Chapter 3. AAA
The office of the Chief Executive was a hemisphere within the “giant silver ball”. The domed wall of the hemisphere was shining with a soft, orange glow. The circular floor of the office was covered with a bright green, high pile carpet. The fibers of the carpet were slightly swaying left and right, like grasses of a meadow in a light breeze. Atop the “meadow” was placed an exquisite blue writing desk, and on the desk there was a computer terminal. Behind the desk was a swivel chair. These were the only items in the hemispherical office. At the center of this hemispherical space, a holographic projection of the globe was suspended mid air. The colors within this hemisphere were chosen such that they were in harmony with one another, but that was only how it looked like when Xiaoyu and the Chief Executive had just entered the office. Within half a minute, Xiaoyu started noticing strange and fascinating changes within this space. The bright green carpet turned red, converting the vibrant “meadow” under their feet into a sea of flame. The walls surrounding them also changed into an unsettling, uneven mix of white and blue chunks. A brilliant red timer appeared mid air. The swivel chair quickly disappeared underneath the floor; in its place only a carpet of red swaying optic fibers remained.
“We don’t even have a chair here any more.”
“As soon as the number of persons within this office exceeds one, the computer removes any chair and makes the color scheme unpleasant. This is a way for me to increase my productivity. If anyone comes talk to me, they won’t be talking for too long if they are standing the whole time.”
“Do people hang around for too long when they come talk to you?”
“Most of them do. I was really forced into doing this, but what I have here works pretty well.”
“Can those old dudes keep standing for so long?”
“Well, if not, that will serve as a reminder that they should retire soon. Hey, this is a little friend of mine.” The Chief Executive said the latter part to an invisible computer. As soon as she uttered those words, the ticking clock in midair disappeared, the wall turned back to an orange color, and the flaming red floor returned to its initial meadow green color. Two chairs appeared behind the desk. When they stepped in front of the computer terminal, the screen turned on with a flashing green light, and a lifeless voice spoke:
“Comrade Chief Executive, hello. The Executive office management software is initiated. Today is Jun 12th, 2185. The current time is 15:43. Would you like to start working now?”
“Comrade Xiaoyu, I appoint you as the temporary Chief Executive of the People’s Republic of China! Your term length is one hour. During this hour, you will be in charge of the largest country in the world.” The Chief Executive dragged Xiaoyu in front of the terminal.
“Really? But do you have the authority to do this?”
“No one is around to see this, silly. What are you waiting for? Make some history!”
“Is this an easy job?” Asked Xiaoyu, with his big eyes wide open, looking at the Chief Executive, then at the screen of the terminal.
“Try it out!”
“Would you like to start working now?” Asked the computer again.
“Yes, start!” Announced Xiaoyu.
“Sorry, this voice does not match that of the Chief Executive.”
“Inputs made by this boy is valid for the next hour.” Said the Chief Executive.
“Today, your office management system has received in total 13 infopacks, 5 have been rejected or forwarded. Detailed infopack records are kept in database XX0137. Received number of messages: 41,568. Domestic, 32,460. Message processing software has replied to 41,503 messages on your behalf. 65 messages with priority indices exceeding one require your personal attention. Digest of the content and replies of the remaining messages have been recorded in database XH2388. Please note that the scheduled June 16th state visit by the president of Equatorial Guinea has been postponed to July 4th. All associated activities (within your responsibility: arrival ceremony at the airport, state dinner, and the conference on the second day) are postponed. Would you wish to initiate infopack processing or message processing?”
“What should I do?” Asked Xiaoyu to the Chief Executive.
“I don’t know.” Answered the Chief Executive. She slouched against the back of the swivel chair pleasantly and rotated slowly, her eyes focused at the top of holographic globe.
“I’ll start with the infopacks. You get 40,000 messages daily. That’s terrifying.”
The screen showed the following:
Infopack 1, origin: Ministry of Aeronautics Industry. Reason for rejection: Description of technical details were too complex. To be resubmitted after revisions.
Infopack 2, origin: Ministry of Human Resources. Redirected to Ministry of Health.
Infopack 3, origin: Ministry of Software Industry. Reason for rejection: Same as 1.
Infopack 4, origin: Ministry of Nuclear Industry. Reason for rejection: duplicate infopack, same as NY3041, origin: Ministry of Energy.
Infopack 5, origin: Ministry of Energy. Reason for rejection: infopack content does not match records at the central database, MoE. Encoded data transmission error suspected.
If you wish to examine details of any of the infobodies above, press PgUp. Press any key to continue.
“Should I keep going?” Asked Xiaoyu.
The Chief Executive nodded with a smile.
Infopack 001, catalog number ZZG918
The United Nations Energy Agency will hold the sealing ceremony of the world’s last oil well at Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, marking the end of the age of petroleum. All member states were invited. We have received the invitation at 10 am today.
“Send the foreign minister!” Shouted Xiaoyu.
“This decision is not ideal. For your reference, I suggest the following course of action.” Said the emotionless voice of the computer, “It is suggested that the energy minister attend for the following reasons: 1, per international diplomatic conventions database, ceremonies of this nature require the responsible official in energy industry. 2, the foreign minister has departed on Jun 3rd for Antarctica to attend a treaty ceremony at Amundsen City. Do you accept? Please press Y/N.”
“What do I do?” Asked Xiaoyu, looking flustered.
“Who are you asking? You are standing at the top of the pyramid; there is no one above you but the sky. No one can help you.”
“Then make it so. Otherwise we’ll need to have the big guy (which is what people call the foreign minister) fly back from the south pole.”
Xiaoyu pressed on the Y key carefully.
Infopack 002, catalog number ZZG919.
Origin, Ministry of Health.
Press any key to open main text.
The main text was too long, and it wasn’t of much help to Xiaoyu anyway. He made a daring choice, “I won’t read this anymore! Approved! The grandpa who lives downstairs from where I live has no immediate family around him. He had to ask his son who lives abroad for money to afford his artificial lung.”
“Excellent!” Exclaimed the Chief Executive.
The following infopacks were even more boring. They were a real headache to read, being abstruse and long-winded. Xiaoyu did well with them, just as he had done with the first couple. Eventually something that interests him showed up.
Infopack 009, catalog number ZZG926.
The World Cup planning committee requests an extra funding of 61 million Yuan due to the impending start of the games and severe overbudgets
Press any key to open the main text.
“Approved. Extra funding of 120 million Yuan will be provided.”
“Stop there.” The Chief Executive sat up from the chair. “Good boy, do you know of how much 120 million Yuan is? Cancel the above input. Redirect infopack to Ministry of Finances. If approved, recover infopack and veto it.”
“What? Not a cent more? Look at the French who just held such an impressive World Cup! We…”
“Four years ago the French spent less than one third of what we did. If it isn’t amazing this time you have only those on the planning committee to blame. They only know about asking for more money. I also love soccer. I was a goalie in college, but if I am as generous about giving away money as you are we’d be bankrupt in no time.”
“But auntie, our country has so much money! You are messing it up!”
“I hope it’s the Ministry of Finance who ends up messing it up.”
“Why are you redirecting to the Ministry of Finance?”
“Silly, they will have to be the people vetoing it! Do you think I want to be thrown at by angry soccer fans?”
“My apologies, comrade Chief Executive. An observer before the screen is not authorized to view the next infopack.” Said the computer.
“It’s asking me to leave?” Xiaoyu felt a bit uneasy.
“That’s ok. Just go behind the screen.”
“My apologies. There is another biological organism not authorized to view the next infopack.” Repeated the computer. It was the puppy. Xiaoyu held the puppy in his arms and went behind the screen.
As the Chief Executive focused on what was on the screen, Xiaoyu couldn’t contain his curiosity and sneaked around the desk.
Two flashes of red light went off and the screen immediately went black. “Warning! This is a CC-class confidential infopack. Please stand behind the red line.” A glaring red line appeared on the carpet exactly where the screen was. Xiaoyu quickly backed off and made a face. The screen turned back on immediately after he was back behind the red line. State secrets were categorized into 9 levels, ranging from C, CC, CCC, B, BB, BBB, A, AA, AAA, where class AAA was top secret.
The Chief Executive started laughing. “Isn’t this machine quite annoying? I don’t like him!” She then said to the computer, “You heard that, right? I don’t like you! When will you learn to have a temper? You torture me every day, my silicon friend. How much I wish to have an actual human as my secretary, like how it was a century ago!”
“It’s quiet.” Said Xiaoyu.
“I told him many times. He has always been this quiet. Xiaoyu, why don’t we pull the plug on this idiot?”
“Comrade Chief Executive,” Finally said the computer, “I hope that you take the duties of this office seriously. Furthermore, this is the political center of this republic. Bringing in a canine is, in my humble opinion, not conducive to the tidiness of this environment.”
The dual laughed heartily in the hemisphere.
The next infopack was a class C secret, and Xiaoyu was confined to behind the terminal screen. He grew progressively bored. He discovered that the job as a head of state wasn’t as fun as he had imagined it to be. However, right at this moment, he missed something that was truly interesting. This infopack was a class C secret, so it was only prohibited from publication. If Xiaoyu were to sneak around and see it, the computer wouldn’t have stopped him. However, he learned from his past mistakes and didn’t do that. He did notice that the Chief Executive was a lot more attentive this time when reading what was on the screen.
“When did we receive this infopack?” She asked.
“One hour ago. The management software didn’t initially accept this infopack due to low trustworthiness, but your chief science advisor insisted on its veracity. He has arrived at the scene.”
“Display holographic projection, and insert sound partition between me and the boy.”
Xiaoyu saw the hemispherical wall on the Chief Executive’s side disappear, replaced by a black screen with flashing white streaks. Seconds later, a holographic projection of a building interior appeared. There was an enormous computer monitor in the projection. Behind a translucent glass barrier there was a “Milky Way” mid-sized supercomputer, surrounded by peripherals such as laser printer and optical disk readers. The glass door on the right side was shattered, there was broken glass all over the floor. There were two empty beer cans on the floor. The computer screen was full of Chinese characters, but he couldn’t make anything out. There were three people in the projection; one of them was the chief science advisor who was wearing mighty thick glasses for myopia, one was a familiar old man, and the last one was a young adult in a sports suit. The latter two looked especially pale. The young adult was explaining something to the chief science advisor in an animated manner, while the elder man was standing behind, looking despondent. Seconds after the projection appeared, all three of them turned towards the Chief Executive at the same time. The chief science advisor talked to the Chief Executive solemnly, and the young adult would interject once in a while. Regardless of whether it was the people within the projection or the Chief Executive, Xiaoyu couldn’t hear anything. He only saw their lips moving. Five minutes later, the Chief Executive walked out of the sound barrier towards him.
“Your term has ended, comrade Chief Executive. How did you like it? Was it an easy job?”
“Not hard, but pretty boring.”
“Same. Why don’t you go wait for me in the break room outside?”
After Xiaoyu had left, the Chief Executive continued talking to the chief science advisor.
“Instinctively I think that this matter is highly unusual. Certainly, this could have been entirely our imagination, but I don’t think it’s wise to assume that is the case at the moment.” Said the science advisor.
“The two of you must be starving! You’ve spent two days in there.” The Chief Executive didn’t reply to her science advisor, but instead asked the other two with concern.
“Oh, comrade Chief Executive, we only wanted to retrieve the memory information. We really didn’t think that this could have happened!” said M102, stammering.
“Why are you so nervous? Of course, neither collecting the 3D recording of a corpse nor using the computer without permission was the right thing to do, but those were only minor mistakes. The kind of mistake I could commit while dealing with this matter could be orders of magnitude greater than yours. I admire the imagination and curiosity of this young friend. These are precious assets of yours. Make sure you don’t lose them in the future.”
“Thank you, comrade Chief Executive.” Replied a teary 102, but he was feeling much relieved.
“Attention, I am addressing the management software. Upgrade infopack ZZG930 to secret class AAA.” Said the Chief Executive calmly.
This astonished the trio in the hologram. The most surprised was the science advisor. Just now he had hoped that the Chief Executive would take this issue seriously, but how seriously she took this issue to be was way beyond his expectation. To the best of his knowledge, the republic had millions of state secrets above class C, but the number of class AAA secrets wouldn’t exceed 10. The science advisor thought that the coordinates and deployment plans of the nation’s SSBNs (Note: submarines carrying strategic nuclear weapons) should be one of them, but the rest were entirely beyond his imagination. The constitution stipulated that the Chief Executive was allowed to promote an infopack to state secret class AAA, but they must submit their decision to the Executive Committee of the republic for ratification within 168 hours, so they may decide whether this class AAA secret should continue. The executive order to create a class AAA secret was called a 3A order. There had been debates to whether a 3A order was a violation of human rights, and there had been calls for banning it altogether. However, after several crises, people realized that these orders were entirely necessary, especially in the age of information and delicate international relations. At the moment, a 3A order was the most powerful decree of a Chief Executive, but every Chief Executive who had issued a 3A order was nonetheless condemned by the public, and one of them even had to step down from the position. Therefore, issuing a 3A order was a huge risk, and no Chief Executive would issue one without it being absolutely necessary. If they did decide to issue one, the process would be a complex and thrilling one.
At this moment, a bright block appeared on the table of the Chief Executive. “Please place your left hand on the light block.” Said the computer. Her left hand felt a slight tingle. “Thank you. Fingerprint, bloodtype and chromosome biometrics verified. Please look into the light block. Closer. Thank you. Retina biometric verified. Please read the alphabets on the screen. Thank you. Voiceprint verified. Your identity as the Chief Executive of the People’s Republic of China has been verified.” The light block went dark. “Please confirm. Would you like to issue a 3A order?”
“Yes.”
Immediately after the Chief Executive had given her final confirmation, the computer terminal before her expelled a plume of smoke and turned into a brown liquid within seconds. Moment prior, the 3A order had been transmitted from this terminal. Within seconds, a second terminal was dissolved by strong acid. Although the failure rate of a software-level wipe of a class AAA secret infopack was less than 1 in 10 million, to prevent this from ever happening, within half a minute two computers and five terminals had already been liquified by strong acid. Each of these destroyed machines had been in contact with the ZZG930 infopack in some way. This class AAA infopack would eventually be stored within a computer chip in a top-secret central computer. The address codes of the chip would change every microsecond, the rules guiding this permutation was a class AA infopack. The ZZG930 infopack stored within this chip would be encrypted once every minute, and each encryption covered the previous. In this way, if someone would wish to break into this infopack after a day, they would need to decrypt 86,400 times. At the same time, the 3A order was passing down the layers of the national internet network. The chief science advisor was well aware, that himself and the two people standing beside him, as well as anyone who had been in contact with infopack ZZG930 would be isolated very quickly. No one would be able to find their whereabouts, as if they had evaporated off the face of the Earth. This entire region would also be sealed shut.
“Comrade advisor, you are to immediately arrange an appraisal committee to analyze these six softwares. The committee must be ready to meet by the end of the day today. It’s 1700 hour right now, which leaves you 7 hours. Prior to the formation of the committee, you are allowed no more than three assistants to help you under class AAA secrecy rules. The Ministry for National Security and the Prime Minister will assist you outside class AAA secrecy. The outline and progression for the appraisal process are entirely within your purview. Notify me immediately after the committee has been formed. How much time do you think you will need to complete your analysis?”
“Does this appraisal need to be have legal power?” Asked the science advisor. His projection was a bit distorted after class AAA encryption.
“Yes.”
“I can do it in 100 hours.”
“I’ll give you 160 hours. Remember, I need a legal appraisal before submitting it to the Executive Committee. I wish you and your committee Godspeed.”