Truth & Code: The Future is Black and White

Segunda Parte

Block 7,922,052

Han leaves the house a little later today. He had trouble sleeping last night. Huifen had some black tea ready for him. She knew he probably wouldn’t want to sit down and eat breakfast. He walks into the kitchen and kisses her on the cheek.

“Where are the kids?” He asks.

“In the playroom getting ready for their lessons for the day.”

“Ok, I’m going to say goodbye.”

He walks through the living room towards the playroom. He can already hear them, and he smiles. He walks in, and they all rush around him, grabbing his legs and reaching up for him. He gets down on his knees to kiss each one. The boys immediately ran off to continue what they were doing. Lilly looks at him and then looks at his shirt.

“Daddy.”

“Yes?”

“I like this shirt.”

“Thank you, my little one.” He picks her up. He swirls her around as he kisses her. She screams.

“That’s fun, daddy! Can we do it again?”

“No, little one, I need to get to work.”

“Ok,” she says with a pout.

“Be good to mommy today while I am gone.”

“Ok, daddy. Have fun!”

“I will.” He smiles and turns around to walk out towards the kitchen.

Huifen is waiting with his black tea. He sits at the table, and she brings his tea and sits in his lap with her breasts facing him.

“What is this? Do I need to drink or eat?” He asks.

“Drink for now, my dear. Do you want tea or milk?” She asks with a laugh.

“Tea, my dear.”

Han drinks tea with Huifen on his lap. He holds the cup with his left hand and caresses Huifen with his right.

“Who says you aren’t ambidextrous?” She asks with a smile.

Han smiles.

They talk about the plans for the day as Han finishes his tea. After Han finishes, he picks Huifen up, grabs her bottom, and carries her over to the kitchen counter. They kiss passionately before Han says, “I love you!”

“I love you too!”

“I need to leave now.”

“I know.”

Han pulls away, looking a little less groomed than when he came out of the bedroom, but he doesn’t care. Instead, he heads to his office and locates his satchel. He places his console, mystery device, notepad, and pencil into the satchel. Finally, he puts his glasses in his right shirt pocket and heads out the door.

The AV is waiting. He enters and darkens the glass. The AV starts its journey to Han Tech headquarters.

Han sits at the desk in the AV and opens the satchel. He takes the console, Beta console, and mystery device out and places them on the desk. He turns the console on and confirms it’s not connected to AI. He then plugs the mystery device in. This time he remembers to orient it correctly. After waiting for the lighting sequence, he points at the icon, and a new screen appears.

He again sees: “Synchronization in progress .0001% complete. Seventy-Five years, three days, 8 hours, 24 minutes, and 10 seconds to go. Estimated time, “3 years and 65 days.”

The lights on the device are blinking as they did the night before. He decides he will just let it do its thing until it stops. As it does, he notices the countdown changing, and the lights flicker; that’s it. He puts the console with the mystery device attached to the satchel and sits back to try to rest on his way into Han Tech, but he can’t stop thinking about what is happening. He pulls the notebook out, tears a little corner, and scribbles a note on the scrap paper. He then puts the message in his right upper breast pocket, sliding it behind his glasses.

Han finally arrives at Han Tech.

Satchel in hand, he rides up the elevator to his office. The elevator door opens, and he starts walking to the desk. It’s a bright, clear day outside, and he can see for kilometers. He loves this time of year. It’s not too cold, just crisp and everything seems clearer and sharp.

“AI, summon Min Liu.”

Within moments Min is coming up the stairs. He looks at her and smiles, and waves her to the desk. She hurries over in a slightly bent-over posture.

“Come. Come. Sit down.”

She sits down to the left in front of Han. Han swivels around to look out the windows with Min at his back.

“Min, you do realize what an important company Han Tech is to SO-Lands?”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

“You realize that, probably next to me, you are the most important person here at Han Tech?”

“Well, sir... I don’t think about that, but as you say it, yes, you are correct.”

“You realize that in your position working at one of the most important companies in SO-Lands brings certain ‘privileges,’” he puts his fingers up in air quotes. He continues, “To you and your extended family?”

“Uhhh, yes, sir.” Min had a slight quiver in her voice.

Han and Min both knew this conversation was not necessary. But Han wanted to verbalize it to clarify what he was about to ask. He could hear the quiver in Min’s voice. That confirmed what he needed to know.

He swivels around in the chair and looks at Min. She looks at him nervously.

“Min, you are my number one. One day you may be in this chair.”

She seemed to straighten up a bit and felt more at ease.

“Ok, please come here. I have a question about the Beta devices you and your team developed.”

“Of course.”

As Min stands up to come around to Han. Han reaches down to his satchel and pulls out the console and mystery device. Both of which are still connected. As he places both flat down on the desk, he reaches into his right breast pocket, pulls the note out, puts it next to the console, looks at Min, and points to the note.

Min looks at him with a smile and then at where he is pointing. Her smile immediately turns into a worried look. She doesn’t know what she’s looking at. Few, if any, in SO-Land have ever seen writing on a piece of paper.

Han grabs Min’s hand. She looks down at him.

He mouths, “It’s ok.”

She reads the note: Never verbalize what you are looking at. We can only talk about this matter indirectly, never directly. I found the smaller device. Your team made a prototype of this device.

Han slowly releases his grip on Min’s hand.

“The devices you and your team have made work great. The data from the smaller Beta device doesn’t seem to be displayed on the console. Have I done something wrong?” Han asks.

“Hmm, let me see.” Min looks at the lights flickering on the mystery device and the countdown on the console.

“Mr. Tan, I think I need to check on the internal BIOS of the console and the small storage device. Should we do this at the conference table with the input devices?”

“Yes, that sounds like a good idea.”

“Let me get one of the other engineers up here to help as well...”

“No, Min.” He quickly grabs her wrist. “I think you alone should be able to solve this.” He stresses ‘you alone’ and continues, “I think this would be a good test for your advancement within Han Tech.” He releases his grip and winks at her.

“Yes, yes, of course. I thought getting someone else might speed the process up, but I’m up to the challenge.”

They walk over to the conference table. The input devices emerge from the center storage console.

Min connects a keyboard and pointer and starts looking at the internal BIOS. The countdown continues in the background. After a few moments, Min starts checking the contents of the memory device. She then brings up a command prompt and types:

“I’m not sure what kind of data is stored on this smaller device, but there is not enough memory on our Beta console to transfer all the contents. Also, I’m not sure that this data will be helpful on the console without the computing power of AI ???”

Han looks at her and nods.

“Min, I’d like to have you for dinner tonight with the family. Can you come tonight?”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Tan.”

“Great, we will see you at 7:00 pm. But, unfortunately, you will have to put up with our little ones a little before they get to bed.”

“No problem, Mr. Tan. I live with my brother and his family. So I’m used to little ones running around.”