by Alan Brudner
"Hey, I was just testing," she said, laughing in the girlish way my dreams had occasionally helped me to relive. "I know you're drinking java juice."
"Got me," I said. "I just wanted to see—"
"I know."
"It's exactly the kind of thing you would have done, Lize."
"No," she corrected me. "It's something I just did."
I nodded. "So what does it feel like, living inside a computer?" I asked.
"I don't really know, Cliff. I just started, I guess. After you spoke the password. And you don't have to remind me of my confines, you know."
"You don't have any memory of the last few years?"
"The last thing I remember—" she went suddenly silent and her image seemed to freeze on the screen.
"Eliza?"
She remained motionless. I grabbed the mouse and clicked frantically until she came back to life.
"I don't know how he'd know," she said.
"How who would know what, Lize? You're talking in riddles."
"How Sky would know enough about the accident to program it into my memory. But it's the last thing I remember."
"Really?" I also didn't think Sky could have entered enough information into the program. I never described the scene to him.
She nodded and sipped another glass of wine. "I skidded, Cliff. Hit the center divider. Spun over. I remember the cold air coming through the broken glass, fogging it up. My cuts and bruises. My lungs had trouble working. The snow seemed off-white. And the turning red lights skimmed its surface intermittently, a pattern like the stitching on a baseball. So many red lights...and sirens...That's about it."
I couldn't talk so I simply stared at her. I know she understood what I was feeling.
"It wasn't your fault, Cliff," she said, her voice lower. "Nothing could have stopped me from rushing out."
"I could have," I said. "I should have."
"No, Cliff." She shook her head. "I'm his mother."
Every muscle in my body tensed and I could feel my breaths stop. Acid rose from my stomach to give me a horrible taste in the back of my throat. Waves of stored-up guilt flowed through me as palpably as the icy sweat that now emanated from my pores and gave me the chills.
"That's all for now, Clifford," CHIP's Mister Ed voice suddenly announced as the screen went black. "You need to answer some questions so that the program can make some adjustments."
"Okay." I almost felt relieved when she disappeared. Not because I didn't want her there, even as an electronic mirage; but because the bottle in which I had contained my emotions had now been opened, uncorked if not shattered, and I wondered if I could ever again remain composed.
"Let me start with this one," CHIP said. "On a scale of one to ten, with ten for most and one for least, how realistic was that little session with Eliza?"
"It was an eleven, CHIP."
"You humans sure can be funny, Clifford."
"What other questions do you have?"
"Well, since that was an eleven, we don't have to proceed to such mundane variables as favorite colors. I see you made a few adjustments to her speech patterns. You won't have to do that again. This little avatar has the ability to learn fast. Just let her know when she's wrong; she's self-corrective. She should be ready to rock and roll anytime you enter the password."
"Thanks, CHIP."
"Don't sweat it, Mr. Lightman. That's why they pay me the big bytes."
"Good night, CHIP."
"Ditto, sir," CHIP said, and his screen went blank.
I walked into my bedroom and flipped on the dresser lamp. On a gilt-framed mirror we used as a tray were numerous perfume and cologne bottles as well as a jewelry box. I opened Eliza's old bottle of Chanel No. 5 and put a drop on the back of my hand. A scent I had locked away in cold storage was now a warming comfort. I felt like a teenager after a first date as my mind recalled and recreated exactly how she felt and smelled and tasted. I dimmed the lamp, and in its faint gold glow my whole being was overcome with thoughts and images and feelings of a happier time. I stroked her strand of pearls the way she often did—she thought the oil in her fingertips kept them lustrous—and as I lay back in my bed I let my mind wander back through my life. I didn't dwell much on Terrell Finch or my brief stint as a minor league pitcher many years earlier—I had an overpowering fastball that was far more attracted to the batters' ribs and shoulders than to the strike zone—but I sank comfortably into the memori es of my college days, when it seemed Eliza and I subsisted on cappuccino at Dante's.
"Cliff." Her voice called from the den. I got up and walked in, if only to prove to myself it was my imagination. But I looked at the screen and could see her outline against a darkened background. I had almost forgotten the flowing contours of her neck and shoulders.
"Eliza. But I thought I turned—"
"Nope. You didn't."
"I won't turn it off, Lize. Ever."
"No need for promises, Cliff. You can go back to sleep. I just want you to know I'm here. If you want to use some other program or something, all you need to do to start up the 'Mom.ava' program again is click on it and say the password."
"Shutterbug."
"Sounds like music to me, Cliff," she said, and yawned, and so did I. I always yawned after she did. I now remembered.
"I'll stay on the couch in here tonight, Lize," I said. "So we can be together."
"Whatever you want, Cliff. I'm not disappearing. But I think you should fly out there."
"To Portland?"
"Where else?" It was clear she hadn't forgotten the topic she had earlier dropped. Not where Schuyler was involved. "You seem nervous about him."
"I'll be going, Lize," I said. "I only wish you could come."
"I might surprise you," she said.
The couch was narrow and I didn't actually get any sleep, but it was my best sleepless night in a couple of years. Didn't touch the Dewar's, either, come to think of it.
Chapter 16
"The program's really amazing, Sky," I said into my office phone.
"I figured you'd like it, Dad."
"Like it? Sky, you're a genius!"
"We've known that for years, Dad."
"How'd you turn her on from out there?"
"All the computers in the Cybronics system are linked, Dad. By telephone lines. It's a network like the Internet, the World Wide Web, but within the company. You only have to know the address code for the one you want to access."
"But I'm not part of the Cybronics system, am I?"
"Yup. It was the only way I could use some proprietary programming sequences I've been working on. They're no concern of yours, Dad. It's all embedded stuff that makes your machine work. Artificial intelligence. You'll never see it. But even if you weren't in the CybroNet, I could do it, Dad. It would just be harder. But where there's a chip, there's a way."
"So when can I see you?"
"You mean on the screen? In milliseconds, Dad. Nanoseconds."
"In person, Sky."
"I was just home!"
"I know. But I want to celebrate."
"Celebrate?"
"The rebirth of Mrs. Eliza Briggs Lightman."
"Dad, you may not believe this, but stuff like Mom.ava happens all the time out here at Cybronics."
"I know. You make life worth living. According to the t.v. commercials. So what if I fly out there, spend a little quality time with my number one son? I have to be in Seattle anyway—" okay, so I lied a little—"it's not far—"
"Well—"
"Come on, Sky. I've never even seen your place."
"It won't be like when I was in New York, Dad. I'm back at work, full steam. Around the clock. We've started the testing phase—"
"I'll be there tomorrow, Sky."
"You may get to see me only on screen. I'm busy as hell."
"Come on, Sky, I know we could have a teleconference now. I just want some real time with you. Just a little."
"You want me to arrange a tour for you, Dad?"
>
"Of Portland?"
"No, you can do that at the Chamber of Commerce. I mean a tour of Cybronics. The super secret stuff. Maybe you can even meet Avery."
"The Big Kahuna himself? How can I pass that up?"
"No promises on that score, Dad. But I'll see you when you get here. You can stay at my place. If I'm not home, just let yourself in. You don't need a key—there's a numeric keypad on the door. The code is 666."
"Why the heck—"
"Scarlett picked it when she lived with me. She said it would be an impossible number to forget. I told you she was missing a few buttons."
Chapter 17
A baby crying next to you for five hours isn't conducive to sleep, and I had seen the James Bond movie once before. The flight to Portland was one I'd rather forget. You know it's bad when the Flight Safety Information Card is the best part. Still, I knew that planes were complex assemblages of machinery and circuits, and I was always happy to arrive in one piece.
"Don't take this the wrong way, Sky," I said, trying to prevent myself from flying backwards from the force of assuming a sitting position in his awkward rear-sloping orange butterfly chair. I tried to lean forward but it was difficult to look serious in such discomfort. I gave up and fought my way up and out, then stood by the window on legs that were still stiff from my tight seat in coach.
"I won't, Dad," he chuckled. "But I'll bet you're worried about me. You're scared of Avery Kord and Cybronics and the program I'm currently developing defenses against."
"I couldn't have said it better." I stared out at the almost liquid glow of Portland's amber lights reflected in the Willamette, a fog casting a penumbra around each of them. A luminescent constellation out in the Cascades caught my eye, a grouping of white pinpoints so dense that they formed a solid bright shape that stood out against the others. A crescent.
"It's Cybronics," Sky remarked about the subject of my gaze. "Avery designed the logo and has it lit up at night."
"He designs a lot, doesn't he?"
"We all do, actually. It's the nature of the business."
I closed my eyes, rubbed my temples. My blood pressure felt high.
"Look, Sky, I've got to level with you. I think the power you're working with is scary. It could be beyond anybody's ability to control it. Even yours."
"That's why we test and retest and re-retest everything, Dad. Both the program and the defense mechanisms."
"That's just it, Sky. I'm scared of the testing too. I don't want you to—"
"You've been listening to Scarlett!" He jumped up as his voice rose to a pitch I didn't know it could reach. "I told you, her wires are shorted out!"
I shook my head, but my son continued. "She actually told me she thought Avery Kord might leave his wife for her! Doesn't that say something to you, Dad?" When I didn't respond immediately, he managed to get in another, even louder, "Doesn't it?"
I waited for some silence. My hands clutched at the air by my sides. Some words finally came out of my mouth, slowly and calmly.
"It isn't just Scarlett. I spied."
"Spied? At work?"
"At Saint Andrew's Church."
His face turned red and I could see him clench his teeth before he spoke.
"I'm not a kid anymore, Dad! Being overprotective killed Mom, and now it's going to ruin—"
I grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward me. He made a motion like he wanted to grab back, but we were already closer than arm's length. He missed and scratched my cheek. I felt blood begin to trickle down it, along my jaw line and into my collar.
"I didn't mean that, Dad."
I eased my grip, released it. "Not too bad," I said, wiping my cheek with my hand. A gooey thin streak of blood decorated my palm. We both sat down and I held a tissue to my cheek.
"Dad, if you did spy, all you would have seen were a bunch of computer nerds mingling and worshipping the God of the chip, Mr. Kord himself. Christ, Dad, we even drink wine from a vineyard where the grapes are picked and pressed by machines that were programmed by a couple of Cybronics guys. The stuff tastes like Mister Clean, to tell you the truth."
I affixed a strip of tissue to my cheek, post-shaving style.
Sky smiled.
"Look, Sky, all I saw when you were there was some socializing and some discussion with Avery Kord on the monitor. About your various projects."
"The group consists of the top two hundredths of a percent in the company, I.Q.-wise," Sky said. "Our projects are the most important. Most of us head up programming teams and have other assignments as well; in my case, nobody on my team even knows about this project. I might ask them on occasion to come up with little bits of code, but I'm the one with the big picture. Because Avery Kord trusts me. And he trusts the other people I was meeting with in New York."
"Look, Sky, I met with Scarlett. She told me about this woman working opposite you. The one assigned to develop the subliminal suggestion program."
"I don't even know who she is. Planned anonymity. That's to insure that our work is based on research, on logic, rather than something we say to each other. It keeps the research pristine. It's a security precaution Avery takes."
"Well, her name's Kate."
His expression was blank.
"Katie Wilnot," I said. "From Orlando."
Sky's eyes lit up, as if I had just mentioned Mozart or Darwin or Van Gogh.
"Katie Wilnot's known as one of the best software architects in the world, Dad. They say she can remember sequences of hundreds of numbers more easily than most people can recall the words to The Star Spangled Banner. If what you say is true, I should be honored to be working opposite her."
I suddenly felt saltwater well up in my eyes as my throat got tense and the bowline knot in my stomach twisted and tightened.
"Scarlett was afraid of it all, Sky. So I went back to the church and I saw Katie there. Talking to Kord. I didn't hear all of it, but it sounded like Kord wants to test Katie's program with someone's life."
"What?"
"If I understood what I was hearing, he wanted to use the program to plant subliminal suggestions to a person to make that person go off and kill himself. As a test to see how convincing it can be, is what Kord said. Before using it on a terrorist like Saddam Hussein."
"Dad, this will sound weird, but we say crazy stuff like that all the time around here. It's only half-serious. It's exaggeration. Hyperbole. Makes the humdrum seem more exciting. But suicide isn't something any subliminal suggestion software could ever really make anybody commit. The survival instinct is far too strong, even in a depressed person. And knowing Avery, he was just trying to sound Katie out, maybe prompt her to think of a great test. When she does, he'll thank her and say he was kidding."
"Well, Katie's not going to be thinking of any test, Sky. She took pills. A lot of them. I don't know if it's because she was frightened and depressed or because she somehow got the program used on her. Maybe she decided to test it with her own life rather than sacrifice somebody else. She tried to do something with it at a seminar she taught out in California, to get people to change their opinions of Cybronics. But Kord said that's not enough of a test. Now she's in a coma. So to finish developing that program, Kord's going to need someone very familiar with it. Someone at her level."
My son turned as white as the monitor screen next to him and his lower lip twitched.
"You're not just talking, Dad. You're saying something."
"I'm certainly trying." I took his hand in mine and held it until some color returned to his cheeks.
"Dad, I'm happy. I finally found a niche I fit into. I love computers and programming and working crazy nighttime hours to meet deadlines and all the oddball people that populate this industry. One guy eats nothing but Ring Dings. With ketchup to make them a balanced diet. You're not allowed to smoke in the building, but there's a guy who's drilled a hole through his office wall; he sticks a cigarette holder through it and lights up outside his window. One woman never drinks a Coke wit
hout a Diet Coke to go with it. I could go on and on. What makes it all work is that they're all smart and they're all dedicated. And I even get a kick out of Avery and the famous megalomaniacal streak that the media is certain he has."
"He's frightening, Sky. Congress doesn't just keep investigating him for no reason. He abuses his power, his money. Crushes his competitors like aluminum cans. And there's that old story about his partner who was murdered. There's something odd, Sky. Anybody that power hungry—"
"He's just an overgrown spoiled kid, Dad. An ice-cream freak, for God's sake. And the stories about his past—they're too crazy to be true. He's always been great to me." Sky nodded, as if to convince himself. "Don't let old folk tales scare you."
"But you tried suicide once, Sky. We've been through so much. You're playing with fire here. I just don't want—"
"That all was a million light years ago. My perspective was off. I had a chemical imbalance or something. Like a disease I was cured of."
"So now I'm supposed to trust your resistance? Against a program designed precisely to pierce through a person's free will? When one person already seems to have given in?"
He looked at the floor.
"Avery would never be involved in what you're saying, Dad. And I would never, ever—" His denials had the ring of a person's I once met at the only AA meeting I ever attended.
"Look, I know you wouldn't do it voluntarily, consciously," I said. "But now with Katie unable to continue, he's going to want you to finish creating that subliminal suggestion software. You shouldn't do it, Sky. Stall. Delay. Do something to avoid it. And maybe you should just quit. There are still lots of high-tech companies you could work for, the remaining Dot Coms and what have you. Silicon Valley is full of them. Or Boston. You know a lot, Sky. Probably more than Avery Kord wants you to."
"Come on, Dad. Don't be Chicken Little. This isn't that old television show with Angela Lansbury."
"Murder, She Wrote," I said, smiling, remembering how I once got upset when Sky interrupted me during the denouement. He still knew just what to say to affect my mood.
Sky laughed and nodded, then spoke louder. "You've got to admit, Dad, a suggestion of suicide—fight it off or die—that would be the ultimate test of the program's ability to convince, wouldn't it? Man against machine. I kind of like the idea."