Chapter 4: A Special Invitation

I've watched a few movies depicting lead characters with scientific backgrounds being called upon by the Pentagon to highly classified meetings on matters related to national security or the survival of humanity. Somehow I imagined that perhaps one day I might do the same for my story characters, if I ever write a novel. Well, that day has finally arrived.

In the previous chapter, David expressed his desire to create an independent AI entity that can analyze and learn from related data it gathers from the real world. To which his mentor replied, "You’ll need a supercomputer to do that!"

And that is precisely what will happen in this chapter, when Professor Bennett was called to a meeting at the Pentagon by the Defense Secretary to discuss the feasibility of setting up a special task force to address the growing terrorism threat that is overwhelming the nation's homeland security. Besides a high-level homeland security advisor, there were a few other influential figures from the intelligence community and private sector present at the meeting.

As I see it, the Pentagon can assemble the best anti-terrorist team with the right skill set and training, but to effectively deploy these resources, it needed more than just soldiers and weapons. It needed top-notch hardware and intelligent software that can provide real-time surveillance, accurate predictions, and reliable support to the team.

That's where the Professor's expertise in Quantum computing comes in. But he can't possibly do it alone, so he robed in David and a close associate, Dr. Emily Harper into a partnership.

And so the deal was sealed as Professor Bennett reverted to the Pentagon within the agreed time frame. Once the Secretary of Defense gave the green light, work began in earnest.

At this juncture, technical details in the narrative and conversations are quite sparse. But they will become more involved once I get up to speed with my reading up on these specialized subjects.