by Ralph Rotten
“Yeah, I know, and I have an appointment with the FAA inspector tomorrow.” Raising an eyebrow, Jack let the irritation seep into his voice. It was difficult living with a computer. Alexis was no better.
“Mmmm.” Nodding, Jamie glanced around at the other devices that still awaited installation.
“Mmmm? What?” Jack was not fooled by his brother’s act. He could tell that there was something else.
“Well y’see…” Clearing his throat, the younger sibling seemed atypically unsure of how to proceed. “Alex is worried about workin’ with you on account of how you always talk smack to her an’ all. Y’know what I mean?”
Jack simply blinked his eyes twice as he looked up at his brother. It was not the first time they’d had this conversation, though usually it was with Professor James.
“She’s all worried that…” Jamie was cut off by his brother’s interruption.
“It’s not a she, it’s a computer, albeit a very smart computer, but still just a chunk of resistors and silicon wafers.” In a stern voice, the older sibling was in no mood for this argument.
Jamie seemed to pause for the briefest moment. From where he leaned up against the car, Jack could almost see him shifting gears in that beautiful mind of his. Gone was the stooping posture of Country Jimmy as Jamie stood ram-rod straight. With one eyebrow raised, he was clearly back to Professor James.
“She is a simulated neural net with as many synaptic endings as a real person. You hurt her feelings.” Finding his own courage, Jamie felt that he was standing on firm ground.
“Computer!” Jack retorted before standing up.
“Sentient being.” Jamie squinted at his older brother. “She scored better on the Turing test than you did, twice.”
“Turing was a robot.” Flashing his eyes as he turned away, Jack snatched up one of the little hobbyist jet engines from the nearby work bench. Moving to the trunk, he examined the mounting brackets that had already been installed.
“See what I have to work with.” Alexis’s voice chimed in. “I am willing to accept his shortcomings, yet he treats me like a piece of office furniture. It’s organic discrimination; he’s created a hostile workplace with his specist attitudes.”
“Specist?” Jack roared at that accusation. “That term would imply that you were also a species.”
“OMG, he is so insensitive.” Her voice taking on a new pitch, she seemed to almost recoil. “And I’m allegedly the one who is devoid of emotions. Are you sure you didn’t build him in a lab too?”
“I got work to do.” Dismissive, Jack tried to ignore them both.
“What I’m saying is that it is imperative that the two of you work together cooperatively in the very near future, and it needs to be…” Jamie searched for the right word.
“Harmonious.” Alexis finished his sentence for him.
“Why can’t you just have an inflatable woman like other brothers? Seriously, who builds the talking half of a woman first?” Giving a grimace, Jack hoped the barb would be enough to make the two of them go away.
“Insufferable!” Alexis’ voice seemed to choke at the end. It took a few moments before they could hear the faintest of sounds in the background.
“Is she crying?” Standing bolt upright, Jack was truly irritated now. “Seriously? I’m supposed to buy this little act of hers?”
Nonplussed, Jack thumbed towards the speakers where her delicate sobs emanated. It was at that instant that he saw Jamie make one of his classic pauses as he changed gears. Right away the savant’s posture changed noticeably. With fists balled, Jamie leaned into Jack’s personal space threateningly. Right away the older brother realized that he had triggered his least favorite of the avatars: Jimbo the Jersey truck driver.
Furrowing his eyebrows, Jamie looked angrily at his brother. “How many times do I gotta tell you’se to treat her like a lady? Eh?” Giving Jack a firm shove, the savant was clearly on edge. “I’ve kicked wholesale ass for a whole lot less’n you just said; you feelin’ me college boy?”
Stepping back, Jack reconsidered his next statement. There was a big difference between what he could say to Professor James and what he could say to Jersey Jimbo. The latter tended to get punchy.
“Jamie, she’s a computer!” Jack shot back. “I know because I built half of her.”
“Naw, she only started out as a computer. How many times I gotta tell you that a truly sentient AI needs to be grown like a child. You can’t just write a buncha code and call it alive. We’se all the result of years of living, years of experiences all combined to build the people we’se each are. Hell, you yourself started out as a non-sentient embryo. In fact, I read a scientific study the other day that said that you weren’t sentient until the age of two. Before that you’se was just an eating, pooping, crying machine. So if it took more’n two years fer yer own neural net to grow an’ develop into a sentient being, then why can’t you’se see that Alexis ain’t no different?”
Frustrated, Jack knew his brother’s persistence. While most people could be driven off with insults, Jamie rarely knew when to give up the fight. With Alexis sobbing in the back ground, it was a safe bet that the only way he would get any work done was to compromise.
“Okay, what exactly do you want from me?” Dropping the wrench into the trunk angrily, Jack looked up at the nearest camera.
Shrugging, Jamie seemed to find the answer absurdly simple.
“Just treat her like a lady. She’s as much a person as you or me; all she wants is to be given the same consideration as any organic being.”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I don’t treat humans particularly well either.” Jack continued to look into the camera. “Alright, if I agree to treat her nice will she promise to stop recording me all the time?”
“Alexis?” Acting as a broker between them, Jamie looked up to the same camera his brother stared into.
There was a moment of silence before she responded. “I promise that if he treats me like a lady then I will not attempt to blackmail him or otherwise embarrass him by revealing his private activities.”
With a smile, Jamie turned to his brother. “Well chump, what’s it gonna be? Plan A, or plan B” Holding up a fist, Jersey Jimbo let him know exactly what Plan B entailed.
“Well what?” Jack rebuffed the look. “Oh fine. I promise to stop threatening to urinate on her processor, and I will try to treat her as well as I treat the ladies down at DMV.”
“Plan B it is!” Grabbing his brother by the collar, Jersey Jimbo knew better than to let the last part slip past.
“Fine, I’ll treat her as well as a regular human.” Exasperated, Jack just wanted them to go away so he could finish the car.
“Superb.” Flashing one of his plastic smiles, Jamie switched back to Professor James in the blink of an eye. Satisfied with himself for negotiating the truce, the Professor looked between Jack and the camera before departing the room.
“I still don’t like you.” Jack whispered hoarsely.
“Oh look, it’s nine o’clock. Shouldn’t you be touching yourself inappropriately by now?” Her tone acrid, there was an audible click after she spoke, as if she had just dropped the microphone.
“I really gotta get my own place.” Shaking his head, Jack resumed work on the Mustang.
It had been a long day when the packages were delivered. Although the brothers had regular drop-offs by UPS, Fedex, and DHL, this one was special. Hermetically sealed inside of a box marked with Cyrillic writing, the contents had been carefully packed for shipment across multiple continents.
“Oh goody!” Jamie’s voice was almost a squeal. It was atypical to hear him this excited about anything. “Open mine…open mine!”
Jack could not help but smile as he watched his brother. It was his Jimmy Christmas avatar; reserved for times when the savant was truly giddy about something. His face aglow as he clapped his hands, it was as if Jack was talking to a small child. It was atypical to see his brother this way; Christmas
Jimmy was one of his rarest of personas.
Careful not to damage the contents, the older sibling used an X-acto knife to slice open the vacuum sealed bag before gently pulling out the helmet inside.
“Gimme gimme gimme!” Jamie’s enthusiasm was pretty far off the reservation as he held out anxious hands. Plucking the helmet from his brother’s grasp, he immediately had it on his head. Peering out through the Lexan visor, he gave a giggle before toggling the built in sunshade. “Hurry up with the rest!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Jack turned his attention away from his brother’s antics and began opening the next package. Gently removing the thick suit from the bag, he found his brother already tugging at the contents.
Knowing better than try to dampen his brother’s enthusiasm, Jack ripped the bag open the rest of the way, allowing Jamie to pull out the heavy space suit. Holding it aloft while still wearing the helmet, the savant’s face was in awe as he looked over the authentic cosmonaut’s extra-atmospheric suit. Designed to be worn only during launch operations, it was not intended as an external suit like those worn by Armstrong and Aldrin during their legendary moon walks. Nonetheless, the very idea of owning a space suit touched a special nerve with the brothers.
Still giggling inside his helmet, Jamie was already struggling to get into his suit. Although the multiple layers of enclosures in the back slowed him down some, it was only minutes before the savant had the suit on in a cockeyed manner. Clearly designed for someone taller than he, the outfit seemed to hang on him.
Pausing from his job of opening the packages, Jack took a minute to fasten the front of Jamie’s suit before helping him lock his helmet in place. Truly giddy, the younger brother actually stamped his feet in place as he gave a squeal of excitement. Pantomiming in slow motion, he pretended he was walking on the face of a distant world. Even with his face shield beginning to fog up, Jack could still see his eyes wide with wonder at the new toy.
Smiling, he could not remember the last time his brother had been this happy about anything. It would have been before their parents died. Mom had always been able to coax a smile out of Jamie. Sitting down on the edge of the remaining crate, Jack enjoyed the moment. Although he too wanted to try on his surplus space suit, he knew that the greater treasure was in watching his brother’s joy. It would be fleeting, no doubt.
Finally back to business, Jack began to unpack the remaining outfit, checking it carefully for any rips or tears in the fabric. Sold as an expensive novelty item, the exoatmospheric suits were not intended to be used in space again. Having been used more than a few times before being stored in a Russian warehouse, it was a safe bet that the space suits would have at least a few issues. At minimum, they would need to fabricate the airpacks used to supply oxygen and power to the suits. Noticing a scuff on the left arm, Jack eyed the blemish closely as he tried to determine if the spot would need to be patched. Although he would much rather have used American suits, they cost much more and were difficult to obtain. Not only that, but in an odd twist of reality, purchasing US suits would have put them on the government’s radar. With the Russian suits already being sold in high-end catalogs and EBay, no one would have thought twice about someone buying a pair of the things. But two American suits…that would have been atypical, that could have caught PREDATOR’s attention.
“Whooh!” Jamie finally slowed down, his eyes wide inside of his helmet. “These things are tiring.”
“You’re probably just running out of air.” Giving a grimace, Jack reached up and unlocked his faceplate.
“Oh, that’s much better.” Still grinning, Jamie took a breath of fresh air as he held the helmet gingerly in his hands. “This suit smells like feet.”
“Feet and farts. I’m not surprised.” Jack flashed a smile. “We’ll clean ‘em up. A little Fabreze will do wonders.”
“Sodium Bicarbonate would be the appropriate agent.” Returning to his usual Professor James avatar, Jamie was all business again.
“Sodium Bicarbonate?” Jack gave it a thought. “Baking soda?”
“Aye, Comrade.” That silly grin on his face once again, Jamie delivered a snappy salute. “Are you going to try on your suit?”
Trying to be the adult in this conversation, Jack gave a frown. “I dunno, I still have a lot of work on the man-packs…”
“Ooooh, you know you want to.” Showing a devilish grin Jamie prodded him with his free hand. Christmas Jimmy was impossible to contain.
Finally giving in, Jack let out his own broad smile. “Sure, what the hell.”
Laughing as he opened the second box, the eldest Sparks brother had trouble subduing his own excitement. Like the oversized child he was, Jack desperately wanted to play with his new toys.
“Men.” Alexis sniffed as she watched them dance about in their suits. “Nothing more than overgrown boys.”
Change of Plans
With four monitors flashing their content simultaneously, Jamie gave new meaning to multi-tasking as he worked on orbital calculations. With a small pair of speakers filling the room with the sweet sounds of John Coltrane’s jazz, the savant kept pace by tapping his foot to the asymmetrical sounds. Allowing his eyes to scan between the various drone feeds, Jamie intently studied the layout of the NSA’s data bunker. Built deep underground, the place was carefully concealed beneath a dilapidated warehouse. Although they had been successful at inserting the trio of drones into the secret facility, it had taken days to get the larger base station into the bunker. It had only been after Alexis had spotted a maintenance truck, complete with ladder rack, entering the sloping driveway that she finally saw her opportunity.
Once in, the oversized dragonfly had quickly relocated to the nearest light fixture where it could charge while still maintaining contact with the outside world. Being underground had made the event complicated. With the signal stunted by so much earth and concrete, they had to sneak in an extra relay unit. Smaller than the base station unit, it was still larger than the drones that crawled about the facility like roaches. Nonetheless, without it they would not have been able to get a reliable signal.
Flicking his eyes from screen to screen, Jamie had already determined a number of important components to the facility. He knew who the managers were, when each of the 3 daily shifts started, and where the server room was located. Additionally, he knew which of the employees was the least security conscious when they entered their user credentials. Already he had managed to capture passwords from multiple technicians.
But even more importantly he had been able to learn some truly frightening things about the breadth of the NSA’s operation. Not only did they spy on virtually everyone, capturing their phone calls, text messages, emails, and social media posts, but they even snooped on other agencies. In fact it seemed that a large portion of their database was collated from lesser organizations. The FBI, INS, and DOJ were but a few of the groups who were unwittingly being spied on. As if that were not enough, any surveillance data gathered by those agencies was also pirated and pooled into the larger Department of Homeland Security database. In essence, anything that any law enforcement agency knew, the NSA and DHS also knew. All indications were that this river of knowledge flowed only in one direction; the feds were not known to share.
Insidious in its breadth, PREDATOR had tendrils in every aspect of their daily lives. In addition to spying on their private lives, the silicon beast also tracked banking history, routine internet traffic, cloud storage services, and even shipping records from millions of companies. He had no doubt that their own equipment purchases were in there somewhere. Having seen more than a dozen Ebay records accessed, they likely even knew about the space suits the brothers had recently ordered. Even more amazing was that they were actively tracking more than two hundred million cell phones, as well as wireless traffic at millions of public hotspots worldwide. Every Starbucks on the planet was actively scanned to see which MAC addresses were connecting there. PREDATOR saw everything, and recorded it all. Nothing was eve
r thrown away, discarded, or deleted. There was no way to avoid being data-collected by the digital beast; at best the brothers hoped to conceal themselves in the clutter.
“Uh oh.” Sitting up abruptly, Jamie recognized the equipment in the technician’s hands right away. With a loop of metal protruding from the hand-held unit the technician seemed to be scanning every surface in an organized pattern as he worked his way down the hallway. Although the twins had expected this to eventually happen, it had been assumed that they would have weeks to survey the operation before the next bug sweep.
Alexis saw the sweeper as soon as Jamie did. Immediately the drone scuttled backwards, trying to conceal itself under the fluorescent light where it had been perched. Hoping to shut down the transmitter as soon as it was out of sight, they never had a chance as an unseen hand reached up and plucked the device from its perch.
“What do we have here?” A woman’s face peered down at the fake cockroach as she examined it carefully.
Immediately joined by a second technician, the two scrutinized the device before dropping it into a metal container. As soon as they closed the lid, all signal was lost.
“We have been compromised.” Alexis spoke with a tinge of alarm to her voice.
“Jackie built the drones with Cyrillic markings so they will likely assume the devices are Russian. Alternately, they may consider the markings a false flag and come to the conclusion that it was planted by the Chinese because of the particular lithium-polymer battery I used.” Nodding sternly, Professor James reasoned that it was only a matter of time before the other drones would be found. As he could see on the remaining monitors, the facility was already shutting down all operations. Work would be halted until a complete sweep of the complex was conducted. The discovery of a foreign eavesdropping device would trigger a reaction throughout the entire NSA as well as DHS. They would begin checking all of their facilities, every employee would be forced to change their passwords, and every frame of surveillance footage would be examined. While this complicated things somewhat for the brothers, it would actually help Alexis to pinpoint the other data archives around the country. Already the AI was monitoring the alarms being spread outward from the hidden bunker.