The Drucker Proxy

by Lior Samson

“That’s what it looks like. There are people here who would be better than I am at tearing the code apart, but you said you wanted to keep this from spreading around.”

  “I do, at least for now. But I have an idea, if you’re willing to put in some extra time on this.”

  “Extra time? Look, Barbra, I don’t have any time, let alone extra. We’re still scrambling from losing CT and from the merger. But, okay, this is for CT. You know, I worship the man.”

  Barbra cocked her head. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure, anything.”

  “Did you ever … did he ever, like, try anything?”

  “Oh, I know what you’re asking. I’m sure it’s hardly news to you that he would put the moves on just about anyone with tits whenever he thought he could get by with it. But no, I value my job too much. I keep my professional life and my personal life miles apart and with a firewall in between. When I said I worshipped CT, I should have said I admired him, his abilities. And he was always straight up with me. So, are we clear on all that?”

  “Crystal.”

  “So, what’s this idea of yours?”

  “You can have my Tensora to work on. It’s identical to Todd’s except for the color. He said at the time that as long as he was paying that much for a customized car, he might as well haggle for a BOGO deal. Anyway, it’s yours for as long as you need it.”

  “Thanks. I actually would like to do a little digging and tinkering before I admit I’m completely out of my depth. When can I get it?”

  “Now, if you like. It’s parked in the exec lot. I can hail a Flyvver to get home after work. The Tensora is pretty much standard operating procedure. Here’s my passcard. You just need to have it with you to open and drive the thing. If you need to know anything, just ask the car. It’s called BlueBee.”

  “Blooby?”

  “No, Blue Bee. It’s electric blue and it buzzes. My daughter named it. Be careful with it.”

  “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried about the car. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Drucker Unified needs you, so maybe you shouldn’t drive while listening to music. Okay?”

  “Okay. Sound advice. Er, pun unintended.” She glanced at her wrist. “And now, I have a one-on-one with Bradley Pomerantz about problems getting our cloud servers and their servers to play nice together. I thought that being off to the side of the org chart with no direct reports would mean fewer problems. I was wrong. Everybody’s problems are mine now.”

  “Can you use an extra body?”

  “Sure. An extra brain wouldn’t hurt either.”

  “Think about who you might pick, and let me know. I’ll work a little job shuffling. I can do that now, you know.”

  “Can I pull somebody from the ModulArch side? There’s a kid with real promise, a software engineer who thinks like a field marshal and does whatever he’s tasked with. Very bright, very quick. He could help me while also building a bridge to a possible different career path for himself.”

  “Sure, I’ll bring it up at the next Transition Team meeting. Or better yet, you bring it up and I’ll back you.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Thanks Barbra.”

  “Thank you, Tonika. You’re doing a great job herding the two packs of coding cowboys in our overcrowded software corral. And I really appreciate your taking on this music software sleuthing. Just keep it strictly quiet. And keep me posted, but no email.”

  “You got it.”

  — —

  Tonika sat in the Tensora in the parking garage beneath her condo, thinking about the problem with the microSD card. She smiled. “Probably too easy, but it’s worth a try. BlueBee, can you run a deep diagnostic check on all your systems?”

  “I can.”

  “Literal little bugger, aren’t you? BlueBee, run a complete deep diagnostic check on all your systems.”

  “Please wait. Starting diagnostics. During diagnostics, screens may blink or blank. Ignore any vibration or sound from the vehicle.”

  Color patterns started flashing on the center-console and heads-up display, and status messages started scrolling on the small steering wheel screen: VIDEO SUBSYSTEM OK, FRONT CAMERAS OK, REAR CAMERAS OK, LIDAR PROCESSING OK, RUNNING OBJECT RECOGNITION SUBSYSTEM.

  Tonika watched as system after system checked out. “How long is this going to take?” A message on the steering wheel flashed: CANCEL FULL SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS? YES/NO?

  “BlueBee, how long is this going to take?”

  Another message: VOICE INPUT DETECTED. LIVE AUDIO ASSIST FUNCTION NOT AVAILABLE. CANCEL FULL SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS? YES/NO?

  Tonika tapped NO. “Oh, great. And no progress bar or percent complete. Your programmers were not very tuned into human factors.”

  The screen froze and flashed the message again: CANCEL FULL SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS? YES/NO?

  “Oh, double great, now I can just sit here in silence until this thing is done.”

  Another message popped up: LIVE AUDIO ASSIST FUNCTION NOT AVAILABLE. CANCEL FULL SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS? YES/NO?

  Tonika tapped NO and shook her head. After nearly five minutes of staring at the steering wheel, she applauded the final message: ALL SYSTEMS AND FUNCTIONS OK. “Thank, you. BlueBee, where is the SD card slot for the music system?”

  “The SD card slot for multi-media data files is located to the lower right of the center-console display where I am flashing a yellow arrow. Press the detent and the carrier will slide out. Insert the card as shown and press the detent again to close the carrier.”

  Tonika fetched the card case from her purse, extracted the microSD card, and followed the instructions for loading it. After a short delay while a Tensora logo spun on the center console, the car announced, “Music catalog loaded.”

  “I wonder. Should I play some music?”

  “Do you wish to play some music?”

  “Yes, BlueBee. Can you play whatever music was last played from this card?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Still a stickler for grammar. You’re as bad as my boyfriend. No, wait a minute. I don’t want to hear the last music played. I need to be precise with you. Okay, BlueBee, please play the music that was last played from this card on …” She checked her phone for the date of the crash. “July 14.”

  The garage was suddenly filled with the agitated strings and triumphant brass of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”

  “Very macho music, CT. Okay, now let’s see. BlueBee, run complete system diagnostics again.

  “Please wait.” The music stopped. “Starting diagnostics. During diagnostics, screens may blink or blank. Ignore any vibration or sound from the vehicle.”

  Tonika waited in silence as the reports scrolled by on the display and the car chattered and chirped as various motors and actuators were momentarily triggered. Then she saw it. For a brief moment: VEHICLE LINK MODULE FAILED. Then there were others: COMMUNICATIONS LOOP-BACK FAILED, DRIVE SPEED LIMITER FAILED, IN-MOTION INTERLOCK FAILED. At the end of the diagnostics run, the display declared that twenty-three subsystems had failed.

  “BlueBee, can you … no. BlueBee, please print out a copy of the diagnostic report.”

  “Printing.” Pause. “Printing complete.”

  “What? Where is the printout?”

  “The printout is on your default printer, your home office multifunction inkjet.”

  “Barbra’s going to wonder what the hell is happening. BlueBee, I want it here.”

  “Should I have the house retrieve the copy and send it by drone courier to your current location?”

  “No. BlueBee, please print a copy here in the car. If you can.”

  “Printing.” Tonika heard a faint buzzing but couldn’t quite place the source. It continued for nearly a minute. “Printing complete,” the car announced.

  “BlueBee, where is the printout?”

  “The printout is on your home office laser printer and a copy is in the in-vehicle logging printer.”

  “Blu
eBee, where is the in-vehicle logging printer?”

  “The in-vehicle logging printer is located inside the glove compartment.”

  Tonika opened the glove box. It was stuffed with a long looping strip of four-inch wide paper. As Tonika fished it out, she noticed the scattered words in red: FAILED, FAILED, FAILED.

  — 17 —

  Becca jumped up from the chair beside the hospital bed. “Ohmygod! Daddy! Somebody come quick. Help, somebody.”

  The duty nurse quick-stepped into the room, scanning monitors as she crossed to the bed. “What is it?”

  “He moved. Look at his arm. He lifted it up and flopped it onto his chest. See? His left arm also jerked, but, like, it’s held down by the blood thingy.”

  The nurse put her hand on Becca’s shoulder. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s called a Lazarus sign. It’s a body reflex, like when the doctor taps your knee and your leg jerks up.”

  “But I was talking to him and telling him that I wished he were back and then all of a sudden he waves to me.”

  “I know you want your father back real bad, but this really doesn’t mean that he heard you. If it will make you feel any better, I’ll tell the attending about what happened, and he can decide if additional tests or evaluation are in order.”

  “What will make me feel better is to have Daddy back.”

  “I know, I know. We’re doing what we can, but you shouldn’t get your hopes up too much.”

  “Yeah, everybody says that. I just wish everybody would just the fuck stop treating me like some little kid. I’m almost thirteen, and I’m not a kid.”

  “Of course. Look, I need to get on to my other patients, but I’ll check in again in a little while.”

  “Okay. I’ll still be here.”

  The nurse left and Becca pulled her flex phone from her jeans pocket and unrolled it. She scrolled through her favorite streaming playlist and found the track from the Silicon Salvation album “Resurrected” that had been one of her father’s few pop favorites. The layered synth and pounding rhythm of the group’s reimagined classic electronic dance music pulsed in her Bluetooth earbuds. She mouthed the words as vocalist Astrid Gundlach cut in with the lyrics of “Second Chance”: the four lines, endlessly repeated, that Becca and her father would sing together at the top of their lungs when she was in the third grade.

  All I ever asked

  is another at bat,

  a second final act,

  a second second chance.

  “Here, Daddy, remember this?” She slipped the earbuds out and gently held them up to her father’s ears. His eyes flitted behind closed lids.

  “Nurse! Come see this. Quick!”

  — —

  The conference room hushed as Aram Netsky appeared on the teleconference screen, his eyes seeming to scan the room. “Good,” he said. “We have a lot to discuss and a lot to do, so we don’t want to waste time. Please forgive me for not attending in person, but technical demands require that I stay at the helm at all times. Bannon Turndale will update you on the legal front, Margaret Hafner will cover the financials, and Roger Okham will explain the medical issues. Let’s not leave out Jerry Pendrake, our overactive CEO, who is gracing us with his presence and may have something to contribute.” Around the conference table people winced, but Pendrake, hands folded atop his closed portfolio, showed no reaction. “But now, I want to bring you up to speed on the digital proxy.”

  He slid sideways too quickly for the tracking camera to follow, then popped back into view. “We have had some trouble deploying the resources for full-scale operation of the Drucker proxy—Margaret will say more about that—so we have had to be clever. We can’t afford to operate continuously, so we have been scheduling awake-blocks to make optimal use of what we can pay for. The temporal gaps, the discontinuous consciousness, are proving to be disturbing to the proxy. We are trying to devise a workaround, but neither the software team nor the neuro-psych team can agree on a solution at this moment.

  “What we have been able to do is conduct one notarized, recorded Meta-Turing Test with a five member panel comprising two psychiatrists, two clinical psychologists, and a neuroscientist. We had the panel, which was blind to who was on the other end of the communications link, employ the six M-TT criteria to examine four live subjects plus the Drucker proxy. All five subjects were represented onscreen by animated digital avatars.

  “Oh, yeah, kudos to our avatar engineers who worked overtime to bring our own proxy avatar up to the level of the commercial software used with the four live subjects—so we could play on a level field.

  “Anyway, the panel had an hour to interact with each subject. By having them interact as a panel instead of individually, we kept the Cloudastics charges for running the Drucker proxy down to just over an hour. The live subjects, two men and two women in their late forties, were paid an honorarium, token but generous by research standards. All four subjects and the proxy were given the same explanation of the process and were prompted to answer as truthfully and thoughtfully as possible.”

  Bannon Turndale raised his index finger. “And you are going to tell us the results, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. The panel members voted up or down independently and each reported a level of confidence. On three of the subjects, the vote was unanimous: conscious, self-aware. Confidence levels on those three ranged from sixty to ninety-five percent. One other subject, a woman, convinced four out of five on the panel, and another, a man, was able to persuade only three panelists that he was a conscious and self-aware being.”

  Margaret Hafner laughed. “Sounds like some of the men I know.”

  “Whatever. So, as you can tally, the Drucker proxy was among the three with unanimous agreement, mean confidence level eighty-three percent.”

  Roger Okham cocked his head. “Is that good enough if we are facing a courtroom?”

  “At this stage, we don’t know. These are uncharted waters, and this is only a dry run for the real thing. Because the proxy is still partially sensory-motor isolated, we had to exclude certain kinds of questions. In any case, we are reviewing the transcript and the non-verbals collected from videoing the panelists to harvest what we can use to improve our chances legally.”

  “How soon will he be fully hooked up and conditioned?”

  “As soon as we get the money for run time, Bannon, as soon as we get the money.” The image on the monitor stared out at them. “Maybe you can speak to that, Margaret.”

  She was clearly feeling awkward at being put on the spot. “I won’t waste time on an exegesis. The client is not deceased, so we cannot invoke provisions of the will. The trust set up by the client does not vest until then. We have billed the family for services, but the invoice has been denied by their counsel. No surprise. The contract obligates the corporation, but only after death and only under special circumstances. Sorry, Bannon, if I’ve crossed over into your territory, but it’s all tangled up, the legal and the financial.”

  “What’s the bottom line?” asked Okham.

  “The bottom line,” she said, “is bright red. We’re sucking fumes. We’ve tapped out our bank line of credit with Or-Cal Fed. We’re chasing investor funding, but everybody smells panic and wants too much equity for too little cash infusion. We even dangled the prospect of a very lucrative, very long-term contract for services with Cloudastics, but they need to cover costs and want more upfront. Their competitors have heard the squealing and won’t touch us without payment in advance. Besides, Cloudastics has the state-data of the proxy and can hold it hostage.”

  “But we have copies of everything, right?” Okham spread his hands. “We can just upload again with another service provider.”

  Aram sighed. “Yes. And start from scratch. The state-data is essentially the memory, the record of everything the proxy has experienced since go-live, everything he’s learned to do—at our expense.”

  Bannon scowled. “Why haven’t we been getting that all back, tracking it?”

&nb
sp; “Because it’s deep inside the neuro-connectome models themselves, just like your memories are part of the wiring and cellular chemical changes in your brain. There isn’t enough bandwidth to keep sending the updated model back.”

  “Why can’t you just send the deltas?”

  Aram was losing patience. “Bannon, stick to your law books and legal lingo. The deltas, the changes in the model, are essentially the execution of the model itself, which is why we need fully elastic cloud services, distributed supercomputer power. There is a provision for recovering the entire model and its state-data, but that only comes at termination of the contract, and if we terminate, we pay for that. Catch twenty-two squared. But then you should know about that. Right?”

  Bannon straightened his back. “Yes, it’s my job to know the contractual obligations of all the parties to our contracts.”

  “Well, then, enlighten the rest of us as to what else you know as part of your job and your role in keeping this sinking ship afloat.”

  “Well, we’re still fighting to gain control over the fate of the body. It’s medically and legally more complicated with him breathing on his own. Forcing the issue would require cutting off nutrition from the feeding tube. Do you want to say anything, Roger?”

  “I’d like to say a lot, but the main thing is that his medical status keeps getting upgraded. The hospital is preparing to officially declare him minimally conscious, which is a whole new ball game. If he can eventually be demonstrated to be aware and capable of conscious decisions, we’re dead in the water and torpedoed below the waterline.”

  Bannon rolled his eyes. “My, my, Okham, we are immersed in fluid metaphors today.”

  Aram interrupted the chorus of groans. “Cute. But get serious, people. Jerry, Roger, Margaret, Bannon, I want to see you and your people pulling out all the stops to get us sailing.” He shook his head. “Shit, now you got me doing it, too.”

  Jerry Pendrake stood up, forcing the camera to follow his face and cutting everyone else momentarily out of the monitor picture until the view zoomed back. “For your information, your overactive CEO has been pulling out all the stops on some backchannel communication with the Cloudastics people. I’ll keep you all posted. Meeting adjourned.” He slid his portfolio from the table and left the conference room before anyone could protest or inquire. It was a rare power move from Jerry that left Aram looking momentarily off balance, which was equally rare.