#3 The South West
Moebius is serialized fiction about an indie private detective hired to solve crimes related to technology. This is the first edition.
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“How do you like the southwest?”
36 hours after getting this message, I was on a plane to Phoenix, Arizona - the autonomous piloting capital of the US. It had started with auto manufacturers setting up self-driving depots around Phoenix. The wide roads, the lack of foot traffic, and sunny weather all year round were good reasons to set up your self-driving testing teams in Phoenix. But beyond all that, the state of Arizona had no regulation on who could test out self-driving cars. Once the infrastructure for testing self-driving vehicles was built, other autonomous system manufacturers followed. Emergent systems with large capital footprints are hard to stop once they start rolling. Jules Friedman and Octave had set up a 300,000 square foot autopilot hangar outside of Chandler, Arizona. Super Micro, the chip manufacturer Riz and Zhan had talked about, also had a significant prescence in Arizona. It made sense because most of their customers were autonomous system manufacturers.
20 minutes before touchdown and I was filled with anticipation of what my first impressions of Phoenix would be. 20 minutes after touch down, in an Uber on my way to an Airbnb and I was asking myself why I would anticipate anything when I know that most American cities feel the same if all I do is walk through the airport, drive on the highway and get coffee at a fourth wave coffee shop playing Frank Ocean. The only thing I noticed was the number of palm trees lining the roads and an impeccably well-dressed blonde man who had been with me on the flight and I saw him again when we waited for our respective Ubers. When you make eye contact with someone twice in broad daylight, you are obliged to exchange pleasantries about the weather, so I did.
I got a notification from ~crimson-zhan on Scenius “We start at Super Micro tomorrow at 9am”. It also had an address in Chandler, Arizona.
In the morning, while I was getting coffee at a place playing Pink&White by Frank Ocean, I ran into the blonde guy again. He was brushing his flowing hair to the back and walking back from getting his coffee, this time, I asked his name, and he said “Bob.” Really? This gorgeous blonde with chiseled jaws and blue eyes is named Bob?. As I suspected, he said he was here for some work at Octave.
I could see the Octave hangar as I drove to the Super Micro office. It was an imposing structure, built to resemble a mesa. The goal must have been to merge into the desert, be more localist in design, but it had the opposite effect. The hangar was surrounded by rectangular concrete buildings on all sides. These were the offices of contractors who had set up shop after Octave moved in and other business establishments that had set up to cater to Octave employees. Super Micro worked out of one of these offices that were hard to distinguish from each other. I mentioned my name to the receptionist and, after a few glances and clicks on her screen, she led me to a conference room. I could hear Mr. Zhan’s thick accent as I approached the room. This was it. I was one door away from committing corporate espionage. This was going to be a couple of months’ work. I had to embed myself in Super Micro while working on their discussions with Octave and get access to Octave insider information about the plane crash from the employees.
I took a deep breath, preparing myself for what was behind that door but all of the scenarios I had run in my head were suddenly off the table when I opened the door. Sitting across the room, with 7 people around the table facing him, was Jules Friedman. Mr. Zhan stopped mid-sentence and turned to me, and I could see a glimmer of cluelessness in his eyes, probably the first time they communicated something that is not disdain for mere mortals.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Jules asked
I tried to form words but realized that all I had done in the last two seconds was point my fingers vaguely in the direction of Mr.Zhan.
“He’s with me. We’ll be working on testing the new silicon on the Metaverse,” Mr.Zhan spoke up. Adding new information to an already confounding situation for me. What the hell was the Metaverse?
Jules nodded “right, Mr?”
“Vijayan,” I replied
“Mr. Vijayan, to catch you up, we have decided to move forward with Super Micro as our SOC supplier, and they seem keen to have you and Mr.Zhan working with them,” Jules replied while he looked down at his phone while everyone else seemed like they were holding onto every word he spoke.
“Right, that’s it then, anyone else has anything to add,” he said and looked around the room for 2 seconds before continuing, “We’ll wait to hear from you guys on how the Metaverse test goes. Catherine here will help you set it up”. I looked at my watch. I had been 3 minutes late to a one-hour meeting and had missed it. Jules rose from his chair, and so did 3 others who were with him. I assumed the only woman among them must be Catherine.
I stood aside as the Jules crew walked out of the room, still trying to orient myself. Catherine held back and spoke to Zhan, “Meet me tomorrow at 11 at Octave, and we’ll get started on testing your SOC on the Metaverse.”. She smiled as she walked past me. She was a tall woman, at around 5’11, and seemed more composed to the situation than Mr.Zhan or me. She turned around and paused before walking out the door. “Also, you’d need to do a small security clearance. We’ve become tighter with policy considering recent events”.
“Of course what do you need from us?” chimed in Mr.Zhan
“Uhm, nothing at the moment, our security team will get in touch” Mr.Zhan looked at me, the clueless glimmer coming back into his eyes. “Okay, that works,” he mumbled as Catherine walked out.
“What is the Metaverse,” I asked Zhan as we walked out the conference room after a somewhat disorienting meeting.
“You don’t know what the Metaverse is?” chimed in an overly eager voice with a nasal accent. It was one of the Super Micro employees who I had not noticed was with us. She was a short, petite woman with nervous, excited energy about her.
“Sorry, I’m Erika. I’m an engineer here,” she said as she likely noted the surprise in my eyes.
“He’s kind of new to the chip manufacturing but has plenty of experience with autopilot tech,” Mr.Zhan said apologetically.
“Oh, so The Metaverse is a virtual collaboration software in which you can design, test, and simulate products,” the excited voice of Erika continued.
“So, like a virtual reality conference call?” I asked
“No! You can actually test your products and designs in simulated environments with a high degree of verisimilitude,” Erika continued, almost slightly frustrated that I was not excited about this as she was.
“How do you test something like a SOC in this environment?”
“Octave has almost all major airline manufacturers in the Metaverse. They design and test their aircraft in it, with all of their suppliers and complex environments,” Erika continued.
“So you can test your SOC on these simulated designs..” I continued, and Mr.Zhan completed me “with a high degree of verisimilitude” with a rare smile on his face.
“Yes. And we’ll be testing our SOC on the Octave instance of the Metaverse soon. I’m really excited. This is the kind of impactful work I want to do, you know?” Erika continued.
Too bad for her that I was way past my years of tech optimism, and I’m not sure if Mr.Zhan had one. I was not sure if he ever worked in tech or was a “career spy”. We said our goodbyes to Erika at the door. As we walked down the steps, I turned to Mr. Zhan and said, “Verisimilitude. That’s a word you don’t hear often”. No smile this time.
I was sitting across Riz Moebius again. We were in a bar with the vibes of an old American diner. Riz was having a Negroni while not acknowledging my presence except saying hello and asking me about my “first day at work”. I thought about interjecting this man with his thinking hat on but remembered the number of times I had hated it myself when someone did that. After what seems like an eternity, he spoke
“what do you think about that woman across from us in the other booth? Doesn’t she look like Saoirse Ronan?”
The nauseating feeling of being stuck in a scam returned to me, but I managed to glance to the table “I guess so,” I mumbled.
“Do you like her?” Riz continued
“What? I don’t know?” I replied
“Sorry, my therapist said I should try to share more. I don’t see her anymore but thought it was worth trying,” Riz said.
“It’s hard to trust detectives if they are not stoic. So I think it’s good you don’t share,” I added, hoping those words sounded right.
“You watch too many TV shows” Riz paused and looked away.
“What do you want me to do? Layout my master plan for how we are going to figure out what caused the accident?” Riz said with no hint of sarcasm in his voice.
There was a long pause. Long enough that I became more aware of the conversations in the bar and the clinking of glasses than the presence of Riz.
“Were you the whistleblower for the Nicole Dadeone case?” I asked, breaking the silence. It came out more aggressive than I had in my head.
“We need to get access to the Metaverse and run a simulation of the accident with the exact SOC malfunction that Octave says caused the accident,” Riz replied without acknowledging he heard my question. Maybe another time.
“Not to state the obvious, but from what I learned this afternoon, Octave is very careful about who has access to it,” I replied.
“Well, the girl who was sitting across from us,” said Riz while gesturing to our left as my eyes drifted leftward, finding the booth where she sat empty. “She works at Octave. On your team. We know she recently went through a breakup and .. “
I got where this was going, and there was no way I was going along with it “you want me to take advantage of her, sleep with her and get access to the Metaverse test of the plane that crashed? No way I’m doing that to someone”.
“Well, no, what?” replied Riz. “I don’t want you to do that. You are not that attractive, to begin with”.
Now I was out of words. “No, I want you to be the shoulder for her to cry on, be completely friend-zoned and then get her to talk about her work. Try to get access to the Metaverse through her,” Riz continued.
“Why not just get someone to hack her laptop?” I asked.
“Right, a hack is exactly what Octave and American agencies need to conclude that it was the SOC hack that caused the crash,” Riz said, making me feel even smaller.
I was not sure anymore, so I had to ask, “Are we the good guys in this story?”.
Riz chuckled and then began to say something but chuckled again.
“What do you think we are? Missionaries?” He said and stared at his drink.
I was about to respond when I noticed blonde Bob outside the window. He was right across the street from us, talking to someone and occasionally glancing in our direction as they walked past the bar.
“It’s funny. This city must be really small. I keep running into the same blonde guy every day,” I said half to myself and to Riz if he was listening.
Riz was jolted out of whatever spell he was in
“Wait, you saw a blonde guy?Where?” He asked.
“I saw him at the airport, then at the coffee shop, then I think I just saw him walk by, “I said, pointing out the window, and Riz’s eyes followed.
“Why do you ask?” I continued
“Did he say his name was Bob?” Riz asked with his eyes fixed on me
“Yes, why?” I replied
Riz sighed and continued, “He works for War Hogs, an ‘independent publication’ that does its own investigations.”
“So kind of like you, I guess?”
“Yes, except most of their independent funding comes from the CIA,” Riz said quite matter of factly.
I was expecting my body to be surprised, but instead, I felt it reject that notion. Like it was used to unexpected things at this point. Or maybe I felt that the CIA was more of a fictional character than a real one.
“How are you so sure that the CIA is wrong, and this is not a Chinese operation,” I asked. There was no going back at this point but perhaps I can salvage my old job and not be tried for treason.
“For that, I’ve to tell you the story of the magical flight recorder,” Riz responded as he took the check and walked out.
“Do you know how to file work reimbursements on Concur” I was about to say no, but he just shoved the bill into my hands.