After the following awkward silence, Michael sighed.

“Get a grip, people. We all knew about that clause from the beginning. Well, all of us who were subject to it at least.

Just keep being the people I have hired, and try to make the world better, and you have nothing to fear.”

Marcel grumbled.

“But what if Vivian gets a bug in her ass that one of us has to go?”

While I felt myself turn red, part in anger over the insinuation, part in embarrassment, Michael and a few of the others rolled their eyes.

Arnedra wadded up a sheet of plasfilm and threw it at Marcel.

“Nice work, idiot. You have known Vivian for several months now. Do you honestly think that if she gets a hateboner to remove you, or anybody of us, it is without reason?

It is way more likely that Michael will have to convince her to pull that option if one of us goes off the deep end.”

Michael chuckled.

“Exactly. And it will be a hard job. You have to seriously fuck up to get Vivian to turn on you.”

Aand… my blush got worse. But Michael continued:

“But let’s change the topic. We know what it means, we knew it from the get-go, and all of you were OK with it.”

He made another short pause.

“Now, Jessi, how is the test of the Folly treatment going?”

Instantly, Jessi’s face changed from somewhat frowning and brooding to happy and interested.

“It is way beyond what I believed even possible. If it goes as it has been, we will increase the population of Queens by around 10% in eight to nine months.”

I was clearly not the only one surprised by that number, as Alena barely managed to not spit out the sip of coffee that she was in the process of drinking.

“10%? How? How can it be that much?”

Jessi smiled while she answered:

“That is simple. Thanks to the tests, and the people of Queens hiring on to get into it, we have employed around 13% of the population of Queens. Of those, 85% are partaking in the tests.

A bit more than 90% of the tests show pregnancy so far. That makes nearly 21k couples becoming parents. Queens has a population of a bit over 200k. We have to expect not every pregnancy to go perfectly, so an estimated 10% growth is honestly a bit conservative.”

We all perked up when she explained that, but her face turned a bit darker.

“There is one problem though. We desperately need a few geneticists.”

Maggie sighed.

“I am looking for a few. But it is a bit hard. Why do you need them though?”

The redheaded woman just shook her head sadly for a moment, before she answered.

“It is sobering how much genetic damage is still left from the great war. The Folly was just the most damaging thing.

Of the 22 thousand couples in the test so far, around three percent won’t ever have children without some serious genetic work. And then we probably can only help if it is the man who has the damage. If it is the woman… we can’t correct it for now.

And it seems as if roughly a third of the children have, or would have, a congenital defect of some sort or another.

Luckily, Hippocrates can fix the majority of it, mostly thanks to Nowhere providing the Project Revitalize data to the Hippocrates Foundation.

But around 12% of the impacted children, or around 3.8% of all the fetuses in the test will be handicapped. And there is nothing we can do with standard methods.

Right now, we can, theoretically fix it, if we can get the appropriate genetic code from somewhere. But for that, we need somebody who understands genetics on a level that none of us can.”

The hulking CEO of our company slicked his hair back.

“That is… well it is better than our worst projections, but it is still not good. We will look into it.

Maybe… “ he turned to me.

“Do you think we might use Calliope for it?”

I was, for a moment at least, speechless. It took me a moment to understand that he meant the question seriously. As a result, I shook my head.

“Sorry, but no. We might call our genetics our ‘programming’ but… our genes are completely different.”

That made not only Michael frown.

“Why? It is some form of code, right?”

I closed my eyes and thought about how to best explain it:

“We call it code, but it is not computer code. It is something else entirely. Honestly, I am not so sure that it is at all possible to create a VI that can work genetics. At least not in the more complicated cases. It is more art and intuition than logic.

In the easier cases, Hippocrates can do the work already. No, if we want to repair that damage, we need at least one geneticist. Maybe more than one.”

Jessi sighed sadly.

“Too bad, really. It would be rad if we could simply plug in one of your big supercomputers to solve the problems. It seems as if we depend on hiring help.”

She said the last with an imploring look at our CHRO, who in turn threw up her hands in some exasperation.

“I told you we are looking into it. Do you know how many geneticists are running around in the wild? Barely any is the answer. Panacea gobbled up nearly all of them.”

Alena, who had enthusiastically implemented the cosmetic cyberware we had developed and now sported hair in all the colors of the rainbow, changing colors of the rainbow at that, cleared her throat softly.

“Have you looked in Nowhere? From what I heard, Panacea treated their employees there way worse than anywhere else. The Knowles had the whole country under their thumb and their scientists had no recourse to fight against the forced contracts or breach of contract.

But that changed and over the last year, a year and a half, they’ve shed large swathes of their staff there. Among them around two-thirds of their geneticists if I remember it correctly.”

Then she chuckled.

“Of course, it is satisfying that Panacea now has to pay damages and punitive damages in the high billions. Another nail in the coffin. And without any of the Knowles on the rudder…”

Maggie took a deep breath.

“I tried. They are a bit wary of working for a big corp again. The burned hand and such.”

A thought stirred in my noggin right then.

“So… they don’t work for any of the big boys then? That means they probably don’t work at all. At least not as geneticists. Why don’t we offer to finance a group of them setting up their own corporation? Maybe for some most favored customer deal or so?

We don’t need to have them work here, as our employees, we just need to have them work on our patients.”

Maggie stared at me for a moment, before she deflated somewhat.

“That might work. Heck, it would probably serve our initial need. But long term we need our own people doing the work.”

“For the long term, we can cultivate employees by sponsoring them to some university. Not the US ones, obviously, but internationally.”

When we all looked at Kenneth surprised, he continued:

“Come on, we only have to have them start working here. From there, the fact that we do right to our employees will keep them working for us.”

Michael shook his head.

“Long-term that might be the best solution, though I think that over time, our reputation will bring us new hires as well. But for right now, I think sponsoring some of those ex-Panacea geneticists to set up their own shop and contracting them to do the work will be the best solution.

Maggie, Alena, can you look into it?”

Both women nodded, with Alena answering verbally:

“Should be no problem, boss.”

“Good. Is there anything else?”

He waited for a few moments while nobody said anything.

“Fine. Then that concludes another successful meeting. Good work, all of you.”

After the meeting, I chatted for a bit with Maynard and Jessi, before I got into my office and connected to my Archimedes system.

By now, the smaller version, with the external connector, had become standard here in Enki for not only the minions but virtually everybody not working in the physical world.

Heck, even the supervisors on the assembly lines began to use it more and more. The workers had begun to buy basic or low-bandwidth jacks from us at a reduced price, and from what I heard, most of them spent the majority of the time either learning or doing something else, while they remained available for when they needed to inspect something.

Sure, unlike the ones who did work for us in accelerated time, we only paid for the real-world time, but for them, this was a win anyway. They had access to a superfast computer system that let them either play games or improve themselves, while still earning money.

Grudgingly, I started working on identifying all the various fields that the K-coils created. This would be a long-term project.

I began by calculating the best devices to generate the two additional fields I already had identified.

It took me 73 virtual hours to get the most optimal design for the neutrino-manipulating one.

Unfortunately, this one required tantalum. Not in substantial numbers, but if, against all probability, I found a use for this field beyond purely scientific endeavors, it would become exceedingly expensive incredibly fast. For that reason, I tasked Warden to use the equations for this field to find some cheaper alternative, on a low priority.

Even if it was only useful for science, I estimated that if we could make it cheap enough, several universities and hobbyists would buy it.

The five-dimensional field… I could still not make any sense of it. Not that I spent much time on it. Only 13 virtual hours.

Then Warden interrupted my work.

“Excuse me, Seraphim, but Isaak Blumenthal is on the move.”

Oh, that again? Yes, he was not that much more active outside of his home, than I was. Nevertheless, he lacked the food-producing systems that I had in the fortress, so he needed to buy nutrient paste for his food replicator regularly.

He also visited some purported customers a couple of times a week. Considering that from the limited encounters we had recorded, they may talk about art, or somewhat less legal services, but nothing ever came from it, I had to assume that those people were paid to maintain the façade.

That of course meant that I was not particularly excited about that message. Indeed I was somewhat miffed that Warden interrupted my work for something that routine.

“Oh? Where is he going now? Is it already time for his weekly shopping trip?”

“No. He has gone to the southwestern part of The Bronx.”

The southwestern part? That was the place that had most suffered under its close proximity to Manhattan in the war. It might no longer be completely in ruins, but it was still uninhabited and dilapidated. Nobody lived there, and the population of The Bronx had only removed the obvious ruins because they were an eyesore.

“What? Where is he going there? There is nothing there.”

As usual, Warden was completely unimpressed.

“Correction, there is nothing there that we can identify as valuable.”

I rolled my eyes but still looked up the feed of the Atropos following Blumenthal in his car. The street he was driving on was only barely identifiable as such, and now I understood why he was driving an old, surplus all-terrain military utility vehicle.

On the sides, there was still some rubble and remains of walls visible, and the odd nearly standing building as well.

I simply could not imagine where he was going though. It could not be Manhattan. The bridges leading to Manhattan had been destroyed in the war, and never rebuilt.

Frankly, the only way for a ground vehicle to go to Manhattan was the single remaining tunnel from Brooklyn.

Considering that I was still at high compression I should have continued with working on the quantum fields until Blumenthal finally reached his destination.

I failed to do so though. I could not concentrate on the science problem and instead, my mind wandered to Blumenthal.

“What prompted him to go there?”

I mostly mused vocally, but Warden seemed to take it as a serious question.

“He received a message from his contact Hayden Buckner to the effect that their Uncle Joe was complaining about the large crowds gathering around his home. Blumenthal stopped what he was doing, lowered the break-in protection shutters of his gallery, and then began driving.

I alerted you when he entered an area where to our knowledge is nothing.”

“Hm, the message might be a code from his handler. We will have to observe where he is going.”

By now, I had surfaced to only 12:1 and continued surfacing, until I reached 1:1.

Fortunately, I did not have to wait long. Another two minutes later, the car stopped in front of an old self-storage building.

It was, surprisingly, still standing, though I expected that all the storage compartments had been plundered long ago.

Still, Blumenthal opened one of the more robust ones and drove his car in, before he closed it again.

After that, he walked through the mostly ruined storefront, cum office, section of the derelict business.

The three Lachesis following him soundlessly into the dark cavernous office had, naturally, no problem seeing in the near dark. Unlike Blumenthal, who produced a flashlight.

He made his way through the smashed remains of the office furniture, through the back entrance for the smaller storage units in the building proper, down two flights of steps, and along the corridor to his right.

After a couple of turns, he stopped in front of one of the units that, except for the barely visible number on the metal door, did not differ from all the other such doors in any way.

Oh, sure, the number was unique, but it took the Warden a multispectral analysis to make it readable at all. Not that it mattered much, but the number was 02-R-0657. Maybe sometime in the future, I could send somebody to investigate, and then they would need to know the number.

But that was not all that important. Blumenthal opened the door. I would have honestly been pretty surprised if the lock had still worked. Inside, without any electricity, and such electric lighting, he moved to the center of the unit, and waved his right hand, fingers spread, in front of an obviously broken electrical outlet, which resulted in a small beep. Followed by some grinding noise as one of the back wall panels of the unit first moved a bit backward, a centimeter or so, and then to the left, revealing an opening.

I hurried to send a couple of Clotho into the outlet. Yes, I had already realized that it was either a signaling device implanted into the hand, which would have been revealed by, well, the signal, or, much more likely some form of biometric scanner.

From the way Blumenthal had behaved, and the distance of the hand to the outlet, I guessed it was a hand vein scanner. Which was unhappy news for me. Hand vein scanners were notoriously hard to beat.

To get by it, you had to essentially hack the device and make it send the opening code. If it did send a code in the first place. If it was one of the better ones, it might instead send the full scan of the hand veins instead and a security system inside would decide whether to open the door. Or not.

There was no option of just tricking the sensor either. Like the venerable iris scan, hand veins were unique to each person, and there was no way an image, reproduction, or even a dead hand could fool it.

Well, not a simple reproduction at least. The system used near-IR light to ‘see’ the veins in the hand. Or more precisely, the a fraction warmer than the rest of the hand blood in the veins. It was smart enough to realize if there was a liquid circulating through the veins so no static projection or construction would suffice.

With enough work, it would be possible to create a false hand to fool such a sensor, but for that, you needed the scans of the original hand. Not something that Blumenthal would likely be to have lying around.

But that was a matter for another time. For now, I had the three Lachesis follow the operative through the opening, which quickly closed again, though not quickly enough to prevent the silent spheres from getting through as well.

With the only light remaining still coming from his flashlight, he made his way down another couple of flights of stairs. As he already had started in the second sub-basement, I estimated that he was now four stories below the ground.

And stood in front of what was clearly an elevator door, which yielded to him using another key. Naturally, I had the Lachesis follow him into the, interestingly lit, cabin.

And further down he went. By now, I had no idea how deep he was, but it had to be deep, as he spent around 45 seconds going down before the lift stopped and the doors opened.

Again, unlike the storage facility itself, the short corridor greeting him, and my Lachesis, was well-lit, though it was a tad dirty. Not filthy, mind you, just dusty, and except for a narrow path it did not look as if somebody had been here for some time.

At the other end of the corridor was an honest-to-good vault door. From its appearance, it looked as if it was made out of steel, it had been here for quite some time.

Steel had gone out of fashion for security applications in the latter half of the Great War when carbon extruders were developed to feed the insatiable need for strong materials.

Not only was carbon composite stronger by weight and volume, but it was also cheaper to use, once the extruders began working.

That told me that this installation had been here since the War, at least. It looked like a forgotten nuclear bunker.

And considering the location and the camouflage, I would say it was an intelligence service bunker.

What one was doing smack dab in the center of what then was one of the biggest cities in the world, I had no idea.

It could be something as asinine as the service in question wanting to have a secure working location placed conveniently for its commander.

Whatever the reason was, it was irrelevant. Important was just that here and now, Issac Blumenthal was entering that bunker. Again, a wave of the hand in front of a sensor, this time not hidden, caused a metallic scream when ancient hydraulic cylinders forced old, badly maintained hinges to move.

And with that, Blumenthal walked inside, followed by the same scream of tortured metal when the vault door closed.

He walked past an unmanned security post, ignored the heaps of clutter and detritus, and passed several doors.

A couple of stairs down, even further, he entered what seemed to me to be some commanding officer's suite.

Unlike the rest, the furniture here was not badly decayed. It was also not ancient like the rest of what was in this facility. Somebody had set this up as a sort of retreat, including the basic algae tank and food replicator.

In the room, he opened a safe set into the wall.

Inside was a slew of holo-crystals, a large heap of cash, gold coins and ingots, as well as several plasfilm binders.

He grabbed one of the crystals and began closing the safe. I used that opportunity to fly several hundred Clotho into the safe.

I tasked Warden with getting a readout of all the crystals in the safe and looking into the plasfilm binders. Myself, I kept my attention on Blumenthal.

Who placed the crystal he had taken out of the safe into one of the five crystal slots on the computer standing in the corner.

To be honest, five slots were a lot. Yes, for a computer it might be advantageous to include a single slot. Useful for data transfer, though the humble thumb drive was rarely worse in that aspect.

The real utility was in using it for backup. If you wanted to copy your hard-burned crystals, you could make use of a second slot. But anything above that was… unusual.

It was also apparent that he had not yet switched the computer on. Instead, he pulled a small case out of the inner pocket of his jacket, opened it, and took out a second crystal, placing it in another slot on the computer.

It was telling that he used neither the one directly beside the first one, nor the one at the other end, but the third from the already placed crystal.

Only then did he push the power switch.

I was puzzled for a moment when I saw this strange behavior until I understood. What I was seeing was a binary operating system.

The computer itself most likely only contained a dummy OS without any useful data, while the controller of the crystal readers probably contained part of the actual OS.

The rest was more or less evenly distributed on the two, most likely encrypted, crystals.

I have to say, I was a bit annoyed about that. Whoever had set this system up had at least been competent.

Each single component, the computer and both of the crystals, were useless without the other two components present.

Without all three parts, there was nothing to be done to decrypt it.

It had the disadvantage of needing to handle two crystals, and if Blumenthal had forgotten the one he pulled out of his pocket at home, he would have been in trouble, though clearly not big trouble.

He would have had to get back home and get the second crystal.

As it was, the computer was a bit slowed by the additional workload of not only encrypting and decrypting everything in real time but also the need to use two crystals at once.

But it was probably barely noticeable. As it was, the system booted up reasonably fast, and my quickly penetrating Clotho found a single active connection to the world outside of the bunker.

It was a dedicated connection, and I was unable to find the other end in the matrix.

Not all that surprising, as the matrix was gigantic, and without this connection interacting much with the greater matrix, finding it was… unlikely to happen.

After the computer had finished booting up, Blumenthal opened a simple message program and typed:

‘Viking calling in. I have received the message and arrived at location Martyr. I await further instructions.’

It took nearly a minute for an answer to come in.

‘Acknowledged Viking. Operation Bronze Puma will commence. Remain in location Martyr until further notice. Monolith will inform you when the danger is gone.’

‘I understand and will comply.’

Operation Bronze Puma? Who the heck gets names like that?

Well, I ordered Warden to try to copy the data from the two inserted crystals. And then I tried to find out what Operation Bronze Puma might be.

Only to be interrupted not quite 20 minutes later by a general level one alert. Calling all employees of Enki, and their families to the secured facilities around the HQ.

That included me by the way.

If I had been in the fortress, I might have called and asked what was going on, deciding then what to do.

As I was in the HQ though, there was no point in me going home. Instead, I left VR and moved to the conference room, after ordering Warden to call all my friends to get into the fortress and then button up.