The collaboration between cognitively specialized individuals that constitutes the architecture of H. iunctus cognition appears to be an elaboration of well documented H. sapiens distributed neurocognitive specialization, facilitated and accelerated by the development of language. In the case of H. iunctus, the prodigious savant abilities of the early members only needed a concomitant communication capability to enable a positive feedback loop of enhanced collaboration, increased capacity, and unbounded complexity. Once established, the obligatory interdependence, though distributed and asynchronous, set the stage for the emergence of higher order theories of mind.

       Although direct data is scant, existing evidence indicates H. iunctus possesses at minimum a unitary intelligence, knows and interacts with others, and has theories about itself and others, informing decisions and outward behaviors. How this intellect emerges from the collective behavior of individuals is a topic of intense research interest. – Textbook of Transhuman Physiology, 3^rd edition, Chapter 5: Theories of H. iunctus cognition

Christine sipped her coffee and stared out the window of the little bakery, savoring the bouquet of smells wafting from the bustling kitchen in back.  She glanced at her device, more to check the time than the steady stream of messaging from the White House and the Pentagon. Her security detail sat discreetly across the room.

It was in a coffee shop like this where they had her wait before her first big briefing with Budanov, so many years ago, at the beginning of her career, at least the official part. She’d already been collecting intelligence for the atesh all across the Donbas and assisting with direct actions years before that. It was only then that her skills came to the attention of the higher ups.

This place had the same smells she loved, of khrustyky and yabluchnyk, so delicious with a dark coffee. Back then, they came to the shop, led her down the street, into an old warehouse, down into the basement, and there he was. They asked a lot of questions, and she answered them, sure of her information, arguing that the ammunition depot she’d scouted south of Donetsk wasn’t the one they wanted. Like so much of the Russian military, the orcs in control of this logistics facility were corrupt, and she already managed several as sources. Blowing up the ammunition might serve the short-term needs of the infantry, but cultivating the assets and turning even more of their logistics chain into sources would help them deliver more devastating attacks later. 

The AFU officer argued forcefully to deliver the strike. This was after they had the long range precision artillery, and everyone wanted to blow things up. Christine stood her ground, and eventually, her position prevailed. Later, she was told it played a big part in the success of the second break out.

But that’s not what got her recruited. All during the briefing, she was watching the attendees, subtly steering the conversation, dropping crumbs, luring, sometimes needling, playing some off against each other, to confirm her suspicions of a network of double agents and traitors. Even Budanov was pulled into the argument she provoked.

Later, she was approached by Kirylo to recruit her. Always suspicious, she strung him along, confirming for herself that he was genuine and not a Russian stooge who would betray her.

From there, it wasn’t too many more connections to the U.S. agencies, recruitment, and the eventual move to the States. By then, there wasn’t anyone left in Zaporizhia to keep her there. Then, she was caught up in the chaos of the near disintegration of the U.S., the Fast War and the endless crises since.

***

The drive from Ft. Meade this morning was beautiful, through rolling farmland and forests, and the occasional residential development. On the outskirts of Westminster, Maryland the usual newer, squat climate-adapted buildings appeared, clustered around the transportation hubs. The reconstruction of Baltimore many years ago after the destruction of the Fast War clearly had spilled all the way out here into the suburbs.

But here, on the old Main Street, the town was frozen in time.  Except for a swath of modern buildings, constructed after a tornado several decades before, old buildings like the bakery still preserved the charm of a past long gone.

She looked up at the approach of a smiling man who a minute before had been sitting across from her engrossed in a data pad.  He sat down without asking.

“Good morning, Ms. Bilyk, welcome to Westminster.”

Christine took note of the lack of introduction and knew better than to ask.  Her contact was the only person who knew she’d be in Westminster.

“Good morning. Nice choice.”  At that comment, an older woman stopped at the table.

“Ron, are you leaving your usual perch?  Can I freshen you guys up?” she asked, nodding at their mugs.

“Hi, Hannah.  Sure, I’ll take some more. Dark, please.”  He nodded to Christine’s cup with an arched an eyebrow.

“Yes, please. Same, dark.” She held up her mug, and the woman collected both.

“She’s the baker. Second or third generation, I believe. This place is a local institution.”

Christine looked around, then at her contact, then out at the street.

“Will we be moving on to Ravenrock, or….”

He smiled and shook his head. “No need. Consider it one of the benefits of non-localization.”

Christine raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to elaborate on his cryptic response.

“I do all of my meetings here.  Sometimes in plain sight is the best concealment. Besides, the coffee is great, free refills, and look at that pastry case.”  He paused and smiled, then continued. “This is primarily an agricultural community. You should see the food processing facilities. They’ve really figured out the efficiencies of large cooling systems.”  He sipped his coffee.

She kept a straight face and pondered that nugget.  The National Defense Quantum Computing facility was here?  Why else mention cooling?  The fact that she, a senior intelligence official in the Executive Branch did not know for sure where one of the most secret, high value pieces of the intelligence systems infrastructure was physically located spoke to its importance.

She asked, “You are aware of our concerns?”  He nodded. “Are you comfortable that your house is in order?”

He leaned back and pursed his lips. “One of the nice things about living in a semi-rural community is that you know all your neighbors, and out in the countryside, you’re off the beaten track, so if a strange car comes up your driveway, you know a long way off that you have a visitor.  Maybe the dog starts barking. Even the quietest electric vehicle makes quite a racket coming up a gravel driveway. And it’s so peaceful out here. Really a lovely place to live.”

She took a breath and attempted to frame a question as specifically as possible in their oblique conversation.

“I would imagine a place like this uses a lot of local ingredients for their wares. How do they ensure the ingredients are pure and haven’t been…corrupted?  They certainly wouldn’t want to allow tainted pastries to be sold to the public.”

“Did I hear something about pastries?  Can I get you guys something?”  Hannah approached with the two filled mugs and set them down.

The contact looked at Christine. “What do you think?  My treat.  It’s all great.”

“Hmmm. What are those little rolled things with the cinnamon sugar?”

“Butterhorns? Want to try one?”

“Yes, please.”

“Ron, you’re in luck, we’re still getting peaches in from Baugher’s. I’ve still got the peach galettes.”

“We’ll take two! And a butterhorn.” Hannah turned away and the contact continued. “We’ve got a lot of great community groups here. Small numbers of people working together, out of the public eye, but they really can have positive impact, helping each other, working on important problems.  We coordinate very closely with some. They’ve been very helpful keeping things in order.”

“And they assist with keeping ingredients pure?  For a business like this?”

He nodded. “As you can imagine, taking food all the way from farm to table takes a lot of work, with many steps.  Plowing the field, planting the seeds, fertilizing, pest control, harvesting, storage.  Then of course the movement of agricultural products, transportation—all very important.  Then you have the processing, assembly, cooking.  Each step has its own protections, procedures. Our community partners are essential in all of that.  We have a deep and trusting relationship with them. We have no concerns. In fact, we feel they are already proving very helpful with your situation.”

My situation. Interesting.

“I believe we work with some of the same community groups. Are they telling you the same things they tell us?”

He nodded. “Generally, yes. We’re still learning how to best collaborate with them, and sometimes our lines of communication are, hmmm…not completely transparent. In fact, they are invisible to us. It’s a bit of a puzzle.  Of course, we’re always working on that. It’s our business to ensure complete transparency.” He smiled, pleased at his irony.

“I’d like to see your operation.”

“I’d love to take you there, but on such short notice, we don’t have the procedures in place. I know that may seem unusual to someone in your position, but we really do have very strict protocols.”

The sudden switch to more direct language caught her attention.

“I understand. You’ll be providing briefings through the usual channels?”

“Of course. We’re as interested as you as to how this happened, and how it evolves. Even though we’re confident our systems are secure, if someone has done what you suspect, it speaks to the evolution of capabilities that we need to be aware of in any case. We’re diverting substantial resources to the issue.”

Hannah brought over the pastries, and they spent the rest of the time on pleasantries and coffee. The little rolled butterhorn was very similar to khrustyky, but lighter, less greasy, baked, not fried. It was delicious.

Christine enjoyed a few small bites of the galette, then asked for a box for the rest to go and excused herself.  Her contact remained behind and resumed the seat he had when she arrived, working on the data pad. Her detail was already out on the sidewalk summoning the vehicle.

She walked a block down the pedestrian mall, sight-seeing. The vehicle met her at the corner near the parking garage.  Once back inside, she pulled up the virtual display and looked at a local map, scanning recent satellite imagery, and made a guess.  She directed the driver out to the local air park, with adjacent industrial and commercial buildings. 

The road followed the rail line leading out from Baltimore, then turned north toward Gettysburg and the hidden facilities scattered in the Catoctin mountains.  She saw the cluster of buildings she sought, surrounded by farmland. She instructed the car to wander, and it drove through the sprawling development, past glass and metal buildings of various sizes, all bland reflective business architecture with discreet, tasteful corporate logos and a mix of government agencies.

One building caught her eye, constructed of windowless flat white pre-fab concrete panels, plain and unobtrusive, but with a disproportionate amount of barriers and access controls.  Set back from the road, architectural features doubling as vehicle obstacles, subtle surveillance technology at the corners and all around, no markings.  Down the block, she spotted a Westminster police vehicle bristling with sensors.  As she drove past, she knew her face and vehicle were pinging a database, and her contact and the rest of the agency would know she’d driven past.

Let them. The arrogance of the invisible agencies sometimes was a hindrance to effective policy and collaboration. Their too often questionable prerogatives remained concealed behind assertions of security and national interest. Hidden data and capabilities also hide budgets, resources, and misappropriations, never mind more aggressive illegal activity.  “No Such Agency,” or any agency, should be allowed to operate without any oversight.  It never ended.

She instructed the driver to head back and soon they were passing through farmland again. Christine mulled the implications of the meeting.

The NSA was confident that their quantum computing resources weren’t compromised in whatever hack or spoofing enabled the missile takeover. They are collaborating with the Entity but perhaps in ways her team wasn’t entirely aware of. She made a note to remind Sahar to explore that.

They appear to have the same challenges with communications and completely understanding the vast collective intelligence of the Entity. The concession that the Entity is invisible to them, even despite the wide area surveillance capabilities of the omniscient Argus-12 system, was a surprise. They also don’t know entirely who, or what, could have developed the ability to crack the encryption and communications of the NC3 system controlling the nuclear missiles.  Certainly, there were ample candidates internationally, but there also were the remnants of the mega oligarch alliances in the technology world to consider.  The transnational nature of those networks, so deeply intertwined with the intelligence and defense communities, was a source of both strength and vulnerability. The ceaseless advance of new technologies constantly disrupted the balance of power. Despite the treaties and international monitoring of AI, genetic engineering, or mind control efforts, global stability always seemed to teeter, vulnerable to the next innovation.

She stared at the passing countryside, and let her thoughts run, always monitoring herself to keep her paranoia in check. Although this was exactly the kind of problem she was ideally suited for and had propelled her up through the ranks of the CIA, Pentagon and now the White House, something rankled. It wasn’t just the stakes of loose nukes on American soil. The whisper of anxiety she felt had the familiar feel of her fears of loss of control, of larger forces taking over and ruining her life.

At every turn, the transitions always seemed to keep her on the outside, despite her achievements and reputation — Ukrainian refugee and homegrown teenage intelligence operative, eventually recruited and moved to the United States; mistrusted by her former countrymen, never fully accepted as an American, despite completely scrubbing her accent except when she needed it.

Then Batumi happened, and she was pulled from the field, assigned to analyst’s desk at Langley. What was meant as a punishment took her career in a new direction. Her instincts as an operative proved extremely useful for pulling the narrative from a disparate jumble of data sources, more often than not yielding insights into the dangerous murk of crises across the planet.

Although it wasn’t her area at the time, the intelligence failures of the rogue Biologic Combat Systems program and the escape of the grendels remained an ongoing problem, an open wound. Then the abortive secession attempt of the Inland Northwest, followed shortly by the Fast War, when America’s enemies attempted to take advantage of the domestic chaos stemming from the orgy of corruption and treason since the twenties.  They all were to blame for that one, but she made an easy scapegoat because of her past. But the one that hurt personally were her Ukrainian friends and colleagues and their resentments of the perceived betrayal by the U.S. How many Ukrainians died because of American hidden agendas?  Who was she really working for?

At each stop along the way, the cultural divide persisted. Her personal struggles were part of that, keeping people at arm’s length while her marriage floundered due to their reproductive challenges.  The second miscarriage was the final blow.

Her first civilian posting at the Pentagon was the same, but she was able to win those colleagues over more quickly. Her excellence was valued more than the suspicions about her background and allegiances. She proved to be a capable liaison between the always fiercely competitive and paranoid intelligence agencies, lately deservedly so, with the more recent scandals deep inside a rotating cast of important national security organizations. Every ten years or so, the relentless espionage attacks of an always shifting array of adversaries produced yet another crisis. No matter how thoroughly the bad ones were rooted out, more sprouted like hydra heads somewhere else.

This new problem had all the hallmarks of another ambush by rapidly evolving threats only dimly perceived. Her challenge once more was to avoid personalizing things. Was she going to be the one to take the fall? That had to be at least part of why she was tapped to lead the effort, regardless of the possible involvement of the Entity.

Her position in the White House was a new level of stress and paranoia. Being single and childless was a distinct advantage, with the irregular schedule, constant pressures, and travel.

She liked this President and most of the Administration. It was a refreshing break in American politics, a return to another competent executive with a reasonable working relationship with the rest of the government, such that the staff could actually get work done without the distractions of Congressional hearings, political posturing and brinksmanship. His agenda was one everyone endorsed: continue the fragile truce between the regional alliances that reunited the United States after the Fast War, rebuild international alliances, keep the lid on all the simmering problems while the reconstruction continued. She knew her job stability wouldn’t last, and thanked her luck that this crisis was happening now. She had no illusions about the precariousness of professional life for people in her business.

Her insistence on continuing to perform some of her own fieldwork was a source of alienation from her peers. Gathering primary data herself, the result of her long years in all phases of intelligence collection, analysis and policy development and implementation, was not how people in her position usually operated.  She didn’t want to lose those skills. The security issues it raised were manageable, and the remote communication capabilities at her disposal made it almost silly not to do it. Another cultural difference, the people who liked to sit at desks, versus those who liked to get up and actually do things.

She opened a channel to her aide.

I need you to set up a meeting with our counterparts at the Agency.

On it. How did the meeting go?

The usual. Not their problem, also not eager to help. He did let slip that they have their own contacts with the Entity.

We suspected. We know they are into far more than we are tracking.

Any progress on the missile problem?

Nothing substantial. I’m firming up my channels. So, do you think we’ll be lead?

It appears to be heading that way but be careful what you wish for.

Got it.

The rest of the ride, she sat back and rearranged the puzzle pieces in her mind, looking ahead, anticipating the responses, keeping track of the layers of agendas, predicting points of conflict, maneuvering assets to create leverage, formulating her approach to briefing the President. The chase was on.

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