"PAUL: Part 4"

“PAUL: Part 4,” by Joseth Moore. Copyright @ 2025.

A year has gone by since Adrian Hall did contracted work in Rwanda for STEMatics. And it was when he learned that the owner of STEMatics was also running for president of the United States!

Nothing inherently wrong about that. Except, according to some activists & records obtained by the ORION-Ai, Vincent Gaines is not entirely clean…

Downtown San Diego, California; USA. Present Day…
The live streamed event was not only on Adrian’s phone, but also on most of STEMatics’ public tv screens—hallways, visitors’ lounges… Vincent Gaines was the owner of STEMatics, but he did *not* own all the hearts of his employees!

And that included Adrian Hall.

Old Man Gaines, in colloquial terms amongst STEMatics employees, had just officially accepted the Republican nomination as their formal candidate for president of the United States. The cheering and music in the convention center in downtown Boise, Idaho was so loud, the various reporters on the scene, all of them had to cup an ear with one of their hands so they could hear their respective news anchors over the lines!

Indeed, there were many cheers throughout STEMatics’ towering HQ! Adrian was just finishing up his work for the day and was anxious to get home to his wife and kids—and away from the naked political bias on display at his job!

“What's wrong, Adrian,” one of Gaines’ strong supporters at STEMatics, shot at him, as Adrian headed for the elevators, “can't take the heat? Gaines is going to straighten things out, bro!”

“See you tomorrow, Carl,” was all that Adrian said…

Adrian’s SUV was parked in the firm's basement on that particular day. After exiting the elevator, he noticed Francis, one of his work-friends, was standing right next to his parked vehicle.

Uh, oh, Adrian thought…
“Fran…what's wrong?”

“Take a guess…”

He looked at the middle-aged, 80s-retro friend with a blank stare. Francis had that look on her face that Adrian had grown familiar with since he started at STEMatics—that mix of frustration and defiance. Her purple-streaked hair seemed particularly bright. New color for her!

“Gaines, man! He only got as many delegate votes for the nomination because of Billionaire Burton!”

“We all knew this was going to happen,” he dryly stated. Adrian was tired and discouraged; he just wanted to go home!

“Adrian, I don't think you get it: Sally Burton didn't simply dump more money into Gaines’ candidacy, she and her team *manipulated* a lot of that crypto that was meant for the *other* primary candidates!”
Now Adrian froze on the spot!

“And before you ask, I have proof…”

Francis did a few swipes on her smartphone and brought up a diagram that had connecting grids and descriptions for brief narration.

Adrian scanned the diagram, his eyes widening as he processed what he was seeing. The complex web of cryptocurrency transactions showed funds being diverted from multiple campaign coffers to shell accounts, and ultimately funneling into Gaines' campaign war chest.

"Jesus, Fran... where did you get this?" Adrian whispered, glancing around the parking garage nervously.

“Used a couple of sources…one human, the other, an indie-Ai…Adrian, if I noticed this, I'm sure thousands of others have as well!”
“OK, but what are *we* supposed to do with this info?”

Francis gave an impish look! “Rhymes with ‘O'Brian.’ “

Adrian half-laughed, half-sighed! “Fran, STEMatics is the one that contracts ORION out to clients. *We* are the hired guns, Fran. We don't shoot ourselves!”

“But, that's just it, bro! No one expects the cheater in a card game to get beatened *by* the straight guy in the game—”

“Especially when the straight guy *also* cheats…” Adrian nodded for understanding. “You realize doing what you're suggesting could get us into legal trouble? Besides, STEMatics created both ORION *and* PAUL! They share some cybernetic traits. PAUL would catch on within 24 hours.”

“Adrian, you and everyone else had no problem deploying ORION to those other countries when they wanted an independent Ai to help register their citizens to vote *and* counted the ballots! Why can't we do this at home—”
“ORION is a cybernetic hunter, Fran! It's meant to match or surpass the rogue Ai's in their militancy; not passively count voting ballots!”

Francis drew closer, lowering her voice. "ORION isn't just a hunter, Adrian. It's a truth-seeker by design. This isn't about counting ballots - it's about exposing corruption that affects our entire democracy. All I'm asking is that we redirect ORION's capabilities for something that actually matters."

Vincent Gaines’ acceptance speech must have been over. At least three other employees passed by in the garage. It was a good time for Adrian to ponder Francis’ last point.

“Meet me at the Bay, tomorrow night,” he whispered, his eyes scanning, now, several co-workers headed to their vehicles. “Eight o'clock…”

She gave a simple nod. The two schemers entered their respective vehicles and drove off to their own lives.

One Month Later …

Adrian had ran into a wall with a new concept-product that Greg, his division boss, had tasked Adrian’s team with. Something about the approach of the internet-of-things for labeling stickers—a kind of “analogization” of the internet! Adrian and the whole product-team really liked the premise of accessing the internet with mere texts or images *without* using QR Codes, but was proving a bit more difficult than anticipated.

During one of their breaks, Adrian was catching an elevator down to one of STEMatics’ cafeterias. Within that elevator was Francis… The duo stared at one another for but a fraction of a second. Both kept their eyes ahead or looking down, given the fairly crowded cart.

“How’d you like that story on our man,” a male office worker asked another

“Yeah, I caught it on one of those podcasts I told you about,” was the other man's response.

“I knew they'd get something on him,” the professional stated sourly!

It was at that point that Adrian and Francis furtively look at each other in the elevator!

“Don't worry, Fellas,” came a female voice into the conversation, “it's already been debunked as Ai bullshit, according to one of the YouTube channels I watch—”

It was Adrian’s floor to get off on…

It wasn't even one minute since Adrian got off the elevator when he got a linked-article texted to him by Francis. “Vincent GAINES a LOT of POUNDS!” was the headline from a respected, established news organization. It was a pun on the allegations that the Republican nominee for US president was siphoning money from international cryptocurrencies deemed illegal by several lawyers, constitutional experts, and Gaines’ political enemies!

Adrian couldn't help but feel a tinge of satisfaction mixed with growing anxiety. ORION had done exactly what they'd intended—finding and exposing the irregularities in Gaines' campaign funding—but the competing narratives in the media were already muddying the waters. Some outlets were running with the story while others were dismissing it as Ai-generated disinformation.

A group-text notification from Francis popped up again: "It's working. Let's all meet, same place tonight. 9pm."

Adrian had a thought. “That elevator ride today spooked me! How about another location? Coronado Beach? 9.”

“Bingo!”

“Works”

A thumbs up icon…

LATER THAT NIGHT; CORONADO BEACH, CALIFORNIA…

In the midst of Coronado's beach area of dense urban lights, palm trees, and the small floating towns of boutique boats, a small portion of the Tech-Resistance had convened!

The team of two had grown to four in a month's time! Adrian had recruited a young woman with a tech background from the small business community— Amy Neider. Amy was a co-worker at STEMatics in the marketing division and she had known Adrian for years.

Francis proselytized a middle-aged, state government Techie; Phillip Cortez. She met him while she was filling out state paperwork for local taxes. He was already looking for a group of serious people that want to combat Vincent Gaines and that whole movement, anyway!

The small cell, not having a formal name, had faked a late-night picnic. Oh, there was the obligatory blanket for the attendees to sit on—even a couple of tiki torches! But the only food among them were bags of chips and granola bars, and to-go coffee…

“…OK, I've got to ask you, Coders, something,” Phillip put to Adrian and Francis. “Seeing that your company created ORION *and* the famed PAUL, isn't there a risk that they, each, have similar codes and, therefore, kind of recognize each other? I'm not a Coder, so I might be simplifying it…”

As Adrian and Francis thought on Phillip's question, Amy looked on while sounds of families at the beach filtered to their secluded camping grounds.

"ORION and PAUL aren't carbon copies," Francis replied, tapping her fingernails against her coffee cup. "They share some foundational architecture, sure, but we've taken precautions. We've routed ORION's operations through multiple proxy servers and modified its identification signatures. PAUL is programmed to identify known patterns of other STEMatics Ais, but our modifications should keep ORION just under its radar."

“What would happen if PAUL *did* trace ORION's actions to us and *other* cells,” Amy asked. Phillip's brows arched, reflecting his interest in Amy's question!

Adrian and Francis shared a glance. Being the leader of the node, Adrian took the inquiry.

“Look, guys, we both told each of you, this would be a bit risky…our movement is basically an open-source approach, in that our movement is not directed by a single, headquartered leadership. So, we're not the only ones at risk of discovery…

“Yes, it's possible not only PAUL could track us. Hell, Gaines and his people could connect the dots! But, like Fran convinced me over a month ago, fair-thinking people, who keep up with news, understand that Sally Burton and other billionaires that also are from overseas, have corruptly put Gaines in that nomination. That's according to America's Supreme Court rulings on outside money having access to our domestic governments.

“Don't worry, guys; we're on the right side of history…”

Family laughter, leisure chatting, and gentle waves from Coronado's shoreline filled the silence at the picnic.

“So, what's next,” Amy asked.

The lead duo looked at each other, mentally verifying with each other by a mere glance.

“What we're doing now…” Francis said with a shrug as she took a drink from her coffee. “Each of our movement's cells—including us!—uploaded and coded our local contributions to ORION as imputs for its artificial thinking process…ORION snuck into PAUL's backdoor and planted cyber-bombs throughout Gaines’ house-of-cards!”

“It's an art, my Sisters and Brother,” Adrian said cheerfully; raising his paper cup of coffee as a toast…the others caught on and, with laughter, raised *their* coffee to his! “Knowing *when* to disengage in disruption is just as important as doing the disrupting!”

Cheers, indeed…

fin

/ “PAUL: Part 4,” was partially generated with Notion-Ai at apprx. 11% artificial intelligence ratio. ~Joseth Moore /