TERRA EMPIRE: ON THE EVE OF WORLD WAR

Episode 8: BECK's ANOMALY

Inside his lavish study, Mr. Janus was silently watching the hologram screen from his computer. Listening to information that has just come from Baghdad. The fort was flattened to the ground after being hit by Jathrib 35, Iran's flagship missile, which is capable of destroying targets over a hundred kilometers away. It is estimated that four hundred soldiers in the fort were killed instantly. And it turns out that the dead were not only Americans but also some Iraqi soldiers who worked together in the fort.

“Ya, Lord..” hiss Mr. Janus stroked his forehead.

Exactly the warning from Clementine Cointa, this feud will not be finished easily. The attitude of the Shah of Iran who no longer heed the Prefect who led his territory by carrying out this kind of counterattack will make the atmosphere hotter. Moreover, the death of soldiers who are not only from America can trigger the potential for the spread of this commotion to other countries.

From the point of view of the mastery of the Mainland Territory, the Shah of Iran was too haughty for not considering women as their leaders, but that could not be blamed for Mr. Janus also felt that Hector Pustin, the Russian leader, and several other leaders in the Middle East considered women to be second-class. Clementine's still being nice to them. From his point of view the Prefect of the Mainland Territoy was still very soft. It's good that the woman shows the occasional harsh attitude so that the jerks who lead the country in her territory stop acting.

But Mr. Janus also did not blame this condition entirely on Clementine or the Shah of Iran because the initiator of the attack was Howard Tramp. Again, Clementine Cointa said there is a point, he must immediately find people to fill the position of Prefect of the Atlantic Territory, if not want the chaos caused by this leadership vacuum to spread to all corners of the Atlantic region, if not the chaos of the Atlantic, also to other regions.

It was impossible to give up all the affairs to be resolved by himself. His position as Heir-Cezar required him to move around the globe to ensure control and arrangements were in place. Therefore, without a person designated as a Prefect who resettles and settles in the control area, the supervision must be unequal.

Several times the lessons due to vacancy or delay in filling the Prefect position must be received, which also changed the history of the world. One example of such an error occurred in the Avrupa Territory, before Sylvester Borje was found to be the Prefect of Avrupa, Hitler controlled almost the entire European mainland with Nazi power and his war tanks. The madman even almost crossed into Mainland if not immediately driven by Russia with the help of Clementine.

The thing is, finding a candidate Prefect is not as easy as one might imagine. Prefects such as Clementine or Sylvester have known about the BECK algorithm, Binary Enigma to Construe Kingpin, for nearly five years. Choosing the right Prefect among seven billion people is not just like looking for a needle in the middle of a haystack, it may be necessary to add a pile of rapids in a warehouse the size of a football stadium.

Still imprints in his memory how Clementine was the result of the longest search period. Twenty-five years they had to wait. And when the search results appeared on the BECK screen it made him astonished…

A gal. That's an unusual choice. An anomaly, as they call it. Moreover, the girl must be in control of the anti-feminist territory, but that is the algorithmic calculation of the many factors incorporated into the BECK data processing machine, which is, and if Clementine Cointa came out as the end result then she was the one who was chosen. Clementine still survives today in her place.

Remembering that, Mr. Janus walked out of his study into the room on the ground floor where BECK was. The man stood for a moment in front of the BECK room and after the door sensor scanned his retina, the door opened. Although not as cold as the transporter room, the BECK room is enough to make anyone who is not accustomed to shiver in it.

A supercomputer built with a weight of about a ton with a complex system in which there is personal data of seven billion individuals all over the earth. That highly sensitive data is not being fed into the cloud as it was done in the so-called modern era by humans today because mass storage is so vulnerable to leaking. Therefore self-processing needs special hardware and systems that have been built since thousands of years have never had problems in operation.

Observing with amazement a series of points that converge and separate repeatedly, a series of alternating numbers produces a large and small percentage of possibilities, facial projections from strangers are out there from either the faces of a child or an adult, then a man or a woman. The tireless Artificial Intelligence works and becomes the hope of mankind in all corners of the world.

So far BECK has produced the highest percentage on one face, only the value is still in the range of thirty-five percent, that number is not yet large enough as a representation of the requested output value of ninety-nine percent. Mr. Janus hopes that the evidence and calculations BECK collects will increase confidence in his choice in a timely manner. A small spark in the sixty-two minute, the thirty-eightth second suddenly caught his attention.

“Nah...nah...what did you get?”

The hologram screen opens an image that is a snapshot of an incident somewhere out there, in a school cafeteria to be exact, where a bunch of kids are caging a teenage girl and her boy friend. Maybe both of them were accidentally sitting at a table away from the other kids, and that made them both easy targets.

Mr. Janus could guess what happened next. The usual silly incident at any school, and sure enough, commotion began to occur when the curly-haired boy clutched the shoulder of the girl and his friend did not accept. Mouthfighting occurs and the curly hair also approached the girl's friend, her fists are clenched ready to be used to knock down the child who happened like a hero of the misfortune.

What made the man unable to take his eyes off the hologram screen was when the curly hair fell to the floor, moments after blocking the skinny boy's neck and the tray in front of the girl lifted itself from the table and flew to hit the curly-haired assailant's head.

“What was that?” he murmured in his heart.

How the teenager was kicked by the friends of the curly hair no longer attracted his attention. He stood up and held out his forefinger to replay the image and slow the movement while playing it back. His eyes were fixed to the tray that was lifted from the table, inch by inch, without anyone moving it because everyone's position was not possible for it.

The tray was lifted into the air, not without intention because it clearly led to a curly hair child. The head was targeted to stop the kinky-haired boy from continuing his violent actions. The lacing of the tray was not the original lacing. The blow was hard enough to make the bully sit on the floor. And how it happened…

The man caresses his club beard, “Hmm... weird...but interesting...”.

A few seconds later BECK turned off the hologram screen and returned to the previous percentage calculation activity, acting as if the spark had been like a meteor. Crossing fast in the darkness of space is not as important but beautiful to notice for a moment. Mr. Janus felt it was something not to be missed. He wanted to learn it further, because it was given him a new command.

“Save a video record of sixty-two minutes, seconds to thirty-eight to forty-six.”

“Save,” reply BECK.

“Thank you, Beck!” Mr. Janus responded.

“Sama-sama, Mr. Janus.”

The man pressed a button on his ear as Auris buzzed. There was an incoming message from his secretary, reminding of the dinner appointment and meeting that had been pushed back from two weeks ago.

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