Adam gazed at his world, which consisted of only three screens lined up side by side on the desk in front of him, spitting out the latest data from his simulation. If everything worked, the system he had helped develop could finally enter the crucial beta phase.
Nerviously, he adjusted his natural horn glasses and pushed them back onto his slightly crooked nose, which gave him an academic air, while his blue eyes scanned all the data appearing on the screen.
The initial results seemed promising, but Adam didn't allow himself any joy—too many errors had surfaced recently, errors he thought he had long since eliminated.
He ran his hand over his stubbly three-day beard, which patchily covered his face, and then, without even taking his eyes off the data appearing on his keyboard, reached for the coffee mug next to him – but it was empty.
Adam sighed. It was the third time he'd reached for the coffee, even though he'd finished it an hour ago. The cookies from his favorite bakery were long gone, too; only an empty box labeled "Säräküpsis" remained on the desk – a few crumbs were all that was left.
"You're making me nervous!" a male voice called out.
It was Arto, his colleague, who was sitting in the next room, which was connected by an open doorway. His head peeped through the doorway as he leaned back in his adjustable desk chair.
“Being nervous is also appropriate,” Adam replied, “if the simulation succeeds this time, it would be the most groundbreaking development of the 21st century!”
He wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead.
“You’re getting your hopes up too high, Adam,” Arto replied. “Even if it works—which I doubt—we still have years of hard work ahead of us. It might become one of those projects that never gets finished. Eventually, the institutions will cut off our funding, and that will be the end of it. No one will know about the many years of hard work, and Genesis will only be mentioned in a few files.”
“Genesis can change all of Europe!” Adam retorted defiantly, turning his desk chair toward Arto. “It would transform the security policy of every single country by creating a shared, decentralized security system, managed by an AI that can independently detect crises early on and alert flexible intervention forces or autonomously defend against cyberattacks. No—we didn’t launch two hundred satellites into space just to leave them unused. Genesis is the future of Europe!”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Arto said soothingly, raising his hands. “Tell that to the men in suits; they’re the ones who will decide, and that’s what I’m worried about.”
Adam snorted and adjusted his glasses, which were once again crooked on his nose.
“I’m just nervous,” he said, resting his head on the back of the chair. “The political situation changes almost daily. There are hotspots everywhere, the separatists are threatening our east, and the president of the North American Alliance seems to care less and less about Europe. But without them, we’d be defenseless against any attack. I feel like the whole world is going crazy right now.”
He sighed and looked at one of the screens in front of him, where a red warning popped up.
“Shit,” Adam cursed, rolling his chair back up to the desk. He immediately began frantically but purposefully hammering away at the keyboard to make corrections.
“Another error,” came Arto, who had also wheeled back to his desk and was analyzing the incoming data.
“Yes, and a big one,” Adam added, his eyes scanning the screens, “it seems the AI didn’t classify a separatist attack in Estonia as an act of war. I just don’t understand why.”
Adam felt his disappointment growing. For many years now, he had dedicated all his time to Project Genesis, even moving from Berlin to Tallinn, settling in, and yet: whenever he solved one AI problem, another one arose. Was Arto right, and would Genesis eventually disappear into the archives?
“What do we do, boss?” Arto asked hesitantly, his head reappearing in the doorway.
Adam stopped typing, closed his eyes, and leaned back, shaking his head.
“Boss?
“Abort simulation,” Adam said, disappointed, and then looked at the screens where Genesis was shutting down. All that remained was a black startup screen with the Aegis Nova logo.
“Damn it,” Adam said, picking up the empty coffee cup and stuffing it into the trash along with the empty cookie wrapper as the door opened behind him.
“You aborted the simulation again?” said an imperious voice, which Adam immediately recognized as that of his superior, Mr. Heikkinen, the managing director of the Aegis Nova subdivision that dealt solely with Genesis.
Even before he turned in his chair, he knew that Mr. Heikkinen’s face was flushed and a small vein throbbed at his left temple.
“There was another error,” Adam said as he turned.
“These bugs should have been fixed long ago!” countered Mr. Heikkinen. “Our annual plan called for us to launch the beta phase this year! Now it’s already November! We have to deliver results, otherwise our funding will be cut off. Don’t forget, we’re only funded by public money! For goodness’ sake! Do something about it, Adam. That’s what you’re our chief AI engineer for.”
“I’m doing what I can. The problem—”
“I don’t care what the problem is. Just solve it.”
“Yes, Mr. Heikkinen.”
Adam’s superior slammed the door behind him.
“Man, he’s got a great attitude,” Arto said from the next room. “I recently started doing yoga. Maybe I should bring him along.”
“No, better not, or he’ll be screaming at us while standing on his head,” Adam said, which made Arto throw his head back and burst out laughing.
Adam grinned; hearing the loud laughter felt good. It was a sound they heard far too rarely around here.
Suddenly, a soft “ping” sounded. The laughter stopped immediately, and Arto looked at his screen. Adam, too, had noticed a small breaking news alert at the bottom of the screen. It was from Estonia’s largest news channel, and what it said made Adam’s blood run cold.
“Oh my God,” said Arto, “this can’t be true.”
“But I’m afraid it is,” said Adam, rereading the breaking news:
The North American Alliance is withdrawing from all joint alliances. Europe is on its own.
Adam swallowed hard as his eyes scanned the two lines again and again.
“This is the end of us!” said Arto, “the Federation will overrun us!”
“No,” said Adam finally, “maybe this is just the beginning.