Julius Chance
Bird
“Have you received an offer already?” Antony asked seriously.
“Not yet, but at the moment we have been invited to participate in the secret tender. We must submit our project and, preferably, a prototype device.”
“Not only a project, but already a prototype..?”
“I understand your skepticism, but, in terms of prototype, other contenders are not in the better position than we are; plus Dan has a brilliant idea how to do it.”
“Why do you guys need me then?”
“Dan can’t write program himself, at least perfectly. Nobody can be talented in everything. He’s a theorist. We need a super-programmer, with both huge theoretical and practical background, who could write programming code at the state of the art. Plus, I need trust such person as I trust myself. Only you meet all such a criteria.”
“Such a confession after twenty years of separation?”
“Well, in fact, I’ve been keeping an eye on you all this time.”
“What is the essence of the project in more details?”
“This matter you better discuss with Dan; as technocrats with technocrats. I am a mere manager.”
Victor called loudly for the motorman. Daniel came out of the control room and sat down at the table. Victor continued:
“He is not only a good motorist, but also a brilliant mathematician; Princeton University; Doctor of Philosophy in Cybernetics. You both have gotten a lot to discuss. I’ll leave you for now.”
Victor handed Daniel a bottle of brandy and went into the control room. Daniel took a symbolic sip and set the bottle aside:
“You probably know better than me that the first problem is that computers and smartphones use microchips with undocumented schemes, so-called undocumented "inserts", designed specifically for stealing information by the special services. And the second problem is that operating systems also have vulnerabilities. Some of their ’holes’ in security were made unintentionally, by oversight, but others, the most dangerous ones – by collusion of manufacturers with special services.”
“Yes, I know. To me, these two facts make any cryptographic protection powerless against the special services. Since the means of intercepting information are originally embedded into the devices themselves, how are we going to build protection against leaks and wiretaps? The creation of existing computers and smartphones took half a century of efforts of several giant international corporations. Victor’s small firm cannot develop and produce fundamentally new devices, and even operating systems for them in a short time.
“We will not produce everything new, we will exploit and outsmart the existing ones.”
Before Daniel could finish, Victor suddenly appeared on the deck with a rifle. Antony and Daniel exchanged the puzzled looks. Victor raised his rifle and took an aim. A large albatross was gliding across the sky.
“Please don’t!” Daniel pleaded.
“Killing an albatross brings bad luck!” Antony supported.
Not listening to them, Victor fired. He missed and began reloading. The bird turned right to yacht and flew straight at them, lowering its altitude. Victor raised his rifle again, but before he could aim and fire, the bird's beak lit up with a series of flashes and the sound of machine gun fire resounded. The half-finished brandy bottle shattered, several bullets tore through the deck, and Victor fell. The drone flew a few meters above the yacht.
