Extinction Event

By Ed Rowley

Suzanne Ray, a graduate student with a brilliant mind, has her reasons for mistrusting AIs. Sent to investigate the findings of an AI recently installed as part of an upgrade to those four-hundred-year-old SETI radio telescopes, Suzanne quickly identified the flaw in the AI's logic. However, she also recognizes an ominous pattern hidden in the data that will mean the end of life on this planet.

While her findings are being presented, Suzanne's path collides with Tommy Coyle and his partner, Bill Shogan, who was a genetically engineered individual (GEI). Tommy and Bill are representatives of the AECC, the largest construction company in the world. Tommy, captivated by Suzanne's blue eyes, finds himself drawn to her like iron to a magnetic field. Together, with the help and hindrance of AIs, Suzanne and Tommy find themselves in a race to prevent a planetary extinction event.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889828143

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter 1: The Binary Lecture Hall

Chapter 2: SETI

Chapter 3: AIs Can't Think

Chapter 4: Solving the Problem

Chapter 5: The Human Touch

Chapter 6: Getting the Ball Rolling

Chapter 7: Getting to Know You

Chapter 8: A Helping Hand

Chapter 9: That Big Break

Chapter 10: Presentations

Chapter 11: Board of Directors' Meeting

Chapter 12: Public Appearances

Chapter 13: Designing a Boat Hull

Chapter 14: Simulation

Chapter 15: Moving Mountains

Chapter 16: Obsession

Chapter 17: Truth Be Told

Chapter 18: Saving the Day

Chapter 19: Off-world Options

Chapter 20: The Cobb Lecture Hall

About the Author

cover.jpg

Extinction Event

Ed Rowley

Copyright © 2024 Ed Rowley

Registration Number: TXu 2-403-860

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2024

ISBN 979-8-88982-810-5 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88982-814-3 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter 1

The Binary Lecture Hall

Tommy Coyle walked through the empty hallways of the Geology Building, the biggest building on the campus of the Kiku Institute. He spotted Bill Shogan sitting nervously on a bench.

Bill said, Tommy, where have you been? This lecture started a few minutes ago! What room is it in?

Bill got up and started walking toward Tommy.

It's in the Binary Lecture Hall, Tommy said sheepishly. It's around here somewhere!

Bill tapped the corner of his GAM glasses. Display the shortest route to the Binary Lecture Hall.

He turned and walked purposely down the hallway.

Tommy was thinking, Why didn't I think of that?

Tommy tapped the Auxi on his wrist angrily. You knew where I was going. Why didn't you tell me which way to go?

A woman's soft voice responded in Tommy's ear, I can't help you with directions, Tommy. You have other resources for that. I'm here to help you be the best person you can be, and you are a very good person. After a pause, she said, Tommy, how do you feel?

Tommy was agitated and said out loud, I'm really nervous about this appointment.

Bill responded, assuming Tommy was talking to him, There's nothing to be nervous about, Tommy. I'm here for you. I've got your back. We'll be fine.

Tommy sensed that Bill was nervous too and was trying to convince himself he wasn't.

As they scurried down the long stone corridor, Tommy thought back to when he was assigned this task.

This assignment was made by Mr. Hernandez himself, the CEO of the Aztec Engineering and Construction Company (the AECC). Except that Mr. Hernandez was talking to Bill when giving Tommy the assignment.

Mr. Hernandez had said, This is big, really big. Bill, I want you to figure out what's going on, what needs to be done, then explain it to Tommy. Then he had glanced fleetingly at Tommy, Make sure you let Tommy do all the talking. There's a professor giving a lecture on his crazy theory, and it's starting to gain traction. If people believe this theory, something will have to be built to solve the problem, something big.

Tommy remembered Mr. Hernandez turning to him and saying, Tommy, you will convince that professor that he needs the Aztec Engineering and Construction Company to build whatever monstrosity he thinks needs to be built.

Tommy understood his instructions. He knew he was supposed to win the confidence of this professor. That meant schmoozing. Whenever schmoozing was required, Tommy got the call. Tommy had schmoozing skills, and apparently it was a skill that Mr. Hernandez valued. It's a good thing because working as a member of the engineering staff of Aztec Engineering and Construction Company was a high-paying job, and Tommy was the only one on the staff that didn't have an engineering degree. Well, not yet anyway.

The Aztec Engineering and Construction Company (the AECC) was the largest construction company in the world. The AECC built the Meteor Monsters, a fleet of eight rockets that could move or destroy any meteor found to be on a collision course with the planet. The AECC also built the Danny Kim Pyramid, the largest man-made structure ever built.

Mr. Hernandez often came down to the engineering offices when he wanted something done. Typically, he would seek out Nick Kiser, the engineering director, and sometimes he would talk to Jane Choi or one of the other engineering managers. Mr. Hernandez was not a patient man. Tommy would be in his cubicle and hear Mr. Hernandez shouting at Nick or Jane.

Tommy once asked Nick, tongue-in-cheek, if he liked getting yelled at by Mr. Hernandez. He was surprised by Nick's answer.

Nick smiled wryly, shrugged, and said, I have a lot of stock in the Aztec Engineering and Construction Company, and I believe that Mr. Hernandez is the main reason that stock is doing well. He can yell at me all he wants, and I will do whatever I can to make sure he gets what he needs.

Mr. Hernandez had personally connected Bill and Tommy together as a team and sent them out on marketing missions.

About 50 percent of the work the AECC gets comes from bidding on proposals. The AECC was so large that they often underbid a proposal knowing that once they were awarded the contract, they would get most if not all the follow-on work. About 35 percent of the work the AECC got came from the maintenance associated with previous projects and about 15 percent came from knocking on doors.

On big projects, Mr. Hernandez would go and do the schmoozing himself. He was very charming when he wanted to be, and he was a very good listener. He had a skill for determining what people meant versus what they actually said. He had gone to England, France, and Germany to market the Aztec Engineering and Construction Company and, more times than not, landed huge government contracts.

Mr. Hernandez always said the work must exceed expectations. If the work was shoddy, it would damage the company's reputation, and there wouldn't be any follow-on work. There was a whole department devoted to rework. They were called the Advanced Design group, which was a fancy title for the group that came in and fixed the mistakes you made.

Mr. Hernandez realized the Aztec Engineering and Construction Company could make more money if he had a team of marketing people. However, he also realized that a bad marketing team could do more harm than good. Mr. Hernandez painstakingly selected marketing teams, and in many cases, he personally assigned the tasks.

When you were on a marketing assignment, you were given a generous schmoozing budget. You were to take people out to dinner or maybe a football or baseball game. Most of the people you took out weren't supposed to accept gifts, but if you happened to buy the jersey of their kid's favorite player and happen to leave it in their office, well, these things could happen.

Bill and Tommy worked well together as a team. They were the two youngest people on the engineering staff and accounted for about 25 percent of the marketing work awarded to the AECC. It was understood by the staff that Bill and Tommy were the golden boys.

Tommy thought about their main competition, Jill and Caleb Seder. Jill and Caleb met each other when they were assigned to the engineering staff of the AECC and soon after got married. Jill is very outgoing and had a great sense of humor. Caleb, in Tommy's estimation, is a stick in the mud. Most of the engineers on the engineering staff were still trying to figure out how Caleb convinced Jill to marry him.

Tommy thought that Jill and Caleb operated in the same manner as Tommy and Bill; Bill figured things out, and Tommy did all the talking. With Jill and Caleb, Caleb figured things out, and Jill did all the talking. However, in Tommy's estimation, Jill was as sharp if not sharper than Caleb, and she just let Caleb think he was figuring things out for her.

Coming back to reality, Tommy found himself chasing Bill down the hallway. Bill, why do you think Mr. Hernandez gave us this assignment? Why didn't he send Nick Kiser or Al Casio?

Bill stopped, turned around, and lowered his GAM glasses. Tommy, Mr. Hernandez picked you because of your superpower: you are nice to people.

Tommy was startled. That's my superpower? I'm nice to people?

Bill frowned and glanced at the floor. It's harder to be nice to people than you think.

Tommy was struck by what Bill said, "It's harder to be nice to people than you think." That was certainly true for Bill. Bill always said exactly what was on his mind. He was wired that way. Bill seemed to say things in a way that always offended people. He was a Genetically Engineered Individual (GEI). Bill's DNA was configured to give him a very high IQ, and that part worked out well. Bill's IQ was over 300. Unfortunately for him, and most of the other GEIs, the other standard human personality traits didn't translate well when their DNA was assembled. Bill had no interpersonal skills. He was rude, inconsiderate, and impatient. He got angry very quickly and, just as quickly, depressed.

Bill would often make observations and express them in a way that was offensive. Bill's Auxi would remind him he was being rude and try to coach him on ways to be less offensive.

Tommy also tried to coach Bill. He would say, Bill, you need to think about what you are saying before you say it. Think about how what you say will be interpreted by the person you are talking to.

Tommy would follow with, Bill, you're a really intelligent guy, sometimes you just need to be a little smarter.

Bill looked mournfully at Tommy. Mr. Hernandez is always yelling, but when he talks to you, his tone softens. He treats you differently than everyone else. You're a reasonably intelligent guy, but your mind is always wandering, you don't have many redeeming qualities, yet Mr. Hernandez seems to favor you. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. Bill paused. The only time Mr. Hernandez talks to me is to tell me that I am to watch your back and help you out in any way I can.

Bill looked off in the distance. His face brightened. Tommy! My Auxi tells me that hanging out with you is a great opportunity. She says I'll be a more successful and happier person! Bill tapped his watch as if he were thanking it.

Bill said, All right…let's get this thing done!

Tommy knew they were going to be late, and he knew it was his fault. Sometimes he just couldn't get himself going. His roommate, Larry Bareedi, always seemed to have it together. He shared an apartment with his buddy, Larry, who even frantically shook him awake this morning, knowing he'd otherwise be late.

He remembered Larry scolding him, Tommy, make sure you're not late for this meeting you keep talking about. You must succeed brilliantly, or all the time I've spent pretending to listen to you talk about it will be for nothing.

Larry had graduated from the Kiku Institute and had gotten his degree in mechanical engineering in three years. Tommy thought that Larry was almost as smart as Bill, but Larry was clearly not a GEI. Larry was charming, outgoing, and funny. Tommy thought about how he ended up with Larry as his roommate. It was his Auxi that suggested him.

Larry attracted women like a magnet. It was uncanny. Tommy had good listening skills, and as Larry would say, Tommy, you have the gift of gab, until he tried to talk to an attractive woman. That's when all of Tommy's clever banter seemed to grind to a halt.

Tommy was supposed to be an engineer. That was what his mother always told him, and he didn't want to disappoint his mother. He always worked to ensure her approval. He did well on his college entrance exams, but there wasn't enough money for him to attend one of the big engineering schools right out of high school.

If Tommy was going to go to college, he had to pay for tuition himself. Fortunately for him, he got a job when he was just sixteen. It was Mr. Hernandez that got Tommy his first job. Tommy remembered being with his mother at a wedding reception when he and his mother ran into Mr. Hernandez. Somehow, they knew each other, and the next thing Tommy knew, he was sweeping floors in the stock room at the AECC.

While working full-time, Tommy went to Bloom Junior College at night. It took him four years to get his associate degree. Tommy was smart enough to be an engineer, no doubt about that. He typically had an A average in the twelfth or thirteenth week of every semester. However, he found it hard to stay focused. He got a B in statistical analysis and Chemistry 201 when he should have gotten an A in those classes. He just ran out of steam the last few weeks of the semester.

After getting his associate degree from Bloom, Tommy got accepted into the engineering school at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). UCLA is on semesters—one semester in the fall, one semester in the spring, and they had one compressed summer semester. If Tommy took one class every semester, it would take him seven years to graduate, but he hated going to school in the summer.

Tommy tried to take two classes at a time when he could. If the technical class was going to be straightforward, he would take a second nontechnical class with it. He took calculus, physics, and mechanics with rhetoric, humanities, and philosophy. However, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and differential equations were classes he knew he had to take one at a time.

When Tommy was in his junior year at UCLA, he remembered approaching Nick Kiser for a position on the engineering staff. Nick agreed, and Tommy was assigned to assist Al Casio with whatever Al needed to get done.

A year later, Mr. Hernandez called Tommy and Bill into his office to assign them their first marketing mission. The oil rigs in the oceans were corroding away and required inspection and reinforcement. Hundreds of years ago, oil was big business. Oil was turned into gasoline, which fueled vehicles that people just drove around for fun. That was, of course, until they realized that the CO2 from burning fossil fuel was heating up the planet. One by one, every industry found some substitute for using oil. The only thing oil was still used for these days was the manufacture of plastics. Therefore, oil was no longer big business, and the profit margins were not what they used to be.

Mr. Hernandez thought that repairing oil rigs would be a good application for biped robots. The biped robots could work autonomously and weren't affected by the crushing depths of the ocean. The AECC had developed biped robots about three hundred years ago and still maintained the patents on them. Back when robots were first being developed, the designers felt they needed to make a robot look like a person. What they didn't understand was how difficult it was for a machine to balance upright on two legs.

The original designers started by putting in vertical and lateral gears and servos in the robot's legs thinking that was all that was needed to allow it to walk with a gait that resembled a person. Testing showed that any out-of-plane movement would cause the robot to fall over. They installed horizonal gears and servos that allowed control of movement in three dimensions, which, surprisingly, didn't improve stability at all. They added gyroscopes to the head and torso. Unfortunately, with the gyros, the biped robots wobbled and looked like they were break dancing as they moved along. Even with the addition of an internal Artificial Intelligent (AI) unit that could make a thousand adjustments a second, a biped robot would still fall over if you looked at it sideways.

The other thing the original robot designers didn't understand was the number of servos and gears that were needed to get a mechanical device that looked like a hand to work like a hand. Holding a staff or a welding stick was about the only thing a biped robot could do.

The real kiss of death for the use of biped robots was the addition of a tail. When they added the tail, the internal AI could use its counterweight to get the robot to walk upright with reasonable proficiency. However, with a tail, the robot looked so ridiculous that if you saw one, you couldn't help but laugh. It was a good thing the biped robots didn't have feelings, or they would all have developed complexes from all the ridicule they received.

A biped robot had difficulty performing the simplest of tasks. It was feeble, unstable, and ridiculous looking. Every ten-year-old-boy that came across one felt the inherent need to knock it over. A biped robot had a great deal of difficulty standing itself back up once it fell over. The robots were all programmed to say, I've fallen, and I can't get up. Can you help me get back on my feet? Which made them all the more pitiful.

Most of the engineers on the AECC staff felt that getting anyone to pay for the use of those biped robots was an impossible task. They made thousands of them, and almost all were stored, unused, in roll-off boxes behind the AECC offices in Los Angeles or sold to be used as mannequins for women's fashion outlets (minus the tail).

Al Casio went with Tommy and Bill on their first marketing mission. Well, Al remained in the AECC offices but could see what Tommy was seeing through his GAM glasses and hear and talk to Tommy through his Auxi. As it turned out, Al Casio wasn't needed.

Tommy had a skill for connecting with people. He explained things well, and he was a good listener. Tommy convinced the oil company executives that the AECC could provide biped robots that would climb down an oil rig structure into the depths, perform inspections, and identify sections that needed reinforcing. Spider robots could then carry and hold slabs of steel to cover corroded sections, and the biped robots could weld them into place. Tommy also pointed out that this alternative was, by far, the cheapest way to reinforce their oil rig structures.

The oil company awarded the AECC the contract on the condition that the biped robot's recharging station would be located on the back side of the oil rig on the lowest level. This way the biped robots could carry out their tasks without being seen by the oil rig employees.

The oil companies were worried that even their adult oil rig employees couldn't help themselves and would accidentally bump the biped robots off the rig. The oil rigs were so tall it would take a biped robot a few hours to climb back up the structure.

Tommy and Bill became instant celebrities on the engineering staff as the first marketing team in three hundred years to make use of those useless biped robots. After the biped robots worked successfully in reinforcing the first oil rig structure, all the other oil companies fell in line requesting the service of biped robots for repair of their corroding oil platforms.

Al Casio was only tied in for Tommy and Bill's first few marketing missions. Al quickly concluded that Tommy and Bill were perfectly capable of marketing AECC products on their own and didn't need his assistance.

Tommy and Bill were sent on marketing missions all over the country. It started out with small projects, then after a few successes, the projects got bigger and bigger. Tommy and Bill were typically not sent on international marketing missions because Tommy had to attend class at UCLA two nights a week.

Tommy had been taking classes at UCLA for six years and now had just one class left: Electrical Engineering 202…again. He had barely passed Electrical Engineering 101 and failed Electrical Engineering 202 the first time through. Tommy struggled with the study of electrical and magnetic fields. Electrical fields were linear; magnetic fields, curvilinear and logarithmic. One couldn't see, feel, hear, taste, or smell either electric or magnetic fields. It all seemed like magic to Tommy.

Tommy understood that this lecture he was attending had something to do with magnetic fields. Theoretical stuff. He was worried it wouldn't make sense to him and that he would have to rely on Bill to explain it to him later.

Tommy opened a door, and the feeling of relief rushed over them. They had found it: the Binary Lecture Hall. They looked up at the seats arranged in a semicircle climbing twenty-five rows. Most of the seats were filled with college kids. Tommy suddenly realized that all those college kids were looking at them. They had walked in a side door onto the stage where the professor was lecturing.

Mortified, Tommy looked across the stage. The professor had stopped talking and was looking at them. The silence was like a blanket draped over everyone in the lecture hall.

Tommy and Bill had intended to enter the lecture hall as inconspicuously as possible, taking seats in the back. They were going to listen to the lecture and talk to the professor afterward. Tommy was planning to tell the professor how interested he was in his theory and tell him how well he presented it, whether he understood any of it or not. That was the plan.

Tommy and Bill found themselves in the spotlight. A ringmaster at the circus could not have commanded this much attention. What to do? Tommy was supposed to be in charge but found himself suddenly paralyzed.

Tommy heard Bill's voice loud and clear over the blanket of silence, Excuse us, Professor. Bill looked up and gestured to the audience. We're representatives of the Aztec Engineering and Construction Company. Bill jabbed at the logo on his shirt. We're sorry for the interruption. Bill then casually gestured back to the professor. Please continue, Professor. Tommy felt himself being pulled down into one of the many empty seats in the front row.

Tommy snapped out of his catatonic state. How did Bill pull that off? Bill made it seem like we were distinguished guests rather than a couple of idiots that just stumbled onto the stage of a lecture hall. Most of those attending this lecture were undergraduate students, while he and Bill were both twenty-eight years old. Tommy gathered himself then straightened up in his seat. Yes, that's right. We are distinguished guests.

Tommy stepped out of this stream of consciousness, returning to the lecture hall. Bill is handy to have around. We do have our cool Aztec Engineering and