The Kaleidoscope

by B K Nault

  The window unit fan squeaked, its tiny blade churning puffs of cool night air into the room.

  “What does it mean?” Pepper whispered.

  “Artificial intelligence,” Harold breathed. “It’s talking about artificial intelligence.”

  He hadn’t shown Leesa or Rhashan, or even Pepper, the other piece he had extracted from the ’scope. A tiny computer chip that now nestled at the bottom of his shirt pocket. “Trust no one,” his father had said. “There are people who will kill for what’s inside.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I’ve got bad news,” Stan told Harold on the phone the next morning. “Everything from the cabin’s been taken in for processing and the DA wants to prosecute after all. I’m going to have to work some real magic to get copies of anything.” He paused. “Harold, are you there? Do you understand? They’re talking homicide, hit and run, the whole she-bang. Do you want to see if we can help your dad, Harold, or are you convinced he’s guilty? There could be a case made that he’s off his rocker, and he’d get a lesser sentence. Would your grandma testify he was crazy? That would add weight to any expert we can get to examine him.”

  Harold had to sit down so he could process all this information. “She would testify against him if she were alive.” Stan’s exuberance was scaring Harold a little. Harold had told him at least twice his grandma was dead. He wondered if Stan was in over his head. “Remember? She died several years ago.” He lifted the reassembled Kaleidoscope and sighted down the shaft.

  “Oh, right. But I’m still going to suggest a mental eval.” Stan didn’t miss a beat. “It would make the DA go easier if he’s found unfit. Have you seen any signs of odd behavior, maybe your grandma was right about him? What do you think?”

  “I know you’re trying to make it easier on me. But I don’t care what happens to him. Do what you have to.” The entire question of Walter’s mental health would at last be answered one way or another. It was really lose-lose. If he was crazy, then Harold could very well inherit the crazy-gene. If he wasn’t, then Harold’s father would be found guilty of killing his mother.

  Was Walter right? Did the ’scope have something in it that people would kill for? Or was he just dabbling in the occult, and he was indeed loony tunes?

  He didn’t know where to turn, especially in the light of the information Leesa had given him. What made the Kaleidoscope work? The whole was greater than its parts. Nothing could explain how the ’scope showed people their future. The prophesy Leesa found didn’t help, it only confused him more.

  Artificial intelligence was not the answer, it was just another step in processing data. Not future-telling.

  “I need to go, I’ll call you back later.” He hung up while Stan was explaining how the processing would go for Walter.

  “I don’t know what I should believe about anything anymore.” Harold sank down into a chair. Glenda dropped her head in his lap, and he petted her absently. “I stayed up all night going over the coding in the chip. It’s brilliant, but still doesn’t tell me why it works.” The dog’s eyes followed his, her head still in his lap.

  Pepper was cleaning up containers from their takeout. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen wiping her hands. “What did he say?”

  “He wants them to declare Walter unfit.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “I want all of this behind me.”

  She tossed the towel on the table and joined him on the couch. “What did Clyde say? Are you in big trouble?”

  “I’m in medium trouble. It will be all right, but I don’t think I’ll be getting that corner office any time soon. Or in this decade. I almost blew it, but the current project I’m on is something only I can finish. They’re stuck with me.”

  “You haven’t put the ’scope back together?” She indicated a towel he’d rolled out, tools and magnifiers set out.

  “Putting the pieces back.” He got up and crossed over to the table to pick up a chip he’d discovered in the Kaleidoscope’s hidden crevices. “I found this.”

  She studied it when he laid it in her palm. “It’s so tiny. A computer chip?”

  “I think that may be what everyone is after.”

  “You mean the people who had him tied up? They were after this?” She held it on the tip of her pointer finger, addressing it. “You sure are tiny to be such a troublemaker. Why is it so important to everyone?”

  “My guess is, it’s got the information he was going for.” Harold accepted it from her. “He said he kept a journal and told me to read it, but that would mean I have to get the journal from the DA. Our only hope is Stan. If they’ll show it to him.”

  Pepper’s brows knitted. “You don’t think Stan is one of the bad guys, do you?”

  “No. But can we trust him not to blab to the wrong people?”

  “Like dirty cops?” She lifted his management book, flipping through the pages while Harold ruminated on all that had happened. “ ‘A gentleman always stands whenever a lady enters or leaves the room.’ I guess I’m a romantic at heart, but some of this sounds really nice.”

  Harold regarded her. “Like what?”

  She tilted her head at him. “Everything gallant has been replaced by too much independence. Our lives are intertwined, and we’re more dependent on each other than we sometimes want to admit. I want a knight once in a while.”

  He examined a paper cut in his left thumb.

  “What is it?”

  “I think Walter made a breakthrough. AI was his specialty.”

  “His genius, Harry? Just like you. He’s not crazy. He’s a genius.”

  Harold shrugged. “I guess.” He studied the diagram he’d drawn while taking the Kaleidoscope apart so he could rebuild it.

  “What do you know about AI?” Pepper went back to finish loading the dishwasher. “Isn’t artificial intelligence just for robots, and things like that?”

  “No, not at all. It’s all around us, every day. Data mining, virus chasing. But the problem has always been…well, there’s more than one problem. But mainly, how do we determine how much information it takes to create AI?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  He peered at her over his glasses. “Suppose you want to teach a robot how to clean the kitchen. But every day, there’s something different. One day there’s a stewpot to clean, the next day a pizza box to throw out. Think about all the decisions you make. You probably make thousands of them, without thinking twice, deciding what goes where, and whether the item goes on the top shelf or the bottom. What gets hand washed, which items go in the recycling or into the disposal, what gets put in the fridge for leftovers—”

  “I get it.” She held up a hand. “Sort of. It’s tough to teach a computer so many variables.”

  “Exactly. And not only is that challenging, but what does it do after the information is in there? And what about moral or ethical decisions?” He tapped his head. “Every day, every second, the variables change. On Tuesday the garbage goes out, but on Wednesday the recycling…” He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Somehow, though, it seems like my dad has solved the problem of all that information. But I can’t find in the code how it works.”

  “How do you know it is happening, Harry?”

  He cradled the Kaleidoscope carcass in his palm as if it was a prized Fabergé egg. “Because in a fraction of a second, this device can assemble an image meaningful to the very person using it. The question is how. My dad figured it out.” Dad. He’d said it aloud.

  “And no wonder everyone wants to get their mitts on it.”

  “And possibly commit murder for.” For the first time, Harold allowed himself to believe that perhaps his father’s paranoia was valid. There was a genuine possibility there were nefarious reasons, not just odd behaviors inspired by psychosis. He made a decision he hadn’t anticipated making until that moment. “I need a favor,” he told Pepper. “I want my dad to have the best representation possible.”

&nb
sp; “I can ask one of the attorneys to rep him, sure.” She searched his face. “I thought you hated him. The guy who allegedly”—she air quoted—“killed your mom?”

  “If he’s really guilty, then they will find that out. If he’s innocent, then whoever killed her is still out there.” Win-win.

  “Makes sense.”

  “If the best lawyers in LA can’t prove his innocence, then I’ll have to go the rest of my life believing he did do it, and that what my grandma told me was true.” Harold gazed into the gathering darkness. “And if that’s true, then I have to believe everything else she told me about him.” And me.

  “Unless there’s a third possibility.” Pepper picked up the ’scope’s shell and sighted through it, aiming at Harold. “What do you really think causes the magic, Harry?”

  “I don’t believe in magic.”

  “You already admitted something goes on inside this tube. More than meets the eye.”

  She fiddled with it, and he began reassembling it meticulously, considering her question. All the parts were present except for the missing crystal that Leesa was still running tests on. “There’s always a scientific explanation.”

  “Here’s a pretty one.” Pepper admired a cobalt blue glass bit.

  He held the diagram closer to the light. “I hope I can get this back together so it works.”

  “All right. Posit theories. Go,” she challenged.

  He set down the tiny screwdriver, and pushed back, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “We already know that the chip has coding to facilitate input-processing via human interaction. When you stop to think about it, the concept is genius. I wonder if Walter even understands how it works.”

  “You mean how it can see the future?”

  “If that’s what it’s really doing.”

  “Still the skeptic.”

  He scooted back to resume his work. What she was suggesting had more skeptics than supporters among the scientific community.

  Pepper floated her hands above his scalp as if it was a crystal ball. “Then explain how all this works, smarty pants. If I dissected your head and studied your brain, would I find your soul?”

  “That’s actually one of the problems. What is intelligence? Is it the ability to reproduce facts? Because the computer in Glenda’s tracking chip would qualify for that, but it doesn’t make her smart.”

  The dog, curled on the rug at his feet, lifted her head and pricked her ears at the sound of her name.

  “Hey!” Pepper swatted the back of his head playfully, forgetting the head wound as his hand flew up. “Sorry. But don’t disrespect Glenda, she’s the best doggie ever.”

  “Still a dog.”

  “Would it be possible for your dad, who’s been off the grid for years, to compete with MIT and Berkley with all their financial backing and support and hallways full of eggheads?”

  Harold held his breath as he twisted a tiny screw back into place, then answered her. “Sometimes loners make faster progress because they can steer their own canoe without negotiating obstacles thrown up by committees and grant writers.” Harold’s freedom in his cubicle without deadlines and departmental meetings suddenly became clear. Pepper was correct; he preferred hands-on development and research to management. “There’s a guy in England who’s made more progress in his garage than all the academics put together.” He went over to his laptop, and pulled up a photo of a homemade robot. “See?”

  She peered over his shoulder at the odd-looking creation whose rubber mask resembled a crazed jack o’lantern.

  “Creepy.”

  “The field of artificial intelligence has long been on a roller coaster ride. Waiting for all the elements to come together.” He tapped the keyboard again to bring up sites expounding on AI research to see if anyone mentioned human-chip interaction producing future prophecies. “Letting a thousand flowers bloom, so to speak.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a concept in science, or any field of research really, that if enough people are given free rein to work on a problem, then sooner or later, the ideas and technologies will align.” He clapped his palms together, making Glenda woof. “Then boom! You’ve arrived at a solution that takes off, and technologies we haven’t imagined yet are made possible.” He considered how to explain the incremental steps toward breakthroughs that progressed fairly quickly.

  Pepper knelt down to scrub Glenda’s head.

  “Like flight,” Harold went on. “Did you realize that only sixty-six years passed between Orville and Wilbur’s test flight at Kitty Hawk and the manned moon landing? In one person’s lifetime, we started out not understanding enough about aerodynamics to fly, nor were there suitable technologies like lightweight alloys, or how to process algorithms quickly enough, much less communication between vehicles in outer space—”

  “Whoa, pardner, I think we found your passion.” Pepper rested her chin on the top of his head, arms wrapped across his chest. Her breath warmed his forehead in rhythmic puffs. “When you break it down like that, I can understand your enthusiasm. But it still doesn’t answer the question of how our ’scope can do what it does. Does it?”

  “No, but if we have learned anything from the past, it’s that sometimes breakthroughs happen just because someone has brought together the right variables in enough different ways. Often they don’t even know themselves how it works until it does.”

  Pepper let go. Harold wanted to reach for her, but she dropped onto the couch and propped bare feet on the table’s edge. “Harry?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you suppose those glass bits are special in any way? They sure are pretty.”

  ****

  Harold returned to work the next morning unsure what to expect after running out on his interview. He stopped in the mailroom to see Rhashan, but the mail cart was already gone. Instead of tracking him down, Harold decided to go to his desk and try to figure out a way to straighten out the messes he’d made. The revelation he’d had while talking with Pepper made him feel better about not getting the promotion. But he did need to keep his job. And he had no idea how he could make it up to Rhashan if he had caused him to be let go. He’d lose the scholarship that had given him hope to get out of the mailroom. It would all be Harold’s fault.

  There were twelve messages waiting for him. Several from HR, including one from Clyde who explained in a rather terse staccato that he was away for the day but wanted to see Harold first thing Tuesday.

  His computer woke up, and he opened the program he’d written to follow the anomaly. An internal trail was either corrupted, or carrying a virus through the system. His discussion with Pepper the night before had given him some ideas, and he clicked through to the command lines, and began a new string.

  When he finished and ran the program again, he had to check and recheck the results. Harold considered what it would mean if his assumption was correct. Instead of being a team player, Harold was about to blow the lid off an internal problem that would make him either a hero or a heel, depending on whose heads would roll. He called legal and asked for an appointment. Almost lunch time; there was still no sign of Rhashan.

  ****

  By five o’clock, Harold was physically exhausted from hunching over his monitor. Still in some residual pain, he stretched and decided to call Rhashan at home. Someone new brought the mail around, and when Harold quizzed him, he had no idea why Rhashan wasn’t at work, guessing he was ill. Harold rolled his neck, which popped and loosened, and decided to call Rhashan at home. Maybe Leesa would have some answers about the crystal by now, and he could speak to Rhashan about possibilities for his future that didn’t involve the company. But he only got their voicemail.

  As he neared the edge of the park, his cell rang but he didn’t recognize the number. “This is Harold.”

  “You’ll never believe it!” It was Morrie, more animated than Harold had heard him before. “I found my cousin.”

  “That’s terrific news. How, when?”

  “
We would be very pleased if you could stop by and meet him,” Morrie urged. “I told him you were my best friend and had been helping me track him down. He is most anxious to meet you.”

  His time with Pepper was running out, and even though he wanted to go straight home and see her, Harold followed Morrie’s directions to a small bistro a couple of blocks from his apartment. Morrie was sitting toward the back with the man Harold assumed was the cousin, Joseph. Morrie popped up and pumped Harold’s hand when he approached. Joseph stood as well. Of normal height, he wore khaki shorts and webbed sandals. Harold never understood why men would wear sandals, except to the beach. He didn’t see much family resemblance, but having no cousins of his own, Harold wasn’t sure if that was even a thing.

  “I’m so very pleased to thank you for helping us find each other,” the man said rather woodenly. “I have been without family a long time.”

  A waiter set down a pot of hot water, cups, and an assortment of teas. “Would you prefer coffee?” He addressed Harold.

  “Tea’s fine, thanks.”

  The waiter fetched another cup, then left them.

  “Morrie tells me you’ve been hiking the trail and acting as a guide.” Harold chose a teabag. “Not sure how much help I was, but I’m glad you found each other.”

  “That is right.” Joseph spoke deliberately. “It takes me into the wilderness, which is what I crave.”

  Harold dunked the bag of mint chamomile. The water swirled from clear to tan to chestnut brown. Reminded him of Pepper’s skin.

  “Isn’t that right, Harold?” Morrie was speaking.

  “What’s that?”

  “You are in possession of a most unlikely Kaleidoscope. As I was telling Joseph, it is quite remarkable.”

  “Yes, it’s become quite special to me.” He didn’t mean to be rude, but he just wanted to finish making polite conversation. He came up with something to show interest in Morrie’s cousin so he could get going. “How many pairs of socks would you say you go through in one hike?”

  Joseph’s dark eyes narrowed at him over the teacup rim. “Sorry?”