Toby's Tale--Chapter 02

approximately 2380 words

"Toby's Tale" 

Chapter 2

         Tarak hunkered in the last row of the cavernous lecture hall, all by himself.  He fidgeted with his coffee and winced as the hot cup seared his fingers.  His boss, Professor Pelligrini, was down in front, hob-nobbing with big shots from Homeland Security and who knows who else.  One of them, a stern-looking man with steel-gray hair, stood out because he wore sharply pressed green fatigues and spit-polished combat boots.

         Tarak was exactly eight minutes early, as usual.  The senior members of the research team trickled in closer to the scheduled start and headed to the first three rows.  The other graduate students arrived in a wise-cracking gaggle filled in the front row.

         Wait, that Chad stopped at the door and scanned the mostly empty lecture.  The guy’s face lit up and he headed for the straight for the back of the hall. Well, as straight as he could anything. All Tarak could think was go away Chad.  Of course, instead he plopped himself down in the seat right next to Tarak, slopped his coffee on the table in front of them and pasted a goofy grin on his face. He asked, “What are you doing here in back, buddy?  You afraid someone’s going to hit on you or something?”

         It was like That Chad thought they should be best buds or something just because they were both gay. Tarak should have known better to share personal information with anyone, let alone That Chad.  He clenched his jaw and muttered, “No one’s going to hit on me.”

         That Chad’s grin just got goofier. “Why not?”  He ran a finger along Tarak’s forearm.  “You’re cute enough.  I bet you have to beat ‘em off with a stick.”

         Tarak flinched and pulled his arm away.  He wanted to tell That Chad to go away, but instead said, “I think they’ll be starting soon.”

         That Chad scanned the dozen or so empty rows separating them from the other attendees.  “We’ve got a couple of minutes yet.  Looks like about thirty people got the invite. You know what this is about?”

         “No.  I just got an email telling me to be here.”

         “Okay. I just figured, you being the Professor’s favorite and all, you might have some inside dope.”

         “I’m not his favorite. I’m not even an engineer. I’m just a programmer. I’m for sure not his favorite.”

         That Chad’s eyes crinkled.  “Well, you’re my favorite, dude. Besides, I think he’s got the hots for you. He’s in love with your brains, if not your hot bod.”

         Tarak didn’t dignify that with an answer.

         Professor Pellegrini finally broke away from the big shots, who all settled into seats on the stage.  The movie screen hanging behind them lit up, showing the university’s logo and the letters EPSED. Underneath, the name of Pellelgrini’s research project, Enhanced Population Scanning and Evasion Detection, appeared in blazing red.

         Pellegrini tapped on the microphone at the podium and started his spiel.  He rambled on about the Homeland Security contract, its specifications, and the progress they’d made.  Tarak frowned.  Jibber jabber everyone already knew. 

         That Chad leaned close and whispered, “Why’s he wasting everyone’s time telling us crap we already know.”

         Tarak wondered the same thing, but mostly wished That Chad would shut up. He put a finger to his pursed lips.  Maybe he’d get the hint.

         Pellegrini stopped for a sip water, then said, “We’re gathered today for some important, real-time updates from our EPSED field tests.  I’ll turn the microphone over to Special Agent Earl Turner from the FBI.”

         That Chad snorted and muttered, “About time.”  Dr. Morrison, the network engineer for the project, turned around and glared at them.  Tarak squirmed in his seat.

         One of the stuffed shirts sitting on the stage, stood and strode to the microphone.  He wore a tightly-fitted black suit, a crisp, white shirt, and a brilliant red necktie.  He’d stuck an American flag to one lapel and, just above it, a pin that looked like a rifle.  His craggy features, piercing blue eyes, and short, flat-topped hair completed his G-man look.  The screen behind him lit up with a photograph of a corpse laid out on an examining table, face exposed but the rest of the body covered by a pale green sheet.  Turner gripped the podium and waited for what felt like forever before he started speaking.

         “Three weeks ago, this man, Victor Lustig, was killed in an automobile accident while riding in a taxi as it departed from Washington National Airport.  His wallet contained documents identifying him as Walter Smith, but when officials attempted to notify Smith’s next of kin, they discovered this was a false ID.  Fingerprints eventually matched those of Lustig on file in IAFIS.”

         Tarak heard “Ay-fees,” and wondered what the fuck that was.  Why couldn’t people use English instead of acronyms?

         That Chad snickered and murmured, “That’s the FBI fingerprint database. This is just like Law and Order.”

         Tarak scowled at him and this time said, “Shhhh!”

         Turner didn’t bother to explain what IAFIS stood for.  He paused to glare at the audience, like they’d committed a crime or something, then continued. “Lustig was wanted for over fifteen counts of fraud, spanning eight separate incidents, twenty four years, and twelve states.  He had successfully evaded capture for over twenty years. As you all know, the primary goal of EPSED is to use AI-enhanced techniques to detect and apprehend terrorists who penetrate our security.  These ghosts, who pass like phantoms through our tightest webs, are a continuing threat to our nation’s security.”

         Tarak squirmed in his seat.  He was second-generation American, his parents having emigrated from Hyderabad in 1992, but he’d been mistaken often enough for a foreigner.  He’d even had trouble getting a clearance to work on the EPSED project.  Couldn’t this Turner jerk get the point? This was a total waste of time.

         Turner paused , long enough for feet to start shuffling and for Tarak to try another sip of his still-too-hot-drink coffee. At least That Chad kept stopped his running commentary.

         Turner finally continued, “Terrorists aren’t the only ghosts who escape existing detection networks.  Con artists like Lustig have years of experience evading detection, and the circumstances of his death afforded an opportunity to test the trial EPSED installation at Washington National Airport.”

         He nodded at a technician sitting in the front row with a laptop, and the screen behind him changed. It now split in two, showing a side-by-side frozen view of passengers disembarking at an airport gate.  Turner continued, “On the left is our conventional face-recognition software.”

         The people in the left-hand display started moving and, after a few moments froze again.  Turner used a laser pointer to highlight one of the departing passengers.  “That’s Victor Lustig.  You will note that our conventional face-recognition programs did not identify him.  His features were in the system, but system latency and short window in which he appeared prevented detection.”

         Latency was, at last, something Tarak understood.  He was just saying the system didn’t have enough time to process Lustig’s face against the zillions in the data base. He was gone before it could detect him.

         Turner looked grim and continued, “However, EPSED did much better.”

         That Chad leaned into Tarak and said in a stage whisper, “Does this dude have a stick up his ass or what?”  This time Dr. Morrison turned and shook a finger at them.  Tarak scrunched down in his seat and tried to hide.  Now That Chad had gotten him trouble, the jerk.

         Either Turner hadn’t heard That Chad or was above noticing comments from the peons.  He stood at stiff attention while the figures in the right-hand part of screen started to move.  Lustig appeared, just as he had in the previous video. Initially, nothing happened.  But, after a few moments, as he pushed through the crowd of passengers, the EPSED system highlighted him with a small box that moved with him.  Turner turned a satisfied smile on his audience. “You will note EPSED correctly identified him as someone evading detection. Since this was a trial, no law enforcement officer was notified, and we only learned of this after the fact.”  He paused to again scowl at the audience.  “Dr. Pellegrini, I’ll turn the podium back to you for an explanation.”

         That Chad whispered in Tarak’s ear, “Here’s the punch line.  Hold your hat.” His breath smelled of peppermint and garlic. 

         Tarak wanted to throttle him, but wanted more to hear what Professor Pellegrini had to say. He glared at That Chad and muttered, “Just shut up, will you?”  That got him another glare from Morrision. He was in trouble now, for sure.

         Pellegrini returned to the podium, smirked like he hadn’t heard Tarak, and said, “Thank you, Agent Turner, for that demonstration.  As you all know, our experimental trials use our AI-generated algorithms to find people who are evading detection.  The systems have used hundreds of thousands of hours of training data from airports, lobbies in federal buildings, military bases, and other facilities.  They use intensive, full-body scans of groups of people, scanning to detect how and the extent to which they interact with each other.  Over time, the algorithms have learned from the training data how to detect individuals for whom these interactions are abnormally inhibited. In short, they’ve learned to look for the ‘ghosts’ that Special Agent Turner mentioned. Instead of identifying a particular person, they’ve learned how to see the people that others don’t see, all based on full-body scans of how people interact with each other.  What the data from this field test reveal are that this particular criminal, Victor Lustig, was what Special Agent Turner called a ghost. For some reason, even though he’s right there in the crowd, other people don’t see him, at least in the same way that they see everyone else.”

         Tarak frowned.  For sure, he knew what it felt like to not be seen.  Somehow, though, this felt sinister in Lustig’s case, like it was on purpose.  He didn’t trust that Turner dude at all.

         Pellegrini continued.  “Lustig wasn’t the only ghost this EPSED trial detected.  Initially, we thought these might be false positives or experimental error.  But after the FBI identified Lustig, we went back and checked all twenty-eight ghosts EPSED found during the six weeks of this trial.”

         He stopped for another sip of water. That Chad whispered, “Sheesh, this is like a bad Hitchcock film.  Just get the point man. Don’t keep us in suspense.”

         Tarak had to agree the Professor was being melodramatic, but just frowned and shook his head at That Chad.

         Pellegrini continued at last, “The good news is that none of them were known terrorists.  It turns out, however, that eighteen of those ghosts were in the FBI’s wanted files.  All but one of them were con artists with long histories criminal fraud.  Each also had a long history of vanishing, without a trace, after completing their cons.  They were all ghosts.”

         Pellegrini smirked again, then said, “Are there any questions?”

         The military guy, the one in fatigues, looked like he’d bitten into a lemon.  “So what, exactly, did this EPSED gizmo detect?”

         Tarak rolled his eyes and that Chad snorted.  “What is this guy, a dunce?  Pellegrini was perfectly clear.”

         But Pellegrini just said, “That’s a good question, General Davis. The principles of machine learning have a sound basis in probability and produce reliable results, but we don’t know exactly how any AI-generated algorithm works. We just know that it found people others did not see, or at least that they failed to notice in a normal way.”

         Davis’s mouth squirmed and he scowled. “Why not just ask the blasted thing how it works? Make it talk?”

         That Chad turned his gaze skyward and said, “That settles it.  He is a dunce.”

         Pellegrini stayed patient. “It’s a machine, not a person, General. It was programmed to scan all that training data, those hundreds of thousands of hours of it, and find patterns.  The result is a holistic algorithm, a summary of all the events in the training data.  We have some suspicions of a few things that might be part of the algorithm, but those few are insufficient to account for the algorithm’s ultimate operation or accuracy.”

         Davis wasn’t giving up, continuing to prove his mental incapacity.  “What kinds of things?”

         Pellegrini shrugged. “Little things. Miosis, for example, might play a roll.”

         Davis’s jaws jumped like he’d swallowed a mouthful of grasshoppers.  “What the devil is that? Speak English.”

         Tarak suppressed a grin. On that, at least, he could agree with Davis.

         Pellegrini answered, “Pinpoint pupils. It’s well known that pupillary diameter increases when a subject is interested in something and decreases in times of stress or diminished interest.  It’s a likely indicator of interest in and awareness of the physical background.”

         Davis looked thoughtful. “So, what could do that? Drugs, maybe?”

         Pellegrini shrugged. “Drugs are one possibility, to be sure.  But miosis is likely a secondary effect and not what’s causing the diminished awareness of the ghost.  We might never know what’s causing it, but this trial data makes it clear that ghosts exist and that EPSED can detect them.”

         Tarak had plenty of experience with being a ghost, with not being seen.  Salespeople ignoring him, restaurant hosts seating everyone else first, never being called on in class.  He could imagine lots of applications for the software to help the never seen. The under-served were everywhere.  Grocery stores. Restaurants.  Libraries.  Any place people needed help.  Emergency rooms!  There were lots of ways this software could do more than just catch criminals.  It could make life better for people.

         Tarak had worked at the downtown library before getting his gig with EPSED.  Tomorrow, he’d suggest an EPSED trial at the library to Professor Pellegrini.  He was sure the library’s director, Dr. Bodley, would be interested in anything that enhanced the patron experience.  Later, they could try trials other places.  Casinos!  They’d be interested, too.

         Tarak’s coffee had finally cooled enough to be drinkable, but he no longer cared. He didn’t even care about the chewing out he was sure to get from Professor Morrison.  He charged out of the auditorium and headed to his cubbyhole office, his head buzzing with possibilities.