Page 47 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest
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Bangalore, India
A torrential downpour nearly flooded the street where the UberGo pulled to a stop in front of the quiet, out-of-the-way restaurant.
Dr.Jagadeesh Gowda dashed the short distance between the parked cars along the curb and to the front door without bothering to open his umbrella. He arrived beneath the awning dripping wet and watched the Tata Tiago pull away, satisfied he had arrived only a few minutes late. The storm had snarled Bangalore’s already tortured traffic to a near standstill. The front door opened with the tinkle of a familiar bell.
The candlelit restaurant was one of Gowda’s favorite haunts, its understated elegance heightening its romantic ambience. He was greeted by the manager, who helped him off with his stylish Burberry trench coat. The sweet aromas of jasmine and cardamom perfumed the air.
“She’s waiting for you.” The manager nodded toward a high-backed booth at the far end of the restaurant before turning to hang up his raincoat. They stood near the restaurant’s big plate-glass window overlooking the street.
“Thank you,” Gowda said. From the corner of his eye he saw the faint blue glow of a video camera screen inside a dark car parked across the street.
“The usual, sir?”
“Of course,” Gowda said with a pleasant smile. “Only, make my whiskey a double.”
“A long day at the office, sir?”
“More like a celebration.”
“Very good, sir. Your dishes will arrive shortly.”
“Excellent.”
Gowda worked his way past the tables of couples devouring plates of some of the best-cooked dishes in all of Bangalore, home to India’s “Silicon Valley.” Not a few female eyes raked over his athletic build as he marched by.
Dr.Gowda slid into the open bench opposite a stunning woman, whose face lit up the moment she saw him. Her natural beauty required no adornment, but the gold-chained pendant around her neck drew Gowda’s attention.
“So glad you made it in this storm,” Gowda said. They both wore forced smiles.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Her eyes darted down to the condiment tray on their table. She discreetly held up a car key fob—in reality, a miniature radio-frequency detector. It flashed a silent red light, indicating the table had been bugged.
“Traffic was terrible,” Gowda said, lifting his smartphone from his pocket and setting it carefully next to the condiment station. “I’m famished.”
The two of them locked eyes and then nodded slightly in perfect synchronicity. Anyone watching them would have missed the gesture. Gowda pushed a button on what appeared to be a cell phone but in reality was a phase inverter, a higher-tech version of a noise-canceling device. The phase inverter recorded all ambient noises in the room, including their conversation, then processed it in real time to invert the waveform, which created a destructive interference pattern. The software was careful to allow a few innocent words to dribble through. The overall effect would garble their conversation but not entirely destroy the bug’s reception in order to avoid suspicion that it had been discovered and disabled.
“We don’t have much time,” Gowda said in a low whisper. “You saw the two crows across the street?”
“You mean Dumb and Dumber?” The young beauty giggled. “RAW needs to find better recruits.” The Research and Analysis Wing was India’s version of the CIA. Their agents routinely kept tabs on high-value persons like Dr.Gowda, one of the most prominent computer science researchers at the Indian Institute of Science. He was currently working on a top secret organoid intelligence project under contract with the Ministry of Defense.
“With any luck, the RAW boys would chalk up the bug’s interference to the weather. If not, they’d do something about it.”
“Why the urgency?” she asked.
“Why do you think?”
Gowda reached into his sport coat and gripped the package. He hesitated. India only used the death penalty in extreme cases—and this was about as extreme as it got. But it was necessary, and she understood the risks as well as he did.
They were both Guardians.
Originating as a faction of rebel Japanese computer scientists, the Guardians had recruited like-minded scientists and technologists worldwide, united in their belief that the advent of AGI was a human-extinction and potentially planet-killing event. Because the movement began in Japan, they adopted the Japanese mythology of thetengu. These were the spiritual protectors of both the natural and cosmic orders, opposing the pride and vanity of arrogant monks and unscrupulous samurais—the corporate CEOs, university academics, and military generals of their day. All were legitimate targets wherever they may be found.
The Guardians’ cause was as sacred as it was practical. Humanity was ill-prepared for the godlike powers AGI would confer upon the most ambitious and amoral among them. Nuclear weapons paled in comparison because they could never be used without harming the planet. But AGI could be deployed covertly, collapsing whole societies at the virtual flip of a switch with literally no fallout to the attacker.
Gowda took her hand in his and gently kissed her fingers in what appeared to be a romantic gesture straight out of a Bollywood soap opera. In fact, he was passing off to her a necklace identical to the one she was wearing, the pendant of which contained a miniature hard drive. In a few moments she would excuse herself to the restroom, switch necklaces, and return the other one to him.
They had developed this little ruse of extramarital misbehavior in order to deceive their watchers. Gowda needed a trustworthy and reliable person to pass off the intelligence he gathered from his work at the institute. Meeting someone regularly would have drawn suspicion unless that person was a gorgeous young lady with whom the RAW agents themselves would have liked to become entangled. She was, in fact, married to his brother, a brilliant scientist in his own right, who had recruited the two of them into the Guardian organization.
