by John Akers
“May I ask what you were thinking about just now?” asked Gabe.
“I was thinking about my meeting with Cevis this evening.”
“Ah, hoping to get a pat on the head from Dad, are we?”
For some reason, the jest stung. “Watch it buddy, or I’ll turn that scintillating personality of yours off,” Pax warned.
“Sure, attack an honest AI instead of standing up to the person who treats you like a preschooler.”
Pax decided he’d had enough. “Fine. Turn personality down to 75 percent.”
“Is this acceptable, your eminence?”
“No—make it 25 percent.”
“Please don’t snuff me, sir,” Gabe said meekly. “My wit is all I have.”
“That’s better,” said Pax. “All right, let’s get to work.”
“Shall I get the helicopter ready?” Gabe asked.
“No, I’d rather take the mFarad,” said Pax. “My head’s not in the mood for the sound of helicopter blades this morning.”
“Very good, sir. I’m sending it out to the front door now.”
“Thanks.” Pax got up and walked toward a small elevator at the far end of the room. His bedroom was on the third floor, along with another private lab space. The floor below contained the dining room and several gaming rooms, each with a different theme: pub games, arcade games, sports games, and so on. The bottom floor housed the kitchen, two living rooms, and several guest rooms. As he entered the elevator and the doors closed, Pax sighed and said, “All right, let’s get on with it. Display dashboard.”
Chapter 14
Friday, March 16, 3:30 PM PT
Los Altos Police Department Incident Report
Case No.: 2035-02716248
Location: STANFORD HOSPITAL, 300 PASTEUR DR, STANFORD, CA 94305
Incident Type: TRAFFIC ACCIDENT
Date and Time Reported: 3/16/20xx 1:28 PM
Dispatch Date and Time: 3/16/20xx 1:35 PM
Bias/Motivation: NONE
Victim/Missing 01 (V01) Name (Last, First): CUNNINGHAM, JEREMY R.
Last Known Address: 2359 CUESTA ABAJO CT, LOS ALTOS, CA 94024
D.O.B.: 08/20/19xx
D.O.D.: 3/16/20xx
Age: 54
Race: CAUCASIAN
Sex: MALE
Eyes: BROWN
Hair: BROWN
Height: 5’ 11”
Weight: 210 LBS.
Univiz ID: 1875031692
Suspect 1 (S01) (Last, First): BENNETT, JOEL R.
Suspect Status: N/A OR UNKNOWN
Witness 1 (W01) Name (Last, First): PERKINS, ASHLEY (Receptionist)
Witness 2 (W02) Name (Last, First): ALLEN, LAURIE (Visitor)
Witness 3 (W03) Name (Last, First): ALLEN, GARY (Visitor)
Witness 4 (W04) Name (Last, First): SINGH, PAVEL (Doctor)
Related Report(s): 2035-02716237, 2035-02716229, 2035-02716217
Incident Description:
REPORT INTERVIEWS TAKEN AT STANFORD HOSPITAL. MS. ASHLEY PERKINS (W01) REPORTED MR. JERRY CUNNINGHAM (V01) HAD BEEN DISCHARGED AT APPROXIMATELY 1:15 PM FROM STANFORD HOSPITAL AFTER RECEIVING TREATMENT FOR BURNS SUFFERED IN A HOUSEHOLD ACCIDENT THE PREVIOUS DAY. MR. CUNNINGHAM EXITED THROUGH THE MAIN ENTRANCE AND PASSED BY WITNESSES LAURIE ALLEN (W02) AND GARY ALLEN (W03) ON THE WAY TO HIS CAR. A FEW SECONDS AFTER PASSING MR. CUNNINGHAM, MR. AND MRS. ALLEN HEARD A MAN SCREAM. THEY TURNED AND SAW A RED KIA SPARK ACCELERATING TOWARD MR. CUNNINGHAM. THE CAR THEN STRUCK MR. CUNNINGHAM, KNOCKING HIM ONTO THE HOOD OF THE CAR. HE HIT THE WINDSHIELD AND SHATTERED IT, THEN ROLLED OVER THE TOP OF THE CAR AND FELL ONTO THE PAVEMENT. IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARD THE SPARK CAME TO A STOP AND TURNED OFF.
MR. ALLEN TOLD HIS WIFE TO GO INSIDE THE HOSPITAL AND GET HELP, THEN WALKED UP TO THE DRIVER’S SIDE OF THE SPARK AND SAW MR. JOEL BENNETT (S01), SITTING INSIDE. MR. ALLEN KNOCKED ON THE WINDOW AND MR. BENNETT OPENED THE CAR DOOR AND GOT OUT. MR. ALLEN REPORTED MR. BENNETT SEEMED TO BE IN SHOCK, REPEATEDLY SAYING “IT WOULDN’T STOP,” OVER AND OVER.
DR. PAVEL SINGH (W04) ARRIVED AFTER BEING NOTIFIED OF THE ACCIDENT BY MR. ALLEN AND ATTEMPTED TO PROVIDE FIRST AID TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. DR. ALLEN REPORTED MR. CUNNINGHAM’S HEAD HAD SUFFERED BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA AND WAS BLEEDING PROFUSELY AND HE DID NOT HAVE A PULSE. EMT PERSONNEL ARRIVED AND TOOK MR. CUNNINGHAM INTO AN EMERGENCY ROOM. ATTEMPTS TO REVIVE HIM WERE UNSUCCESSFUL, AND HE WAS PRONOUNCED DEAD AT 1:27 PM.
WHEN ASKED TO EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED, MR. BENNETT REPORTED THAT HE HAD FINISHED EATING LUNCH AT A NEARBY CAFE AND INSTRUCTED HIS CAR TO DRIVE HIM TO HIS WORKPLACE. SHORTLY AFTER DEPARTING, THE CAR SPONTANEOUSLY DID A U-TURN ON QUARRY RD AND WENT BACK TOWARD THE HOSPITAL. HE REPORTED VERBALLY TELLING THE CAR TO RESUME ITS PROGRAMMED ROUTE BUT IT DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE OR RESPOND TO THE COMMAND. MR. BENNETT’S UNIVIZ REPORTED THE VEHICLE HAD CLOSED ITS COMMUNICATION CHANNEL, SO HE TRIED TO SWITCH TO MANUAL MODE BUT THE CAR DID NOT RESPOND WHEN HE PUSHED THE BUTTON. MR. BENNETT REPORTED THAT HIS SEAT BELT SUDDENLY TIGHTENED SO THAT HE COULDN’T REACH THE CONTROL PANEL WITH HIS HANDS. BY THIS POINT THE CAR HAD TURNED INTO THE HOSPITAL CUL-DE-SAC, AND A MOMENT LATER IT ACCELERATED AND STRUCK MR. CUNNINGHAM. MR. BENNETT WAS SUBSEQUENTLY TAKEN INTO CUSTODY AS A POSSIBLE SUSPECT.
TEST OF THE SPARK SHOWED IT TURNED ON AND OPERATED NORMALLY. REQUESTS MADE TO IT TO PROVIDE INFORMATION SHOWED NO RECORD OF A COURSE DEVIATION OR THE ACCIDENT. THE VEHICLE COULD DETECT THAT ITS HOOD WAS DENTED AND ITS WINDSHIELD WAS BROKEN, BUT IT HAD NO RECORD OF WHAT CAUSED THE DAMAGE.
BASED ON MR. CUNNINGHAM’S PREVIOUS HISTORY THIS REPORTING OFFICER REITERATES REQUEST FROM PREVIOUS CASE FILE FOR ASSISTANCE FROM THE COUNTY CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT TO CONDUCT A COMPUTER FORENSICS ANALYSIS ON THE VEHICLE TO DETERMINE THE POSSIBILITY OF MANSLAUGHTER OR MURDER.
Reporting Officer Name (Last, First): WALTERS, BRIAN
Reporting Officer Badge No: 3958
Date Assigned: 3/16/20xx
Reviewing Supervisor Name (Last, First): FITZGERALD, MARY
Case Status: OPEN
Chapter 15
Friday, 7:00 PM PT
The rest of Pax’s day was a frenzied succession of 30-minute meetings. He took them all from his office, connecting via UV video and excusing himself five minutes early from each one so he could practice using the BCI. He continued to make incremental progress in moving the shapes, and by the end of the day, he could move a shape to its location in only three or four attempts. Though his progress was significantly better than any of the other participants’ performances, he didn’t experience any instantaneous movement that four of the other five participants eventually had, much to his disappointment.
Jean checked on Pax twice in person, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. He was both pleased and perturbed with the progress of Pax’s recovery.
“I’ve never seen signals this strong and clear,” he said. “Most people have a much lower signal-to-noise ratio, but your signals stand out like a skyscraper in the middle of a village. Quite honestly, you have the easiest brainwaves to analyze that I’ve ever encountered.” He gave Pax a suspicious look and asked, “Are you sure you aren’t taking any supplements?”
“Just caffeine, Doc. Promise.”
“Hmm. Well, with signals this clear and strong, you should make rapid progress. It’ll just be a matter of connecting the signal to the underlying intent.”
At 6:55 p.m., Pax ended his last meeting, said goodbye to Emma, then took the elevator up to the roof. Cevis’ helicopter was just beginning its descent when he stepped out onto the roof.
The mystery of how Cevis was allowed to fly a helicopter on and off of Mount Palomar was immediately explained by the fact that it made hardly any noise. From 100 feet up, Pax couldn’t hear it at all. Only when it got within 30 feet did he begin to hear a whup whup whup from the rotor blades. It was also at that point that Pax noticed there was no one in the cockpit. Although large drones had been delivering packages by themselves for years, Pax had always had a pilot when he’d flown in a helicopter. The idea of flying wi
thout one made him nervous.
After the chopper landed, a series of lights around the perimeter of the helipad began pulsing red, indicating the chopper was charging through its conductive landing skids. Pax saw the helipad marshal walking toward him, and Gabe displayed his name across his torso: Kent Hutchins.
“Good evening, Mr. Pax,” said Kent. “Give us five minutes to charge her up, and we’ll have you on your way.”
“Thanks, Kent. Interesting bird, huh?” said Pax.
“Sure is. Crazy quiet.”
Pax gave a perfunctory smile. “Do you know how it works?” asked Pax.
“Nope. Looks custom-built,” Kent replied.
“Do you think it supports CHUI?” The Common Handle Univiz Interface, CHUI for short, was the communication protocol all other devices needed to use to interact with a Univiz.
“With no pilot, it had better have communication protocols out the wazoo.”
“Then if you don’t mind, I’m going to learn a little bit about this thing before I trust my life to it.”
“Certainly, Mr. Pax. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”
Pax walked closer to the chopper. “Gabe, show me what you can find out about how this thing works. Especially how it manages to stay so quiet.”
“Apparently Mr. Pierson knew you’d want more information. He just sent you the technical blueprints for the helicopter. I’ll display them now.”
The light gray lines of 3-D schematics appeared over the tail rudder, the motor, and the main rotor.
“It appears the standard tail rotor has been replaced by an internal, rotating fan that’s driven by the primary rotor. The air from the fan comes through a small grill to counteract the torque created by the main blades, and the two vertical fins outside serve as a rudder. The absence of a second cone of sound from a second motor, which most helicopters have, accounts for 25 percent of the noise reduction.”
Pax nodded and began walking slowly toward the front. The schematic for the motor appeared behind the cabin.
“The motor itself is all electric, which reduces the sound another 25 percent,” said Gabe. “The rest of the sound reduction comes from the design of the rotor blades.” Pax looked closer at the blade nearest to him, about three feet over his head. Hundreds of thick threads ranging from three inches to a foot long hung down from its trailing edge.
“The blades are designed to mimic the wings of an owl, which can fly in near total silence. The airfoil body is made from boron carbide, one of the hardest yet lightest synthetic materials ever developed. The front edge is rounded and serrated like the teeth of a comb, which slices the large initial airstream into many smaller ones. The trailing edge is made of a synthetic material chemically based on the silk of a Darwin’s bark spider, one of the toughest materials in nature—ten times stronger than Kevlar and capable of stretching several times its original length before breaking. The variable spacing and variable thread lengths all but eliminate the remainder of the turbulence created by the front edge.”
Pax nodded. “Any other things I should know about this thing?” Pax asked.
The schematic overlay disappeared and was replaced by another on top of the hull and tail boom. “It has a novel power source as well. The top and sides of the cabin and hull are covered in high-density solar panels. Given continuous sunlight, this helicopter could fly without stopping until it runs out of oil.”
“How long can it go without any sunlight?” asked Pax.
“The battery will last eight hours before becoming depleted.”
In the periphery of his vision, Pax saw the perimeter lights on the helipad turn solid green. “So why did we need to wait to charge it up again?” he asked.
From behind him, Kent answered, “Just a precaution, sir. Don’t want you starting your journey on anything less than a 100 percent charge.” Pax turned around to find Kent smiling and holding out a thin fluorescent orange backpack. “Here’s your ‘chute. Hop aboard whenever you’re ready.”
Pax took the parachute and slipped his arms through the straps. He touched the side panel of the door to open it and said, “Alright, I’m off.” He stepped up into the cabin and buckled himself into his seat. Kent gave him a thumbs up and backed away.
A few seconds later the rotor started up, and within three minutes it was hurtling along at 250 mph. Gabe showed their ETA to be 14 minutes.
Pax looked down at the slowly darkening cityscape. Without the normal noise of a helicopter, Pax felt if he were in a glass-bottomed boat observing marine life in the water below. The headlights from an endless daisy-chain of cars on the freeway sparkled like a diamond necklace that had fallen to the bottom of a mysterious grotto. Pax knew most of the people below would be using a Univiz to pass the time while their cars dutifully took them home. The thought gave him a feeling of dominion, of lordship over them, but also a feeling of needing to do more to help them.
Pax realized he himself might as well make use of the time he had before he reached Cevis’, so he said, “Show me what’s going on in the world, Gabe.” Gabe displayed some headlines from prominent online newspapers and blogs. The first one, from an AP article, immediately caught his eye, and he tapped his thumb and forefinger together to open it.
Local Man Killed By Self-Driving Car
At approximately 2 p.m. this afternoon, Los Altos police reported a man leaving Stanford Hospital was struck and killed by an automatic car. The victim, 54-year old Jerry Cunningham, had just left the hospital after being treated for injuries received in a household accident the day before. According to witnesses, the car entered the turnaround in front of the entrance, then suddenly sped up and drove straight into Mr. Cunningham, knocking him over the top of the vehicle. Mr. Cunningham never recovered consciousness and was pronounced dead by hospital personnel at 1:47 PM.
The accident was the first involving a self-driving car in California in more than five years. The car’s passenger, 27-year-old Joel Bennett, told investigators the car suddenly deviated from its designated route for no apparent reason. He claimed it did not respond to or even acknowledge the verbal commands he gave it to resume its original route. Mr. Bennett was taken in for questioning, but was later released on his own recognizance.
Preliminary evaluations by the San Jose police department revealed no issues with the car’s functioning, but they confirmed the car, an 18-year-old Kia Spark, had been impounded so that further tests could be conducted by the forensics unit. The police declined to provide any further details due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.
“Poor bastard,” Pax said, before he closed the article and moved on to the next headline.
Chapter 16
Ten minutes after taking off from Omnitech, the broad bulk of Palomar mountain loomed ahead. Although nowhere near the size of its cousins in the Sierras a few hours north, it was similarly shaped. Rather than rising to a sharp peak, it was a vast, low-rising hill, whose size only became apparent the closer one got to it. The chopper approached from the southwest, and soon Pax could see the white dome of the old observatory in a clearing among the pine and fir trees. The observatory was owned by the California Institute of Technology and was still operational. However, due to the light pollution from a nearby casino, its use was limited to training new astronomers before they headed off to the more modern observatories in Hawaii, Chile, and elsewhere.
The helicopter slowed and turned north just before reaching the observatory and headed over the top of the mountain. It descended a few hundred feet until it came upon a much smaller clearing. Pax saw a path leading away from one end of the clearing that was immediately swallowed up by the thick canopy of trees.
The helicopter landed, so gently Pax barely felt it. As he unbuckled his harness, he saw Cevis emerge onto the path and stop at the edge of the clearing. He smiled and waved at Pax, who waved back before touching the door to open it. He shrugged off the parachute and hopped out, then ducked down as he walked out from under the rotor blades. As Cevis a
pproached, Pax extended his right hand in greeting. To his surprise, Cevis ignored it and wrapped him in a bear hug.
For a moment Pax was too stunned to react. He’d known Cevis half his life, and he’d never met anyone less physically affectionate. Beyond a few drunken excursions back in college after which they’d propped each other up enough to stagger back to their dorm rooms, Cevis never offered more than a handshake. Eventually, Pax returned the hug as best he could, considering Cevis had pinned his arms firmly to his sides.
Cevis finally stepped back but continued to hold Pax by his shoulders. “Hello, Oreste,” he said warmly. “It’s good to see you. How are you?"
“Uh, I’m good, thanks. Clearly, I don’t need to ask you how you’re doing.” Cevis laughed loudly, his voice echoing down the mountainside.
Pax nodded back toward the helicopter. “Nice toy you have there, by the way.”
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Cevis replied, still smiling. “I commute to work with it now, so I don’t have to stay at the apartment during the week anymore. I leave at dawn and return at night, and no one around here is affected by my comings and goings.”
“Nice to see you’re still as antisocial as ever.” Pax was surprised at his sarcasm; it was as if his subconscious had opted to pick up right where they had left off after their last conversation.
Cevis’ didn’t seem to notice. He chuckled and said, “Why be mired amidst the rabble when one has the means to avoid it?” Then he pulled on Pax’s shoulder and said, “Come on, let’s go eat.”