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Authors: Shaunti Feldhahn
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along. The signal raced through the sky network just as it had been passed on the ground, side-by-side with hundreds of thousands of other digital telephone signals, television broadcasts, and credit-card transactions.
Less than two seconds after the call was initiated, the final satellite downlinked the original signal—intact and undamaged—to a ground station outside the United States. It was quickly passed to the appropriate, anonymous voice mailbox, where a quiet, satisfied message was left.
The message would be picked up later that day via another telephone call, one that would find another random routing through the edge of space, along with a cacophony of other signals.
Purely by chance, one of those signals originated from a ground station outside Washington, D.C., where a satellite engineer was testing a connection with a colleague in Silicon Valley, California. He stared at the data on his computer screen, let out an exasperated expletive, and rapidly typed something on his keyboard. Hundreds of lines of code flickered across his computer screen, but the necessary program didn’t run. It was his colleague’s turn to swear.
The engineer had to fix this problem with the LEOSAT repeaters, and do it fast. Reprogramming a ton of old code wasn’t the most enjoyable job in the world, but it was necessary and he had been working around the clock. His company’s satellites were tasked with passing billions of bits of sensitive data for major television networks, banks, and airlines—as well as for several homeland security defense contractors, such as the one he was on the phone with now. Those applications were secret, of course. None of the engineers knew the full story—theyjust programmed their pieces of the puzzle.
Both the engineer and his counterpart were exhausted, but kept working. These low-earth-orbit satellites were not just used to grease the wheel of commerce—they were used to catch the bad guys. With the right tracking technology, their satellites could see through walls and into corners.
Too bad that no satellite, no matter how sophisticated, could peer into the human heart.
Tyson perched on the edge of his desk, an aide hovering nearby. “First of all, I’d like to thank you for interrupting your plans in order to stay for this meeting. I think you’ll find it to be a profitable use of your time.”
An elderly man with thinning hair chuckled. “Any time Proxy has a new idea, it’s
always
profitable.”
“That’s right, Waggoner. You’ve been in on quite a few of Proxy’s brainstorms, haven’t you?”
“Yep. That’s why I’ve stayed in this network, even though some of these young ’uns don’t have the work ethic of my kitchen cabinets. All they want is a quick buck. No effort, no vision.” He gave a sharp nod. “But Proxy—now he’s got vision. Picked you. Picked us. Now he’s got something new up his sleeve. Can’t wait to hear it.” The old man sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“Good.” Tyson pursed his lips a moment. “Before I begin, let me ensure that each of you wants to be involved. The ‘statistical market analysis’ was just a smoke screen. This task force will be creating a business model that’ll make your current levels of wealth look like peanuts. We’ve chosen you because we believe you share the core philosophy behind our plan and are willing to leave sentiment behind. We’ve chosen you because we believe you’re capable of the total commitment this plan will require; in time, you must be willing to drop your current operations and perhaps even leave the country. Therefore, once I outline Proxy’s plan, there’s no turning back.” He gave a matter-of-fact smile. “You all know the penalty for disloyalty or mismanagement. If you’re uncertain about whether you want to hear the plan, the time to leave is now.”
He paused and scanned each face before him. No one moved.
“All right then, here’s the deal. We believe that our
Less than two seconds after the call was initiated, the final satellite downlinked the original signal—intact and undamaged—to a ground station outside the United States. It was quickly passed to the appropriate, anonymous voice mailbox, where a quiet, satisfied message was left.
The message would be picked up later that day via another telephone call, one that would find another random routing through the edge of space, along with a cacophony of other signals.
Purely by chance, one of those signals originated from a ground station outside Washington, D.C., where a satellite engineer was testing a connection with a colleague in Silicon Valley, California. He stared at the data on his computer screen, let out an exasperated expletive, and rapidly typed something on his keyboard. Hundreds of lines of code flickered across his computer screen, but the necessary program didn’t run. It was his colleague’s turn to swear.
The engineer had to fix this problem with the LEOSAT repeaters, and do it fast. Reprogramming a ton of old code wasn’t the most enjoyable job in the world, but it was necessary and he had been working around the clock. His company’s satellites were tasked with passing billions of bits of sensitive data for major television networks, banks, and airlines—as well as for several homeland security defense contractors, such as the one he was on the phone with now. Those applications were secret, of course. None of the engineers knew the full story—theyjust programmed their pieces of the puzzle.
Both the engineer and his counterpart were exhausted, but kept working. These low-earth-orbit satellites were not just used to grease the wheel of commerce—they were used to catch the bad guys. With the right tracking technology, their satellites could see through walls and into corners.
Too bad that no satellite, no matter how sophisticated, could peer into the human heart.
Tyson perched on the edge of his desk, an aide hovering nearby. “First of all, I’d like to thank you for interrupting your plans in order to stay for this meeting. I think you’ll find it to be a profitable use of your time.”
An elderly man with thinning hair chuckled. “Any time Proxy has a new idea, it’s
always
profitable.”
“That’s right, Waggoner. You’ve been in on quite a few of Proxy’s brainstorms, haven’t you?”
“Yep. That’s why I’ve stayed in this network, even though some of these young ’uns don’t have the work ethic of my kitchen cabinets. All they want is a quick buck. No effort, no vision.” He gave a sharp nod. “But Proxy—now he’s got vision. Picked you. Picked us. Now he’s got something new up his sleeve. Can’t wait to hear it.” The old man sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“Good.” Tyson pursed his lips a moment. “Before I begin, let me ensure that each of you wants to be involved. The ‘statistical market analysis’ was just a smoke screen. This task force will be creating a business model that’ll make your current levels of wealth look like peanuts. We’ve chosen you because we believe you share the core philosophy behind our plan and are willing to leave sentiment behind. We’ve chosen you because we believe you’re capable of the total commitment this plan will require; in time, you must be willing to drop your current operations and perhaps even leave the country. Therefore, once I outline Proxy’s plan, there’s no turning back.” He gave a matter-of-fact smile. “You all know the penalty for disloyalty or mismanagement. If you’re uncertain about whether you want to hear the plan, the time to leave is now.”
He paused and scanned each face before him. No one moved.
“All right then, here’s the deal. We believe that our
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