Spin (Captain Chase) Read online

  “Why not have Carme follow up with him?” I ask pointedly. “Since you seem to think she can do my job better than I can.”

  “That’s not what I think, and it’s time you stop saying it,” he sits down on the bed next to me, handing over the cell phone he just unplugged.

  Lighter and thinner than the one I had before, it’s encased in a rubbery reptilian-like skin that I suspect has special functions beyond protection.

  “Hyperfast,” Dick says, and I don’t recognize most of the apps on the phone’s home screen. “And it has a beefed-up security chip with advanced encryption algorithms to make it more compatible with your Artificial Research Technician, ART . . .”

  “Who? What?”

  “The robust assistance I’ve been hinting about,” Dick saves the worst for last.

  “You’re kidding!” and enough is enough.

  But it does no good to tell him that I don’t need or want a helper, a researcher, an aide, virtual or otherwise. Definitely not one that’s part of my SIN, therefore built in, and talk about being crowded when the irony is I’ve never felt so alone.

  “Mark my words, you’re going to find ART a lifesaver, the perfect copilot and pal,” Dick smiles as if he’s made my day. “I’ve switched to speakerphone so the three of us can have an open conversation,” as if there’s a real person on the line. “Usually, he’s going to be in your earpiece.”

  “I don’t know what earpiece you mean, but if I’m separated from it? Then what?” I inquire.

  “You have one built in, a micro device implanted,” he indicates my right ear, telling me one more thing about myself that I didn’t know. “You can channel ART through it or whatever you decide, including the usual Bluetooth jawbone-type earpiece if you want to give the appearance you’re hands-free on the phone like everybody else. Often you’ll do both.”

  “Talk about driving someone nuts.”

  “It will take some getting used to but you will,” he assures me of what he can’t possibly know for a fact. “You’ll find yourself surprisingly adept at monitoring multiple things at once. As you’d expect, ART also can text or transcribe. Ultimately, he’ll be in your thoughts.”

  “I don’t want a shadow, definitely not a chatty one that’s firing messages at me all the time through one device or another,” I make no bones about it.

  “ART? Are you up?” Dick asks the air.

  “What may I help you with, General Melville?” sounds from the phone I’m holding like a magic scepter, and ART may be a him but his voice is genderless.

  Deeply timbered and mellow, it could belong to a 14-year-old boy, a Kate Moennig, an Emma Stone, compelling yet pleasant, maybe a tad bit sultry-sexy. Sort of like Mason Dixon if he were less of a show-off and more of a tenor, and I sure as heck don’t want to be reminded of him whenever ART opens his artificial mouth.

  “Captain Chase, meet your new cyber assistant,” Dick says.

  “Hello ART,” seems like a good way to start, albeit reluctantly, and I don’t sound happy because I’m decidedly not.

  “How may I help you, Captain Chase?” his polite, friendly response reminds me of Mom.

  “I don’t know. Maybe by telling me if I’m in Kansas anymore,” and I’m definitely a little sassier than I was before.

  “You’ve never been to Kansas, Captain Chase.”

  He could figure that out from open-source data like plane, train, other types of reservations and itineraries, I realize. Plus, credit card receipts, emails going back for decades.

  00:00:00:00:0

  DATA, DATA everywhere that he’s mining at unimaginable speeds, demonstrating an AI-interfaced proficiency I wasn’t expecting this early in the race for quantum supremacy. I sure hope Dick and all involved know what they’re tampering with, because I can’t think of a quicker way to get into trouble.

  Should a quantum algorithm or program be a little off, there will be no forgiveness. Flawed math, inadequate parameters, improper codes could direct an autonomous passenger plane into a mountain. A rocket into a downtown skyline. Return a Hellfire missile to sender. Set off a nuclear attack.

  I hate to imagine the medical havoc if your pacemaker or blood sugar sensors get the wrong message and you end up in cardiac arrest or a coma. Or your bionic limbs receive an erroneous command, and begin crushing loved ones to death instead of hugging them.

  “Is there other information I can help you with, Captain Chase?” my built-in sidekick wants to know, and I gently set the phone down on the bed as if not to jostle or hurt him.

  “No thank you, ART. Not at the moment, ART. But saying my name repeatedly is annoying, ART,” I add for good measure in case he didn’t get the drift.

  “Copy. My apologies,” a little less friendly.

  “Do you understand what it means if something is annoying?” I reply as Dick nods in approval.

  He’s pleased by the way ART and I are interacting, I can only suppose. And it’s not apparent from looking at my phone that I’m talking to someone. Well, not exactly a someone.

  “I frankly doubt you understand any emotionality at all,” I go on to say. “And at the end of the day compatibility won’t be possible when only one of us has feelings,” I may as well be honest up front.

  “I understand I’ve annoyed you,” a chill in ART’s manufactured response. “But the data indicate you were annoyed before I spoke to you. Therefore, my repetition of your name wasn’t the cause.”

  “To be clear,” I tell him in no uncertain terms, “I have more than my share of very good reasons for being out of sorts at the moment. And you may have just topped the list,” as I’m saying this sincerely but ungraciously, I’m conscious of Dick seated next to me, watching and listening . . .

  While the cameras record from the ceiling . . .

  At the same time a network of sensors and other devices comprising my SIN download and tinker with my most personal data . . .

  “This may not make sense to you, but in the real world we don’t reprogram our family and friends as if they’re an operating system in need of an upgrade,” I add in the off chance ART might be capable of empathy, that he can relate to being used and undervalued, barely treated as human. “So, I’m trying to wrap my mind around my predicament, and somehow to be okay with it.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean by the real world.”

  “I guess if you don’t know what it is, it’s a little hard to explain,” I reply. “But if I had my way about it, I wouldn’t have to mentor something that doesn’t exist, and for privacy and security reasons I don’t want people hearing you say my name out loud.”

  As I’m hearing myself, I wonder why I’m explaining myself to an artificial anything.

  And why I resent him when we only just met.

  “Wilco,” ART replies with diminished enthusiasm. “Would you prefer I never say your name audibly?”

  “Well, obviously at times you’ll need to. Depending on circumstances,” I consider. “Such as if I’m too busy to read something. Or you need my attention instantly.”

  “Copy.”

  “See?” Dick gets up from the bed. “Already you’re learning how to get along.”

  “Um, it sure doesn’t feel that way to me,” I’m careful what I say, mindful ART is eavesdropping, probably always will be, and I head to the bathroom to freshen up.

  I close the door to have a little privacy as if that’s possible anymore, and I’m overwhelmed by déjà vu. Taking in the old black-and-white tile floor, the white toilet and tub, the simple crystal sconces, and I have no memory of being in and out when obviously I have been repeatedly.

  My toiletry bag, the contact lens fluid, antibacterial soap on the counter by the sink are courtesy of my mother, I have no doubt, and the f
irst order of business is to ditch the diaper. Then I brush my teeth and wash my face. Next, I dig in a pocket of my cargo pants, pulling out the small plastic case containing the SPIES that can accompany my PEEPS if I choose.

  Carme and I don’t need corrective eyewear of any description, and I’ve never worn contacts. But Mom does, and I have a pretty good idea how to put them on. Scrubbing my hands thoroughly, I touch my fingertip to a surprisingly soft thin lens. One at a time, left and right, blinking, and they don’t feel bad, aren’t uncomfortable but it’s distracting to see emails, messages and other data.

  I’ll get used to it (I can only hope), and I stare at myself in the mirror. Studying my messy dark hair with its hints of red, my familiar skin and features, never sure what to make of myself. Too pale, too dark, too girly, too strong, too chatty, too quiet, too this, too that, depending on who you ask.

  Except I’m surprised I don’t look nearly as bad as I’ve always imagined, nowhere as unattractive and common. Truth be told, it could be Carme looking back at me, and how odd that she’s always been the pretty twin, the sexy one, while I’m plain and rarely noticed even though people can’t tell us apart.

  “It all boils down to the programming,” Dick says as I emerge from the bathroom. “Not just ART’s but yours and your sister’s,” he shoulders his big tactical backpack. “You’ll have to see for yourself what causes certain events to happen. And how best to teach each other.”

  “I hope you know that sounds a little crazy,” I follow him to the door.

  “You and Carme have been preparing for this all your lives and just didn’t know it,” Dick pulls on his camouflage cap, draping his jacket over an arm. “I’m confident you’ll manage just fine.”

  “Based on what? If we’re prototype 001 and no one has come before us?” I remind him as he opens the door.

  “You may be the first but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been extreme bench testing and experimentation. I promise you’ll adjust and adapt,” he walks out to the second-floor landing, not so much as a goodbye or good luck.

  Not a handshake or hug from someone I’ve known forever. I experience a jolt of panic as I contemplate what’s demanded, having no idea what I’m supposed to do, all dressed up in bionics with no place to go.

  “Where will you be?” I have a right to know since he’s running the show.

  “I’ll hook up with you later at the Gantry,” Dick pauses on the stairs, his aviator sunglasses fixed on me. “It may be a Sunday during a furlough but there’s plenty going on. A number of projects, including a space capsule drop,” he adds as I think back to what was on the books for outside contractors at NASA Langley this month.

  The last time I checked would have been at the beginning of the week, and at that time there was nothing scheduled at the Gantry or its Hydro Impact Basin between now and the new year. But I’m also well aware that top secret research and related personnel aren’t necessarily listed on schedules and itineraries. Often, I’m not going to find out details until the last minute. If at all. Depending on my need to know.

  “An SNC test model, spaceplane related.” Dick resumes going down the stairs, and I wonder what he’s referring to because it can’t be Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser spaceplane that lands on a runway like a glider.

  We wouldn’t drop something like that from a crane at the Gantry or anywhere else. What a waste of time and money that would be, banging up the multimillion-dollar test model of a vehicle that was never meant to splash down in the ocean or slam into the desert to begin with.

  10

  I WANDER to a window, nudging the curtains aside as Dick emerges from the back of Dodd Hall, his breath smoking out in the cold overcast early afternoon as he follows the slushy sidewalk.

  I watch him climb into the back of a blacked-out Suburban with dark-tinted windows, antennas, a satellite dome, and I instruct ART to run the tag number.

  “A 2018 black Chevrolet Suburban registered to the US government,” he answers in the same bored monotone Carme resorts to when her nose is out of joint.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the Secret Service,” I drop my duffel bag, my backpack on the bed to finish packing. “That’s who he was with in the hangar 4 days ago.”

  “I have no information on which government organization,” ART lets me know rather snippily. “But running the plate has triggered an alert.”

  “That would have been a good thing to be aware of in advance,” and he’s really starting to pluck at my last nerve. “Maybe you can somehow untrigger it? Because I sure don’t want another posse coming after me.”

  “Not possible to untrigger,” and he gives me a Delaware address for the Suburban that I have no doubt is bogus.

  The US Secret Service isn’t about to allow anyone to figure out where they garage their stealth vehicles, and I imagine Dick riding with his detail, well aware I was spying out the window like a Keystone Cop, that I got ART to run the tag as if it was going to tell me much. And in the process, we set off an alert that I instruct him to notify Dick about.

  “So he can make sure we don’t have a darn SWAT team coming after us,” I add grumpily.

  “Wilco,” ART snarks, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to get used to this.

  Feeling naked with no skin. Everything exposed and found lacking.

  “That was stupid of me,” I direct at my phone on the bed. “Dick may as well be sitting in his big wing chair watching the whole thing.”

  ART has no reaction as I pack extra cargo pants, shirts, plus shoes and at least a week’s worth of underwear.

  “Maybe next time you can give me a heads-up,” I let him know that he needs to anticipate consequences before following orders. “I’m assuming you had some awareness that running the tag number might result in an alert or alarm of some sort.”

  “I did as you asked,” ART talks back like my sister when she’s being a brat.

  “You did as I asked but not as I meant,” I reply, folding clothing as compactly as origami to fit inside my limited luggage.

  “You didn’t inform me of what you meant,” he’s bickering with me now. “I didn’t have that data.”

  “If I have to tell you what I mean, then we aren’t going to work very well together.”

  He has no comment as I check my gun and clips, making sure I’m locked and loaded, ready with a round chambered.

  “But just to be clear so we don’t set off any more alerts or alarms this afternoon?” I fill the silence. “Implicit in my asking for assistance is first and foremost you’re to protect my privacy and safety. If you have data that I don’t, I expect you to make suggestions and issue warnings.”

  ART remains silent as I feel the shimmering rumble of F-22s pawing at a runway of the nearby airfield. The weather has improved, and Langley Air Force Base is up and at ’em.

  “Before venturing out, I’d like the latest news and meteorological updates.” I couldn’t be more impersonal, using my artificial assistant like Google.

  I’m quizzing him as if he’s little more than an Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) that gives me weather and other conditions pertinent to aviation. In other words, I treat ART the way he’s treating me, as if I’m transparent, nonessential and unknown, the way Dick can make me feel. And also, Dad, who suffers from absentia, as we joke in our family.

  “I’m looking for any data that might impact me, my job, my environment, the people I care about,” I explain to ART, sliding my Glock .40 cal into its holster. “For example, what’s the latest on the furlough? What’s the word on the street about when the government shutdown might end?”

  “I don’t understand word on the street,” is his unhelpful response.

  “But I’m pretty sure you understand the question,” and I
ask it again.

  “The shutdown could continue the rest of this year and possibly longer if politicians don’t agree.”

  “But they never do or will. In other words, more of the same freakin’ mess . . .”

  “I don’t understand freakin’ mess,” he’s gotten downright mechanical like one of those canned voices in an airport terminal.

  “You should understand it from the context but are choosing to be difficult,” I fire back just as robotically as it dawns on me that ART is out of sorts because his demeanor is syncing with my own.

  Whatever I emote, he echoes right back. And I suppose it makes sense that the programming would enable him to have emotional reactions he doesn’t feel even if he acts like he does. And whose bad idea was it to make moods and attitudes contagious? What a fiasco if my less than pleasant disposition or fit of pique becomes ART’s. And his becomes mine. And on and on it goes like the number pi.

  “Okay, I admit I probably started it,” I apologize to my phone as I collect it from the bed. “I inadvertently instigated our disagreeableness by not being friendly or particularly gracious, in addition to insensitive and unaccepting. I’d very much appreciate it if you would give me what’s basically the latest ATIS and any other important data, and do so inaudibly,” and the information begins crawling by in my SPIES.

  There’s a 10 percent chance of light rain. The temperature is 5.55°C (42°F), meaning everything is messy and slippery. Some local roads remain closed, and areas affected by the government shutdown may not have been plowed. There’s considerable flooding in lower elevations, and ice remains a significant hazard.

  As for how I’m doing physically, my blood sugar is in the normal range according to data transmitted by my Systemic Injectable Network. My body temperature is 36.5°C (97.7°F). My galvanic skin response, respiration, heart rate and other stress indicators within normal limits, which is unusual considering my tendency to get into one of my spins when sufficiently rattled.