The next shot was of Scott and me at the break table—the coffeemaker’s orange power button conspicuously hovering above my right shoulder.
“I understand you’re the genius behind all this,” Scott said. “You wrote the software that makes Prometheus work?”
“I do a particular type of programming, but the translator software was designed by Dr. Paul Johnson and his team up at MIT; the system’s network control system was designed by Mohamed Ayman El-Rahman, Stewart Hamilton, my father and Dr. Vincent Schneider; and, let’s see, the N5 nanocomputers were designed by the people out at Nano Memory Corp., and the game programing software was designed by—”
“Okay, okay, I understand that there are a lot of people involved in a project like this. But, from what I’ve been told, the key to building Prometheus has been your ability to program in this esoteric language called Complexity Programming Language—CPL.”
“But all those other elements are just as important,” I insisted.
“Yes, but what you do is unique. Is there someone else out there who could do what you’re doing?”
“Someone could be trained… eventually.”
In the theater room, it struck me how funny it would have been if I had just admitted I was only trying to impress the bookkeeper.
Scott pressed on, asking me what it was like growing up with scientists as parents and how it felt to have all this pressure on me. I attempted a few responses, but finally just shrugged and asked, “How do you tell someone else what it’s like to be you? If they’ve had similar experiences, they already know. If they haven’t, they don’t—and won’t.”
“Fair enough,” Scott said, “I suppose I may never know what it’s like to be you, but do you think it’s ‘like’ anything to be Prometheus? Do you think Prometheus is at all conscious?”
“Well,” I said, channeling my father, “asking if Prometheus is at all conscious is a little like asking how many water molecules it takes for water to become wet. Wetness is our perception of something that emerges out of a particular molecular behavior. And so water becomes wet only once there’s enough of that behavior at the lower level for us to perceive ‘wetness’ at the top. It’s the same thing with consciousness. Once there’s enough of the right behavior at the bottom, consciousness will be perceivable at the top.”
“Do you perceive any now?”
“With Prometheus? No, but the real question isn’t whether I perceive any, it’s whether Prometheus does. And that, I couldn’t tell you.”
“For some reason,” Scott said, having stared at me for a long moment, “I don’t find that comforting.”
The 60 Minutes segment ended with a nighttime shot of the bay, the camera zooming in across the water toward the brightly lit Turret, my father at his desk, burning the proverbial midnight oil.
“On the eastern end of Long Island,” Scott said in a voiceover, “in the tradition of Thomas Edison and Orville and Wilbur Wright, Dr. Cipriani and his young team of scientists have been hard at work, pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence—and perhaps even changing the way we look at ourselves and our place in the universe.”
My mother and the twins clapped.
“That wasn’t so bad,” my father said, muting the TV as a commercial started.
“It was excellent.” My mother came over and gave me a hug.
“In the tradition of Thomas Edison and Orville and Wilbur Wright…?” I said mockingly.
“I know.” Stewart laughed.
“In the tradition of,” my father retorted.
“Pay no attention to that multi-billion-dollar lab behind the curtain,” I said.
Danny laughed.
My father threw a pillow at her and then one at me.
David called to congratulate us and we, of course, congratulated him right back. He was in fact the man behind the curtain with regard to this 60 Minutes segment.
Then it was back to work.
We had little more than a week before the presentation in Chicago and, as my father reminded us, impressing Scott McCormick was one thing, but impressing the AI-X board was another.
14
The next morning, with the twins up at the house playing TV journalists, replaying the 60 Minutes segment over and over again, I walked down to the dock.
Despite ice woven in and out of the shoreline grasses, it was nearly sixty degrees. The sky was a brilliant blue and only the tiniest of swells were rolling up to the muddy shore.
Taking a deep breath, I looked out over the water, spotting a single blue and white sail.
My father and the others would be returning from Cobalt soon and I was dreading spending another day inside. We had been going nonstop since September when the first of the N5 nano-nodes had arrived.
That was also about the time Danny had finally returned to Quantum Bay on a full-time basis. I’d figured my father must either have had his talk with Nate Landenberg or the entire Peter-Danny conflict must have been greatly exaggerated. Not to sound paranoid, but it had crossed my mind once or twice that my father might have been keeping a measure of distance between Danny and me on purpose. He did like to control his minions.
Either way, Danny was back, and that’s all that mattered.
I looked up the hill toward QBL’s white clapboard building and, like a well-trained homing pigeon, unable to do anything else, started back toward my coop.
Minutes later, I switched on the lights inside QBL and went over to Prometheus’s vital signs screen. Though never truly inactive, Prometheus was presently in its “quiescence state”—essentially asleep. David’s Cray, which ran Prometheus’s environmental stabilization and translator programs, was cool and untaxed, its Fluorinert cooling tower, over by the nitrogen Dewar, humming along nicely.
“Good morning.” Danny walked past me with an Island Whole Foods grocery bag. I nearly pulled a neck muscle. She was wearing a pink sweater and her hair flowed loosely over her shoulders.
“I picked up some Celestial Seasonings tea and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee,” she said. “You haven’t been here all night, have you?” She set the bag down and started putting the groceries away.
“No, just got here.” I switched off the vital signs screen and joined her over in the break area.
“You were probably hoping for a little peace and quiet—sorry.”
“Actually, I was thinking it’s way too nice of a day to be stuck inside.”
“Isn’t it incredible out? We should just leave.”
“I could tell my father you had something important to do. No sense in us all suffering.”
“I meant we should both leave—together.” She closed the cabinet doors. “It’ll probably be another two months before we get another day like this.”
“I know. And he can’t exactly fire us.” I followed her into her office.
“He certainly can’t fire you,” she said.
“And he wouldn’t fire you in a million years.”
Danny’s office was like a sailboat cabin, every nook and cranny filled with stores for a long voyage—the provisions in this case being books, binders and files. She sat at one of the two metal desks along the back wall.
“We should call your dad, though. So he doesn’t worry.”
“Fine. Just tell him we’ll be back by six or six-thirty.”
“I meant you should call him. He’s your dad.”
“It was your idea.”
She pouted.
“Fine.” I dialed his Cobalt number.
“Hey,” I said when he answered. “Huh? No, I agree. Yes, I just checked. Everything’s fine. When? Of course. Sure, I’ll let her know. You too.” I hung up. Stared at the phone.
“Well…?”
“He’s going flying. He said it was too nice of a day to be stuck inside.” I smiled when she smiled. “He said we can all just work twice as hard tonight. Everyone’s meeting back here at nine. Oh, and he asked me to let you know.”
“I’d say that’s a pretty good omen. So,
what do you want to do?” She spun around in her chair and began closing programs on her computer.
“Well,” I said, “the last time we went for a bike ride you kind of freaked out.”
“I did?”
“Well, David sure did.”
“A little. But he seems fine now. Besides, it’s none of his business. Let’s do that; let’s go for a bike ride.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“We can figure that out along the way.” She pointed at her screen. “Can you tell if this is winnable?”
She was referring to a partially played game of FreeCell solitaire.
“Is this what you do all day?” I leaned in over her shoulder, filling my lungs with the fragrance of apple blossom shampoo.
“I’ve won two hundred and twenty-four games so far, and now this. Do I have to start over?”
“No, you can still win it.”
“Really?
“Really.”
“Can you do it?”
“You want me to finish your game? If I do it, you’ll still have lost.”
“It’s not about me, it’s about the computer.”
“So, basically, you want me to humiliate your machine.”
“If you wouldn’t mind.” She looked up at me, her eyes like the gateway to a mysterious blue world that, if I didn’t watch my balance, I could fall right into.
“All right—if you want.”
When I started moving the cards, she touched my hand to slow me down. I could actually hear my heart beating.
“Try not to look at the individual cards,” I said, clearing my throat. “Just look at their patterns. And see?”
On the screen an animation depicted the cards exploding. The game was won.
“You really are amazing. I thought that was impossible. Thank you.”
“Finally, I managed to impress you.”
“Tyler, I’ve been impressed by you for a long time.” Danny turned away to shut down her machine.
She gathered a few items together and we left the building not saying a word.
Outside, while she set the alarm, I called José about getting my bike from Zak’s Garage. But with my mind aflutter, and completely unprepared for José’s meddling, I found it nearly impossible not to include him and Jenny in our plans.
José suggested that we take the Orient Point Ferry across to Connecticut and spend a couple of hours at the Mystic Aquarium. He pointed out that with him and Jenny along, Danny and I were certain to get together. I tried to quell his enthusiasm, but with Danny within earshot—and getting more and more curious—I finally just hung up.
José and Jenny were already at Zak’s Garage when we arrived. Jenny greeted us at the bay door, handing Danny an empty daypack and inviting her to take a couple of Aquafina water bottles from a pallet in the back.
Jenny, heavy but shapely, looked especially appealing this morning in her black jeans and with her newly styled curly black hair.
While Jenny showed Danny where the water bottles were, I went to uncover the bikes.
“Who plays guitar?” I heard Danny ask from the other side of the garage.
“My baby does,” Jenny said. “He’s been taking lessons from Tyler.”
That was news to me. I finished folding the tarp and walked over. By the time I got there, José was seated on the green vinyl couch (which typically would have been covered in car parts), his Yamaha guitar in hand.
“I only know one or two songs,” he told Danny, kicking a torn Playboy magazine under the couch. “Let’s see—” He plucked a few notes and then strummed something utterly unintelligible.
“That’s not it,” he muttered, starting again.
Danny glanced at me, biting her lip.
“That’s very nice, baby,” Jenny said after José’s next attempt, practically yanking the guitar out of his hands, “but maybe you should let Tyler play. I get to hear you all the time.”
“Could you two be any more obvious?” I said.
“I’m still learning,” José explained to Danny.
“And you’re getting much better,” Jenny assured him.
“This is ridiculous.” I chuckled.
“Just play a little something.” Jenny handed me the guitar. She looked at Danny. “Have you ever heard him play? He’s really good.” Jenny steered me toward the couch where I sat down.
“Well, I have no choice now,” I said to José, who had scooted down the couch. “Danny thinks I gave you lessons.”
Jenny and Danny sat down on a red remnant carpet that I could only assume José laid out five minutes before we got there.
“We have less than an hour to get to the ferry,” I warned, tuning the guitar. I stretched my fingers and played Bach’s “Little Fugue.”.
“Didn’t I tell you he was good?” Jenny said excitedly.
“Why don’t you play ‘Stairway to Heaven’?” José suggested, knowing full well that was the song I had been working on for Danny.
“That’s one of my favorites,” Danny said.
“Me too,” Jenny added.
“All right, but we may not make the ferry,” I told them.
“Who cares?” Danny said. “I’d rather listen to you play, anyway.”
I began the song rather conventionally, but soon, as I became immersed in the music and my subconscious took over, directing my fingers to play what it willed, I found myself, it seemed, off in the ether, listening to a most unconventional version of the song.
At the conclusion—hearing that final, sustained chord and Robert Plant’s voice in my head: “And she’s buying a stairway to heaven…”—I returned.
I looked up.
For an uneasy moment, I wasn’t so sure my audience had heard what I had. I set the guitar down and leaned it against the couch.
“I had no idea you could play like that,” Danny said. “It was beautiful.”
“Really—awesome, man,” José said.
“We should have gotten you a pretty girl to play in front of a long time ago,” Jenny added.
“That was from the heart.” José thumped his chest.
“All right,” I said, chuckling at José and Jenny. “Anyway, thanks.” I looked at Danny. “Thank you.”
I would have said more, but if those two numbskulls, presently smiling out the corner of my eye, were to get it in their heads that their ridiculous plan had worked, I’d never hear the end of it.
“Well, we better hit the road.” I stood.
Forty-five minutes later, we pulled into the Cross Sound Ferry’s parking lot just as the ship’s loading ramp was about to go up. Nodding appreciatively to the dock hands, we rode across the ramp and parked on the starboard side just below the stairs. We then took our helmets and daypacks up to the main cabin, bought coffee, tea and several pieces of pound cake, and claimed one of the tables near the portside windows.
“I was so excited about this trip,” Jenny said, “that I forgot to congratulate you about the 60 Minutes show. How cool was that?”
“Yeah, man, congratulations. How’s it feel to be muy famoso?”
“I’m just glad to have my fifteen minutes behind me.”
“Behind you? Wait till you win,” José said.
“By then he’ll be too famous to talk to us.” Jenny licked crumbs off her ruby lips.
“Somehow I doubt that—”
At that moment, the ship rocked and an old woman, dragging a flower-patterned suitcase, grabbed my arm. I helped steady her. She apologized and moved on.
“See?” José laughed. “Women are just throwing themselves at you.”
Danny smiled at me sympathetically, the sunlight streaming through the window behind her giving her an angelic aura.
“We should get your autograph before it’s too late.” Jenny removed a pen from her daypack and slid it and a napkin across the table. “Both of you. You’re both going to be famous. I have gypsy blood. I know these things.”
“Probably isn’t a good idea to cross a gypsy,�
� I said to Danny. She and I signed the napkin and slid it back.
“This is going to be worth a fortune someday.” Jenny drew a plus sign between our names and stuffed the napkin and pen into her daypack.
An hour later, we docked in New London, Connecticut under darkening skies. Riding off the ship, we pulled to the side of the ferry terminal’s parking lot, taking a moment to convince ourselves that these ominous clouds would soon clear.
But only minutes later, as we merged into the traffic on I-95, the first of the raindrops began to fall. Five miles after that, it seemed as if we were riding underneath Niagara Falls.
With our visibility reduced to a blur of taillights, we pulled off under an overpass and climbed onto the other side of the guardrail where we stood, soaked, stunned, watching the steam rise from our bikes, listening to the roar of the passing cars and trucks and the deluge pouring down from the road above.
“Now what?” Jenny asked.
“Well, I’m not standing here.” José climbed up the concrete firmament and took a seat on a ledge just below the upper roadway. We joined him.
Sitting shoulder to shoulder on the cold, hard cement, we watched our bikes get doused by each passing car.
“Maybe we should ride up to the next exit and find a laundromat or something,” José suggested, pulling Jenny close.
“A laundromat?” Jenny shivered. “How about a hotel with a hot tub?”
“That sounds good to me,” Danny said. She leaned toward me. I put my arm around her.
“Man, it’s fucking freezing out,” José complained. “Sorry.”
“It’s only about fifty-five degrees,” I said. “It just seems cold because of the dampness.”
“Dampness?” José stared at me.
“I know,” Danny said. “He’s not even shivering.” She unzipped my jacket and stuck her hands inside.
“That’s because he’s got that Cipriani Eskimo blood,” José said. “I’m from sunny Puerto Rico.”
“You’re from Long Island,” I said.
“My DNA isn’t.”
After ten minutes, the rain wasn’t letting up. And now, to make things even more uncomfortable, José and Jenny were making out like there was no tomorrow.
Magic, Machines and the Awakening of Danny Searle Page 14