Trade secrets

“Can you keep a secret?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t.”

A motel room was an unusual location for a high-stakes corporate negotiation. But it offered everything executives at OpsuPhiCamp – known the world over just as Opsu – wanted. Privacy, mostly. 

Val Finn, the unassuming looking woman sitting in front of them, was soon to be worth lots and lots of money to those executives. In fact, once the contract was signed, she was going to become the most valuable person in the world, though she wouldn’t be on the Forbes list any time soon. But there were a few things to go over before she got there.

Mark Allen, Opsu’s iconic CEO, had twice been on the cover of Time magazine. He’d been the world’s richest man for more than twenty years, had met countless world leaders and was rumoured to have once put his fist through a solid mahogany table in a board meeting. Now, he looked nervous.

“Ms Finn, I hope you understand what we’re asking you to do. This is a lifelong commitment. Billions, maybe trillions, of dollars depend on it. Maybe people’s lives.” 

“I got the brief,” Val said. “I heard the spiel. Five times, in fact. I can keep a secret.”

“It’s prudent for us to be cautious. Once we give you these five lines of code, you’ll have the key to my business. And I’ll tell you another secret for free: we don’t want to be doing this. But my hand has been forced, and you’re the least bad solution.”

“Charming.”

“Well, it’s the truth,” Allen said. He picked up a small folder, and passed it to Val. “This is the master contract. It says what you can and can’t do – but as far as you’re concerned, there’s only two things you need to remember: Don’t forget the code, and don’t tell anyone.”

Val smiled. “Don’t forget, don’t tell. I’ve got it.” 

Allen smiled back, though his eyes didn’t change. “Great. At some point in the next week, five separate couriers will come to this room, and will each tell you one part of the code. You’re not to leave until five couriers have come and you have five lines of code, each line being fifteen characters long. Once that’s happened, you’re to leave immediately. If we need the code, I will personally come to your address. If not, this will be the last time I see you.”

Val signed the contract and handed it back. Her grey-faced visitors left silently. After the door had closed, she lay back on the bed and sighed. She was glad they were gone. 

Opsu’s offer was enticing in the extreme: $100,000 a month to remember a combination of 75 letters, numbers and symbols for the rest of her life. The first contact the company made was annoying but fairly innocuous – a man in a cheap suit had knocked on her door saying he was carrying out market research. He knew a surprising amount about her, considering she preferred to stay off the grid, but she assumed he just worked for a particularly thorough research company. 

When the researcher came calling again – this time flanked by two silent but serious women who seemed to study her every move, Val felt under attack, as though she’d been falsely accused of a crime. This time, the man asked her lots of questions about jobs she’d had. She considered telling them to leave, but her visitors gave the impression of an unstoppable force. She had the distinct feeling she couldn’t stop whatever process it was she was involved in, even if she wanted to, so she answered the questions. 

The man – who, it transpired, was Opsu’s nameless head of legal – visited Val three more times, on each occasion revealing a little more about the proposal. At the very heart of Opsu’s money-making machine, he told Val, was an autonomous artificial intelligence system which controlled all of the company’s research and technology. He wouldn’t tell Val much more, but it seemed they needed the code to stop or amend the AI, if it ever went wrong. The lawyer looked particularly nervous when he talked about that. And it turned out the company had suffered a series of cyberattacks that had made its board very nervous about security – which is where Val came in. 

“It’s a bit like writing down your passwords in a notebook,” he said. “It sounds stupid, but hackers in North Korea aren’t going to break into your house and steal the notebook. We’re doing the same thing – keeping the code in the original secure storage unit, the human brain. Servers can be hacked, data can be corrupted. The right mind is nearly unbreakable. That’s why we’ve been so … conscientious in our efforts to make sure you’re the best person for the job. It’s worth a lot of money.”

Val looked at the lawyer. “Why am I the best person for the job? I’m a nobody.”

“Precisely. We need somebody with a low profile. Our competitors will go to surprising lengths to get hold of this information. And you’ve got a gift for memory. Remember that research you signed up for, years ago? It seems you had the best memory of any test subject those scientists had ever met. Your results were pretty remarkable.”

Val was shocked. She had signed up to an experiment while at university several years before, and the researchers had asked her to come back a few times – but she thought it was because they’d got the tests wrong. They were all too easy.

“Anyway, I’ve already told you too much. This is the last time you’ll see me. Next time it’ll be Mark Allen. Good luck.”

–– 

Fifteen years later, and the deal was working well, as far as Val was concerned. Opsu had paid her in full, on time, every month for 181 months. She had a few more lines around her eyes, a few more grey hairs, and a few more pounds around the waist, but apart from that, was the same person who signed the contract in that motel room years ago. She lived the same quiet life, and kept five lines of code hidden in the deep recesses of her mind. 

One thing had changed. On a wintry day years ago, she’d slipped and knocked a gallon of milk out of a woman’s hands in the supermarket. After apologising profusely, they got to talking. Val found her easier to talk to than any person she’d ever met. Five years later, they’d married at a small ceremony on the Pacific coast in Mexico. 

Val and Jules had spent a week there after the wedding. She didn’t tell Opsu, but figured they could find her if they really wanted to. They spent hours each day swimming in the Pacific, embracing the warm water and endless horizon. At night, they curled up in bed and watched classic movies. Val’s favourite was The Shawshank Redemption. She loved Andy’s dream of escaping to the Pacific Ocean. A place with no memory. 

Val turned to Jules after the film. “Let’s make like Andy Dufresne,” she said. “Let’s live on the ocean.” 

Jules laughed. “Maybe one day. I’m not quitting my job just yet.”

And so life continued as normal, until the day of their tenth wedding anniversary. With plans to go out for dinner, Val and Jules spent the day basking in the sun in their garden. But something was bothering Val – a voice in her head that had been growing harder to ignore. 

“There’s something I’ve got to tell you. It’s a bit strange.” Over the next hour, Val explained all about the meetings with Opsu, the money, and the secret she’d held for so long. 

“But I don’t want it any more,” Val said. “I want to be able to forget, and I don’t care about the money. I should never have agreed to it.” 

Jules was smart, a lateral thinker, and totally unflappable – Val felt able to rely on her no matter the situation. 

“Get rid of it, then,” Jules said. “Write it down, post it to Opsu, make it their problem. We can move, if you like.”

That evening, as the pair headed had dinner, the world’s most valuable secret sat at the bottom of a bedside table in a quiet suburban house, scribbled on a scrap of paper and tucked inside a fading yellow envelope. Val had decided to post the envelope the next morning, and felt more relaxed that night than she had in years. 

The next morning, Val woke to an empty bed, and an empty house. Jules’ bedside table looked strangely naked, and her car was gone. Shaking slightly, Val opened up the drawer where she’d put the envelope destined for Opsu’s headquarters. It had been replaced with a note, in Jules’ handwriting:

Look at what they make us give. I’m sorry. 

–– 

Val didn’t leave the house for three days. Eventually, hunger forced her to walk to a nearby store. On the way there, she noticed a powerful-looking Mercedes with tinted windows slow down on the other side of the road. It crawled along, tracking her for several blocks, but never getting any closer.

Opsu must know, she thought. Increasingly horrid scenarios appeared in her mind: bankruptcy, a lawsuit, some sort of public humiliation at the hands of Mark Allen. She kept her head down and sped up, but the mysterious car now approached, having crossed to her side of the road. Val turned around and broke into a quick trot, intending to head back home and go immediately into hiding. She did not want to deal with Opsu. 

As she approached a junction, the car stopped in front of her. The window rolled slowly down, to reveal Jules’ face. “Get in,” she hissed.

As they sped off down a side street, Val looked at her wife. Her wife of ten years, now seemingly a stranger. 

“Who are you?”

Jules sighed. “I’m the person you know. But I’m also an employee of Thorpe Pharmaceuticals, and have been for 15 years.”

“Thorpe,” Val said. “I know that name. They’re …”

“Opsu’s biggest competitor. Yeah. They heard about Opsu’s scheme, and paid me to find you. They also paid me to get that code out of you, though they didn’t think it would take so long.”

“I feel sick.” Val put her head in her hands. “What are you doing here, then? You’ve got what you want. Are you gloating?”

“I’m changing my mind. I’m as sick of it as you are. I really did fall in love with you – how could I not? And Thorpe made me lie, just as Opsu made you lie, for all those years. Just for the sake of their profits.” Jules picked up a familiar-looking envelope from under the seat. “We’re going to a place with no memory.” 

Two weeks later, a glass bottle containing a faded yellow envelope was dropped off the edge of a day-hire boat into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico. The setting sun glanced off the bottle’s edge as it bobbed on the water. As it floated off, Val turned to her wife. 

“What happens if they find out?”

“Don’t worry,” Jules said. “It’s our secret.”