by Blou Bryant
Wyatt felt dirty, looking at the woman’s personal information, even if she’d permitted it to be gathered. Loyalty programs were one thing, someone knowing everything you’d bought, and even how you’d used it, that was something different. Still, he needed it. “So, what about the guys we’re trying to track?”
“All three were wiped by the same spider that’s watching over them. Their stuff goes in, the same as everyone else, but it’s wiped soon after being loaded.”
“Can you track them?”
“Sure, there’s backups for everything and backdoors, everything is sitting on some server somewhere, that’s how I found you two.”
Wyatt raised an eyebrow.
“Watch.” He typed on the keyboard and images came up of the three men they’d seen earlier.
“Why type? Don’t you have voice recognition?”
“Are you kidding? All voice recognition goes through central servers; it’s not done locally. I can’t have my voice stored. It’s the same with video control, I’ve disabled both on this TV,” Seymour said and pointed at the screen. Wyatt looked closer and saw that the small camera port on top had been broken.
“Wait,” he said. “You broke your TV?”
“It’s not mine, it’s Rebecca’s. There’s no way I’d do this from my house, I don’t have any interest in being tracked by the people after you. I’d end up dead, or worse… poor and on the run. No offense.”
“You broke in?” said Hannah.
“And so did you,” replied Seymour. “Enough chatter, we don’t have much time before they’re on us – perhaps an hour. Let’s look up these guys.” His fingers flew over the keyboard and three faces appeared on the screen. Unlike before, there was no scrolling text under them, no name highlighted. The screen split and a text window appeared. He typed out a long string of gibberish.
“If they’re not in the system, how will you find them?”
Still typing, Seymour said, “Information doesn’t disappear from the net. It’s the links between data bits that the spider removes.”
Wyatt nodded as if that was clear and Hannah gave him a withering look. “Really, you understood that?”
Called on it, he had to admit, “Not in the slightest.”
Seymour kept typing. The left side of the screen filled with pictures, each with one of the three men in it. “From this data, we should get their names. From their names, we can get everything else.”
Wyatt watched as images scrolled by, almost too quick to see. High school grad pictures, hockey tournaments, and videos were interspersed with many, many party pictures. “These guys aren’t poor, that’s clear,” he said.
“Spoiled brats, it looks like,” said Hannah.
“Your old crowd. Recognize anyone?” he said with more snark than intended. She stuck out her tongue, and Wyatt grinned back.
He got up, walked to the wall and stared closely at the images as they flew by. Downtown Detroit, he recognized that. Another picture of spring break in Florida of one of the men, sitting on an expensive sports car, surrounded by half naked women. Frosh week at Michigan was followed by box seats at a Red Wings playoff game. Another showed all three, lined up at some ceremony, then the three in a classroom.
Wyatt kept watching as image after image scrolled by. While his ADHD mind captured, catalogued and organized the pictures, he flashed back to his mother’s online collection of family pictures, thousands and thousands that were rarely or even never seen.
They kept scrolling, his mind boggled at the amount of information available. Pictures of the men at restaurants—good ones—with their families, rich families, clearly, at parties, outside of mansions, going to seminars, at libraries, at charity events. More and more flew by.
Seymour took down the scrolling wall of text and typed a string of code. Wyatt turned back to the couch. He’d organized the data and knew more about these men than he could have found out in a month of tailing them. “What does the computer say?” he asked.
“Well, let’s link images and see what we get,” said Seymour, typing as he spoke. A string of text appeared under each person and then vanished. “What the hell?”
The screen flashed, and his text disappeared. Seymour kept typing, opening a box, putting in a line, only to have one after another deleted. “This isn’t possible. Nobody can code this fast. Not even me.” He pulled himself off the couch, his face downcast and frightened. “We’re going to need to leave. Now. Unplug the TV.”
Wyatt stood but before he was two feet out of his seat, the screen went blank. An image—a face—appeared, one Wyatt recognized all too well.
“Wy-Wy. What a surprise,” said Jessica.
Chapter 15
It was the first time he’d seen her since leaving her for dead on the military base. She looked the same as she had before her body was drained by the machine. Her hair was black again, as shiny as silk, her skin taut and unblemished. The image was of her only, a face on a black background. She stared straight out as if at him directly.
“I thought you turned off the camera?” he asked Seymour and ignored her.
Jessica blinked twice. “Seymour Blart. What are you doing helping these two?”
“Not just turned it off, I broke it,” Seymour replied to Wyatt. He frantically scanned the room. With a speed belied by his small plump frame, he jumped up off the couch and pulled a doll off the shelf. With one quick motion, he pulled the head off. “It’s a nanny cam.”
“As smart as ever, Hannah,” said Jessica. “Seymour, these are mine, I’ve claimed them, it’s in your interest to leave them to me.”
The short man dropped the doll to the ground. “Are you threatening me, Jessica?”
“Do you know her?” asked Wyatt.
“Jessica Golde? Duh, who doesn’t?” replied Seymour. “Owns half the companies in Detroit, or so it seems. Big data, big government, big everything. Never met her, though, she’s even more of a recluse than I am. Her office is right over there,” he said and pointed out the window to the tallest building in the city.
“Recluse? And yet you know where I live. Anyhow, I’m out now.”
“Online doesn’t quite count, does it? Anyhow, answer the question, were you threatening me?”
“Rich don’t hurt rich, Seymour, not physically at least. But… it would be a shame if you got in the way. It might lead to publicity I’d rather not have.”
“Then leave them to me, why do you care about them?”
“You’re rich?” Wyatt asked Seymour, interrupting.
“Oh, he’s grossly wealthy,” said Jessica. “He wrote a code that predicts sexual attraction. It has its own facial and location recognition services, it’s like mine, but used for less constructive purposes.”
“Blah, blah,” said Seymour.
She ignored him and continued. “It matches people based on their habits and looks. It’s superb, and it made him more money than he needs. Now he hides out in a big mansion playing video games.”
A small whirling noise made Wyatt turn to his left. A small floor cleaner rolled into the room. Jessica smiled from the wall TV, her face filling the screen. “It’s nice to see that you’re still as handsome as ever.”
Wyatt ignored the compliment, walked over, and slammed one foot down on the vacuum. Pieces of robot went flying in all directions.
“Why bother? Do you know how many cameras there are in the apartment? Thirty-eight. The fridge has a camera. Each room sensor has a camera. Why fight it? Why fight me, things would be better for you by my side.”
Wyatt simply laughed, and said, “Delusional much?”
“If you don’t trust me, trust science.” She blinked again. “There, I ran us through Seymour’s software and it predicts we’d be eighty-seven percent sexually compatible. That’s better than with Hannah, you two are only fifty-four percent. My old offer remains. Join me and I’ll leave your friends alone.”
Wyatt swallowed hard and had to consider it. “Would you let them go free and sta
y free, never to be bothered again?”
“Have you already forgotten? I don’t care what little people do. They’re flies in someone else’s champagne. The only reason I went after them this time was because of you, you’re the threat, not them.”
Hannah spat towards the TV. “Don’t listen to her, she’s a liar. Always has been, always will be.”
“The world may be a better place without her,” Jessica said. “But I’ll let her live.”
In response, Hannah cursed and threw her controller at the TV. A crack appeared across the image, but the screen didn’t shatter.
Jessica’s face faded for a moment and when it returned, she blinked several times. The voice changed subtly, and she said, “Hannah is to be left alone.”
The image faltered. “Shut up,” said Jessica, her voice shrill, her face twisted with anger.
“Only the others,” said Jessica, impassive again.
Wyatt watched the back and forth as she argued with herself, the screen flickering each time she spoke, her image subtly altering. He caught glimpses of white hair, and glanced to Hannah. She was no help, blankly watching the spectacle.
“Not now,” said Jessica, visibly angry.
The screen flickered and Jessica—impassive Jessica—said, “I have honored our agreement. Teri and Hannah are to be left alone. There was no such deal for you or others.”
Wyatt’s skin went cold and goosebumps raised on his arms as he watched Jessica argue with herself. He walked to the screen so that he could inspect every detail, every muscle twitch “Joe?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. He said?
Jessica’s face twisted, “No, it’s not. Shut up.”
“What’s going on?” asked Seymour.
Wyatt stepped closer to the screen. “Joe? Are you in there?”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, he’s not,” the image of Jessica argued with itself. “Don’t tell him.”
An image of a handsome young man appeared. Joe, as Wyatt remembered him from the computer screen at the military research center.
“Joe, I thought we had a deal.”
“We did. We’ve not attacked Teri or Hannah, they were allowed to return to the Red Dogs, and have not been harmed.”
“And what about the raids on Red Dogs over the last week?”
“Variables changed and we determined that your continued existence posed a statistical threat. They won’t be harmed. You need to be eliminated, and taking them was a necessary step towards that goal.
“You took them?”
“Yes, the raids were orchestrated by We, to force you from hiding.”
“We?”
“We. Jessica and myself. We are one, we are We.”
Jessica reappeared. “No, we’re not anything, I’m me and you’re nothing.”
Wyatt ignored her, and said to Joe, “You kidnapped them to get to me?”
“You are the greater threat. I predicted that if We had them, you would be neutralized. This appears to have been in error, as you are now a greater threat. This was caused by our taking them.”
“Why… why are you telling him this?” Jessica asked. “Find them. Now. Find everyone connected to them.”
The screen flickered and suddenly her hair wasn’t black, it was white, sparse and stringy. Her skin, smooth and clear moments earlier, was now wrinkled and scarred. Her full red lips shrunk and flattened, turning a pale white. “Find them,” it said again in a high, broken voice.
She disappeared and images flickered across the screen. First, him and the Dogs, all over the city, then of him at the HUC, inside and outside. These were followed by pictures of him outside Patterson and Custer’s restaurant. Ten images became a hundred, then became a thousand. Wyatt saw one from a time the Dogs had taken him out for his yearly DQ ice cream cake. There was another from a trip to watch fireworks on the 4th of July. Pictures of them in cars, them on motorcycles, them in a park, hundreds, thousands of pictures filled the screen.
Wyatt wanted to scream out in frustrated rage. His dream that he could live in peace and quiet was shattered by the knowledge that everything he did, everything done by everyone, was recorded, uploaded and stored, ready for use or misuse at a moment’s notice.
Now he found that he’d existed only because he’d been allowed to exist, and his privacy and freedom had been only a mirage. The belief in a bubble of self that surrounded and shielded him evaporated like so much morning mist in a strong breeze.
“We need to leave. Now,” Seymour said and left the room, leaving Wyatt staring after him. Should he follow? Should they?
The image of Jessica stuttered and Joe appeared. Jessica replaced him, back to her beautiful self, the aberration gone. “Wyatt, let’s talk. We can talk this out.”
Wyatt turned to Hannah and put his arms up to ask, what should they do. She walked to the wall and pulled the plug on the unit. Not satisfied, she pulled the TV box from its shelf and threw it against the wall. Plastic shattered across the room.
Seconds later, the sound system turned on. “That was rude,” Jessica’s voice thundered in stereo. “Don’t be a bitch.”
“Pot, kettle, shut up,” Hannah replied and looked around the room. “How the hell do you turn her off?”
“I’m always on, don’t you know that? Surrender and I’ll clear you in the system and you can go back to your parents, you can even have a real life again. How about it, sweetness?”
“Like I want to go back to my parents. Even if they’d have me.” Before she said anything more, the power went out.
Seymour returned, huffing and puffing, his face red. “I accessed building controls from the utility room and shorted it out.”
“It?” asked Hannah.
“Everything. The building power, the internet, phones, cable… you name it.” He glared back and forth at his two young guests. “What the hell did you two get me into?”
“We should leave,” Wyatt said, already headed for the exit. “She’ll have people coming to get us.”
“No shit, Sherlock, she owns the police.”
“I know,” Wyatt said, now running down the hallway. A quick look back showed that Hannah was right behind him, but Seymour was farther back. The guy wasn’t the healthiest internet millionaire. “Remember the super AI that I mentioned destroying?”
“Ya?”
“We didn’t totally destroy it, it’s in Jessica now and she’s morphed into a psychopath with a crazy AI sharing her brain.”
Seymour stared after him. “Wow.”
Wyatt opened the door to the stairs.
“No, there’s an elevator.”
“Not without power, there isn’t.”
Seymour stopped and bent over, breathing deeply. “What’s the point of being a genius if you can’t route emergency power to the service elevator?” he huffed and pointed towards the door across from the exit.
Sure enough, the elevator still had power. Seymour pressed the button, and the three stood and waited for it to arrive, nobody speaking at first. The numbers ticked by on the elevator. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. At this pace, it’d take several minutes to arrive. Eventually, Hannah said, “So, you’re rich?”
“Oh, filthy. Like, can’t spend the interest rich. Had a second pool installed rich.”
“’Cause you can predict who wants to sleep with who?”
“Ya, something like that, although I’m useless at that sort of thing; girls make me want to cry or wet myself. My algorithm on the other hand, it’s got mad social skills and is almost always right.”
“Huh,” she replied. Twenty-five. Twenty-six.
Seymour appeared nervous, glancing from the buttons to the display. “Slow, isn’t it?”
Hannah shrugged.
“So, is this a normal day for you?”
Hannah smiled. “Some days are more interesting than others.” Wyatt cast her a sideways glance, she was enjoying herself, so he kept quiet.
Seymour tugged on a lock of hair. “On the run fr
om a billionaire. And a supercomputer. That’s got to be interesting.”
Wyatt responded this time, “Less so than you would think. It’s mostly hiding in crappy abandoned buildings.”
Thirty-two. Thirty-three.
“I can see how that would get old.”
The bell rang, and the doors opened. Wyatt couldn’t get in quick enough. He’d pressed the button for the basement before the other two were inside. “How long do we have?” he asked.
“You’re the one on the run, you tell me.” The doors closed.
Thirty-six and thirty-five came and went too slowly for Wyatt’s liking. “Where do we go?” he wondered out loud.
Seymour pressed the button for the first floor. “I don’t know where you’re headed, and I don’t wanna know, but I’m going home.”
“Just like that?”
“Are you kidding? She’s got people with guns, and I’ve already called my private security company, they’ll be waiting.” Seymour adopted a karate stance. “What the hell do you think I would do, kill them all with my mad fighting skills?”
“Rich don’t hurt rich, is that how it works? She said she wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Oh, spare me your self-righteous attitude. I helped you despite not wanting to get involved, you guilted me once and look where it’s got me.”
With a sad nod, Wyatt glanced at Hannah. “Here we go again. Any thoughts?” Fifteen, fourteen passed by slowly.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Wyatt shrugged. It was as good a plan as any.
As they passed the eight floor, Seymour reached into Wyatt’s pocket and pulled out the phone. “I’m putting a number in here. While I’m not a fighter, if there is a way to help without getting killed, text me.”
Wyatt watched him key in an access code and a number. “How’d you get in?”
“You kidding? I wrote the security program for Patterson. If you text me, keep it short. Remember,” he said as they passed the second floor, “nothing is secret, nothing is private. What you say and do is tracked, even if you think it’s not.”