67 Book 4 - Chapter 125

Y: 2142

Inter-Academy Round 10 Fortescue Points: 1271, Rank: 3, PR: 0.794

Term: 4, Round 5

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Daedalus Financial Position: +4,700,000 bitcreds

"Spill it!" Vannier said, "Don't just say that and stay quiet." She beamed at him. He was still her hero even though they worked so closely on a daily basis.

"Myrmidon predicts, based on currently available data, with an 81.27% probability that there are two opposing groups of aliens interfering."

Daedo could have walked around the physical base and searched the unconscious forms of his friends who were stunned in the VR.

"How?" Mace asked.

"I have no words," Adele said softly.

"What does this mean?" Gabe asked.

"Are you sure?" Vannier asked.

"81.27% sure," Daedo repeated. "I do have information that none of you possesses to assist in this assessment."

"Master Nader," Barran said. "I knew she was scary, but this is too much."

"One side wants to help," Gabe thought out loud, "The way Nader was helping you and … we were hunting them so…"

"One side wants to exterminate 99% of humanity," Daedo concluded for Gabe.

"But allow 1% to live?" Vannier extrapolated.

Axelzero zero almost cried her words, "And there are people who participate knowingly in this plan?"

"There must be," Daedo said.

"The packages!" Mace exclaimed.

"The packages," Daedo agreed.

"We come in peace my ass," Barran scoffed.

"Why the fifty years?" Adele asked.

"It must have been part of the negotiations, to give the elite time to prepare," Daedo said.

Vannier was horrified, "I can't find a flaw. The academies are only for the elite, the …. Everything."

Vannier cried.

Axelzero cried.

Even Mace and Barran shed a tear.

"I think we will adjourn this meeting for a later time. Give you time to adjust," Daedo stated.

They logged out of the secure VR room.

And, at a secret location, a long way from the base, Adele and Gabe Mace held each other and cried as well.

Daedo went back to work.

Between Barran, Axelzero and Mister Kang, and the fact they were desperate to meet. A remote VR Room meeting was set up.

Each corporation would bring two of their top executives with the exception of DaVinci who brought their majority shareholder and CEO. Svarski brought their CTO and CIO (Chief Intelligence Officer), and Huawei brought their CEO and CFO.

Daedo and Vannier were attending from Daedalus.

The DaVinci owner was going to chair the meeting, no one protested the idea. He had taken over his Father's business which was already massive and turned into one of the Big Three through ruthlessness, intelligence and focusing on technology equipment.

"Gentlemen and Ladies," Mister Vardy began, "I would like to begin by thanking Daedalus for this opportunity and offer of cooperation. It shows great insight and understanding on their part. We will begin with an introduction from Daedalus, they can say anything they wish and then we will open the floor for questions. I see you have agreed to this format in advance, thank you. If there are any votes or outstanding items we will conduct a follow-up meeting in a week unless we agree that is not enough time when these items are known."

He paused for a moment. Everyone was piped in from their own locations, it was possible he wasn't even in the same location as his CEO.

The VR Room looked very much like a tradition board room, it took no energy to stand, but they were all seated. Years of habit made people more comfortable with the familiar. It was also proven to be a posture that allowed for better group communication.

A private message from Vannier appeared on his HUD and was converted to what the brain interpreted as audio automatically. But it wasn't audio, the brain just thought it was. The signals were replicated as if coming from his eardrums and through his nerves.

Vannier's internal communication to Daedo, "He is signalling us with his words. Insight and understanding, he placed slightly more emphasis on these words. Especially insight, and with it coming first, has meaning as well. Between Nader, the organisation, tracking our investigations, and our amazing progress it's likely they assume we know even more than we do."

"Noted. Thanks," Daedo replied directly to Vannier. His thought sent to her as an audio data stream. He had picked up the same, but the last thing he was going to do is to discourage his team from offering their insights.

"The primary aim of Daedalus is to establish a cooperative effort with Svarski, Huawei and DaVinci," Daedo began.

"While we would like to expand and meet our goals, we do not wish to do so in such a way that provokes an atmosphere of overly aggressive competition. The share of profits we would need to meet our goals from the Troika reactor are relatively small when compared to its disruption to the market. It is our hopes that in these talks we can come to an agreement that will satisfy all parties gathered."

"It would be remiss of me to offer our throat and appear weak," He added a metaphor the execs would understand, not one he would usually use. "Which could entice a successful and powerful corporation to investigate a hostile takeover."

"With that premise in mind, I would like to add; we have many more breakthroughs in the pipeline and a couple which are in operation. And if any military were to risk attacking Daedalus, a possible result is the destruction of the entire planet and everyone on it."

The room was quiet for some time. They were probably expecting more, but Daedo was anything if not straight to the point. His introduction carried the message he needed it to and the people present were smart enough to decipher it.

After more than enough time passed the chair asked, "Questions please." The VR room had settings to register which would prevent two people speaking at once. The person with the floor had a green indicator in front of them the rest had a red.

The Huawei CEO went first, "I have a few questions. Is that permitted Chair?"

Mr Vardy nodded.

"Did you receive this tech from an alien?" He asked.

Daedo was expecting this, and they possessed too much information to deny, "You would know we received help from an individual named Master Nader. But much of the work was our own. Where we received assistance from does not change our allegiance or future alliance," Daedo replied.

The representatives were not expecting such an informative and agreeable answer. "We cede the floor, we need time to think of our next question," the Huawei CEO stated.

Mr Vardy nodded, he was probably smiling, but that was not transferred through his link. It seemed he used an old school communicator and not a Cybernetic implant.

Daedo: I don't think any of them use cybernetics. We can review the data after the meeting.

Vannier: Ok.

It was Svarski's turn. The CIO leaned forward, the only CIO here which was an indication he was involved with, or even ran, the Organisation.

"We would like to know what you will reveal to the public and when," he enquired,

For such a short question the CIO was asking a lot.

"At Daedalus, we are extremely busy, as I am sure you are, so rather than work through details ad nauseam and play games, we will talk directly to the central issue. We do not plan to disrupt your plans, you will be able to leave without interference. You can have our technology. I don't think wokring against each other, even if we have different end goals, is the optimum path."

The executive's avatars went mute and motionless, they were communicating externally. After ten minutes they returned. Daedo put away the build schedule he was working on while waiting.

"What measures can you put in place to remove our risk?" The Svarski CIO asked.

"None, you will have to offer us something to buy our loyalty, it needs to be in our best interest to work with you, as it is in yours to work with us."

"If you think we are making a peace offering because we are small children who are afraid. You are sadly mistaken. This is the most effective solution, and that is why we are pursuing it. If we were to die next year or in five years, what is the difference, we would be dead well before we are twenty. But you? Are you planning to die in five years?"

"You have more to lose than us," Daedo stated a fact.

"Why don't you join us?" Mister Vardy offered what Daedo had been waiting for. They most likely wanted to see his mettle first.

Daedo and Myrmidon had run scenario, after scenario. The most exhaustive modelling and analysis they had completed on any project to date. Planning an arena battle was a cakewalk compared to predicting what a large number of disparate human groups would do over a period of five years.

The analysis showed that the action with the highest probability of an outcome without internal conflict on earth was to pretend to side with the Big Three, come on board with their planned exodus.

Daedalus would then drop out during the last days or simply miss their exodus window. At that late stage, the elite would not care. There were many other repercussions to the Daedalus structure at the end of the five years based on this choice.

"No," Daedo responded. He couldn't bring himself to do it. Because it wasn't just about surviving unscathed through to the exodus, they had to survive what was the come after as well.

And to do that, he had to lead.

All of the Big Three avatars went blank again.

It was an hour before they returned, they couldn't agree on a major point it seemed.

Daedo ceased his game of dig dug under The Eye of the Sahara as they flushed into liveliness yet again.

"Thank you for your patience, we know you're a busy … leader," My Vardy said.

"It seems we have a mutually assured destruction scenario and with that, we do not need to postpone coming to an understanding. What is your immediate proposal with the drives?" Mr Vardy asked.

"Stage one is ready for construction now, we are still working on stage two, and three the last stage; micro storage and annihilation. But stage one will power your spacecraft propulsion and other systems. You will just have to work out how to protect them at high speeds."

"Can your shield be adapted?"

"Yes, it is another of our research projects," Daedo said. "I have a question if I may," he was waiting for them to begin making requests before his counter.

"What is your arrangement with the aliens exactly? We need to know so we can proceed without endangering it," Daedo asked. "And I want to see everything that was in that package from 2101."

"Kid," The Huawei CEO, by far the oldest corporation in the Big Three by a century, "You don't make demands, we do."

Mr Vardy cleared his throat, and before he said a word, Daedo saw where they were split.

Huawei was the antagonist, while the newer companies were willing to deal.

"Perhaps we should leave Huawei out of the negotiations and technology transfer," Daedo stated.

Vannier: holy … you don't hold back, do you?

"There is no need for that Mr Daedo, we will handle our business, and you handle yours," Mr Vardy retorted.

"That was me handling mine," Daedo riposted.

"I came here offering a mutually beneficial peace, willing to let you fly off without an obstacle in your path, while providing you with our breakthroughs and only holding back to ensure your cooperation. But you should consider the very real alternatives before you misguidingly treat us as errant children."

"If the world is going to go down anyway. And only one percent were going to escape, where Daedalus and the other ninety nine percent would die in an aftermath of an alien invasion. What does my side have to lose?"

"I could destroy the planet right now," Daedo said and closed the feed.

<>

Vannier looked at him, and her voice rose as she spoke ending in a shout, "Are you mad?"

"If we don't negotiate from a position of strength, and using all the force we can muster, they will not only walk all over us, they will betray us and try to kill us," Daedo said. "We've seen it."

"We?" she asked concerned.

"Yes, Myrmidon and I," Daedo said. "Vannier, I know you know, but you don't. Corporations are like AI. In fact, AI are capable of more compassion and empathy than a corporation. They are the true first AI, except instead of being housed on a computer. They are a human socially hosted and operated AI."

"What are you talking about? This sounds crazy Daedo," Vannier said her concern increasing by the second.

"Think about it," he said, "As a person, I know it is wrong to hit you. I won't hit you to gain something. But what about a corporation? If there wasn't a law stopping it? Or a person willing to stop it? A corporation has no empathy, it has an agenda a mission, and that is to grow. It will even break the law if it calculates the reward outweighs the risk. If a company had something to gain by hitting you and there were no repercussions, it would not hesitate."

"But people run companies, people own companies," Vannier said desperately.

"They become slaves to the company's agenda. Humans don't run corporations. Corporations run humans." He stated calmly.

She was no longer concerned with the current situation, but with Daedo. His actions in the meeting, and warning signs over the last few months.

He had always been different, but before she admired him, now, she was afraid. She could not relate to this line of thinking. Corporations are like AI, but worse? It was nuts.

She suddenly realised this type of reasoning wasn't new to Daedo.

"Daedo, why did we restructure from a Corporation with a Private Military to a Military organisation with a Corporate department?"

"You know the reason," Daedo replied. "Corporations cannot be trusted."

"But it's ours!" Vannier declared.

"What happens when I die, or when we dilute shares and Daedalus becomes a true corporation? It was best to fix it now," he stated.

"But Military?" she asked.

"Has a commander. A person. It is much safer, and if that person is bad he or she can be replaced," Daedo stated calmly. "In that scenario the organisation can only be saved by good people. If good people do nothing, evil will prevail."

Vannier breathed. There was no use panicking no matter how dire the situation. Perhaps it was Master Nader, or his AI or the pressure from the feeling it was up to him to save as many people as he could. And if he didn't, they would most likely all die except the elites. It was enough to break anyone. Even Daedo. He was only thirteen no matter how smart he was.

She began to cry thinking about him and not Daedalus, 'Oh Daedo. I love you. What can I do to save you from yourself?'

There was one person she couldn't beat, and it was him. She was lost in her spiral of thoughts. She was crying, thinking, panicking, theory crafting, planning and discarding plans.

She thought about calling for help, but who? Mace? She would probably agree with him. Axelzero? She couldn't withstand his force of presence? Ikaros? Ikaros was useless when it came to Daedo. Daedo had done as he pleased since the first day of the Academy and most likely the years before. Barran, Picard, even Cisse. Master Picard would probably agree with him like Mace.

Everyone? Perhaps everyone.

But the two strongest personalities would most likely side with him. It was impossible. It had to be her and her alone.

She sat on a chair, trying to slow her thoughts with breathing. She needed to calm herself.

He stroked her back from the shoulders, across and down in a gentle sweeping motion.

"I know," he said, "Breath. It will be okay, you don't have to stress."

"But you're broken?" She questioned even herself as the tears streamed down.

"I'm growing, it only appears to you that I am broken, but I am becoming more. More than I was even at the start of the year. We have a plan."

And it suddenly dawned on her what he had done.

"You didn't?"

"I did - we had to. To make the troika work. If it didn't work, we would have lost before we had begun."

Daedo had absorbed Myrmidon into his brain.