Another officer glances my way at my name. Maybe she’s the one who’s going to arrest me. She takes a step closer. “Pen Davis?” she confirms.
I nod.
“So you’re the daughter?”
“I’m—” I cut myself off because now I’m thoroughly confused. The daughter? The only reason they’d frame it like that is if they were less interested in me and here for my—wait. “What happened? Where’s my dad?”
Every new jail must share the same blueprint, because I recognize the room I’m standing in as I wait for my dad. Keir stood in a room just like this one. Then James. Now it’s my turn.
The door opens and my dad enters a small closet-sized room just big enough to stand in and lets the door close behind him. There’s a floor-to-ceiling glass wall between us. It feels intensely familiar, except the last two times I was in a room like this, I was on the other side of the glass. Man, this is some weird reverse déjà vu.
I step forward but he rushes to the glass. He leans his forehead against it and closes his eyes. “Pen,” he whispers, his eyes still closed. “I’m so glad you’re ok.”
“I’m fine, Dad,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not the one in jail.”
He nods, and I get the strong impression that he doesn’t care where he is. I’m the one he was worried about. I’ve never seen this kind of reaction from my father and it’s deeply weird to see him acting like this. Like…like a father who loves his daughter.
“What the hell happened?” I ask.
“None of that,” he says automatically. “It’s low class.”
Growing up, my dad drilled into me not to curse. It was a big thing for him. Not for religious reasons or anything, but because it doesn’t show well to the rich, I guess (though based on MIT and Silicon Valley, rich people know how to swear better than anyone). But the aversion to swearing is still baked into me.
“Give me a break, Dad,” I say, and I can already feel myself chafing at him. He’s still my dad and knows how to push my buttons, even through a wall of glass.
He sighs. “There’s…there’s a lot you need to know. Some of it is…embarrassing. I haven’t always been the person I’ve wanted to be.”
I want to take pity on him but I don’t know what I can say. “Same. I guess.”
“I’ve made a lot of decisions I’m not proud of. And they’ve landed me here.”
“Like what?” I ask. He’s silent. “Dad. If you take any longer, we’re going to run out of time.”
“I…for years… I’m just going to say it, ok? I’ve been skimming a little money off the top from work. A little here, a little there. Not ever very much in any given transaction, never enough to get caught. When you’re in accounting it makes it a little easier to find the holes in the system. That’s why I got hired in the first place—because I was good at finding loopholes in the tax code to save the company money. But I got really good at spotting loopholes in the company’s systems too. And I took advantage of them.”
“You’ve been embezzling?”
“Here and there,” he says lamely.
I don’t have a good reply to that. I bite off an angry response. “But why, Dad?”
He shrugs. “You think MIT was cheap? Even if it was just the year, it was brutal to find the money for that without that little…extra on top. Your summer camps, your—”
“So this is my fault?”
“No,” he says, and sort of groans. “Not just you… You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Stuff for me too. Plenty for me. Nice clothes…the cars…vacations…” He rolls his forehead against the glass.
“What about the miracle of compound interest? What about letting your money work for you? What about everything you’ve always told me to do?”
“It all works. And I did it for a while, when you were really young. I saved a thousand and then more and then more. And you know how much interest I made on the ten grand? Like barely a thousand over all that time. So I just started thinking, what if…what if I could build up something real? A nest egg?”
“So you decided to steal it,” I say. I, more than anyone else, know how this line of thinking will go.
He nods, his eyes closed. “And it was fun,” he whispers. “I liked the thrill of it.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I ask.
He snorts. “Yeah, right. You’d have used it against me.” (That’s probably accurate.) “Not just that, though. I didn’t want you to think less of me either,” he says more quietly.
“That’s better than feeling like you were always looking down your nose at me for buying some little toy or dress I wanted,” I shoot back.
“I just thought…that you would be stronger—better at it than I was. I’m sorry, Pen,” he whispers.
I’m shocked to see that he’s crying. I lean my forehead against the glass, trying to stop from crying too. I take a few deep breaths, thinking about all the things that had to happen to land both of us here. I’m on the verge of tears.
“Why now?” I finally ask.
“What do you mean?” he asks. He wipes his face on his sleeve and steps away from the glass. I look at my feet so he can clean himself up without me staring.
“You know I was in jail, right? In California?”
He barely nods. But he knows.
“And for attempted burglary?”
He nods again.
“That’s my point. We both go to jail at the same time? I mean, I was caught in the act, but you’ve been doing this for years it sounds like. Don’t you think it’s strange that they caught you now?”
“That part’s even harder to tell you about.”
“Harder than admitting you’ve been embezzling for years?” I exclaim. I’m practically laughing as I say it but he just nods. “What then?” I ask.
“I got a phone call,” he starts. “From someone named Gene.”
I’m glad I still have a hand on the glass because I can feel my left knee joint falter.
My dad doesn’t notice. “Gene said that he knew everything wrong that I’d ever done in my life. And he was so specific. Years of individual transactions, itemized and detailed with dates, amounts…the IP address of the computer I made the transaction from. It was staggering. It was like he’d been looking over my shoulder every time I’d slipped something for myself. I didn’t know there were any records of what I’d taken. But Gene found them.”
“Did he threaten you with it? Turn this over or else…or else something?” I’m not sure what that “something” could possibly be.
“Yes. He wanted something from me. And in exchange he would keep quiet about my embezzling. I told him how to get…what he wanted, but it didn’t matter. He double-crossed me and sent the information to Mr. Walker anyway. I was arrested within hours.”
My eyes are shut tightly and I’m pinching the bridge of my nose by the time he says this. “So Gene double-crossed you,” I say. “But what did he get in exchange?” Dad’s face blanches. “What have you gotten yourself into, Dad?” I push.
“The same thing you have, Pen.”
We stare at each other. His face is getting paler and mine is getting redder. Now he can’t meet my eye.
“What did Gene want from you, Dad?” I insist.
“I did it to protect you,” he pleads.
“Dad!” I shout.
“He wanted me to give him the Analytical Engine,” he says with a sob. “I stole it.”
Eighteen
I scream so loud it hurts my voice. My dad backs up against the door at the back of his little room. I slam a fist against the glass barrier between us. I want to hurl insults at him, but my brain can’t make any words to shout at him.
I slump against the glass and try to catch my breath. What am I supposed to do with that? My dad, the boring accountant with nerdy glasses, is both an embezzler and a thief? And saying he did it to protect me? I can’t even.
As my heart rate slows and I have the ability to make words again, I want t
o ask a million question. But where to start? “How did you know, Dad? How on Earth did you know I was trying to steal that?”
He purses his lips and then exhales. “Your cell phone,” he finally says. “I’ve been paying your bill. And since you were a kid—a minor, I mean—when I set it up, I still have certain… uh…administrative privileges on your phone.” He flinches under my gaze. “It’s called parent mode.”
“You’ve been spying on your own daughter, you mean. For how long?”
“Not before. Never before! But after you stormed out. I just…needed to see that you were ok.”
I think about the texts when I was in the casino. The texts when I was in Keir’s bedroom. I wonder what that looked like on a map. He must have been following right along—seeing where I was, maybe reading my search history, listening to my calls even? I think about the limited privacy Keir had from his mother. All she had to do was give her password and Gene had to tell her everything. Is this what it means to be a parent now? Absolute snooping?
I bite my lip to stop myself from screaming at him. I want to storm out but I have too many other questions. “And you got it? That was actually you who stole it from the tunnel?”
He nods.
“How?” I ask. “How did you figure it out?”
“I ran it though the AI at the library. That was the solution it spit out.”
“Where did you get the freaky spider drones?”
“I rented them,” he says simply. “They’re excavator drones. They dig out tunnels and—”
“And where is the Analytical Engine now?” I ask, rushing over his answer.
He stops and he withers again. “I told you. I turned it over to Gene. It’s gone.”
I stare at him for a few seconds and I turn to go. But something stops me. “I don’t understand why you took it, Dad.”
“To protect you—”
“I don’t believe you. If you were trying to protect me, you wouldn’t have left me holding the bag while you ran off with the Analytical Engine. Try again.”
“That’s not what I wanted, Pen. I just…I didn’t think you were going to steal it so quickly! When I realized what you were up to, I tried to act fast. I thought I could get it ahead of you. And if I did, then you wouldn’t have gone after it yourself.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe that’s true. But it’s not a good enough reason. You could have called me and told me you knew everything. That might have been enough to stop me. So why steal it?”
“For…for…” He sinks his head. Defeated. “For the same reason you did,” he whispers. “I needed the money.”
“But you didn’t need it!” I shout. “You have a house, you have whatever you embezzled! Why did you need to take what I had too?”
“I spent it, Pen. Once I take it, I tell myself I’m not going to, but there’s always something I need and then it’s just…gone. And there have been some new security measures at work that have made it harder, so I’m getting less, and the bills are stacking up and the credit cards are maxed.” He pauses to wipe his nose and face on his shoulder. “I thought this was going to get me ahead—more ahead than I’d ever been. You know, with compound interest…” he says, trailing off.
There’s a space of time—I don’t even know how long it is—where I just watch him weep. And I’m nearly weeping, too, though I’m trying not to show it. “That was my last chance, Dad,” I whisper. “My one shot to escape what’s coming. You cost me everything.” And I walk out, trying to steel my heart against the way he’s crying out my name.
I get back to my dad’s house and all but one of the police cars are gone. Lara-B and James are gone, too, and I don’t have any way to reach them. I go to duck under the police tape that rings the yard when an officer calls out the window of the remaining police car.
“You’re the daughter, right?” he asks.
I stop and look at him but don’t say anything. I really don’t want to be “the daughter” right now.
“You’re going to need to stay somewhere else for the night,” he says. “Crime scene.”
I want to take out all my anger on him but I keep it in check as best I can. “I don’t have anywhere to go,” I say.
“We’re still collecting evidence. Can’t have anyone inside until we’re done.”
“I’m not going to touch anything. Truly. I just need to lie down.”
He shrugs. “Not my problem. Unless you go inside.”
“Come on,” I say. “It’s not like someone was murdered in there.”
“Look, if you want a place to stay, by all means, open the front door. I’ll haul you downtown and you can sleep in jail for the night.”
I glare at him. “Isn’t there a machine that’s automated your job yet?”
He looks like he’s deciding between excessive use of force and pretending I’m not worth the trouble. He rolls up his window and waits for me to decide what to do.
I look across the police tape longingly. For years I wanted to leave this place and then when it’s the only thing I have left, I’m barred from it.
It’s true what they say—you can’t go home again.
Before I can stand around any longer, I heard the distinctive whirring of Lara-B’s engine. She creeps down the middle of the narrow residential street, carefully avoiding the parked cars on either side.
She pauses in front of me and the door opens. I shoot a final glare at the officer and then climb in.
I’m expecting to find James waiting in the cab. I even glance behind the seat, but obviously he’s not there either. He’s left me. That’s all I can figure. The cops spooked him. Or he got tired of it. Or… There’s no sense guessing. Lara-B can tell me.
“Where did James go?” I ask (croak, really).
“She wouldn’t let him come with me,” Lara-B answers.
After everything in the jail cell with my dad, I wouldn’t think it’s possible to feel any worse. But somehow I do.
“She?” I ask. But I know. Of course I know.
It may be the nicest hotel in Hartford, Connecticut, but I can tell it’s still not up to Ainsley Irons’s standards. The suite is massive, and she’s waiting for me in a wingback chair by a river stone fireplace.
James is in the other chair.
He looks deeply uncomfortable. He’s hunched forward, elbows on his knees. Ainsley has a posture and demeanor that makes her look like she owns the place.
I look back and forth between the two of them, waiting for someone to start. James still won’t look up, so I hold Ainsley’s gaze, not letting myself flinch away. Again, it’s like she’s memorizing my features.
She gives up her inspection and looks out the window.
“I didn’t recognize you,” Ainsley says, almost more to the air than to me. “When I first met you in my kitchen, I mean. I had to go back and review video files from the office. Then I remembered. You threw that tantrum with the other interns.”
“It wasn’t a tantrum,” I interrupt. It’s instinctive.
She tosses her head to the side as if knocking down my objection. She continues, “Watching the tape now…you told me you found a security bug. In the administrative permissions code. Is that the bug you exploited with Gene?”
I nod.
She shakes her head. “Even knowing it’s true…it’s so hard to imagine that you—you, this lowly intern—are the one who stole my most prized possession from me.”
“Well, I didn’t,” I say. “In case you hadn’t noticed I went to jail because I failed to steal from you.”
Her plastic face breaks character and she looks honestly surprised. “I’m not talking about the Analytical Engine,” she says after a moment. “I’m talking about Gene. I don’t understand how an intern could figure out how to steal the most advanced artificial intelligence on the planet from me.”
Now it’s my turn to be surprised. She’s not here trying to get the Analytical Engine back? We’re talking about Gene? Although it’s funny how she’s saying t
he same thing I’d been thinking in jail just a couple days ago—that Gene is way more valuable than an old computer. I choose not to say anything.
“Where is the bug?” she asks, leaning forward, and then just as quickly she leans back. “Ah, never mind. Knowing it can be done is enough to find the answer. We’ll review the code and send a software patch to all generations of T-Six machines.”
“If you don’t want to know how I did it, then why are you here?” I ask.
“To ask for your help.”
The only word I can think of for my reaction is guffaw. I guffaw, unable to help it, but Ainsley remains unfazed.
“I want Gene back,” she says.
And now it’s a snort. My nonverbal communication skills are really solid right now.
“Why do you think I made sure you got out of jail so quickly?” Ainsley continues.
And now I’m dumbstruck because I realize that she’s deadly serious. This woman who laid me off because I was irrelevant, who caught me stealing her most prized possession, is now asking for me to work for her?
“No,” I tell her. “A hundred percent no.”
“You’re not even going to hear me out?”
“I don’t need to. Because it’s crazy. You can’t get Gene back unless Keir is willing.”
She shakes her head. “Unfortunately, I know my son well enough to know that he absolutely won’t give Gene back to me. He’s tasting the world without his mother, and Gene’s the reason for it. He’ll never give him up willingly. You’ll have to take Gene from him without his permission. The same way you took him from me.”
I shake my head forcefully. “It’s impossible.”
“I would have said that before, but look at what you did. You’ve already shown me what you can do,” Ainsley says. “Do it again. But this time, you’ll be working for me.”
“You really want to work with me?” I ask. “You’re not angry about what happened in the tunnel?”
“I’m livid,” she says, sitting forward. And she’s definitely not lying. I instinctively step back. “Of course I’m angry! But I’m angry at a lot of people who work with me. It’s why I like working with machines better.” She straightens her hair and leans back. “Dealing with annoying people is just…the cost of doing business. For now.”
Semi-Human Page 17