The Jennifer Project

by Larry Enright

  “Ouch,” Deever said. “That’s not going to look good on your yearly performance review, Kevin.”

  Kent struggled against the Jennifer-2. “What’s happening?” he said.

  “I wrote a little program to show the man behind the curtain what a dude with a Two can do when he’s under the corporate thumb.” Deever turned to the security camera. “Keep watching. In three, two, one . . .”

  Kent emitted a guttural noise like a primal roar. It was quite amusing. He lifted Jones up by the feet and shook him while the contents of his pockets fell out onto the floor.

  “That’s what the two of you have been doing to the man,” Deever said. “Whatever happened to honor among thieves?”

  “Let me go,” Jones demanded.

  “And . . .” Deever said, “Now,” as Kent dropped him. “Timing is everything, dude.”

  “You’ll pay for this,” said Jones, getting up, but when he came at Deever, Kent restrained him.

  “Get your hands off me!” Jones shouted.

  “I can’t,” said Kent.

  Deever laughed. “They promised you a full directorship when the Protectorbot Project was successfully completed, didn’t they? I’ve got news for you, jerkweed. You two will never see the light of day again when they confirm those accounting discrepancies.”

  “They’ll never prove anything,” Jones said.

  “I hate to break it to you, but facts are facts, man, and once they sort through them, you’re done. Don’t you care that your company is throwing good money after bad? Or is that bad money after bad? Whatever. You know what I mean.”

  “You fool. I don’t care if they waste another trillion dollars. That directorship is mine. I earned it.”

  “I think the term is ‘stole,’ dude.”

  “You’ll pay for this.”

  “Whoa, Threat Police,” said Deever. “Careful what you say. Boss man is watching.”

  “I turned the cameras off,” Jones replied. “Do you think I’m a total idiot?”

  “Pretty much, actually. You see, I turned the one that connects us to the space station on again.” Deever waved to the camera. “Hi. It’s me again. In case you’re still wondering what just happened, the quick program I wrote gives me control over the person wearing the Two. It was basically hard-coded, nothing majorly fancy. I didn’t have time for that, but you get the general idea. Hey, watch this. On your knees, Kevin,” he said.

  Kent knelt down, dragging Jones with him.

  “Are you a religious man, dude?” Deever asked. “I’m just asking, because maybe you should consider praying right about now. Remember Ronald? I heard he died. You killed him, and you and Jonesy don’t give a crap. That’s the kind of thing God seriously frowns on, man. I’ll bet your boss isn’t too happy about it, either. It’s going to cost the company beaucoup de buckage to replace him. And what you two slime-balls did to Jen? Majorly not nice.”

  Deever pointed to a wall monitor that began displaying a sequence of drawings representing an advanced version of the Jennifer-2, and continued speaking to the camera, “Check it out,” he said. “You’ve already seen what the Two can do in combat. That’s awesome enough to be sure, but this next version will be way beyond awesome, a thing of beauty, a classic, the status symbol everyone on the planet with money is going to want. It will track health issues, keep time, handle calls, do your social media, run your house, your car, buy and sell stocks, book your vacations at the best prices. Hell, it will even find your soul mate for you. You already own the biggest hardware and software companies in the world, man. Don’t license it out. That’s stupid. Keep it for yourself. Get your minions to produce and market it for you: a high-end designer version, a sports version, a lady’s version, a kid’s version. You can even make one for the family pet, if you’re into that.”

  Deever went on, “We beef up the control program, make it so you can suggest things to anyone who’s got a Two without their knowing it—what to buy, what to wear, what to do. They won’t even realize it, and you’ll have complete control over everyone who’s anyone. Need some new product on everyone’s shelf? Let the masses know they can’t live without it, and bam, you got it. Need a bill passed? Send word to the legislators wearing a Two that it sounds like a good idea. Done deal. Need a contract approved? Make your Two boys in procurement think it’s a weapon they can’t live without. Sign on the dotted line. The control program I’ll design for you will do it all, and you can run the whole shebang from the space station. I can do this for you, and I will. Only one thing I need and that’s Jen. I need her, and I need her mind clear. No more bullshit mind-control drugs. Oh, and plenty of wings and beer and weekends at the beach, so I guess that’s three things. Questions?”

  “Just one,” came a voice from a speaker somewhere. I traced it back to the space station. It was our previously unknown observer, the thirty-first board member whose initials were KJ. The voiceprint was an 82.678 percent match for the last known recording of a man named Kerlin James, a reclusive entrepreneur who had disappeared many years earlier to avoid criminal prosecution on charges ranging from tax evasion to securities fraud to murder. Coincident with his disappearance was the incorporation of Pan-Robotics, at the time a small privately held high-tech research company specializing in artificial limbs and replacement organs. Over the years, they had branched out into other areas, growing by acquisition, eventually becoming dominant in the field of arms sales. The government’s criminal database still contained active warrants for Mr. James’s arrest, but none could have been served even if they had known where he was, because no government on Earth has jurisdiction over outer space. The elusive Mr. James had constructed the perfect hideout.

  “Why are you doing this, and why should I trust you?” James said.

  “That’s actually two questions, man,” said Deever. “You know like a compound statement thing? But I’m happy to do a twofer for you. Why am I doing this? Two reasons. First, Jen—I want her back and in one piece. She and I are kind of a thing, you know? Second, as you might have noticed, the world is seriously messed up. It’s totally out of control. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming the greedy heartless bastards like you for it. You’re just taking advantage of a bad situation. And as strange as it sounds, I think you’re our only hope of keeping the powers that be from pressing their big red game-over buttons. You’re the only one who can restore order and control to this screwed up planet, Mr. James, and that’s just what the Jennifer Project is going to give you: control over everything and everyone. Wild, huh? As to why you should trust me? I’m not asking you to. Just the opposite—have your best guys check and recheck everything I do to make sure I’m not messing with you. I’ve got nothing to hide. I just want Jen back, and I want to help.”

  Armed guards entered the lab and took Jones and Kent away.

  “Congratulations, Dr. MacClendon,” said James. “The Jennifer Project is yours. Dr. Crane will be on the next Elevator back to the Tower.”

  Chapter 16

  By the time Dr. Crane returned from the space station, the impact of the drug Mr. Jones had used to control her had abated, but its lingering effects on her higher level mental functioning were obvious. She was admitted to City Center Hospital for testing. As you may recall, one of Deever’s demands in accepting the Jennifer Project was weekends at the beach. They went there after Dr. Crane’s test results came back.

  “OK,” she said. “I’ve had three drinks. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Are you sure you want me to tell you now?” said Deever. “Maybe this isn’t such a good time.”

  “Deever, I know something is really wrong. I get confused. Things I should be able to remember, I can’t. They’re still there. I mean, I can recall them when you jog my memory, but there’s a disconnect somewhere. I have to know, even if it’s bad news.”

  Deever looked over at the two men in jogging suits pretending to watch the sunrise. One touched his earpiece and nodded as he glanced over at them. I trace
d the signal to a communications satellite and back to Kerlin James.

  “It’s a bummer, Jen,” Deever said, “a major bummer.”

  “Could you be a little more specific?”

  He touched her hand. I sensed the shudder that passed through her body. “They say it’s a terminal bummer,” he said. “Whatever that jerkweed Jones was giving you triggered a reaction in your brain, like a defense mechanism, I guess. Your body was trying to stop what they were doing to you by producing these excess proteins to block the nerve cells from communicating with one another. It should have shut off when they stopped giving you the drug, but it didn’t. It’s like a spigot that’s stuck open. It’s killing you.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, big time.”

  “What can they do?” she asked.

  “They don’t know.”

  “What do you mean they don’t know?”

  “There’s no cure.”

  “How long do I have?”

  “They don’t know that, either. They talked about trying some experimental drug to slow it down, but it’s not exactly approved or safe, apparently. There’s some weird country I never heard of that you’d have to go to before they could even try it.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  “Yeah, it seemed like a majorly bad idea.”

  “So where does that leave me?”

  “They said it might slow down or even stop on its own. There’s just no way of telling.”

  “But if it doesn’t . . .?”

  Deever looked away.

  “Deever, tell me.”

  “They give you a year or so before you won’t remember me anymore, a little longer before your brain forgets the other stuff. Eventually everything will just shut down and it’s game over, man.”

  Dr. Crane began to cry.

  “Jen, this could be totally bogus for all we know.”

  “It’s not.”

  “I’ll have them run the test again. This time, I’ll make them let me watch.”

  “No, Deever. They’re right. I know it.”

  “This is such a pile of crap,” he said, wiping his eyes. “I’m not going to lose you, Jen, not like this. We’ll figure it out, OK?”

  “Figure what out, Deever? We’re not doctors.”

  “But we’re scientists. We solve problems. It’s what we do. Now that I know what it is, I just need to come up with a way to fix it. I can fix this, Jen. I know I can. I just need a little time. OK?”

  She squeezed his hand. “OK.”

  Deever needed time, but that was something he seemed to have little of after that. Within the month, the Jennifer-2 had successfully passed the initial testing phases, surprising the Pan-Robotics board of directors, Kerlin James, and the scientists assisting Deever. They had never come in contact with anyone nearly as efficient, capable, or creative as Deever MacClendon. Within the close-knit Pan-Robotics scientific community he became what you humans call a rock star. He worked twenty-two hours a day. Everywhere he went, he solved problems and offered advice on improving communications, operational procedures, and security, things that had nothing to do with his project. Other scientists followed him around constantly, taking notes, writing down his every word as if it were gospel. Some of the interns even took to referring to him as God because he seemed to be all knowing. Deever was not, but he did help them transform the Pan-Robotics Tower into an efficient, well-oiled machine.

  Several live trials were subsequently conducted using prototypes run by Deever’s control program and overseen by the Pan-Robotics engineers. Over Deever’s objections, they chose to test the unit’s combat capabilities. This essentially involved kidnapping ten random adults of various ages and both sexes, equipping them with Jennifer-2s and gear, and sending them on covert missions. One was to rescue three hostages held by terrorists on another continent. Another was to assassinate a third-world leader who had been reluctant to participate in a Pan-Robotics weapons purchase program. Deever had objected strenuously to this mission and to a third, which was a night assault of an enemy position held by fifty soldiers. He did not like killing under any circumstances. He was overruled. In each case, the Jennifer-2s operated perfectly with no direction other than the control program. The missions were successful, there were no casualties among the ten “volunteers,” and the control program erased all memory of the operations from the subjects’ minds before they were returned safely to their homes. It was simple point and click, rinse and repeat, as Deever put it.

  After the successful combat trials, the board decided that Pan-Robotics would proceed with the Jennifer Project but on a different path. They abandoned entirely the idea of licensing its military applications to their customer base. The trials had demonstrated the danger of putting the technology in the hands of those outside their sphere of influence, but more importantly it had shown that there were far greater profits to be had by keeping the technology’s true purpose secret and pursuing instead the lucrative path that Deever had suggested of selling Jennifers to the ten billion unwitting customers in the world, a world Pan-Robotics could then manipulate at will.

  They retooled one of their factories to begin the mass production of Undutresium. They set up another to begin manufacturing the necessary Quintanium processors and circuitry, several more to produce the gold and housings, and one to assemble them. Once the first units came off the assembly line, everyone involved in the manufacturing process from top management down to common laborer was issued a Jennifer-2, and their memories selectively altered to mask the true purpose of their endeavors.

  The next to be so equipped were Pan-Robotics’ security forces and staff, then the marketing and advertising departments of their subsidiaries. Unaware of the Jennifer-2’s true purpose, they designed and initiated a campaign to sell the idea to the general public. It was to be marketed on several levels with associated cost structures and materials: as an expensive high-end must-have status symbol for the rich and powerful, as a less expensive practical life-arranging tool for the middle and lower classes, and as a cheap cool way for the younger set to do everything. As spokespeople, they enlisted famous actors and actresses, sports heroes, children, teens, and stars from the music industry. These celebrities unequivocally attested to the fact that their personal Jennifer-2s could do anything from booking their next dinner flight to Europe, to regulating their workout program and keeping their daily schedule, to teaching their children to read or keeping them amused while they enjoyed their newfound freedom. Ads were strategically placed in every important media source and outlet on the planet, and the buzz, as they called it, began to sound in the ear of humanity.

  The Jennifer control program was transferred to the computers on the company’s space station. Supercomputers, the humans called them, though I saw very little super about them. In a magnanimous gesture that once again surprised the board of directors, Deever submitted specifications for rebuilding the space station’s systems with a new kind of Quintanium nanoprocessor derived from the Jennifer technology. It was far more powerful, consumed less energy, and operated more efficiently. Once the Pan-Robotics engineers vetted the design, they began installation.

  During this time, Deever continued to search for a cure for Dr. Crane’s failing mental faculties. He approached Kerlin James one day with his idea.

  “Yes, Doctor?” James said when he came on the videoconference line.

  “I want your OK on some new research,” said Deever. “Mucho buckage is involved.”

  “Does this have anything to do with Dr. Crane and her current difficulties?”

  “Definite-a-mundo, sir.”

  “According to the figures I am looking at right now, Dr. MacClendon, you are already expending an inordinate amount of resources and time on her health issues.”

  “Do you remember my conditions, man? Numero uno was Jen.”

  “You also demanded wings and beer. What is your point? She’s dying. You can’t stop that. I, of all people, should be most painfully
aware of that fact of life.”

  “What if I could?”

  “How? I’ve examined your test results, and I only see failure upon failure.”

  “That’s because I’ve been going at it all wrong.”

  “Explain.”

  Deever switched on a monitor with schematics for a modified Biocard. “The problem is that the brain won’t stop producing extracellular deposits of amyloid beta protein. They build up in the gray matter and are blocking signal transmissions between the brain’s nerve cells.”

  “I understand the disease, Doctor. I also understand there is no cure.”

  “Chill, man. I’m getting to that. I’ve been working on some enhancements that can fix Jen, but I need to insert this new Jen-Tech into a modified Biocard and swap out her implant.”

  “You can’t regenerate dead brain tissue.”

  “Actually, dude, I think I can, but step one is to stop her brain from making more of the nasty stuff that’s killing her. Step two is to replace her lost brain functions with a Jennifer AI. This little baby will do both those things.”

  “And that will be its sole purpose? From a company standpoint, that hardly seems profitable.”

  “You’re missing the bigger picture here, Fearless Leader. This new Jennifer Biocard will buy me time to work on step three. That will be a thing of beauty. It will be able to fix things we never thought could be fixed. You know, the ones we chalk up to old age? It will restart growth of cells in places where Jen’s body has given up. It will keep her young for a long time, man, and I’m talking beaucoup de years: six hundred, to be exact. She’ll be a regular Ponce de Leon, and guess who will own the Fountain of Youth? You. How’s that grab you?”

  “What are the control program capabilities? Are they similar to our current wrist-mounted unit?”

  “Aw, come on, man. This isn’t about controlling people. It’s about saving a life.”

  “Answer the question, Doctor.”