POWER SOURCE
Chapter
1.
MUTE
When I woke up that morning, he was gone. That wasn’t unusual, so I
wasn't worried yet. I turned on the dogbot and the coffee machine and
walked down to the beach with K9-5. All recent dogbots have been named K9.
It's not very original, but the manufacturer still had a soft part in
their heart for that old Dr Who relic of the 20th century.
So did we. Actually, for
scientists, we kept a lot of old relics around. That's one thing we've always
had in common, Max and me, the love of antiquities, old music, old books, old
robots.
We lived in an old house, too, made of wood, still standing after the great
earthquake and tsunami of '34. It's in Stinson Beach, California, just
outside of what was left of San Francisco.
The house was built on a
hill of solid bedrock overlooking the bay and the earthquake only shook it up a
little bit and the flood waters just ran right through it, so in '59, when Max
and I relocated to the University of San Francisco, it was selling cheap.
No one wanted an old fashioned wooden house anymore, just Max and me.
It was low tide and the beach was deserted as usual. I threw some pieces
of driftwood for K9, like I always do. It’s hilarious to watch him navigate
through the sand dunes. Sand may not be the best thing for a machine, but
he has special fans that blow the sand right out of his joints and it hasn't
hurt him yet.
He usually springs up and catches the wood before it even begins to descend.
He always catches it, no matter how hard I try to trick him. He has
sensors that predict the exact arc the stick will take, and sensors that
pinpoint the spot he will grab it out of the air.
He's sensitive all right,
so it’s my fault that I did not realize something was wrong when we got back to
the house. First of all, I forgot that I had him on mute, so while I was
making myself a bowl of cereal, he kept annoying me by clattering back and forth
between Max's study and the kitchen and bumping into the back of my thigh with
his cold metallic nose. I finally realized he was trying to tell me
something, and strolled into the sitting room to pick up the remote control I
had left next to the X-stream Machine. I took him off mute.
"Problem detected. Room 3, Max's study. Suspected theft."
He announced immediately, and pranced off down the hall.
K9's are always pretty
terse, but his message was clear and I fairly flew to Max's study. The
door was unlocked. Max's PC was gone. He never takes it with him to
work. He never takes it away from the safety of our home. I began
to feel sick to my stomach.
Chapter
2.
WARNING: DANGER
I was staring at the empty space where Max’s PC usually sits. It hasn’t
moved from that spot since the day he set it down there, on top of his new
desk. He never brings it into another room and he never takes it out of
the house. I certainly would never touch it; I know how important it is
to him.
He would never have brought it to work with him. He doesn’t trust anyone
and certainly not the communal storage at the University, and he would never,
god forbid, use The Cloud. He routes all his data back here every day,
directly to his PC.
Oh god what were we thinking? We should have been so much more careful with our
security here. Why did we decide to turn off the bot at night?
I watched K9 as he trotted around the desk, sniffing the air, his ears pricked
up and turning on their gyros, collating the information he was gathering and
trying to figure out what went wrong. He finally stopped, cocked his head
to one side and turned his glittering eyes toward me.
“Phone Max.” was all he said.
I grabbed my cell from my back pocket and speed dialled his phone. It
went straight to voice mail. This was not a good sign. Even in his lab,
he always picks up, even if its just to let me know he can’t talk then.
But maybe the phone service was down! That could happen… I would call him at
the University switchboard. I was so nervous, my mind went blank for a
moment and I had to turn to K9, who was sitting motionless beside me now.
“Max’s University line?” I asked.
His eyes darkened for less than a second, then “415 238 7999.”
I rang the number and someone in reception picked up, “SF U Scinece Lab, Emma
speaking, how can I direct your call?”
“Hi, Emma, this is Maddy Green. Can you connect me to Max please?”
“Hi, Maddy, just a second.” The line went quiet and after several long minutes,
during which time I paced the room about a thousand times, with K9 watching me
curiously, Emma’s voice returned. “I’m sorry. Maddy, Mr Green doesn’t
seem to be here yet.”
“What do you mean, he’s not there yet? Where is he? Have you seen him at
all this morning?”
“I’m sorry, but Mr Green has not reported in at all today.”
Now I was really getting worried. “Please, Emma, will you have him call
me as soon as he does get in? Thank you.” And I hung up quickly and
stared at K9.
“Max never made it to the University.” I reported. K9’s eyes flashed red
once, and he began running through his collating mode again, his ears twirling
and his eyes dark. In a few seconds he stopped and trotted around the
desk, looking up at me, his eyes glowing yellow.
“Probable incident. Data Compromised. Max in danger. Maddy in
danger. Recommend shift to Level 5: Evacuation Protocol. At once!”
I knew he was right. This did not look good. Max should have been
at the University at least an hour ago. Just for a moment, I wondered if
maybe we were over-reacting. Maybe Max had told me he was taking the
computer somewhere. Maybe he had gone off to meet someone. No, I
knew that was impossible. Not without telling me first, and certainly not
without informing K9, who needed to be alerted to changes in our routine. But Level
5?
Level 5 was pretty extreme. Evacuation Protocol. Had it really come to that?
But K9 was programmed to be sensible. There might be real danger
here. The project Max was working on was worth a great deal of
money. Could it really be compromised?
I wondered if I should call the police, but no, that wasn’t part of the
protocol for a good reason. You never knew who they were really working
for, but in a case like this, you could be damn sure it wasn’t you.
If only we hadn’t grown so complacent. If only we had taken a few more
precautions. Oh, if only…but we were so stupid. Why had I turned off the
bot when we went to bed? Oh Max, Max, where could he be?
Suddenly I felt scared and alone. I sat down in Max’s office chair and
tried to think. I had to collect my thoughts. K9 looked at me with
his head cocked to one side again. “Level 5!” he repeated, louder now,
but he could see that I was shivering and he changed his mode and trotted over
and sat down beside me, leaning his small metal body against my legs. He
turned his heating element up a notch and, for a few moments, I felt safe and
warm.
It would be a long time until I felt that way again.
Chapter
3.
THE
EXTRACTION
Well,
I had to hand it to them. It was a
perfectly discreet extraction. We made it easy for them, living in our
ridiculous house. They must have been watching him closely for the past
year. Ever since he applied for his grant. They simply followed us on our move
down to San Francisco and it was easy to set up surveillance in our absurd wood
frame home.
All the new builds are plastiment - and they
usually come with an option for debugging. They would have gotten in just
the same, only not quite so easy. But this was, as they say, a piece of
cake. They could have picked him up on the road, but they were waiting
for those last pieces of intel he kept locked away at home. Then they
struck.
It was our fault. We foolishly turned off our dogbot at night. They probably
overheard us debating this issue. Max wanted to save on batteries and I
didn't like being woken up by the dog barking every time a pinecone fell on the
roof. So smart and yet so stupid.
Max works late often, he had to before his grant
ran out, but he was close to finishing his designs. He always routes his
data home; he didn't want anyone in the University knowing what he knew, so he
kept it in a secure PC in the house.
I usually wait up for him when he comes home late
and we chat a bit and watch some streams before going to bed. He gets up before I do, always takes a
look through his files, checks that its all there, before he heads back to
campus with the sunrise. They must have picked him up early in the morning,
when he had just sat down at his work station.
They
probably used one of their Stilettos and a "Silence is Golden"
femmebot to make the extraction. Not even the dogbot would have detected
her, even if we had been wise enough to turn it on. A tranquillizer dart
and titanium net and out the window and into the Steletto with Max, all in a
matter of seconds - and now they must have him hidden away somewhere. He’ll
be a Company man, Max and his data and designs, if we don’t rescue him quickly.
Chapter
4.
AWAKE
Max was
gently awakened by vague, muffled sounds, like voices calling to him as the way
the soft cries of seagulls do, far away over the ocean. He hadn't opened
his eyes yet and he lay where he was, in a dreamy state. He felt sleepy
still and thought perhaps he should allow himself to fall back to sleep.
He decided to turn over
and that was when he realized that something wasn't quite right. The
sheets were twisted around him oddly. He seemed to be caught in them and
actually, he could not move at all. "Maddy!" he called out for
his wife, and his voice echoed back to him, like a stranger’s voice, and he
opened his eyes for the first time.
He
was laying flat on his back, looking up at the ceiling, and he knew this was
not his bedroom. The light was dim, but he could see the inset LED lights
in the low ceiling and he recognized the design of one of those new Plastiment
Homes. The rounded corners gave it away. And it wasn't a sheet that
was wrapped tightly around him, either. He was covered by a sheet, but
strapped to the bed with leather straps, his arms at his side, and all he could
move was his head.
He
still felt groggy and his eyes were crusty and he wanted to reach up and rub
them, but he couldn't, and that was when he started yelling. "Hey! Is anybody there? Hey!" he
yelled louder. His voice reverberated in his head causing an
uncomfortable pain to throb in his forehead.
"Hey,
what's going on? Will somebody come in here please?"
He
wasn't so groggy that he hadn't already figured out what was happening to him.
He had always known it could come to this one day, ever since that awful
night on the Island, the night his father died. He knew that if he wasn't careful, he too would fall under
the watchful eye of The Company, and they would not hesitate to take what they
wanted from him. If he wasn't selling, they would take it, just like
that.
No
one came into the room now and he wondered if anyone was in the house at all.
But he had heard those muffled sounds, those voices, he was almost
certain he had heard voices. He could turn his head and he surveyed the
room, looking for a window or one of those one-way glass devices that look like
a mirror.
It
was a nicely decorated room, if you liked the modern minimalist style. It
looked like it could be someone's real bedroom, but somehow he doubted it.
It was just a clever duplicate, made to resemble a comfortable home and
to put whoever they usually kept in here at ease. They were probably watching
him through one of their one-way mirrors right now.
He suddenly
remembered Maddy, and felt a pang of fear for his wife. He wondered if
she had been taken, too. He wondered if she was safe. And he began
to fret and worry and he had to bite his lip to keep himself from crying.
Chapter
5.
MISTAKE
The next time Max opened his eyes, he was looking straight
up into the eyes of one of those hypno-technicians. He recognized it at
once, because its eyes locked onto his in an instant and, never blinking, they
began to implore him silently with their gorgeously soothing depths of
limitless love. But he wasn’t lulled and he wasn’t fooled. He was
prepared for this and almost anything else they wanted to throw at him.
Tom Elliot watched through the one-way window and
shook his head grimly. A few minutes later, when the technician reported its
lack of success, Tom sent it away and made the call to headquarters.
"Jack," he said, connecting at once
through his direct line, "I hate to say this, but we blew it. We
should have taken the wife, too. It's only been 8 hours, but I can see that
there isn't a chance in hell that we can get Max to give us what we want.
He'll never willingly join the Company. There is no way we are
going to get those plans out of him without more leverage."
"No, don't you think we tried that
already? We should have known he'd already be vaccinated against our
truth drugs. And, no, he's way ahead of us there, too. He's got some
software block installed in him so our hypno-technicians can't get anything out
of him either. You have to believe me, Jack. We're lost unless the
Director relents and lets us use something more effective, like out right
torture." Tom paced the cubicle.
"That is, unless it's not too late to pick up
the wife. Listen, Jack, it may not be too late. If she's still at
home, I can get Dr Lerner to pick her up. I'll have him tell her that Max
is staying with him and wants her to join him. I'll think of something -
and I'll put together a back up plan, too. We're going to need her for
leverage; I realize that now. Yes, it was a mistake. Right.
I'm on it now."
He hung up and stopped pacing to watch Max, who was still lying on the bed in
the next room. But Max was struggling with his straps now and looking
pretty pissed off.
Might as well send one of the aides in there to let
him loose, Tom thought. Get him to relax a bit. Wait for him to put
his guard down. Then he checked the contact list on his cell for Dr
Lerner's name. Yes, there it was. Good. Max trusted him, so
there was no reason why his wife should be suspicious. He rang the
number.
"Lerner? Yes, it's me. Look, we have a bit of
a problem with Max. No, he's fine. None the worse for wear, believe
me. Just misses his wife. Yes, I'll admit we made a mistake.
We should have brought the two of them in together. No, that's just
the problem. He won't give it up and he is insisting that we bring him
his wife. We think we can get him to be more forthcoming if he is certain
his wife is all right."
"I need you to drive over to their house and
pick her up," he continued. "No, I have no idea if she's still at
home or if she's noticed that Max is missing. I'm hoping that she thinks
he's with you at the University." Tom watched Max through the glass
again. He'd better get an aide in there quickly before he hurt himself. Then
he turned away and sat down in the plastic chair near the small table by the
door.
"Listen carefully, Lerner. This is what
I need you to do. First, I want you to telephone her. Tell her that Max
came to your house early this morning. Tell her that he thought his data was
being compromised, so he brought his PC with him and came directly to your
home. Tell her he is with you and that he's safe, but that he is worried about
her and wants you to bring her to him."
"No, just make something up if she questions
you further, or wavers. But tell her you are on your way and for god's
sake, get over there as fast as you can. Yes, and bring her here."
He rang off and stood up, pressing the buzzer by
the door to call an aide. A young man, dark skinned and fine boned,
answered the bell. He was neatly dressed in white lab coat and carrying a
small chrome tray with various glass tubes in it.
"Dil," Tom addressed him, reading
the name tag over his pocket, "I need you to sedate out guest again.
You had better do it now, while he's still restrained."
"Yes, sir," Dil answered, waiting
expectantly for further instructions.
"Then, when he's out, I want you to take off
the straps and remove them from the room, so that when our guest wakes up he
can move around freely in our guest room and use the facilities.
Understood?"
"Perfectly," Dill answered, turning on
his heel, and he walked back out into the hall.
As soon as the door shut behind the aide, Tom sat
back down in the plastic chair and, with his elbows on the table, cradled his
head in his hands and began to work out his backup plan.
Chapter
6.
ESCAPE
I began packing furiously while K9-5 nagged me
to hurry, employing his metallic whine and standing by the back door, repeating
the word “Danger” over and over. Annoying as he was, I knew he was right; I was
in real danger now and I had no escape plan, no idea where we would be
safe. All I could do now was flee.
I packed my small duffel bag with sturdy clothes,
good for all weather conditions, and put on my antique real-leather jacket.
I checked to make sure my own computer and hard drive were secure in my
camouflaged hard-shell case, which looked exactly like a makeup bag. I
knew I would need plenty of back up, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to be
connecting to The Cloud.
I had already packed K-9's Auxiliary Kit and stowed
it in one of his compartments, tucked a copy of my memory stick into his secret
stash box, and I threw in plenty of extra ammo in case he needed to be armed,
then headed out to the garage.
There was the next surprise: Max's transport was
still there. What an idiot. I hadn't even thought to look. Now I knew for
certain he had been abducted. There was no way he could have gotten out
of Stinson Beach without his own transportation.
K9 was standing perfectly still beside me, except
for his twirling ears and glowing eyes, registering the missing vehicle, then he
repeated "Danger" once more, as if he was telling me, "Look! I
told you so!"
I glanced quickly around, searching for anything or
anyone out of the ordinary, but it all seemed so normal, almost peaceful, just
a slight breeze moving among the dead treetops.
It was then that my phone bleated its
incoming call signal, an ancient synth version of Holst's Venus. I
hurriedly fished the phone out of my jacket pocket — maybe it was Max!
But it wasn't, it was Dr Lerner, Max's boss and mentor at the University.
“Hello, Madeleine? This is Ernest. I just wanted to
let you know that Max is here with me. He is worried about you. He wants
you to come over here as soon as you can.”
“Oh, that's great. Is he all right?
But, why didn't he call me himself?”
“Oh no, he's fine, he simply didn't want to
use his own phone, that's all. He thought it might be traced. You
see...”
My mind was spinning in a thousand
directions, but cautious now, I interrupted, “Why didn't he call me with your
phone? Please, I need to speak to him now!”
“Oh no, no. He wouldn't dare to speak on the
phone. He is afraid of voice imprint identification, but I assure you he
is fine, my dear.”
“But, I don't understand — why is this
happening? What’s going on?”
“Max became suspicious last night, that’s all.
He thinks that someone is trying to access his files. He didn’t
want to frighten you, so he brought his things over here to be safe. But
now he is afraid they might try to get to you, so he wants you to come here as
well. But, I can explain it all to you on the way here, Maddy.
I'm leaving now to pick you up.”
But I was thinking quickly. “No, no.
Don't do that. I'll come to you. I'll come right away. See
you in half an hour. Give Max a kiss for me!”
“Well, you can do it yourself when you get here.”
I ended the call and stared at Max's transport.
So, if he was at Dr Lerner's, how did he get there? And why didn't
he tell me? He always told me everything, even if he was afraid of being
overheard by bugging devices, he would write me a note, and he would certainly
have left a confidential command with K9.
And why Dr Lerner's of all places? I knew Max
respected him and Lerner had been a friend of his father's, but Max had always
been afraid to store his data at the University. If he thought he was
under threat, would Max run closer to the threat for safety?
No, if Max had gone anywhere, he would have gone to
Boone's. Boone's was his old drug den and a recognized Safe Haven. Drug
Dens still kept up the age-old tradition of privacy, a tradition that had
thrived ever since drugs had been made legal decades ago and had been
designated "Safe Havens" by law, the way churches had once been, and
many people still used them as such, whether they took drugs or not.
Boone's offered one of the safest hiding places you
could find, for the building was blanketed with 'state of the art' anti-bugging
shields and boasted an incredibly clever screening system, called "the
Soul Search" that kept the wrong sort of individual out, especially anyone
connected to The Company.
This was where Max went when we had one of our stupid
fights or when he simply needed respite from the stress of his father's legacy.
Not that he didn't use the drugs himself; he used them to wind down his
overworked brain.
So that was it then. I knew I had to get out
of here fast. They would know from that phone call that I was still here
and they were probably on their way to get me now.
I relayed the gist of Lerner's side of the phone
call to K9 and I was about to toss my bag into my speedy little transport,
parked next to Max's, when I thought better of it.
"What do you think, K9? Which vehicle
should we take?" I asked.
“Unusual circumstances require unusual
decisions." He looked over at our utility vehicle parked in the space at
the side of the garage.
"Recommend Humbercraft. Three reasons:
One: It will not be recognized as Maddy's usual mode of transport.
Two: It has greater free transit utility and off-grid
programming. Three: It has more effective shielding.”
He was right as usual, so I threw our belongings
into the back compartment of our bulky off-road vehicle. We only used it
to drive up to where our friends were hiding out in the mountains up North.
Friends I wouldn't dare endanger now. The craft was more cumbersome than
my usual mode of transport, but was built like one of those 20th century tanks
and could actually navigate amazingly well when detached from the Universal
Transport Grid.
K9 hopped into the front passenger seat, tail
wagging, eyes glowing expectantly.
"Now, what’s the best plan, K9? Should
we try to locate Max or should we find a quick hideout and go on the run?” and
I began the craft's startup process, carefully electing to override The Grid.
“Escape is Number One consideration." K9
began, "Exploring alternatives now," K9 paused, and his ears did
their thing and his eyes glowed a bright green, then he continued.
“99% certainty Max abducted. Dr Lerner's scenario faulty. Motives
suspicious. Recommend immediate escape to Boone's. First Consideration
is Maddy’s safety." His eyes glowed red once more as he continued to
process his data. "K9 deems Boone's as safest haven for Maddy. Also,
strong likelihood of further intel available there."
His eyes glowed a deeper red now, "At
Boone's, we will connect to the Underground."
"So be it," I sighed, surprised by K9’s
sudden garrulousness. "That looks like our best choice, especially
since it looks like we need to contact the Underground again.” I made
certain the bot was securely attached to his seat, “Maybe they can help
us find Max.” I plugged in the co-ordinates for the alternate route to
Boone's, and we headed smoothly out across the water toward San
Francisco.
Chapter 7.
THE SEAWALL
I have to admit
that the K9-5 model is a great piece of kit. Almost as soon as I put in
the co-ordinates for Boone’s and settled back for the ride, he announced that
he was changing his protocol.
“K9 switching to
Commando profile.” And then he immediately started scanning the Humbercraft for
bugs.
A few seconds later he
reported, “All clear in craft. Checking personal belongings now.” And he
buzzed for a few more seconds and called out, “All clear inside Maddy’s
gear. All Clear inside K9-5’s casing.”
“Thanks, K9,” I told
him. Can you tell me now what we should expect at Boone’s? How much
should we tell them, if anything?”
K9’s eyes glittered a
bright yellow for a few moments, and then he turned his metal head to face me, cocking
it to one side in that fetching dogbot way he had, and said something that
surprised me. “Max has imbedded escape protocol in K9’s Commando profile.”
He turned his head so
that it was level again and his ears twirled for a second before he went on,
“K9’s mission is to gather intel inside Boone’s. Maddy's mission is to
stay safe. Here are Max's instructions:
“Maddy must tell
everyone of personal emergency. You must recite the following phrase to
the person named George and only to this person.
'Our seawall has broken and our house
is flooded.' Maddy must memorize this phrase now. Only recite this to the
man named George. He will be working at Boone’s. He will
understand.”
This was a lot of
information to come out of K9, but somehow, as questionable as it sounded, I
found it comforting. Max had foreseen this happening. He was
prepared for us to go on the run, me and K9. I wondered what other
surprises he had for me. But we were practically there now and I headed
low over the beach and hit the streets.
Boone’s was located in
a peculiar building not too far from Ocean Beach. It was a relic that had
somehow survived the earthquakes and tidal waves. It had been completely
swallowed by the sand, covered over for decades, but somehow remained
intact. The first of its Safe Haven owners had dug it out from the sand,
cleaned all the sand out from the inside and then covering the entire building
with a shell made of a special fortified compound of plexi-glass and titanium.
Then they covered it back over with a new kind of sand, so it was pretty
well camouflaged, blending into the sand dunes around it, although if you had
heard about it, you would know where to find it.
The sand covering it
wasn’t really sand any more, but a hard missile-proof plastiment compound that
looked just like sand, but didn’t fill up your pockets and wreck your
electronic equipment, of which there was quite a bit at Boone’s. Then the whole
building had a defence system that radiated a high intensity anti-bugging
shield that was kept state-of-the-art, because it was supported by funds
provided by the Underground.
The Company had tried
to shut down places like Boone’s, but thankfully, there were still some wealthy patrons in San Francisco who were able to keep the “Safe Haven” tradition
alive.
These same supporters
had developed an entry system that was so state-of-the-art it was
chilling. A filtering program devised by the folks at Palo Alto's Applecore, and amusingly nicknamed the “Soul Search”, which could read not only your
bio-rhythms, and your moods, but your intentions, your desires, and
your concealed weaponry.
It was pretty near fool
proof and had a self-evolving interface that allowed it to absorb new data and
respond and create whatever it needed to bypass any interference from the
outside.
I took the Humbercraft
out of autopilot and maneuvered it toward the camouflaged underground
parking garage. A Stasis Beam settled over the craft and a sweet feminine
voice emerged from our radio.
“You are about to enter
the Safe Haven known as Boone’s. Prepare to be searched and scanned. Do you
understand?”
“Yes, Mam.” I
answered. “Go right ahead”
K9 looked
worried. His eyes glowed red for a few seconds, but then he waited
silently beside me while the scan took place. The voice returned in about 30
seconds.
“You have on board a
K9-5 Commando fully armed. What are your intentions?”
“Sorry, Mam” I said
quickly. “I have a personal emergency and I need to speak to George. He
will approve our visit, I’m sure.” I added hastily.
“George is in
residence. Please allow access to your vid-screen.”
I breathed a sigh of
relief and K9’s eyes switched back to a dull green. Only his ears were
rotating, showing me he was scanning the car park already.
“I’ve turned on the
screen.” I said, flicking the switch and hitting the icon that would allow them
to see me and K9.
Suddenly the screen lit
up in a kaliedescope of lights and colours. They were obviously having a good
time at Boone’s today. And then a most peculiar face came on the
screen. Whoever it was, and I hoped it was George, had a very large head,
with a formidable forehead, very serious brown eyes, an aquiline nose,
bordering on hawk-like, and a large and rather sensuous mouth. This
imposing visage was mitigated by kindly lines around his eyes and mouth,
indicating that he actually smiled quite a lot. However, he was not smiling
now.
“You have an armed K9-5
on board your craft. Can you tell me why?”
Before I could answer
K9 suddenly interrupted and asked this formidable head a question. This was
very unusual for a K9 and I wondered if it was part of his commando profile.
“Excuse me, please
confirm you are person named George before we proceed.” He said, being
unusually polite, considering his commando profile.
“Yes.” Said the face.
“I am George. May I ask who you are?”
“George!” I
interrupted, “I am Maddy. Maddy Green. Our seawall has broken and our house is
flooded!” I nearly shouted this out. I suddenly felt that those words
exactly described our situation. For some reason just saying them made me
feel overwhelmingly emotional and I wanted to cry now.
George looked
searchingly at me for a second and I could see genuine concern in his eyes.
“Maddy! You are granted entrance. Please come into our Haven’s Garage.
We will have the door open and I will be there to greet you
personally. I am very pleased to meet you both.”
And
the screen went dark and I breathed a long sigh of relief. K9 stopped
twitching and began to wag his tail again.
Chapter 8. GEORGE
As
soon as K9 and I stepped across the Haven’s laser field and the Titaniplex
doors slid open, we were met with the sickeningly familiar fragrance of
patchouli oil that barely masked the old-school smell of hashish permeating the
entrance hall. There was no sign
of our host, George. In fact,
there was no one there to greet us at all. The Haven seemed disserted except for the light show, a
display of disorienting colours and flickering holograms, none of which
resembled George. I looked down at
K9, who was twitching and glowing by my side.
Then
the lightshow ceased and there was George again; his huge head filling an
enormous vid screen on the opposite wall.
“Welcome,
Maddy. I am so glad to finally
meet you,” he said, smiling down at me warmly.
K9
was definitely uncomfortable with this latest apparition; his eyes were glowing
red and his tail stood at attention, while his ears revolved crazily.
“Thank
you,” I answered, mystified, “How do you do? In fact, where do you do? Where are you?
I thought you said you were coming to greet us in person?”
He
laughed, a barely audible chuckle, “Well, believe me, I am here, Maddy, just
not in the way you may have expected. I imagine Max never told you about me?”
At
the mention of Max’s name, K9 stopped twitching and sat down with his head
cocked to one side, observing the screen; listening and waiting.
“No,
I’m sorry. He never told me
anything about this place and he never mentioned you at all.”
“Okay,
then. Actually, that’s good news, because I happen to be one of Max’s secret
projects. Something he developed
before he met you, something he never wanted the Company to get hold of, and
something he had to keep secret, even from you.”
Of
course I knew Max kept secrets from me and I would never dream of asking Max
anything detailed about his work; I only ever asked how his day went – that
sort of thing.
George
was smiling again as he went on,
“I don’t mean to brag, but I’m not only one of his secrets, I’m the big
one – or one of the biggest anyway, the secret project he’s been calling ‘The
Power Source’, which is just a name he used to keep the Company subsidising his
work.”
I
must have looked pretty stupefied, because George kept on explaining, “No one
else knows about me either, if that makes you feel any better. The staff here thinks of me as part of
their security protocol – and that is one of the services I perform here. It is part of what I am. What they don’t know is that I am a
complete and very real construct.
Real as you, or perhaps I should say, as real as your own mind, as far
as any mind can be a truly separate entity.”
As
I pondered this, K9 did a surprising thing. He lay down at my feet, staring up at the wall, and began to
wag his tail, making a rhythmic clatter against the Haven floor. This appeared to amuse George, because
he chuckled again before continuing.
“I
was at University with Max. I was
not only his best friend, but I was his partner and we worked on every project
together. Only, I died before we
could finish our last project –our Master’s Thesis. We were developing something that would revolutionise the AI
field. We were that close to
perfecting a real living intelligence program, and then I got that cancer; the
new kind, the one the Company developed to control our population.” His image
kind of grimaced as he said this, then he shrugged his shoulders, such as they
were, and went on.
“I
was doomed and we both knew it. We
also knew that what we were developing was too important to let a little thing
like my death put an end to it. I
wanted to see it through and so did Max, so we came up with a plan. Max dropped out of school with the
excuse that he would be caring for me in my dying days. That’s when he brought me here. We spent my last days on earth inside
the secret Applecore labs they had built under the Haven.”
This
was beginning to be too much for me to take in and I felt like lying down on
the floor next to K9, but instead I took a deep breath and let George, or
whatever he was, go on talking.
“We
only needed one final component to complete the project; a real brain to map, a
real set of thoughts and feelings, actions and reactions, and it was obvious
that with my death sentence, I’d become the perfect candidate. Thanks to our
friends at Applecore we could use their latest program, the one they called the
“Soul Search”, to map not only my brain, but my very soul. I was happy to give Max permission to
use me – to duplicate me in every way.
I would become the prototype.
Eventually,
he re-created me. By the time I
died, I was alive in here. I am an
artificial construct of patterns and codes, but at the same time, I’m real,
just like you. I feel exactly like
myself, only I exist inside the main frame that Max created for me. He installed me here at Boone’s to keep
me safe while we waited for the right time to develop more sentient constructs
like myself, but then his father was killed and Max had to take up those reins
and I have just been working here ever since. What you are looking at right now, is a projection from my
mind.”
That’s
when I sat on the floor and just stared up at the screen. “But why did he send us here? What are
we supposed to do now?”
“Max
had a plan for the eventuality of the Power Company making a grab for his
research, including making a grab for him, which I gather they have done, so now
you’re part of his escape plan – along with your very clever dogbot. Max not only imbedded the escape plan into
the Commando protocol that your K9 is using, he also downloaded his latest
research into your dog – and he left room for me in there, too.”
“What
do you mean, room for you?”
“Now
that The Company has tracked you here, I’m afraid, we are all going to have to
go on the run.”
“They’ve
tracked us here?”
“I’m
afraid they’re gearing up for an attack now. In fact, we evacuated all the residents in Boone’s as
soon as I scanned Max’s protocol. And as soon as we make our escape, the
Applecore labs will cease to exist.”
“Wait
a minute, how are we going to escape?”
“Relax,
Maddy,” and George smiled again.
That “Power Source” Max was developing wasn’t a new source of power for
the Company. It was a portable
module holographic emitter for me!
Your K9 simply needs to plug into that outlet below this screen, and
he’ll have the rest of my program imbedded in him, and a hologram of me for you
to relate to.”
“This
is all too much,” I started to say, but K9 was already standing up and prancing
over to the wall, and before I could finish the thought, he had inserted his
tail into the socked and became a mass of whirling ears and coloured lights for
about 5 seconds. Then the screen above him went suddenly blank and K9 froze,
his eyes dark, and I thought, “Oh my god, we’ve blown out the system. We’re doomed!”
But
just then, K9 came back to life, his tail wagging and his eyes glowing
green. “Maddy, please turn the
Ruby jewel on K9’s collar clockwise - to the right as you face him,” he said to
me as he trotted over and bent his head so I could see all the jewels that Max had affixed to K9’s dogbot collar the week after we bought him, the ones I thought
were merely for decoration, to individualise our personal dogbot. So, I took hold of the ruby-like jewel
and turned it to the right.
Instantly,
a hologram appeared right behind K9, and it was George again, but this time he
was a whole being. Big head and
all, with kind of a scrawny body, but dressed in a pretty nice old-school type
suit. And he was smiling admiringly as he looked down at himself. He looked pretty good for a hologram; I
mean, I could see right through him, but at the same time, he seemed pretty
substantial, as if he was really there.
Then he looked up with a gentle smile and raised his holographic
eyebrows.
“Well,
we best be going.” The voice seemed to come from him, but maybe it was an
auditory illusion, but whatever it was, he kept talking. “I’m afraid I can’t actually do
anything in the physical world, so you will have to be my hands, Maddy. That turquoise stone on K9’s collar
activates our craft, and I will need you to turn that one clockwise also – and
then we had better stand back against the wall, before it materialises.”
“Jeeze,
you sound like a science fiction movie.”
“Sorry,
it’s just Max’s latest invention.
A space-folding craft, we named it the ‘Origami Crane’, but we just call
it the OC. It’s the only thing The
Company won’t be expecting. In
fact, they won’t even notice it was ever here, and by the time they realise
you’ve gone, we’ll be in New Mexico.”
