VOTE

Chapter One

Hou Tao was damn nervous. But he remained composed knowing that he belonged. He deserved to be right where he was. I'm the real deal, I earned it, I own this. It was his first day on the new job. Senior Scientist. At Thimk, the new king of the hill in Silicon Valley. Hou Tao's every thought and notion were still voiced out in his head in Hokkien, the local dialect of his home city of Xiamen, in China's Fujian province. Now, freshly armed with a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon and a high visibility, three-year post doc at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, Hou Tao, known in American circles as Tommy Hou, was ready. At MIT, a series of experiments and iterative approaches had yielded explosive insights into the human mind. Originally intended to merely advance machine learning and synthesis of information, Tommy's group had stumbled upon some discoveries regarding reliable triggers involved in certain kinds of decision making. A recent article in Science, later summarized the work as having "created a spare set of keys to the human brain."

After two and a half years, when Tommy finally stopped ignoring inquiries from Wall Street to Silicon Valley to Langley, Virginia, he very quickly had a stack of lucrative offers to sort through. Among the most persistent suitors was the Chinese government and a company he had never heard of, but later realized they were just a front for the Russian government. The conversations with China's mindless, patriotic attache's were tiring. With commitments for full support to obtain a green card from so many famous companies, he was wholly uninterested in returning to the chaos and squalor of his homeland. He loved his hometown and his family, but the idea of grinding away in some secret government lab in Beijing repulsed him.

What cemented his decision to stay in America was an experience he had during his recent trip to visit his parents in China. He had just finished a much needed two-week period of total immersion in family, food, sights and the sounds of his home, completely shutting off his overactive cortex to rest and reset. Tommy then arrived at the Xiamen airport to catch his flight to Taipei and then connect on an EVA Air nonstop to Boston. But as he passed through immigration, the officer seemed to stall. The officer never looked up, appearing to work, as if there were normal procedures to complete, but Tommy knew better, he was stalling. Maybe the computer system has a problem, Tommy thought. Minutes later, as the line of people behind him scoffed and scattered to other lines, a supervisor came over.

"Hou Tao. Come through here. I will take you to someone that needs to talk to you."

"Who is it?"

"Party official. Stay calm and don't act upset. You are not in trouble." Tommy's heart rate started to climb rapidly as chemicals released and massaged his system into a state of high alert. There was an even more senior uniformed immigration official watching as they approached. The official opened the door behind him and beckoned Tommy to enter. Tommy slowed, wanting to see what was inside the room before blindly walking through the door. But, the immigration officer put a hand on his shoulder and abruptly ushered him in.

"Hou! take a seat," blurted a thin, bespectacled man in a cheap blue suit. He was standing, while two other seated men, a little older and more worn looking, simply observed. The room had the classic layout of massive Chinese faux leather armchairs, arranged in a U shape, with two chairs at one end and several chairs lining each side. There was a rosewood side table between each chair, with ashtrays and covered tea cups. A plump, rosy-cheeked women in an apron, nervously poured hot water into the cups from a large, glass-lined thermal jug. Despite the strict prohibition on smoking, the two stoic party officials that were seated, puffed away, filling the room with the rank odor of strong Chinese tobacco. The thin man motioned for Tommy to sit in one of the end chairs. This was the seat reserved for the guest of honor.

"My flight is going to take off soon," protested Tommy, his voice a bit shaky.

"No, it won't. It will be slightly delayed," declared one of the older officials, confidently. It was all very unsettling. Tommy now put together that they knew about his flight, flagged him in the system and were waiting here to pull him aside, all very orchestrated.