Bad Good Bad: Special Edition Read online

  Kim: “I will talk to William about it. I don’t know what I want to do anymore.”

  Eric: “I understand. But I believe you would be a fantastic asset for the new startup. And if you are in, Kevin is in.”

  Kim: “Thank you Eric. I will call you back.”

  Chapter 4

  The taxi drops us at Social. 9pm. I want to impress Sarah, so I ask Toshiro to walk in alone, to see if she will recognize him. I am spying from the outside, so Sarah does not see me. Toshiro asks for a table. I can see that Sarah is looking at him with a funny feeling, before she walks through the doors to the kitchen. She emerges soon, she goes to Toshiro’s table. She is probably trying to find out if he is the chef she read about in her magazine. I walk in.

  Sarah: “Kim, I was waiting for you. Good to see you again. We have a special guest tonight, let me introduce you to…”

  Kim: “That won’t be necessary.”

  Sarah: “You two know each other?”

  Kim: “Sarah, he is my boyfriend. There is no William. I was hesitating to tell you his real name, especially after I saw that copy of the magazine here. Sorry, I was just afraid you would try to reach out to him. I was not ready to talk to him back in December.”

  Sarah: “Of course I would have tried to reach out to him. He is a genius. And you were is such pain, it was breaking my heart. Don’t lie to me ever again.”

  Kim: “I promise I won’t.”

  Sarah: “Kevin is in town. Eric and Kevin just stepped out, they went for a drink. You and William, I mean Toshiro, you can have the house tonight. We will stay here tonight. Here is the key, you know the address. Eric asked me to ask you to come back here tomorrow for 10 am.”

  Kim: “Thank you Sarah.”

  We are moving to the table where Toshiro is seated now.

  Sarah: “You can use the pool area and relax a bit tomorrow morning before you two come over. Eric will take you to a meeting. Maybe Toshiro you can stay here with me tomorrow, we would like to pick your brain if you don’t mind?”

  Toshiro: “It will be my pleasure Sarah. I also want to learn about Social. Kim told me good things about your restaurant. Can I be chef for a day?”

  Sarah: “It would be an honor. Deal.”

  Chapter 5

  Back at Social, 10 am. We walk in. Eric is sitting at a table with Kevin.

  Kim: “Kevin, you made it back!”

  Eric: “I had to pull some strings, but yes, the whole gang together again.”

  Kevin: “Kim, nice to see you again.”

  I hesitate to hug Kevin. I extend a finger as if I am expecting a static electricity shock. We both laugh and we hug each other.

  Kim: “Kevin, I want you to meet my boyfriend, Toshiro. Toshiro, Kevin.”

  Kevin: “Nice to meet you Toshiro.”

  Toshiro: “Nice to finally meet you Kevin. Kim said good things about you.”

  While Toshiro is engaged with Leon the local chef in introductions, I walk out the door with Kevin and Eric. We jump into Eric’s car. We are off to Neocuris.

  …

  I walk into the lobby with Eric and Kevin. I can see many displays, one is for the chip, encased in a glass frame on top of a promontory. I see other devices in other displays. They have a big screen with a video showing a tour of the factory, with negative pressure chambers. It switches to showing a patient at a clinic receiving care. Eric takes us to the security desk so we can register. They take pictures, we have to produce IDs, except for Eric. Eric still has an employee badge.

  Before we walk in through the turnstile, I spot an autographed NFL shirt on the wall, I believe the Patriots. The place is very modern, impeccable. We walk to an elevator. Eric presses the button for the 2nd floor.

  Eric: “This used to be my second home. I am still welcomed anytime. I have been an advisor for Neocuris since I stepped out of the CTO role.”

  We walk pass a few cubicles with workers, open space, high chairs, adjustable desks. Everything is very modern, and very bright with many windows.

  Eric pushes a door. We enter a large conference room, with a table that is made of massive wood. The room has large windows with blinds that are lowered. The sun is up in a partially cloudy sky today.

  Eric: “Team, I would like to introduce you to Kim and Kevin. Kim, Kevin, this is Anima, Kamal, Patrick, Clarence and Cheng.”

  Everybody takes a seat. Clarence gets up and uses the remote for the flat screen to start a presentation.

  Clarence: “Welcome to Neocuris. We are excited to have you here today. I am responsible for the transition to the new Neocuris Pro division. I have been working with Eric over the past few weeks on the details. We are almost ready to proceed.”

  Clarence: “As you may already know, Neocuris has entered into major contracts with 2 professional sport leagues already, and we are now making rapid progress with other leagues. After the major lawsuits around the protection of professional athletes, especially around concussions, hard to diagnose brain injuries, we can now provide just-in-time diagnostics. A proactive measure for all athletes that are at risk. We can safely take them out of the field when an injury occurs. We can also track the progress of their recovery and make sure that they come back only when they have fully recovered. We also provide advanced monitoring for athletes who have already suffered one or multiple concussions, so we can try to prevent any repeat, by taking them out of the game if we see symptoms resurfacing after recovery.”

  Clarence: “For both professional teams and athletes, this is also a question of money. Professional athletes are very valuable assets. Teams invest tens of millions of dollars into those athletes every year in salaries, on top of the money they invested before to develop and recruit them. Just-in-time, accurate diagnostics allow teams to avoid putting those investments at risk. The athlete wants to avoid both a shortened career because of an inaccurate diagnosis, and a degraded quality of life after his or her professional career is over.”

  Clarence: “Also, the manufacturers that provide protection, including helmets, can measure the effectiveness of the protection, and improve their equipment by accessing statistics and data that is anonymized for athletes that use their equipment.”

  Clarence: “Because of the different nature of the business involved here, Neocuris made the decision to create a new company, Neocuris Pro, owned 100% by Neocuris. Eric will be named CEO of Neocuris Pro as soon as everything is finalized. We hope Kim and Kevin to have you join Neocuris Pro. Eric will discuss the details with you. The team in this room will also be part of the new company.”

  Clarence takes back her seat. She hands over the remote to Kamal, who is now standing up.

  Kamal: “Welcome again Kim and Kevin. As you know, Neocuris was victim of an attack back in January. We were able to quickly isolate the vault, thanks to New Forensics for alerting us in a timely fashion. After we isolated the vault, from a backend perspective, here is what we found.”

  Kamal is clicking the remote now, and a slide appears with some diagram and arrows.

  Kamal: “This bot was integrated into the vault not only at the application layer, but also at the operating system layer. It basically provided an access to the patient record database, and the patients vault, using a modified copy of the application running in stealth mode. We are still taking some of its components apart now. We believe that an insider at New Forensics New York was able to leverage this bot as a stepping stone to open a path to a specific patient in the vault using a patient unique identification number, resolved using the patient’s personal information including name and address. Some sort of white pages feature we could say.”

  Kamal: “To access the bot, a chip user could basically tune into the bot as if it was a patient, a virtual one. Some filters where also removed in the months prior to the attack, to allow for new features to be enabled. Some filters were also removed minutes before the attack, and that basically triggered the alert. We also found out after that some tests had been performed prior to the attack,
as far back as early November. We found traces of those tests in the logs after the attack.”

  Kevin: “Do we know who was responsible for the attack?”

  Eric: “I talked to Tom about this. It looks like it was one of the captive employees in the building in New York City. But the feds parked them into small rooms, called them in and out and rotated the captives across the different rooms. They were calling them in turn for interviews. Tom was escorted to 4 different interviews. When they freed everybody, they did not know who was in which room at that point. We believe that if the employee responsible for the attack was amongst the captives, they probably let him walk out with the others after they made sure they would catch up with him shortly after. They probably gave him instructions before letting him exit in maybe the second or third wave of freed employees. Everybody eventually all convened outside the building, before jumping in taxis or being picked up.”

  Eric: “They may have had just enough evidence to find out who it was, not enough to prosecute. It sounds like some deal was made. The feds probably prefer to have him as an asset, instead of allowing for him to be an asset for another country or entity. And maybe they were not interested in prosecution. They would have needed to disclose some of their investigation tools and methods. And also, from a communication perspective, I believe they and the government wanted to put the lid back on the can as soon as they could, to stop the protests and the panic in the population.”

  Kamal: “We are actually looking at how we could leverage this piece of work, the bot. We may be able to use a few of its individual components for our own work. Kevin, we are looking at building some isolation between the Pro records and the patient records. But we will still need to allow for exchange of information between the 2 sets of records. For example, an athlete can also be a patient after a sport injury. And because some athletes may also suffer from a condition like epilepsy, they could also be patients to start with.”

  Clarence: “And after the professional athletes, we will offer the service to casual performers, including runners. Again, this could mean a single individual with multiple profiles.”

  Anima: “Kim, I would like to spend some time with you, and discuss some of my investigations and assumptions. You have been able to experience first hand the connectivity. I have already been able to gather a lot of information sitting down with Eric, who has also been able to experiment connectivity for a long duration like you. Kevin, I may also want to talk to you about your connectivity experience before you disabled your application.”

  Eric: “Thank you very much team for this quick tour of the house. Wow! I am so lucky to be part of such a strong team. I am very excited about the future.”

  We leave the conference room. We are signing off at security, while I take a last look at some of the displays. Leading edge technology at the service of patients. We get into Eric’s car. It is 12:30 and we are starving.

  Eric: “Let’s go back to Social, to check what the alchemists fixed for lunch.”

  Chapter 6

  We are on our way back to Social, a 30-minute drive approximately.

  Eric: “This afternoon, I will provide you with more details about the opportunity. But let’s go eat first.”

  Eric: “Can you picture that? Your smart watch not only counting the steps and comparing your runs, but monitoring your vital signs beyond the heart beats, alerting you for signs of dehydration or other things to watch for. For patients with diabetes, we already offer real-time monitoring of insulin level with the intra-skin chip and non-invasive scattered light analysis across a vein. And that has actually allowed many to start running or exercising without having to worry so much about a sudden low. We are still in the inventory process when it comes to possibilities.”

  Kim: “Kevin, how are Carolyn and the kids?”

  Kevin: “It was great to be able to spend more time together over the last few weeks. Carolyn says hello. The kids are still talking about you, they had fun in New York”.

  Kim: “I had fun too. I needed it.”

  Eric: “Well, I am glad things are less crazy for you two.”

  Eric: “Kim, I talked to Bianca. She says she would like to be your mentor. She says there are not enough women at the executive level. So she could be your coach. I have plans for you.”

  I just smile and look at Eric via the front mirror. Eric smiles back at me with his eyes. I am still undecided, even if this sounds like a dream opportunity. I don’t want to lose Toshiro.

  Kevin: “The NFL! This is crazy.”

  Eric: “I know. Thanks to the lawyers who worked out a solution to pull the league and the players out of the hole they were in. Everybody hopes this will allow athletes to be better protected and enjoy longer careers, and longer healthy lives. Parents were taking their kids out of the sport, you see. Something needed to be done to save the sport.”

  Eric parks the car in his reserved parking spot. We get out and start walking.

  Eric: “Let’s sit upstairs the 3 of us after lunch. I will provide you with more details about how I see Neocuris Pro moving forward.”

  We walk into Social. Busy for lunch today. Leon and Toshiro, the 2 chefs today, are fixing some small plates in the open kitchen, while Sarah is busy walking around the tables and engaging in conversation with some of the customers. I glance at the blackboard menu, it looks a bit different already.

  Toshiro: “Hey Kim, I wanted to text you, but it was not going to happen in here. How did your meeting go?”

  Kim: “It went well. I got to meet some very smart people. It looks like Leon is getting some help today.”

  Toshiro: “Yes, Leon is introducing me to some interesting techniques and concepts of his own. I have a couple of ideas that we want to explore together this afternoon, maybe in time for the dinner menu. Have a seat, we will bring you some samplers to test.”

  Kim: “Sure, we are all hungry.”

  It is fun to watch Toshiro and Leon together, what an odd combination. At first I thought Toshiro was just making an extra effort to be nice to my friends, but now I think he is really enjoying himself.

  Toshiro: “We will go shopping this afternoon after the lunch. I need to get a thing or two from the market.”

  Kim: “Sure. I will be upstairs with Kevin and Eric. You know where to find me.”

  Sarah: “Some of the customers have heard of Toshiro before. It looks like we may have a busy night. I only have a couple of tables left without reservation for tonight.”

  We sit at a table, myself, Eric and Kevin. We are starving, and the samplers are very good. Other customers who are still on mostly Leon’s menu are curious about what we have in our plates.

  Now we are ready to go upstairs. It is 2 pm. I hug Toshiro, who is about to head outside with Leon. It feels good to be here with Toshiro and my friends. I wish this could last for more than a couple of days.

  Chapter 7

  We are sitting in the upstairs dining room. Eric quickly turns it into an improvised conference room. He borrowed one of the blackboards on wheels from downstairs.

  Eric: “Kevin, what do you think about those challenges, from an architecture perspective?”

  Kevin: “Neocuris needs to transition to a multi-tenant architecture, while allowing some communication between the tenants. I believe we need to keep one vault, but we need to implement some controls between the tenants. Of course, the policies need to be reviewed first, they will need to be updated as part of the transition.”

  Eric: “Also, I have been discussing with both Kamal and Anima a new application state between active and inactive. A chip user would be able to interface with the app, but the app would not be connected back to the vault. That would be useful to beta test some advanced features with filters turned off, without exposing oneself to the vault. Anima thinks this could allow for better control over biofeedback. It would be like practicing a musical instrument. Any volunteers?”

  Kim: “I don’t know I want to turn that thing on again.”


  Eric: “We should have had that intermediate state available for the two of us when we became active. My bad. I did not realize what we were getting ourselves into back then.”

  Kevin: “I need more time to make up my mind about all this. This all sounds very exciting, new challenges with new implications I have never thought would come my way. But I am not sure my family is ready to move out of Montreal, out of Canada.”

  Eric: “I have been thinking about that too. I think for the first few months, I may need both of you to be here in Portland a lot. Especially because we will need to interview a lot of candidates for various positions. But at one point, I think we may be able to allow you to work remote, maybe half and half. Kevin, you are used to travel. Kim, what do you think?”

  Kim: “I need more time. The opportunity is fantastic! But I need Toshiro in my life.”

  Eric: “I understand. There will always be an open door for you, whenever you are ready.”

  Chapter 8

  After dinner, I am heading back in a taxi to Eric and Sarah’s house. The restaurant was very busy. I sat down with Eric and Kevin, enjoying interesting fusion creations by Toshiro and Leon. All the customers in Social would exchange comments and recommendations about the menu. It felt like we were part of some chef academy show on TV.

  I am relaxing now in the Jacuzzi with Toshiro, under a beautiful night sky. The steam is rising from the water in this cold late evening.

  Toshiro: “Leon has interesting ideas. I thought Caribbean cuisine was only about chicken and jerk spices. I was wrong. I like his approach especially for the vegan dishes. Social is fun.”

  Kim: “Toshiro, thank you for being here with me and for making my friends feel good. It looks like everybody had a good time at Social today.”