Zhu leaned into her, took her teacup from her and placed it on the table. Very gently he turned her hand over and stroked her wrist once. Something slithered through her mind, something unsettling that coiled hotly in her belly. He was looking at her differently. Not with the eyes of a viper, but more like a predator--a wolf or a tiger, something with teeth about to pounce. Her heart jumped. Stuttered. His fingers pressed into her wrist, right over her pulse, and she forced calm when she felt more threatened than ever.
"Do you wish Mr. Cheng harm?"
Her gaze leapt to Zhu's face. "Harm? Of course not. He seems a very nice man. He asked me to talk to his employees. I thought perhaps they would benefit from my work." She needed to blurt something out. Something true. "You have a really beautiful mouth. I should know. I notice mouths all the time." That was a truth that seemed to come flying out. She put her hand over her mouth again and tried to pull her arm away at the same time.
Zhu smiled at her and clamped his fingers around her wrist, but so gently she almost didn't realize he was holding her still. "Thank you. I was thinking the same of yours. What is the true reason you've come to see us tonight?"
His voice was extraordinary. She almost told him so, but that calm she called on, the one that kept her heart from beating out of control, thankfully prevented her from blurting out that he was mesmerizing. Spellbinding. "I came to talk about a new project my team has developed to Mr. Cheng's chosen researchers, the ones he thought would be interested in my work."
Her eyelashes fluttered at him because she knew it was expected of her. She wasn't a flirt. She never flirted because it would be fruitless to flirt. She couldn't have a relationship with anyone. She was forever alone. Now that her best friends were gone, she was truly alone.
"You look sad."
Those long fingers stroked her arm, sending more ripples of awareness snaking through her. It was more unsettling to her than if he'd put a gun to her head. "Do I? I guess I was thinking sad thoughts."
"Tell me."
"I lost my best friends recently." She lifted her chin, making her eyes go wide in seeming surprise that she'd blurted out such a personal detail. "That's personal and not pertinent to what I need to be doing here. Please take me to this group. It's already late, and I'm getting tired." It wasn't the drug making her tired, but she knew it made her susceptible to Zhu and his mesmerizing voice. She could feel his pull on her. She kept up the numbers running in her head, combating the drug in the only way she could.
Zhu immediately pulled back and looked at Cheng, who nodded. "Mr. Cheng thought you might like a tour of the facility. He's very proud of it and the work environment he's created here. It's a haven of sorts for his people. They're very loyal to him. He provides apartments, day care and even exercise rooms." He stood up and gently tugged on her hand until she was up with him.
The touch of his skin on hers sent an electric current sizzling through her. What was that? She hadn't experienced it before. Not. Ever. The drug wasn't a date rape drug, but it was something that made her respond chemically to him. In her mind, she gave a delicate shudder. She knew such things existed and they could even be permanent, causing the woman or man to be obsessed with the person giving off the pheromones.
Zhu led her out of Cheng's office, one hand on the small of her back. She'd never been so aware of another human being in her life as she was of Bolan Zhu as he walked her through the facility. She noted that several floors were avoided and most of the people failed to greet Zhu; in fact, they kept their eyes downcast.
It was definitely pheromones. Some kind of drug that made her physically susceptible to him. His fingers burned through her clothing right into her skin. She snuck a glance up at him. His breathing was much better than her own but not quite normal. He'd had to touch the drug with his fingers before administering it onto the rim of the teacup. He'd drunk his tea. Had he touched his fingers to his mouth? She couldn't remember. Her body had grown hot. She was almost too uncomfortable to listen to the sound of his voice.
Zara managed to ooh and ahh in all the right places, but it was clear to both of them that she was struggling against her attraction to Zhu more than she was paying attention to the things he was showing her. After all, that was the point, wasn't it? She kept that uppermost in her mind, so she wasn't too ashamed of herself for the fight she had to put up to not give in to the drug's effects. And she kept solving number problems in her head.
Before her talk, she had him take her to the ladies' room. She threw up like she did every time before she gave her talk. From experience she knew, once she got started, she would be fine, but the idea of standing before colleagues, others interested in AI work, always made her feel incredibly sick. She knew if Zhu was aware she was ill, he would think she had something to hide. He would never consider it nerves. She carefully rinsed her mouth and ate the strong peppermint candy she always carried before rejoining him.
"I'd like to take you on a tour of our city," Zhu said as he brought her to the auditorium where they'd set up a podium for her. Her briefcase was there, sitting right beside the glass of water provided for her.
"I'd love that." She'd be long gone, thankful she'd escaped with her life.
He took her straight to the podium and Zara immediately slipped into her role. She hated everything about her life but this: talking about what she loved and believed in with those interested. That, more than anything else, always allowed her to escape the horrible shyness that made her the worst traveler ever. She had developed the character everyone saw and believed, and she hid behind her. Once she got past her nerves, she could settle into explaining the program and why it could be so helpful on so many levels.
Zhu stood to one side. Close. Beyond the lights she could see a half dozen men with automatic weapons at the entrances. She pretended not to, but it was a very definite fight to keep her heart rate normal.
At her introduction, conducted by another very charming man in a suit, the applause was enthusiastic. She wondered if Cheng had threatened all of them--applaud her loudly or my goons will shoot you.
"Good evening. My talk is called the VALUE System, the program you'd love to have as a partner. I think you'll see why in just a moment . . ." She trailed off and scanned her audience. She'd given her talk dozens of times already and knew it was cutting edge. They would be hanging on every word if they were really interested in artificial intelligence and what it could do for them.
She reached out to the machines on the first floor. The computers. Touching them with her energy, that psychic gift Dr. Whitney had so carefully enhanced. She could talk to machines and they listened with rapt attention just as these people were listening. She had the ability to serve as a wireless conduit between the remote computers and her wireless hard drive. She instructed the remote computers to transfer their data from every one of the computers, floor by floor, and store it in the PEEK-carbon nanotube hiding the SSD in her brain.
"Since the 1960s, AI game playing systems have been fixated on winning. Every twenty years there is a quantum leap in AI programs' ability to win. Arthur Samuel built the first self-learning program in 1959, a program that learned how to play checkers increasingly better over time. The program reached a respectable amateur level status of play by the 1970s. Fast-forward twenty years, and in 1997 you could watch the deep learning program, Deep Blue, beat the reigning world chess champion, Gary Kasparov--an amazing accomplishment! Fast-forward another twenty years, and in 2017 you see Google's deep learning program, AlphaGo, beat the reigning world Go champion."
It took time to transfer the amount of data stored in the computers in Cheng's facility. It would take as long to destroy every hard drive to ensure the man had no data on the GhostWalker program given to him by the treasonous Senator Violet Smythe. Zara kept her voice even and calm so that later, when Cheng and Zhu compared it with other speeches she'd given, there would be no difference. Inflections would be the same. She wasn't under undue stress. She couldn't possibly be the reas
on they lost the data on every computer. She was incredibly thankful for her mind's ability to work on solving number problems. In doing so, it had lessened the effects of the drug enough for her to control the systems in her body.
"But there's one thing we have yet to see . . . What about a program that could learn to intentionally lose when playing a little boy, so that boy could experience winning? What about a program that could learn how to propose 'win-win' solutions for itself and someone else? What about a program that knows that 'you can't always get what you want' and learns how to 'get what you need' by making good trade-offs given limited, competing resources--time, money, people, materials, etc.?"
The idea had been talked about for years. For trade, such a program would be invaluable. It was expected that there would be a breakthrough sooner or later, but to be able to stand in front of them and announce it had been accomplished was exciting. Every. Single. Time. She had to be careful to never lose sight of why she was really there. She needed the information in those computers. She'd done this so many times, but she'd never had to destroy the hard drives. Most businesses or universities had no idea she'd taken anything out with her when she went because she only gathered information; she never left evidence that their computers had been touched. Destroying the hard drives of every computer in the building would definitely raise alarms.
"In this talk, I'm going to describe a program, the VALUE system, which integrates an entire suite of learning techniques, some old and some new, to do just that. The VALUE system integrates the inverse reinforcement learning techniques of Russell and Ng for learning the value of others, our earlier deep learning techniques for creating and refining negotiations and compromise in a two-party circumstance, and our new supervised learning techniques for reformulating design spaces based on human guidance with acceptable trade-offs."
She launched into her talk, trying not to get lost in the excitement of the artificial intelligence world and the endless possibilities that always consumed her mind when she allowed herself to become fully immersed there. She had a job, a much more important one in terms of serving her country, saving lives and getting out of there alive.
As each of the computers gave up its data, the hard drive destroyed itself, wiping out all documents, making certain no trace remained. It was a big facility and she was used to delivering her talks while making the data transfers. She was certain the flow of information to her would never be detected so she was never nervous. It was a matter of instructing the machines in any chosen building to cooperate. She didn't need to hack in or figure out passwords. She just needed a wireless environment. Destroying the hard drives after was a much riskier thing to do and she'd never done it before. That left footprints. No one could prove she had anything to do with the losses, but she was there. On site.
Zara let her enthusiasm for her work show, in her voice, her mannerisms, the way her face lit up. She wanted to be animated, and she was. Her mind had finally let go of her curious obsession with Bolan Zhu, the need to focus on her academia and the particular program she was spearheading overcoming the last remnants of the drug. This program was her "baby" all the way and she was totally immersed in that world, and had been for a long while, when the sirens blared loudly. Instantly, the room went electric. Zara stopped speaking to look around, allowing her heart rate to accelerate just as everyone's had to be climbing. Her audience stood up in silence and began filing out of the room like robots.
Zara gathered her papers and turned to Zhu. "What's happening?" Fear crept into her voice, just enough of a note that she hoped Zhu would think was normal under the circumstances. She had to keep collecting the remaining data and destroying the hard drives as she went. There was no protection from her unless the wireless was shut down. Only half a floor to go and she'd be finished. She had no way of knowing what data was in what computer on what floor, but even as Zhu reached her, gathering her into him, she kept up the transfer and destruction.
"We have to get you to safety and then I'll check it out," Zhu assured. "I can't imagine a drill being scheduled, so this is more likely a glitch in the system or someone left chemicals out when they shouldn't have. Don't be alarmed." He escorted her to a small room.
No windows, Zara noted. She heard the lock turn when he left her. She didn't bother trying the door. Sinking down onto the chair, she glanced at her watch, noting the time. She wanted to press the stopwatch, but she forced herself to leave it alone. She had time, but it would run out fast if she didn't get out of Cheng's facility. She knew his lockdowns could last a week or longer.
She told herself her mission was important to Whitney. He wouldn't allow her to die, not when what she had in her head was so valuable to him. Calmly, she finished the data transfers and destroyed all remaining hard drives in the building. She could be calm because she had something for her mind to work on, but the moment that was done, fear poured in and she rocked herself in terror.