The Poseidon Project, page 16
“The software can be sent by your Chief Information Officer either by wired internet or Wi-Fi pretty easily. The problem is getting it to upload on the Poseidon unit. We will need a hard connection between the computer and Poseidon.”
“Good point, Lukas. Can you find a cable that would work for this? Malik, do you have any spare parts lying around?”
Malik ordered Zip-Tie to go look for a cable somewhere.
“Malik, here are your options. We can email it to you, but that will take several hours. If you have a cloud account, you can have it sent there, or there’s another way.”
“And that is?” Malik inquired.
“Dropbox,” Molly told him.
Lukas stifled a laugh. Brilliant, Mom.
Zip-Tie returned with a coaxial cable he found and showed it to Lukas, who nodded, indicating that it should work. Malik next ordered Zip-Tie to fetch his laptop.
Betty was listening in on their conversation, and even though she knew Molly had written some of the original software, she gave instructions anyway. “First thing you will need to do is erase the existing program and clear out the hard disk,” Betty explained.
Molly repeated this to Malik and explained how to clear the hard drive. Malik struggled to understand how to do this. After a minute, Molly offered to help. “Malik, maybe I should do this part as I built the machine.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Malik stood aside while Molly wiped the hard drive with what they used to call the doomsday command—a complete removal of all information, programming, and memory, with the exception of the operating system. Molly then switched off the Poseidon unit and restarted it. “Still have to reboot to make sure it’s all clean,” Molly said.
“Good job, Madam CEO,” Betty whispered. “You removed the critical information on Poseidon. Now let’s feed it a fucked up new brain.”
Molly maintained a straight face. “Malik, we are ready to upload the new software with an unscrambled security key. Your IT person can always add one later.”
Malik looked on with excitement. “Thank you. This is perfect.”
It was obvious to Molly that Malik was his own IT person. “What is your Dropbox account address and password?” she asked him.
Malik fumbled. “I know my email but not the password.”
Molly got an idea. “Malik, would you like me to use my Dropbox account on your laptop? I can receive the programming software, Lukas can upload it to your new machine, and I will delete my account off your laptop. Might be faster and easier.”
“You are fucking brilliant,” Betty whispered.
“Um, okay. That makes sense.” Malik asked, “What do you need me to do?”
“Just give me your screen lock password. Lukas and I can take care of the rest.”
Chapter 23
“The new program has been sent,” Molly told Malik.
Malik waited patiently until he got an alert that there was information in Molly’s Dropbox. When the alert came, Molly swore Malik almost started dancing.
Betty told Molly, “Tell him to look at the graphic on his computer screen, and it will show the status of the download.”
Molly repeated this to Malik.
“While it’s downloading, have Lukas fit the cable from the laptop to Poseidon.”
“Roger,” Molly responded. Molly indicated to Betty that the download to her Dropbox was complete.
“Now you need to transfer from the laptop to the unit. Can Lukas do that?”
“You have so little faith,” Molly whispered to Betty.
Lukas hooked up the old cable to Poseidon and, with the help of some cable adapters, was able to connect to the laptop.
Lukas hit the Download command to transfer the files. Within a minute, the transfer was complete, so Lukas installed it and rebooted Poseidon again to make sure the new programming was ready to go.
“Shall we try it?” Molly asked him. Malik nodded. “Let’s fire up Poseidon.”
Malik pressed the red button to start the synthetic water generation process. The machine made the familiar sounds, and after twenty seconds, significantly less time than the first time Lukas saw Poseidon operate, synthetic water began dripping into the cup.
“Excellent to see it work,” Malik said excitedly. “And much faster.”
“Now let’s see if we can do the reverse, just for fun.” Molly preempted what she knew Malik was already wondering. John and Lukas looked at Molly like she was crazy, handing Malik’s clients a potentially deadly weapon. But Molly needed to see if it worked. Molly pointed to the shot glass half filled with the synthetic water. “We’ll just turn this back into hydrogen and oxygen. Sound good, everybody?” She winked at Donna and Linda. They had been busy caring for Taylor, who was now awake but groggy. “Oh, but wait,” Molly paused. “I’m not sure how to get the water back into the machine’s reactor.”
“How can we put the pump in reverse? There’s a pump in there pushing the water out, so can we reverse it to pull it into the reactor?” John said.
Linda interjected, “I can try and do this. Shouldn’t be too hard.” Linda fiddled with some buttons and switches, removed the motor covering, and did some knocking around with a screwdriver. “Try it now.”
Malik stared at Linda before asking her, “How do you know how to do that?”
“I’m an engineer,” Linda exclaimed. “I knew that degree would come in handy eventually. Let’s fire it up.”
Molly offered Malik a front-row seat. “It’s all yours.”
Poseidon did what was asked and slurped the water into the machine. “Get a bigger cup of water in there,” Donna shouted.
“Let’s see how it handles a bigger cup.” Malik watched with excitement as the process reversed, drawing water into the Poseidon machine and returning the water back to its elements.
“Very well,” Molly said. “It looks like the software works.”
“Indeed,” Malik replied. “But I need to try it on a larger scale.”
“Larger scale? Like how large? This machine can’t handle much more than a cup.”
Malik chuckled. “I’m not talking about this machine. I’m talking about a bigger one.”
“What do you mean, you have a bigger machine?” John asked.
“My friend, I told you we reverse-engineered this little one, and we built a bigger one with what we learned from that exercise. Plus, now that I have the security key on my laptop. Thank you, Mrs. Halloran, for that. I can upload the programming to it much easier than our antiquated first try.” Malik closed the laptop and handed it to Zip-Tie for safekeeping.
Molly paced the room. What Malik was telling them was next to impossible. Whatever this larger Poseidon machine did, it surely had not been tested since Malik didn’t have the security key. But now he did. “So where is this machine, and how do you know it works?” Molly asked.
“It’s inside my vehicle out back. We will download the new programming software to it and try it out. Mrs. Halloran, you and your friends invented a way to make synthetic water almost four decades ago. Your intellectual property and the patent have expired, so replicating that was not difficult. It’s probably on the internet now, for all I know.”
“Then why go to all these lengths to get the security key?” Lukas asked.
“Lukas, my friend, it’s all about supply and demand. My investor client intends to make billions of dollars on a system that reduces the supply, thereby increasing the demand.”
“And the price,” Linda stated.
“Of course. Who would pay thirteen billion dollars for something purely humanitarian or a future space colonization need? Imagine how this technology will change things. Even petroleum can be replaced by other types of fuel, both fossil and renewable. But water? It’s the one common substance for all life on this planet—from humans, to plants, to every animal we eat. People will pay anything for this simple everyday liquid we will purposely make scarce with this technology.”
Taylor had already been awake for some time and had heard the plans Malik laid out. His pain had subsided, and he was able to think clearly. Malik’s idea sounded outrageous, but the more he thought about it, the more he understood the gravity of what Malik proposed.
“Would you like to see it?” Nobody answered, but Malik started out the door and into the hallway. “Follow me.”
The group followed Malik and Zip-Tie up the stairs and into a parking lot behind the complex they had been inside. Malik pointed to a small Iveco delivery box truck parked in the corner. “It’s in there.” Malik pointed. Zip-Tie opened the padlock on the truck’s rolling door and opened it. Inside sat a large blue machine, about the size of two large refrigerators side by side.
Lukas noticed the name of the machine graphically depicted on the side panel. Demeter. “Clever, Malik,” was all Lukas could say.
“I thought so, as well. Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture,” Malik stated proudly.
“That she was,” Lukas continued, “until her daughter Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the Underworld. Demeter searched frantically for Persephone to the point where she neglected her duties as Goddess of Agriculture. Because of that, Earth was thrown into a state of drought and, ultimately, famine and death of all living beings.”
“So you know your Greek history, Lukas. Impressive.” Malik applauded him. “I thought it was time for some remarketing of the technology, and Demeter is the Goddess of Drought and Famine—until Persephone was returned to her mother. Then all was good.”
“Thank you, Malik, for the big reveal. Now what?” Lukas asked.
“I need to try the Demeter unit in a large-scale experiment to make sure it actually does what it is supposed to do,” Malik stated.
Taylor stirred and attempted to sit up straight. “Where were you thinking of doing this test?”
“Ah, Mr. Pastore. Good to see you are awake, and I’m glad you’ve been paying attention. To answer your question, I envisioned testing the unit in a fountain.”
“A fountain?” Donna questioned.
“Yes, and I know exactly the one I want to use.”
Chapter 24
Zip-Tie, after disposing of Big Man’s body in a dumpster, piloted the box truck out of the parking lot and into the streets of Al Quoz. The large Poseidon, now Demeter, unit remained strapped in the cargo area of the truck. Malik and Molly sat in the front seat while Lukas squeezed into the small area behind the seats—his six-foot frame having to sit sideways in order to fit. Donna, Taylor, Linda, John, and Patrick followed. Betty, posing as their Uber driver who just happened to be in the neighborhood, drove the Sprinter van as the small convoy headed toward downtown Dubai.
Lukas texted Betty from behind them.
—Hope this works! Didn’t expect a test run.—
—That software has more viruses than a sailor in Herpesville. It’ll work, you worry too much—Betty responded.
It was almost four thirty a.m., and downtown Dubai was quiet. The massive buildings that defined Dubai remained illuminated even at this hour. The two vehicles snaked through some back streets, with the imposing Burj Khalifa looming overhead like a sentinel. “That building looks huge no matter where you are,” Lukas commented.
They crossed the Dubai Canal, meandered through a large urban park, and parked alongside the road. Less than one hundred meters away was Malik’s target—the world-famous Dubai Fountain, housed in a thirty-acre lake at the base of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper. When the fountains performed their choreographed water show, they extended nearly one thousand feet wide and could shoot water fifty stories high. They were the largest fountains in the world, barely eclipsing the famous Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas.
“Why are you testing this in such a potentially crowded spot?” Molly asked. “There are thousands of visitors here every day.”
“Yes, the famous fountains, where an obnoxious amount of water is used to entertain the adoring, wasteful public. Do you know that almost twenty percent of the water is lost due to evaporation every single day?” Malik explained. “It’s obscene. But when water becomes as scarce as gold, people may think differently. I’ll be performing the actual test over there, as a sort of rehearsal.” Malik pointed toward the large Dubai Mall complex.
“Rehearsal for what?” Donna questioned.
“When I unveil it at the New Year’s Eve celebration later this year,” Malik told them. “Millions of viewers will watch in astonishment as the fountain’s water suddenly disappears.”
“And…what is that supposed to prove? I mean, it’s a great gimmick, but—” Linda asked.
“People need to see scarcity,” Malik interrupted. “The water used in this fountain could save thousands of people every day, yet it’s here for entertainment, in the blazing heat of the desert.”
“It’s true, Malik. Water is wasted everywhere around the world, but it sounds like you’re planning for a Vegas-style magic show. Not sure if a carnival performance is the way to send folks a critical message,” Molly commented.
Malik shook his head. “Mrs. Halloran, I’m not trying to send any message, but I am going to get rich off of people’s ignorance. Once people see that water can be destroyed in seconds, they may value it more. And pay for it.”
Not far from where they had parked was a huge man-made lake that skirted the entrance area to the Burj Khalifa. Zip-Tie had backed the box van closer toward the water and parked by a small inlet of the man-made lake, which was less than an acre in size, adjacent to the massive Dubai Mall. It was still dark outside, but the eastern horizon began to come alive with a sliver of daylight coloring the pre-dawn sky. Malik checked his watch. They had to get moving with the test.
Lukas had meanwhile exited the truck and rushed to the Sprinter van to check on Taylor. When he opened the van’s door, he saw Taylor sitting and conscious in one of the passenger seats. Lukas climbed inside and put his arms around Taylor, being careful not to aggravate Taylor’s injuries. “I’m glad to see you sitting up and awake.”
Donna responded, “He’s probably not a big fan of mine at the moment, Lukas. I kind of made him do it, despite his pain. He needs to keep changing position.”
Taylor smiled. “Your mom’s not the only warrior in the group. Donna gave me some water and a pep talk. I’ll be okay.”
Lukas sat beside Taylor and held his hand. Taylor’s eyes were closed, but he smiled at the physical contact as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
John noticed the concern etched on his son’s face but was at a loss of what to do or say. John felt he never knew what to do or say to Lukas, but he decided to try. “I think he’ll be okay. He stopped bleeding and is drinking water, which is a good sign,” John said to Lukas.
Lukas acknowledged his father’s comment with a tired, thin smile as he softly rubbed his fingers through Taylor’s hair. “Thanks, Dad.”
“He seems like a good guy, Lukas,” John spoke to his son. Lukas had a painful, worried look but silently acknowledged his father’s comment. “You really like him, don’t you?”
Lukas nodded. “Yeah, Dad. I really do.”
“Lukas,” John said and then paused, reaching for the words he wanted to convey. “I’m so proud of you and the man you’ve become. He’s gonna be okay.”
“He doesn’t seem to have a fever, which is good.” Lukas nervously tried to deflect his father’s compliment.
John fumbled again for words. “You know, sometimes I look at you, and I can’t believe that you came from me. You’ve made me so proud, and I admire you so much for your bravery and perseverance.” Lukas, uncomfortable with the intimacy of his father’s comments, did not respond. It was uncharacteristically personal, not something John often said. “Almost forty years ago, I married someone I was proud of and admired. I had no idea what I was doing, as most people don’t. But I took the leap and never looked back. And now look at us.” John chuckled. “She’s still trying to stop the bad guys and change the world, while I just watch in wonder. I’ve never gotten bored with her.”
“Ma’s pretty badass, Dad.”
John nodded and pointed to Taylor. “So’s he.”
“I use logic all day to solve problems and manage emotions. But I haven’t felt like this in, like…well, ever. I’m afraid that feeling will go away. I’m a mess inside.”
John nodded. “That’s actually a wonderful sign that you’re on the right path.”
Lukas bent to kiss Taylor’s forehead. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Thanks, Mr. Halloran,” Taylor mumbled.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” Lukas chided him.
“Well, I did, and I feel the same way.”
John tapped Lukas on his knee and stood to leave. “Take care of each other.” He turned and jumped from the van to meet up with his wife. The Demeter unit was too large to move next to the water, so after Zip-Tie parked the truck, he unrolled what looked like a long hose and connected it to the dispensing spigot on the machine. In theory, Malik hoped, the new programming software would essentially turn the dispensing unit into an intake, through which the fresh water would enter Demeter’s reactor core and return the water molecules back to oxygen and hydrogen. John joined Molly, Donna, and Linda as they watched Malik unravel thirty feet of hose from the back of the truck to the edge of the man-made lake. Betty stayed in the Sprinter, still masquerading as an Uber driver, while the injured Patrick and Taylor stayed behind, tended by Lukas. This inlet of the man-made lake was surrounded by a U-shaped amphitheater of terraced steps. On any given evening, people would sit in this amphitheater and watch the hourly performances of the dancing Dubai Fountains. Lukas noticed his mom, dad, and friends back away from the box truck a few steps.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this. Betty, can you keep an eye on Taylor and Patrick?”
“Just thinking the same thing. Plus, I’m gonna put some distance between us and that truck. I don’t know who built Demeter, so I’m not taking chances,” Betty replied as she put the Sprinter in reverse and moved backward about fifty feet.
Molly noticed this immediately and texted Betty. —Make sure you’re pointed away from the truck in case we need to escape.— Betty complied quietly as Malik and Zip-Tie were engrossed in setting up the Demeter for its first test run. Lukas gently cradled Taylor’s head onto a pile of jackets he’d found earlier in the van. This repositioning woke Taylor up for a brief moment.
