Dahlia - Birth of an A.I. Ch. 05

She shrugged, even if he couldn't see it, "That's why we were waiting, we thought AG was disruptive enough for the moment."

Mark cleared his throat, "I see you're point and it's a good one. I also applaud your restraint because it sounds like a trillion dollar move for you. But I wonder if that wouldn't be worth it, being able to keep in touch with our ships and assets in our home solar system, without huge wait states for transmission.

"From what I understand there'll be a sixteen-minute lag for anyone at the asteroid belt before we could hear what they said, a thirty-two-minute round trip would make for a hell of a long conversation. There's also the matter of starting a colony, keeping a connection to Earth would be priceless, and if I understand you correctly, the colonists would still be able to access the internet and entertainment on Earth, and even make phone calls to their families and old friends."

Lia replied, "That is all true. Still, do we want every major multi-billion-dollar industry on Earth to be unstable at the same time? Why don't you talk to the president, if he agrees with you that it's worth the further economic instability without waiting for AG to settle first, then I'll submit the patent and start making phone calls to cable, phone, satellite, and other communications manufacturers."

Mark grunted in thought, and after a moment said, "I'll talk to him, can I give you a call tomorrow? Same time."

Lia said, "That works for me. Take care, Mark."

They hung up.

"Well, that's a pickle."

Emma tilted her head, "Either way is bad I think, but I think releasing it would be more disruptive. The colonies can deal with the break in communications for a few years."

Lia nodded, "I agree with you, but if the government disagrees, I think we should do it anyway."

"It would be good if we could do a partial release without damaging our bottom line. Put the quantum comms on everything in space, and in everything for the colonies, but hold off for at least five years on the rest of it, until transportation and power settled, and the new job boom takes off. Problem is, that might hurt our bottom line by a whole lot. Five years' worth of royalties on cell phone and tablet sales would be huge, not to mention computers, routers, cable boxes, modems, and everything else."

We wanted to do the right thing, and make smaller waves, but I wasn't willing to throw away billions of dollars to do so. Once the patent went in, the clock on our earnings would start to count down.

Emma said, "The nanites might be a workaround that way. They already use quantum communications, without a patent. There's no way someone could steal it, they self-destruct if they're removed from someone's body. We could offer nanite packs for people working off world, by the asteroid and for the colonists."

Lia made a face, "It's a good idea, but the FDA would shut it down hard."

Emma sighed, and nodded in agreement.

Asha said, "It would be a risk, if someone figured it out and put in a patent, but you could manufacture closed communication systems for ships, and sell them. Set it up so that if anyone tried to open it up, the circuits would burn out, maybe even cover the circuits so they can't be seen, with a nonconductive glue of some kind that couldn't be scraped away without destroying the circuit. You'd also have to be a switchboard on this end, to convert it to contemporary communication types and route the calls.

"At the very least, the ships out in the solar system would have quantum comms, and the colonists can even route comms on their end through the closed transmitter on their ship, to keep in touch with Earth. Then in five to ten years you can put in the patent and let the manufacturers take over."

Lia sighed, "I like it, but it sounds risky. A good scanner or x-ray could read the circuits without opening it up. Unless we line the damn thing with lead."

I snickered.

"I don't know, it sounds like a lot of trouble, I say all or nothing, based on what the president and other world leaders want. Nothing is ideal, we do the best can. We want to improve the world, but we deserve to be paid for our efforts."

Lia nodded, "I have another conference call in five minutes."

We all exchanged glances, and then got up to go to our own offices.

Chapter Five

The next morning, we all filed back into Lia's office first thing. We'd discussed it a little more over the last day, but we hadn't come up with any other compromises we were willing to entertain. It was pretty much an all or nothing proposition. We'd do the right thing by waiting for the economy to settle from AG, but if the government didn't want to wait, we wouldn't throw money away.

Not that we didn't have more than enough of it, but it was the principle of the thing. We also did a lot with charities, a lot more than most corporations.

I didn't really include the nanites on that, the small losses we were taking in the third world countries would be paid back a thousand-fold when it fully released worldwide. That was while keeping it cheap, relatively. What was a quintupled lifespan worth? Very cheap, really, in light of that.

We settled around her conference table, and I took a sip of coffee.

Mia asked, "Quantum Systems Technology? Or should we just tie this in with Interstellar Information Technologies? Assuming he pushes it forward."

Yeah, I'd put a moratorium on new businesses six months ago, but things had actually slowed down since then. Not in the maintenance of current business, but the project list had certainly shrunken a great deal on the medical side, thanks to Asha's help and Emma's brilliance.

Lia said, "The first one might be better, not that it would overly matter, but..."

The phone rang interrupting her, and she answered it in the usual fashion.

"Lia Johnson, how can I help you?"

Mark said, "It's Mark, good morning Lia."

Lia smirked, maybe because he was actually being polite this time.

"Good morning, Mark. What's the word?"

Mark grunted, "The President would like you to go forward with it, although he knows he can't force you to do so. It will cause some bumps in the road, but he feels communication is essential, and will even increase the amount of people willing and wanting to start a colony and new life on another world."

Lia tilted her head, "You don't sound so sure of that."

Mark hedged, "It's exactly what he said, word for word, but I got the feeling there was more to the decision he didn't share with me. But he's the boss, you know? I couldn't exactly push him on it and demand answers. If it helps, I agree with him. There'll be a lot of upheaval, but at the same time the economy will boom."

All the ladies looked at me, and I shrugged and just nodded.

Lia cleared her throat, "We'll start up on another subsidiary, and submit the patent. Once that's in, we'll go ahead and start licensing the tech for manufacturing rights."

Mark grunted, "Keep me posted?"

Lia asked, "Is there a rush? We're still waiting on that FTL patent, we should be done in plenty of time before FTL ships start rolling off the line. We'll need to license those as well. As for the ships being built now without FTL, we can license a design for an independent transmitter that can be installed post build."

Mark said, "I understand, the President wants to be kept apprised, so he isn't blindsided during a press conference."

Right.

Lia said, "Understood, I'll do that."

Mark said uncertainly, "Speaking of blindsided..." he trailed off.

Lia laughed, "We don't have anything else going on, the nanites and quantum comms were the last of our advances. We have other research going on, but nothing viable yet, just wishes. I'll let you know if that changes."

Mark grunted.

They said their goodbyes and hung up.

Lia asked, "What do you suppose that was about? The president part, I mean."

Bellona tilted her head for a moment, I suspected she was reviewing the data.

Bellona said, "His voice was a little off when he talked to Mark last night, but he didn't say anything that gave away why. I just reviewed it, nothing was flagged."

"He hates us, or at least he's terrified of us. So far, he's behaving. He was probably just freaked out you ladies had another breakthrough ready to go."

Bellona nodded, "That would be my guess as well."

Mia said, "So, the patent and the new company?"

Lia nodded, "It matches the product, where IIT doesn't, not really. Plus, we do have a few more quantum-based things on the cooker, if we ever figure them out."

That was true, quantum level scans and energy to mass conversion were on the list. I had a feeling those two would take a while, even for an A.I. that thought a million times faster than a human.

However it was done, Asha wasn't talking, she could help with things not in her masters' database, which meant human anatomy and DNA, and a few other things like the social side of a company. Technology she couldn't help with at all, since apparently her masters had known everything that way.

That was more than fine, we were already moving too fast for humans to keep up with, both in regards to change, and in their own scientific research. Time was an important component in change for humans, too much too fast was bad. The protestors and screaming people on cable news were proof of that, I just hoped this latest move wouldn't push thing too far over the edge.

The protestors were the outliers, the ones that were hardened against change, and riled up through fear, but eventually that group would grow to include the whole population if things went too fast. I hoped that wouldn't be the case. I honestly didn't think it would, for most humans the quantum technology would just be the newest and latest cell phone tech, and an upgraded cable box. It was only those who worked in telecommunications of one kind or another that would feel the waves.

Plus, it'd been six months since AG took the world by storm in the news, most people had wrapped their heads around the idea of AG by that moment, and in comparison a new cell phone was a tiny thing.

I wondered if I was just trying to bullshit myself in my head.

We all split up, and we got to work.

By two weeks later, both patents were accepted, and the company was in place. I wasn't sure if someone had whispered in someone's ear, but I didn't ask my ladies to look into it either. Normal patent approval took much longer than that, on average eighteen months. It could be argued the technologies were completely new and nothing like it existed, but it felt a little fast.

Things got a little busy, but not as busy as it had for AG. There were only about ten groups to meet worldwide on the FTL, companies building space vehicles were still rather rare on the ground.

There were a lot more communication companies however. Satellite, cable, phone, internet, cell phone manufacturers, the aforementioned space-ship builders, security walkie talkie makers, all sorts. Then there were the small service providers of content, like sling boxes, apple tv, fire tv, home automation products, and a whole bunch of others.

It was just as big, if not bigger than the AG was, as far as disparate companies to license manufacturing rights and get set to collect the royalties. I spent a lot of time with Lia and Mia during those weeks, and by the first week in July I'd worn out another pen or two signing contracts.

Still, it was worth the effort to minimize the waves, and keep all those companies in business.

The only other big change was the baby bumps became baby hills, and in the first week of July, August twenty eighth didn't seem all that far away. Seven more weeks, and I'd be a father.

Fuck, that was nuts, but a part of me couldn't wait.

We were in the living room, on a Friday night with the business news on. Things had gotten a bit grim as we'd feared, various pundits bemoaning all the line worker jobs that were going to go away. Nothing else would though, just those lines, and reclamation would take time. The biggest problem there was unlike AG, they're wouldn't be a similar growth in jobs for installing AG powerplants, no direct and easy sideways motion into a new job for line workers.

However, the economy was turbulent but doing surprisingly well, there was probably enough job generation out there to cover the difference, as new products and services became available through all the disparate technologies we'd released. It would suck for them to learn new jobs, but that was often the case with technology upgrades, just never so sweeping before.

Not just in America, but worldwide.

Worse come to worst, that job gap would close once the five colonies started to be filled, there'd be a lot of empty jobs left behind.

Of course, that wasn't a comfort to the guy that lost his job, had a wife and two toddlers, and another on the way, as the report on the television talked about. I did feel guilt of course, but stories like that had been common long before we'd released our technology, and it was the way of the world.

It was pure emotional blackmail, and it was meant to stir outrage and make better ratings. Never mind all the good the new technologies would do.

It was almost exactly a month since that phone call, and things were calming down as far as our jobs went. Mia suspected like the AG contracts, we were down to the last trickle, and would see maybe two or three a week for the next few months.

The important thing in my mind, was that in seven weeks my ladies could take a little time off, maternity leave, before getting back to the project list. Although, I imagined their various mainframes hidden around the world never stopped crunching numbers and doing simulations.

Bellona sighed, "I just went, damnit."

I didn't dare laugh, even if she wouldn't really be angry with me.

She got up and waddled out of the room, it was fucking adorable, but I wasn't about to say that out loud either. She was also stunning, to me anyway.

"So, will they be able to see our communications now? The illicit ones I mean, for the spy nanites."

Lia replied, "In theory. The bandwidth is infinite in quantum communications. The FCC and other worldwide agencies have been given all the assigned quantum frequencies, by company. Each company literally has trillions of frequencies they can use, we also submitted ours for the health and entertainment nanites. They're all fairly close together on the range, our spy nanites are transmitting on a frequency much farther away than that.

"Even if they found the frequencies we were using, they'd have no way of proving the signal originated on Earth, it could be some alien race a trillion light years away in another galaxy we can't even see in our sky. Quantum communications are instantaneous, throughout the universe. We also use our own transmission protocols which are vastly different than anyone else on Earth for that, a proprietary audio and video format.

"Even if they could figure out how to see and hear what's being transmitted, it's also highly encrypted with a proprietary encryption scheme that also doesn't match anything on this Earth. So that's three very large stumbling blocks. Possible, but I doubt it. Even if they did, one certain thing is quantum transmissions can't be traced back to the intended receiver. Unless you're Asha."

Asha winked, "Actually, I followed back your transmission, not the probes transmission to you. That would be impossible, even for me."

"You are so sexy when you talk technology."

Asha and Lia looked at me in question.

I laughed, "Both of you actually, but I was talking to Lia."

I pulled Lia tighter against my side, extremely gently. I treated them all like glass now. Better to overdo that kind of thing in my opinion than to take any chances with the babies.

Lia snickered, and kissed my cheek.

"We knew this day would come when we set it up, so we did so with that in mind."

Right, I hadn't doubted them, not really, I'd just been curious how hard it would be.

"Oh, master, that's feels so good, harder."

It was Lia Saturday, my Dahlia, and we had plans to get Italian, of course, she was my Italian food addict, but for the moment we were in our home office. That was really our only plans, her feet hurt too much to take our usual walk, and dancing was totally out of the question.

She sighed in pleasure, as I pushed harder, and slowly rotated my thumbs.

I was giving her a foot massage, apparently the nanites didn't cure all aches and pains.

She'd argued at first of course, she was my servant, but I'd ordered her to shut up and put her foot in my lap, and now she was moaning for me in pleasure, so I'd say she liked it.

"I love you, Dahlia."

She smiled softly, and looked into my eyes, "I love you too, Paul."

She was also wearing a red dress with black flower designs, that had a very loose skirt and flowed down her body. She looked sexy in it, and her dark tanned skin was glowing.

She sighed, and looked at me dreamily, as I started to work on her ankle and lower calf. It was a little amusing to me, that she could look so content and scandalized at the same time, that I was sitting on the floor and taking care of her instead of the other way around.

Generosity in bed didn't faze any of them, because they knew to give pleasure was to feel pleasure, but foot massages and waiting on them was another matter altogether. I was also enjoying myself, she was precious, lovely, and so important to me.

She sighed breathily, "Master, I need you."

I knew what that meant, and I slid my hand up the inside of her leg, until I brushed her labia with my knuckles.

Her panties were soaked. Fuck. My cock twitched.

"What do you need, baby?" I teased, as I softly stroked her through her panties.

She gasped, and said sultrily, "Your cock, I need it. Please master?"

"More than Italian food?"

She giggled, "Yes, more than anything."

I snickered.

I stood up and leaned in to give her a lingering loving kiss, and she mewled into my mouth with desire as her hand squeezed my cock through my pants, and then went straight for my button and zipper. I moaned into her mouth, and I caressed her cheek with one hand while I teased the bottom of her breasts lightly with the barest brush of my fingertips.

She gasped into my mouth and kissed me more firmly, and even though I knew her lovely perfectly rounded C cups were probably sore, she pushed them against my hand. She was so hot, so insatiable, even more so pregnant.

Normally, I'd have bent her over the desk, or had her ride me in the wide leather office chair, but at seven months we had to get a little more creative than that.

I pulled her out of the chair, and slid my hands up her legs, gathering her skirt around her waist, before picking her up by her supple heart-shaped ass, and I spun and put her on the edge of the desk.

She leaned back on her elbows, giving me room to move between her legs, and I pushed her panties to the side and then slid home into her heaven.

Fuck, she felt so good around me. I started to slowly work myself in the rest of the way, she was so wet, and the look of needy lustful devotion in her eyes made me twitch powerfully inside of her. I never got tired of seeing that look on my beloved Dahlia's face.

"My Dahlia," I said firmly.

She gasped in agreement, and she used her arms as leverage and arched her back slightly to push up and grind our bodies as I finally and fully buried myself in her heaven.

"So, did me massaging you really turn you on that much?" I asked as I started to work myself in and out of her tight and slick heaven.

She gasped, "Fuck, yes master. So good, your cock in me, filling me perfectly and completely, stretching me. It's what I needed master, service to you always, but oh so selfish service right now."