leave it.”

“What about security?” What happens if they happen to have an x-ray the device at their door?”

“Nothing. It will just look like a phone because that’s what it basically is.”

“You seem pretty confident about this, considering you have never tried it in the field.” Jakob said.

“Yeah, well that’s the tech wizard in me.” Joe replied. “We just need to get it activated in the companies with robots from the three biggest companies. Once you’re in the building it’s as easy as excusing yourself to use the washroom, then activating and hiding it either on the top side of a drop down ceiling panel or you can  attach it to the wall under one of the sinks.”

“And that’s it?” 

“I‘m hoping that long term, as we deploy more and more of these disruptors, it will create a combination of corproate distrust and bad PR once the word gets out that the tech isn’t up to the job. I’ve been in the corporate sector and bad shit spreads like wildfire.”

“What happens if somebody comes up with a way to beat your machine here?”

“Well, first they’d have to find it and take it apart. But there’s a self-destruct mechanism built into every disruptor. It’s activated automatically. If anyone tries to open up the device, it will burn the disruptor chip and make it impossible to analyze or reverse engineer.”

“How will you know if the devices worked?” Jacob asked.

Joe chuckled. “There is a whole network of people who support this kind of industrial sabotage. They have several sites on the dark web, where they keep track of all kinds of stuff. News like a full scale breakdown of automated machinery will be up on those sites pretty quickly.”

“You seem to have thought of everything, Joe.”

“Well your dad put up a lot of money. And I am one of those totally anal types who work on things till they are foolproof.”

Joe then taught Jakob how to activate the device and showed him the adhesive backing covered by a paper thin piece of plastic.

“So you go on the tour, excuse yourself at the end for a moment to go to the washroom. Then you activate and install the device and that’s it.”

“And what would happen once the robots go wonky?” Jakob asked.

“Well, hypothetically, some tech team from the company that made them comes out. They examines the robot and find nothing really wrong. They then uninstall their programming software and re-install new software. But they still won’t be able to figure out what the hell is wrong. So they takes one of the robots back to the factory and finds out they work perfectly.  Then they return it to the customer, and they start acting wonky again. This takes about a month, which, for the customer, is lost or at least diminished productivity because they then have to hire people to do the work. 

“Then they take all the units, test them and send them back to the customer with assurance that there is nothing wrong. Then, of course, the machines start fucking up again and a big argument ensues. Lawyers get involved and that, of course, bogs everything down even more. They then try another company or, hopefully they just write off their losses and start hiring back humans. But the net result is diminished faith in the technology and a serious caution for smaller businessses who are thinking about automating with robotocs. Pretty much the best we can do from outide.”

“What happens when they find the device, because I’m pretty sure they will search for it, at least I would.” 

“And even if they find the device, which they likely will, they now have a sense of how vulnerable they are. And maybe, if we get enough of this bad shit happening we can really fuck things up.”

Jakob picked up the device. “How is is powered?”

“It has a lithium power cell. When the device is active it will last a year or more.”

“And this all is your design?”

“Yeah. I’ve designed a number of tech products over the years. I hold patents for six of them which pays me about a quarter million a year give or take. But for the last three years I have been working full time for your dad.”

“How many of these units do you have?”

“At the moment, I have twenty-five. But I can get as many as you might need. I have a deal with a fabricator in Baltimore. He has no idea what they’re being used for. But fabricators, you know, the only questions they ask are ‘How many do you need and when do you need them?’ He also knows that I work on a lot of new tech and is always willing to sign a non-disclosure document, which I had him do.”

“So my job is to get into these companies, one way or another, and plant and activate one of these devices.”

“Yeah. A lot of them are really proud of their robotics. And since you are the head of a large company, you can easily get a tour. All you have to do is tell them that you’re interested in how they are working out.”

“And they won’t make the connection?”

“No, because there is a 48-hour delay. You’ll be long gone and forgotten by the time the shit hits the fan. So the likelihood that you being connected to any of this, goes from zero to less than one percent over a year.”

Joe then reached into another drawer and pulled out a sheet of fabric about eight inches square. 

“Before you leave the device, give the device a wipe with this cloth. It will eradicate any DNA and fingerprints, in case the device is accidentally discovered.” 

“So it simply has to be anywhere in the building?”

“Yeah.”

“And if I have to go through a scanner on the way in?”

“No big deal. An X-ray which most scanners are, will only reveal that it’s a phone. Nobody will think twice about it.”

Jakob and Joe spent another twenty minutes or so talking, mostly about his dad. 

 Jakob then left Joe Butler’s workshop with four things. A list of all the businesses Joe had deemed as likely prospects and their Robotics suppliers with the top three companies circled, a dozen of the disruptors, the wiping pad, and the knowledge of how to deploy them.

Fortunately, his job was simplified because these companies were all east of the Mississippi River, so he could drive to them all from his home.

~ 4 ~

When Joe Butler first told Jakob about this project, he was a bit skeptical about its ability to succeed. He wasn’t worried for himself because Butler had failsafed the project pretty well. He thought a lot about the AI world and how it very much seemed to be like a bull in a china shop. The fierce competition for the biggest share of a number of different markets felt more like cutthroat corporate greed than it did business competition. 

As Jakob drove home, he managed to convince himself that his dad and Joe Butler were absolutely right … that the AI industry needed to be taught a serious lesson. Not to mention the greedy business owners who bought into it with little to no regard for the amount of human displacement that this automation would cause. 

 By the time he got home, he was feeling pretty good about the project. And not just because he would be fulfilling his father’s dying wish, but because he was actually doing something he considered to be a positive in the world.

 Neither of the kids were home for dinner, when Jakob got home. They were both off in their own world with their friends. They only showed up to sleep.  So Jakob and Elizabeth, who preferred to be called Liz, decided to go out for dinner.

Their favourite restaurant was only a few blocks away. It was an Italian place called il Fornello. Once they were seated and had placed their order, Jakob started to explain everything to Liz, who listened in something resembling disbelief. 

“And this is what your dad wanted you to do?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I’m no lawyer, but this sounds to me like some pretty serious criminal activity.”

“It is. But the way that Joe Butler has set it up, it’s kind of foolproof.”

“And your dad and this Joe Butler have been working on this for about three years?”

Jakob just nodded.

“You know I can see you wanting to grant your dad his final wish. But this sounds little bit out there.”

“It does. And I think that’s why it just might work.”

“And you think that something like this can actually have an effect on the AI industry. I mean, it’s a giant you’re trying to slay, Jakob.”

Jakob took a sip of his beer. “I know. But honestly, hun, if we don’t try something or at least let these people know there is some opposition, it won’t be long before we’ll be forced into doing it ourselves, just to stay competitive.”

Liz didn’t say anything for a long time. They both just sat there looking at each other. Then Liz took a deep breath.

“You’re right.” she said. “I guess I’m just having trouble seeing how two people can damage an industry that big and that competitive. I mean, they are tech-based businesses, solving problems like this is part of what they do I assume.”

“I can’t argue with you there. So I guess we’ll find out just how effective they can be. But Joe Butler has a lot of faith in the fact that, at the very least, it will get people thinking twice about investing in this tech over people. But we’ll never know till we try. Maybe it will just be a drop in the bucket. But my dad believed in it enough to ask me to try, so I’m gonna try. If it fails, it fails. But the tech to do this has been created and it’s pretty powerful. So who knows?”

“Well I sure hope this doesn’t get you into some deep trouble.”

“I will do my best to avoid that.” Jakob said, but inside he was carrying just a tiny bit of fear. He told himself the fear was a good thing. That it would keep him on his toes and that could keep him out of trouble. 

That was the end of that conversation. They moved on to other things like where the kids were and Liz’s next charity event. Liz knew that no matter how much she objected to this in principle, Jakob was still going to do it. The best she could do was hope that he could come through it unscathed.

~5 ~

Jakob spent the next morning researching the first three companies on his list.

 Two were manufacturing businesses and was a one mail order distribution facility. All the companies were within driving distance of his home.

 The first manufacturing facility Jackson-Drew, was located on the outskirts of Baltimore, was involved with creating large store brand home appliances for companies like Sears, and various online retailers.

 The second company was called Delphi Equipment and it specialized in various types of trailers, from large automobile trailers to smaller heavy-duty work trailers, the kind favoured by yard maintenance companies and independent contractors. It was located in Roanoke, Virginia.

The distribution company, Jamison Distribution, located in Chicago, specialized in items for the home and their robots were mainly used for filling orders from their large warehouse floor which carried more than thirty thousand different items, everything from lighting to small furniture. This warehouse also supported several other smaller online businesses.

As luck would have it, all three of these companies were quite proud of their operations and were more than happy to offer Jakob the option of joining a group tour which each company offered on different days of the week.

He gave the PR person from each company his name and number and committed to a date. He spaced his visits far enough apart so he wouldn’t end up having to rush from one tour to the next, but managed to get them all within a nine day time frame.

Jakob left the following morning for Roanoke. Nine days later he returned from Chicago. Planting the devices had been a lot simpler than he thought and the operations went off without a hitch. When he returned from Chicago, he emailed Joe Butler to tell him the first three horses were in the corral, which was the code they had worked out.

Joe called him back within ten minutes.

“So it went well.” Joe said

“Yeah, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.” Jakob said.

Well so far so good. The dark websites have already started lighting up. As soon as the business press gets some hard information, this will play havoc with the robotics companies share prices.”

“But they’ll eventually figure things out I assume.”

“Sooner or later. Especially once the robot manufacturers get involved. Hell, one of the companies may even call the FBI.”

“And nobody’s thought to search the premises to see if something might be causing this?”

“ Not so far. And  yes, I’m as surprised as you are, my friend.”

“So what do I do now? Jakob asked.

“You go back to work like it’s business as usual.” You’ll probably be getting some calls from the robotics companies as a result of your visits.  Just tell them you’re interested but not ready just yet.” Joe said.

It didn’t take long before all three companies that Jakob and Joe had targeted exploded into chaos. And the activity that followed was almost exactly as Joe had predicted. Almost. 

The one difference is that the CEO of Delphi Equipment, Richard Federman, had the presence of mind to make a call to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, while his management people disconnected the 30 robots and started frantically calling back displaced employees. Because the work had to go on.

His call was forwarded to Special Agent Robin Pierce, whose expertise in cybercrimes was world class, but whose division was really just her and three other reformed hackers. 

She drove down to Roanoke the next day and was shown into Federman’s office right away. Federman had assembled his two computer people, his warehouse floor manager and his small crew of checkers and they told her the story of how, all of a sudden the robots in the warehouse had all gone nuts. They would not respond to any programming commands other than a shutdown. They scoured their computers and then got in touch with the manufacturer who was sending someone from their head office in Wisconsin. They knew they had been sabotaged, but they had no idea how it was accomplished. There was nothing in the way of a hack that entered their computers that they could see. With every minute the robots were inoperable they were losing money and so their customers would be losing patience.

The situation as they described it to Robin was unique in her experience. The robots had been set up to respond to commands and routines from two of the company’s own computers that had been thoroughly tested by the vendor company’s installation team. 

‘Well,” Robin said, “From everything you told me, this is the result of some outside interference, as opposed to any internal corruption or hacking, since you have no evidence of either one. I would suggest that you search the entire building and see if you can find anything, a little black box or some other kind of device that you don’t recognize. Other than someone sitting outside your building with a disruption device, I’d say that it may well be that someone planted it at  some point.

“Put yourself in the position of the saboteur. If you had a device that was capable of taking control of your bots, where would you hide it?”

She then turned to Federman. “Can your secretary or PR person provide me with a list of people who have visited your plant in say the last couple of weeks?”

Federman nodded and picked up his phone. The techs and the managers got up and organized a search of the entire building.

Robin sat in one of the several empty offices above the warehouse floor. She watched about thirty people, mostly ex-employees who had been called back into work to keep the business from collapsing. She thought a lot about the kind of person who would organize a crime like this. Looking for motive was the first step and seeing all the human beings rushing around on the floor below her, made her think that it could have been any one of them. What would happen to them when this case was resolved? The robots would all be activated again, and the people below would go back searching for work in an ever dwindling job market. 

Her thoughts about this being revenge were countered by the simple fact that there was some pretty high end technology at work here. it was highly unlikely that any of these people would have the technical capability to pull off a full scale disruption of robotic services. No, it would have to be someone higher up the tech food chain. A lot higher in fact. It would have to be someone or some group with a lot of money to spend on having a powerful device developed that could override and cripple a whole squad of very expensive robots. Was it someone with a personal axe to grind? Was it a terrorist group of some kind? Or was it someone who looked at the rapid advancement of robot technology, saw the inherent danger, and was out to discredit the robot makers by demonstrating just how vulnerable their wonderful machinery was? Or maybe it was a combination of all three.

Two and a half hours later, one of the techs walked into the office where Robin was sitting. 

“You need to come with me, agent. I think we’ve found something. I didn’t want to touch it, you know, DNA and fingerprints.”

The tech led Robin to a washroom adjacent to the main entrance.

He opened one of the toilet stalls. Robin pulled a pair of thin rubber gloves from her bag and put them on. She climbed up onto the toilet seat. One of the ceiling panels had been removed and she was tall enough to see the object, sitting on the next ceiling panel. She reached for it and took out carefully by holding it at the side with her finger and thumb. She then dropped the object, which looked like a slightly thicker version of a cell phone, into a plastic evidence bag, and stepped back off the toilet seat.

She put the device down on the counter next to the sink and looked at it. “It appears to be some sort of transmitter.” Robin said. 

“Yeah.” the tech, whose name was Julius Bly, said. “If it is, it would have some sort of effective radius for the signal it transmits. It’s pretty high-end stuff, that much power in such a small package.”

“You’re right.”  Robin said. “Do you have your cell phone?”

Julius pulled his iPhone out of his back pocket. Robin took out her phone and gave it to Julius. “Punch in your number and we’ll be connected. Then you go back to the computer room and start up one of the bots. I’ll take this device outside and start walking. You tell me when the bot stops acting wonky, and we’ll get a good feeling for the power radius of this device.”

Once they were connected, Julius went back to the robot room and activated one of the bots. Robin walked out the front door of the factory and paced off close to a thousand steps down the street. At that point, Julius reported that the bot was now obeying commands.

“Okay,” Robin said. “I’m close to a thousand yards out. So shut down the bot. I’m coming back.” 

They all gathered in the boardroom once again.

“I have never seen tech quite like this before.” Robin said. “Usually this sort of thing comes in a much larger package or needs to be controlled by a laptop or notebook computer. I’m gonna take this back to D.C. with me and have our people take it apart and see what makes it tick. We’ll also examine it for prints and DNA. But anybody who could build a unit like this is no dummy so we probably won’t find anything. I will also issue a press release so that we'll hopefully see if it was just your company that was targeted or if it’s part of a larger plot.”

“Thank you for your work here, Agent Pierce.” Federman said. “It certainly given us some pause in our thinking regarding robotics. We have a hard-earned respect for our ability to deliver on time. If these bots are that easy to sabotage, then maybe that’s a bridge too far for us. I’ll be discussing that in great detail with our robotics supplier.”

“I don’t blame you sir. In my experience, this is a step further than hacking and nowhere near as easy to detect or trace. I’ll also be working on how this device got planted in the first place.”

Federman handed Robin three sheets of paper. “This is a list of everyone who has toured our operation in the past three months. Most of them are suppliers or trades people. We’ve been adding a lot of extra shelving. I’ve ticked those folks. And there are a few who wanted a tour because they were thinking about incorporating robotics into their businesses.”

Robin took the pages and the device and put them into her briefcase. She then drove back to DC with a new puzzle to solve and maybe a new cybercrime wave to deal with.  

~ 6 ~

Jakob was in his study reading some business reports from Phil Rossman, when his cell phone rang. It was Joe Butler.

“Joe.” Jakob said.

“Hi Jakob. Just  calling to give you a head’s up about one of the units, the one you planted at Delphi Equipment.”

“Yeah? What happened?”

“They called in the FBI. An agent named Robin Pierce, who runs cybercrimes. She helped them discover the disruptor and took it back to D.C. with her, I assume.”

“So, what does that mean?”

“Well, I’m not sure. It’s nothing you need to be worried about. But you will probably be hearing from Agent Pierce at some point.”

“You know her?”

“Only by reputation. She’s a smart cookie.”

“So how do I deal with her?”

“Just lie. Tell her you were doing some research on robotics companies, and you found about half a dozen businesses to talk to that were using different companies.”

“Are you sure she’s not going to put this all together and decide to come after me?.”

“She’s a cop, Jakob.” She needs hard evidence, which is something she’s not going to have.”

“But if it gets to her that I visited all three companies…”

“Let’s just see how it plays out. But you should definitely make a few more appointments and not leave anything.” Joe said. But Jakob was not an idiot he could tell that Joe felt a little iffy.

“Yeah, alright? Or maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe we, find someone else. Just to do a one-off. If it was a company that I hadn’t visited, it might just throw her off the scent.”

Joe said nothing for several seconds. Then he asked, 

“Do you have anybody in mind?”

“As a matter of fact I do.”

Jakob partially lucked out because Jamison Distribution in Chicago had slightly more than one hundred working robots was in the process of programming the last twenty they had purchased and the programmer from Allied Robotics, Kevin Napier, was on site when the robots started going wonky. Kevin was no slouch and like a lot of people in the high-tech business, thought like a hacker, which is what he used to be in college several years earlier. 

Napier quickly went through the programming from stem to stern and dismissed any online hacking. So he organized a search party and, within three hours, he had the iPhone-sized disruptor Jakob had planted a day and a half before.

Work in the company was halted, but only for a relatively short span of time. Napier wisely worked with one of the in-house techs and figured out the effective range of the device. What he couldn’t figure out was how to disable it and he didn’t have the level of expertise to take the device apart and dig around in it. He put the device in his car and drove to a parking lot three blocks away. The tech he was in touch with told him the device was out of range. He then came back and sat down with the president and sole owner, Richard Jamison. 

“This device was planted by someone who visited your operation, probably as part of a tour. I don’t think you have anything more to worry about. But this tech is really something. It’s got about a thousand yard range and it’s probably powdered by some kind of jazzed-up lithium, which is next gen stuff.  But if I were you, sir, I would stay as far away from the press and the FBI as possible.”

“And why is that, Kevin?”

Napier just shook his head. “Because it will do way more harm than good to your reputation for this to get out.”

Jamison pressed his fingers together in a steeple in front of his face. He was thinking hard. Finally he took a deep breath. “I think you’re right Kevin. Thank you for your insight.”

It never occurred to Jamison to get angry with Allied Robotics. They had nothing to do with it, and the fact of the matter was that if Kevin Napier hadn’t been on site when this attack occurred, who knows how much time would be spent getting to a solution.”

“I’m gonna take the device back to our head office and show it to a couple of our guys. Because I don’t think they were attacking you, sir. I think they are trying to fuck with us, pardon my French.”

“You do whatever you feel you need to do with that gizmo. Just keep it the hell away from here. And please accept my sincere thanks.”

Napier got to his feet.“Your new machines are ready to be deployed sir. If you have any problems, you know how to get hold of me.”

The two men shook hands. Kevin went down to the computer room and said goodbye to the three techs working there, then headed down the street to his car. All the time he was wondering, ‘Who the fuck are these people and what planet did they come from?’

~ 7 ~ 

Elizabeth had a home and school meeting to go to that night and the kids, of course, needed no babysitting, so Jakob decided to go out for a drink and think things over.

His local pub was called Sully’s and it came complete with an assortment of local characters.  

Jakob took a seat at the bar. There was a guy sitting one seat away from him with what looked like a double scotch double in front of him. He was running his finger around the rim of the glass and staring off into space. Jakob didn’t really pay much attention to him until he looked into the mirror behind the bar. 

“Alvin?” Jakob said to the man sitting two seats down.

The man turned his head to look at Jakob. “Jakob? Hey man, how you doin’?

Alvin’s whole name was Alvin Fredericks. He and Jakob had been at Yale together. Alvin was a business major like Jakob. But unlike Jakob, he had no family business to go into after his graduation. So he knocked around for a while and finally ended up as a general manager of a freight forwarding company. Over the past two years, the company had automated and eliminated most of the management positions, replacing them with young robot pilots.

Alvin had tried unsuccessfully to start his own business after that, but went from one good try to another. He was fortunate in that his wife was a full professor at Duquesne University. But for Alvin, life basically sucked. 

Three scotches later, Alvin’s resentment of anything to do with AI, robotics or, in his words, ‘any of that other planet wrecking shit’, became crystal clear.

Jakob didn’t say anything about what he was doing with Joe Butler, but Alvin was the very guy he was thinking about when he talked to Joe earlier that day.

 Alvin was a good guy and when he had finished bitching about all the stuff he was pissed off about, they started talking about the old days at Yale. Before Jakob left, he gave Alvin a card and asked him to call him the next day and come in for a chat, which Alvin told him he would do, but that it would probably be later in the day, because he knew he wouldn’t be worth a shit in the morning.

Jakob walked home. The night air was refreshing and the two beers he’d had made him feel a bit light-headed. 

Elizabeth pulled into the driveway as he was walking up the street. He gave her a hug and was informed that he smelled like a beer bottle, which he could not deny.

~ 8 ~

The next morning Jakob went to the office. He spent a while watching the news on his computer to see if either of the other two companies he had sabotaged were being mentioned. So far it was only Delphi Equipment. He also saw a press conference hosted by the FBI Special Agent in charge of the investigation, Robin Pierce. She was a good-looking woman and sounded quite intelligent and well-informed.

Later that morning, after a meeting with Phil Rossman, who got him up to speed on everything, he received a call from Agent Pierce.

He took a deep breath and hoped he could pull off the charade that was about to unfold. 

He picked up the phone. “Hello, Agent Pierce?”

“Yes Mister Franklin.”

“I saw you on the news this morning. What can I do for the FBI today, Agent Pierce?” Jakob asked, trying to sound as friendly as possible.

“As you may or may not know, I’m investigating a cyber attack at a company in Virginia.”

“Delphi Equipment. Yes, I saw the news story.”

“So you recently paid a visit to Delphi? About ten days ago.”

“Yes. I’m doing some due diligence. We have a manufacturing division in our company and are thinking pretty seriously about robotic automation. I did some research on the various companies who are providing this technology and currently have been checking them out at sites where their bots are at work. I like to be thorough before I invest in technology of any kind.”

“Well, as it turns out the sabotage I’m investigating occurred only two days after your tour of the Delphi facility.” Robin said.

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“So we’re just running through the list of visitors on that week.”

“Hmmm. I see. If you don’t mind, could you possibly explain to me what exactly happened? The news story I saw was a bit vague.”

“Why would you want to know that?”

“Only one reason. And it has to do with the machinery and if it was defective or not.”

“The machinery, as you call it, checked out fine.” Robin said. “Beyond that I'm really not at liberty to say.”

“So you’re talking about sabotage.” Jakob said.

“Yes sir. Perhaps it was sabotage against Delphi, since there was a good deal of human displacement when they automated. But it could also be sabotage against the robot manufacturer, US Dynamics.”

“Sounds like pretty heavy stuff, Agent Pierce. Like someone has launched an all-out attack on robotics in business. Frankly, I can see this sort of thing happening. I mean over the longer term, the amount of human displacement that will result from all this automation will be staggering.”

“And yet, here you are investigating it for your company.”

“Yeah, that’s the paradox. Anyone in manufacturing will tell you that if you have to compete with businesses with lower overheads, which this automation will ultimately create, you will be at a competitive disadvantage without it."

“So what you’re saying is that if this is sabotage against the robotics industry, there are a number of potential suspects.”

“Up in the mid thousands I would guess.”

“And you would not be one of them.”

“Our customer relationships are just fine at the moment. As a matter of fact, I’m just bringing on a new sales manager to keep them even happier. If that should change we’ll, bite the bullet and make the investment in robotics. But if and more likely, when that time comes, I want to be sure I’m making an informed decision moving forward.”

“So you have been checking out other robotics suppliers.”

“Yes, of course. I researched about a dozen in the US and three in Canada, where we would get a huge financial break being as the Canadian dollar is worth 30% less that ours.”

Jakob could hear the hint of a sigh coming through his speaker. 

“I, uh, sympathize with the task you have before you, Agent Pierce.” Jakob said.

“Okay…well thank you for your candour, Mr Franklin.”

When Robin got off the call to Jakob Franklin, she put a little tick mark beside his name. She was used to dealing with slick operators who could sound perfectly sincere and be totally evil. Perhaps it was a coincidence that he just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. But he was her last call and the only one who wasn’t either incensed or insulted by having to talk to her. That, in turn, roused her curiosity. She’d have to keep an eye on him for sure.

~ 9 ~

Alvin Fredericks showed up at four o‘clock on the button. He was shown into Jakob’s office right away. He was nattily attired in his best suit. His hair was freshly cut and he was clean-shaven, unlike he was the night before. 

Jakob got up and shook his hand then asked him if he would like some coffee, which Alvin politely refused. So both men sat down at Jakob’s conference table. Jakob didn’t notice any signs of a hangover or anything at all off about Alvin, which was a good sign. The Alvin he remembered from school was not a heavy drinker or weed smoker. He liked to keep his wits about him.

After a bit of small talk, Jakob said “Okay. My dad has recently passed away and I have been home dealing with all of that. But I’m back now and taking over his spot as chairman. So everybody’s moving up a notch, except for our national sales manager. His, uh, second in command is not ready to take on the job, so we’re in the market for a proven pro like yourself.”

“Wow. Guess I was in the right place at the right time.” Alvin said. 

“Truth be told, I had already been thinking about giving you a call. But the last I heard you were running your own business.” 

“It was kind of a stop-gap, you know, until a decent opportunity came along. And if I’m being honest, I blew a couple of good opportunities because my attitude was kind of negative.”

Jakob walked over to his desk and brought back two pieces of paper. He handed one to Alvin. 

“This is a nondisclosure agreement. You know the drill, I’m sure. The job is yours if you want it. But there’s something else I want to talk to you about and before I do I really need you to sign the document.” Jakob said.

Alvin pulled a pen from his inside jacket pocket and signed it immediately. He handed it back to Jakob who gave him an unsigned copy for his files.

“Welcome aboard.” Jakob said. And the two men shook hands.

“Thanks for this. I’ll spend the rest of the week studying the company. And be able to start fresh on Monday.” Alvin said.

“That’s perfect.” Jakob replied. “I’ll set up a meeting with Phil Rossman, the new president, and he’ll show you around. He came up through sales so he knows all the clients and he’s got a lot of good ideas.”

“Wonderful.” Alvin said.

“It’s a straight salary position plus bonuses. One fifty to start with reviews every six months.” Jakob said.

“Works for me.” Alvin said. “But you said there was something else.”

“Yeah. But first of all, I want you to understand that this job offer does not depend on what I’m going to tell you…more like ask you.”

“Okay.” Alvin said. But he was quite curious.

For the next twenty minutes, Jakob explained the situation to Alvin who, like the great salesman he was, listened closely to trying to read this new boss. Jakob even got out one of the disruptors and showed him how it worked. He talked about Joe Butler and about the FBI investigator that he had spoken earlier in the day. He explained that what he would need is for Alvin to take over and plant a couple of these devices, with the goal of taking the heat off of him. 

“So that’s the ask.” Jakob said. “The only reason I’ve even brought this up is that when we were talking last night, scotch or no scotch, I could tell you needed some, I don’t know, closure, revenge even.”

Alvin smiled. “To be honest Jakob, I have been carrying a shitload of anger around with me. My wife and kids have all noticed it. I thought about going into therapy, but, man, this is a fuck of a lot better than that. This is actually doing something. So thank you, for both the position and for the chance to keep this shit from eating me alive.”

“OK. I want you to come and meet Joe Butler. I have to get an update from him anyway, He’s just down in Greenburg and he is someone well worth knowing. The man is an off-the-charts genius. I think we can work with him on some of the other ideas he has on top of this.”

The meeting ended with Alvin agreeing to make himself available for a meeting with Phil Rossman and a trip to Greenburg with Jakob. 

They exchanged cell phone numbers and shared a guy hug.

After he left Jakob sat down at his desk and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He could almost see the pressure that had built up inside him dissipate.

He picked up his cell and called Joe Butler. “Joe. What’s your day like on Thursday? I have someone I’d like you to meet.” 

~ 10 ~

Jackson-Drew was sinking under the weight of their 36 robots’ dysfunction. They analyzed, and rebooted several times. Finally, they called the company, Automation Associates which was located in Upstate New York. They told Tom Ferris, the Jackson-Drew president, that they could send someone within two days. In the meantime, orders were backing up and even calling in ex-workers didn’t get the company back up to speed because many of them refused to come back.

One of the techs, a kid named Richard Keene, scoured the dark web and came across a story that had been posted on one of the sites there by someone from Delphi Equipment in Virginia. The story was only signed with the writer’s initials. But it outlined the process they went through with the FBI agent.

So Keene headed over to Tom Ferris’s office and told him about the story he had read. Ferris thought about calling the FBI but was hyper-conscious of the competitive situation their company was in and appointed Ferris to head up a search of the company’s facility and commended him for his initiative.

Three and a half hours later the device was recovered, attached to the wall under one of the sinks in the guest washroom, just off the reception area of the building. Keene and another tech name Jerry Jarvis took the device to a McDonald’s about two miles from the plant and worked to take it apart. As they lifted the back panel of the device they heard a low crackle and some smoke drifted out. When they got the back completely off they could see the damage to the chip was total.

They decided to drive back to the plant to see if the bots were malfunctioning. So Keene waited in the parking lot while Jarvis went inside and activated one of the bots. He called Keene on his cell and told him that things were back to normal. Keene brought the device into Tom Ferris’s office and laid it on his desk.

“You’re the boss, sir.” Keene said. “But if it were me, I would call the FBI. There’s an agent named Robin Pierce that you could talk to. Obviously someone who visited the facility recently planted this device. You might be able to help her find out who that is.”

“The only thing I worry about is this leaking out and getting to our customers.” Ferris said.

“I understand that, sir. But the story I read about the company in Virginia that was attacked was using US Dynamic robots. I don’t think this was an attack on us so much as it was an attempt to discredit Automation Associates. They’re going after the industry not the users, in my opinion, at least.” Keene said. “They’re making a statement about how vulnerable the bots are to a mass attack in order to discourage future bot sales. These are crusaders, sir, in my opinion.”

“I’ll take it under advisement, Richard. We’ll let the workers finish their shift and then get the bots back online.”

“Yes sir.” And Keene left the office with Tom Ferris in a real quandary.

~11 ~

When Richard Keene got home that night, he made some dinner and went onto the dark site where he found the Delphi Equipment story and wrote out what had happened at Jackson-Drew that day. He posted it with a pair of initials that were not his. He then sent the link to the article he had written to the FBI, attention Robin Pierce, along with a Jackson-Drew visitors list for the past two weeks.

Robin arrived at work the next morning and saw the email with the story of what had happened at Jackson-Drew. She printed out the list of visitors which was two pages long, mostly suppliers. But one name caught her attention…Jakob Franklin. She didn’t get too excited by this because Franklin had told her he was out visiting companies with a substantial robot work force. But she did consider him very much a person of interest. So off she went into the Internet to pick up as much background information as possible on Mr. Franklin.

As she was doing this she got a call from one of the lab techs who informed her that as soon as they were able to open the disruptor, there was a tiny explosion which pretty much fried anything inside. Also there was not a print or even a smidgen of DNA to be found. In their opinion, she was dealing with some pretty high-end people.

Robin had been in cybercrimes for the past six years, so dead ends and seemingly unsolvable puzzles were nothing new to her. The people she was dealing with were still criminals regardless of their collar. And sooner or later, every criminal fucks up. At least that was the hope. One way to get them to do that was face-to-face. It was Thursday morning so she called The Franklin Group and was told that Mr Franklin was out of town. So she left her name and number. Hopefully, he would get back to her and she could set up a meeting for Friday.

~ 12 ~

Jakob and Alvin arrived at Joe Butler’s workshop at around eleven on Thursday morning to a rather large surprise.

As soon as the introductions were made and the coffee was poured. Joe Franklin said “I had a eureka moment a couple of days ago” Then he got up and went to the closet where the robot was kept. He came back with, of all things, a four-prop remote control drone, which he put on his work table. He also got out a remote control box and one of the disruptors. Then sat back down at the small table and took a sip of coffee.

“I woke up in the middle of the night a few nights ago and thinking about the problem you were telling me about, you know, having your name on the visitors list and your call from the Feebs, I thought about it for a quite a while, and this is what I came up with. If I’m being honest, I kicked my ass for not thinking of this before. But, better late than never.”

Joe got up and brought the drone, the controller and the disruptor over to the table and set them down side by side.

“So here’s the thing. You find the target building, then you find a nice quiet place to park, anytime after midnight, you slip the wiped down disruptor into its little slot, and you send it off. 

He took them through the entire process, flew the drone around the room and hovered it about an eight of an inch above the workbench. He then flicked another switch and the claws that were holding the disruptor slowly retracted and set it gently down on the bench. 

“All you have to do is activate the disruptor, wipe it down, slide it into place and send it off. It’s completely weatherproof, and the drone has a camera so you can see exactly where you’re placing it. You can operate it from inside your car too. So nobody needs to see you standing around with a controller in your hands. And, that, my friends, is all there is to it. The disruptors get placed, no names, no tours, no phone calls, just industrial sabotage pure and simple. And everything except the disruptor runs on double A batteries.” 

If you take the next month to drop these in a couple dozen different places, we will most assuredly make a huge dent in the robot market, and create a lot of publicity about vulnerability etc.”

“You know.” Alvin said. “Jakob told me you were a genius, and I thought, yeah, that’s probably one of the most overused words in the English language. But I have to say, this time, the shoe fits. This is fucking brilliant.”

“Thanks. I’m just sorry you had to go through any shit with the FBI.” Joe said to Jakob.

“It’s alright, Joe. It was just a phone call. No big deal.” Jakob said. 

“You haven’t seen the ass end of her yet, Jakob. From what I understand she’s a real pit bull.”

“Yeah, but she has no evidence and for cops that means nothing to go on.”

“There’s always that. I guess I’m just a little miffed with myself for not thinking it all the way through.”

“Well you have now. And it looks like we’ve come to the end of this project. So my dad will be pleased, wherever he is.” Jakob said. “And that brings me to another point. I’d like to hire you to come and visit our plant and give me some ideas about what we could do to make it run more efficiently. I’ll pay whatever your going rate is.”

“Hmmm,” Joe said. “You know your dad talked to me about that exact same thing. Maybe could also create some processes that would have value for other companies.”

“Exactly what I was thinking. The more we can diversify and move into selling services the less dependence we will need on technology other than computers.” Jakob said.

They all went out to have lunch at one of Joe’s favorite restaurants in Greenburg and talked for two solid hours about some of the different ideas he had. Alvin just sat and listened, but his mind was going a mile a minute. At least three or four of the ideas that Joe had would set the world on fire. Joe Butler was a smart salesman's wet dream.

The ride home was pretty quiet. Alvin was ready to kick it into gear the following Monday.. 

Jakob and Alvin spent the Monday morning and half the afternoon planning routes and studying Google Maps for launch sites. 

At about three that afternoon, after Alvin had headed home, Jakob’s secretary, Jeannie buzzed him and told him there was an Agent Robin Pierce to see him. She had insisted on booking an appointment and Jeannie was a little afraid to let her down.

“Show her in Jeannie. And hang around if we go past five. I need to talk to you before you go home. And don’t feel bad about making this appointment. Messing with the FBI is not something you want to do.”

A few seconds later, Jakob’s office door opened and Agent Robin Pierce was shown in.

“Please have a seat Agent Pierce. Would you like some coffee?”

“No thank you, Mr. Franklin.” Robin said.

Jakob sat back down at his desk. “So to what do I owe the pleasure of this personal visit?”

Robin took a deep breath and let it out with a little sigh. “I always find it helpful to talk to my suspects in person.”

“So I’m a suspect.”

“At the moment, yes. Your name came up again in relation to a company called Jackson-Drew in Baltimore. Their robots were hacked, but one of their tech guys was able to find the device.”

“Really? This device…what was it actually?”

Normally Robin would have said nothing but she was interested in what Jakob's response would be.

“It looked very much like a high-end cell phone. Except for the fact that when it was opened to see inside, it kind of exploded and destroyed the circuits and the hard drive.”

“So you’re actually no further ahead than when we spoke on the phone earlier this week.”

“From an evidence point of view, you could definitely say that. But from an intuition slash experience point of view, I would say, you make a pretty damn good suspect.”

Jakob looked off into space for a few seconds. Then turned back and looked at Robin.“You’re absolutely right. But I remember from reading crime novels that there are three elements to a crime. Motive, means and opportunity. I most certainly had the opportunity. What’s missing are the motive and the means. I visited those companies because I was doing my due diligence before deciding on automating parts of company. So far I have visited three companies. The two you know about and a third in Chicago. They are called Jamison Distribution. Quite a large mail order business company, with a massive twenty-four-seven pick and place system from Allied Robotics. All three of those businesses were chosen because they each had different robotics suppliers, the three largest in the country, I believe. Those were the companies my Internet research told me would be the most likely to be of potential use to us as we move forward.”

“I haven’t heard anything about Jamison Distribution.” Robin said.

“They’re a service business, and service businesses in this country are highly competitive. I would imagine if they got attacked they would move heaven and earth to keep it covered up. But you can contact them. I’m sure my name will be somewhere in their files.”

Robin stared a Jakob for about thirty seconds. Every intuitive nerve ending in her body was screaming at her that this was the guy she was looking for. But then the brick wall appeared.”

“I will check them out, Mr. Franklin. I just really wanted to talk to you face-to-face. I learn a lot more that way.”

“And what did you learn from this face to face?”

“Not very much at all. The problem with cyber crimes is that the people who commit them are generally quite smart. And a lot of the time they get away with them for one simple reason.”

“And what would that be?”

“They don’t have criminal minds. Cops like me have been trained to think like criminals. Which makes the criminals relatively easy to catch, because sooner or later, they screw up. But smart people don’t screw up. Mainly because they know exactly what you told me. Motive, means, and opportunity. I could sit here and chat with you all day and never figure out why or how you’re doing this. But I’m pretty sure you are.”

Jakob chuckled. “Well, I guess I’m sorry to disappoint you Agent Pierce.”

“That’s okay. My batting average in cyber crimes is relatively low. I’m used to being out-thought. But I’ll keep my eye on things. We cops are persistent if nothing else.”

“Well, I wish you the best of luck.” Jakob said as he and Robin both got to their feet.” Then Robin turned and left the office. But just as she got to the door, she turned back. “Please accept my sincere condolences on the loss of your father.”

“Thank you.” Jakob said.

And with that, she was gone and so were Jakob’s chances of doing any more sabotage himself. 

He sat back down at his desk and picked up the phone.

“Alvin. It’s Jakob. I just had a visit from the FBI in person. Nothing changes, except you’ll be doing this on your own.  Just be extra careful. Yeah, you’re on the payroll as of Monday. We’ll call it a client business trip with a little nighttime recreation thrown in for good measure…Great. We can get together on Sunday. I’ll bring everything with me…See you then”.

Jakob hung up the phone and took a deep breath. In a month on the road, he figured Alvin could hit at least twenty five or twenty six targets. After that who knows? 

In a strange way, he was kind of relieved. But he was also satisfied that he had been able to comply with his dad’s dying wish. He wasn’t sure that this effort would mean all that much in the greater scheme of things. Maybe somebody would make a movie about this sort of thing one day. His goal, and he was pretty sure that Joe Butler could help him, was to keep running a ‘people’ business, and not give in to the scourge of robotics.

~ Epilogue ~

Alvin Fredericks headed out on a month-long trip around America with a trunk full of disruptors and the remote control delivery system. He took a route that he and Jakob had mapped out and stuck to his schedule. In the cities where the Franklin company had customers he met and had coffee with his counterparts in purchasing and supply. Jakob got several emails from these folks telling them how impressed they were with Alvin. 

Alvin stayed mostly in motels and after dinner, took a three or four hour nap then headed out to place the devices in the businesses that he, Jakob and Joe Butler had chosen. He even had a chance to screw things up at five of the main robotics companies in his journey around the country. 

None of the attacks were front and centre on the dark web, but about halfway through Alvin’s trip, they started leaking to the mainstream media, where he was dubbed the ‘Robot Assassin.’

But once the attacks subsided, it quickly fell out of the news. Most of the companies rather quickly discovered and disabled the disruptors. A few editorialists praised the work of the Robot Assassin and talked about how technology was moving ahead of humanity in the world, and that there really needed to be more of a balance between the two.

But, of course, for the majority of businesses in the world, it was dog eat dog and they would continue to do everything they could to keep things profitable.

Robin Pierce was put under an incredible amount of pressure to figure this out. But the attacks were too random and were a mix of robotics companies and robot-powered businesses, so she basically chased her tail for the whole of the month. 

She even took two trips to Pittsburgh and followed Franklin from home to work and back again, after which she eliminated him from her suspect list.

Alvin Fredericks arrived home on a Friday, took his family out to dinner and later that evening called Jakob to report that the whole trip was a great success. He cemented relationships with a dozen Franklin customers and suppliers and had shot every single arrow in his quiver. 

Early the following week Alvin, Joe Butler, Phil Rossman and Jakob sat down in Jakob’s office and went over the report that Joe Butler had prepared as the result of of two weeks of observation of operations and worker interviews at Franklin Industries. Joe reckoned that implementing the changes he advised would result in anywhere from a twenty to thirty percent increase in productivity. How much more profitable that would be would depend on the market situation., as it always did.

Because Franklin was privately owned, their philosophy had always been hire the best people, make the best products. And Jakob knew that with a guy like Alvin managing sales for the company, that message would win Franklin Industries more business than it lost no matter how many robots the competition had.

The attacks did have a few benefits, especially in the smaller business communities. Jakob and Joe Butler put together a separate business model and hired Terry Allworth, Jakob’s sister’s life mate to create a course based on the business insights that Jakob and Joe Butler had compiled as a result of their work on Franklin Industries.

It took about six months to put together and Terry Allworth became the representative. Allworth, with a small advertising budget, spent mostly in entrepreneurial magazines and web sites, started hosting seminars and selling the collected insights as an online business course. Allworth sold this mainly through attending small business networking groups, and though various chambers of commerce around the country. When the business matured into an actual subsidiary of Franklin Industries, Allworth became a full 25% partner in the venture with Joe Butler and Jakob Franklin. The remaining 25% was used for Allworth’s travel expenses and whatever office overhead was required. 

A year later, the group, known as 21st Century Business, Terry Allworth started to get invitations to talk at business colleges throughout the country, who were part of their stage two target group. Eventually, the course was sold through to forty-five business schools in the US and several in Canada. At this point, it became extremely profitable. But more than that, it also became one of the core learning tools for business students and small to medium-sized business owners across the country. 

In just two years, it was producing revenues in the low millions.

Allworth, the the public face of the business, travelled around the country doing interviews for business TV programs and gigs as a guest speaker for regional small business associations. 

Franklin Industries, despite the onslaught of robotics, continued to thrive and grow, mostly thanks to the efforts of a strong management team and a dedicated sales and work force. Franklin Industries made high quality premium products, and thanks to the operating efficiencies that Joe Butler had helped them achieve, were able to shrink their margins only slightly to match their competitors on price and beat them hands down on quality.

After a year and a half of back and forth between Greenburg and Pittsburgh, Joe Butler returned to his lab, quite a bit richer than when he left and started tinkering. The first thing he did was take his bot apart and put it in a big box in his storage room. 

He then got out his notebook and began to transcribe all the notes he had taken to see what would happen. There were at least a dozen viable ideas for Franklin Industries and another five or six that could easily make him a billionaire before the age of forty-five.