“Easy, Frank,” I say. “Take it easy.”
Frank’s shoulders drop just the tiniest fraction of an inch, and I breathe a deep sigh. I’m getting through to him.
“Not human,” Frank says. His sadness is pervasive, multiplied by some spiritual grief he’s discovered, and it crushes him.
“You’re Amish,” I say. “You’re human, and you’re Amish.”
“Amish,” Frank says.
“Stay here, Frank,” I say. “Let me give you your bolts.” I scurry, looking around, and I find Frank’s other bolt on the ground near where I’d placed him on the blankets. I retrieve it, and now I have both of them.
“Do you want your bolts, Frank?” I ask.
Frank’s huge head rocks up and down. He’s a child again. An eleven-year-old boy on the inside, a killer robot on the outside.
“Okay. Then change back, please,” I say. I try to sound authoritative, but I don’t know how well I do.
I see the graphene flaps begin to flutter, and then one at a time they scroll back and flip to the inside. Frank shrinks in front of my eyes as he morphs back to his human form.
When he is fully transformed, he is naked. Bits of cloth here and there jut out from the hairline fissures where his human skin joins. I help Frank pull out these strips, then I bring him one of the blankets. The best of the pile.
“You were gone,” Frank says, matter-of-factly.
“I was, Frank,” I say.
“Something bit me.”
“Show me where.”
“Here, on my neck.”
I look, and I can see where something, a rat maybe, has gnawed on Frank’s hybrid skin. There is a tiny amount of damage there. Frank would have felt it, but it wouldn’t have hurt; his body has been designed to sense damage, but not to distract the brain by conveying the sensation of pain. Still, his body might have registered the bites as an attack.
Maybe in his virtual stimming, Frank was able to turn himself back on?
* * *
Frank is powered down, whatever that means now. I built him a pallet bed in a grain bin and I don’t think he’ll have any more problems with rats. He’s CAINing now, not sleeping yet. His computer interface can automatically switch over from the CAIN program into sleep if he gets drowsy, but for now the system is working on him using the Floortime process.
One of the great things about Floortime as a method of drawing the autistic child out of himself is that the parents are taught to be the therapists. The commitment, in both hours and attention, can be overwhelming, but it works better, and it’s cheaper than having a therapist do it. The parents, working with the child, are trained to look for ways to expand the chained interactions, to add to the circles of communication. Eventually, when the chain is extended to four or five circles, you’re starting to get to a level of “normal” interaction.
A trained therapist usually works with parents in the program to make sure they aren’t short-circuiting the therapy. Floortime isn’t easy, and it can be hard for many parents and caregivers to grasp it entirely without help. Some may fall into the habit of simply mirroring the child’s “stimming” behavior, and forget to work on expanding the circles outward. (“Stimming” is the name for the many sorts of repetitive motions or actions that autistic children tend to engage in for hours at a time: rocking back and forth, tapping their hands, cocking their head to the side, flapping an elbow like a bird’s wing. Those kinds of things.)
CAIN addresses this problem; in theory, it’s the perfect therapy. Even while Frank is powered down, CAIN reads the tiny electrical brain flares that indicate the desire to engage in stimming. Then the programming responds, using tens of thousands of hours of research data, and works to try to expand the circles, extending the chain. To slowly move the child out of the stimming behavior.
CAIN incorporates other protocols as well. For example, most autistic children don’t sleep normally. They don’t keep “bankers’ hours” or sleep only when it’s dark. Sometimes they might be up for forty-eight hours straight, and because of their emotional and mental disconnect with the lives of other people, they don’t realize that they might be disturbing others in the house who may be sleeping. As a result, parents of autistic children can live a life defined by the word exhaustion. But CAIN, by utilizing data gleaned from advanced work in sleep studies, works with the brain to implant a more natural wake/sleep pattern.
That’s just therapy talk for “hopefully Frank can keep a normal schedule while we’re on the run.”
Of course, here’s the rub. Frank comes from an Amish family. Who knows if we’ve programmed the protocols correctly? I won’t know until I see progress when Frank is powered back up. I don’t know how much intervention Frank has had before now, although I know that Jonah and Ellen worked with him a lot, ever since he was first diagnosed with autism. But I do know that he’s already eleven years old now, at least mentally, and that the brain becomes less “plastic” as we age. Many Floortime practitioners won’t even accept children over the age of eight because the training doesn’t stick as well. I just can’t know where Frank was in his treatment when his body started to fail him. When the doctors announced he wouldn’t ever reach twelve.
Regardless, I have to hope the CAIN protocols will still succeed the way I need them to. The way that Frank needs them to.
My heart is still pounding, but I’m feeling a little better. I was able to stop Frank’s meltdown and even spare my own life… for now. Now I just need to know what’s going on inside his head.
I light a cigarette and locate the panel that will give me access to Frank’s onboard control computer. His access port takes standard off-the-shelf computer cords, which of course I brought with me, so I’ll be able to view the data directly on my smartphone. Port access is only enabled for the first sixty days after the HADroid is activated; after sixty days, Frank is read-only. This sixty-day period was designed to allow me to monitor or adapt the CAIN protocols during the beta process and to see how the computer/brain interface is functioning. Once the sixty days are up, no one will be able to make changes in any of Frank’s programming. After that, even with a computer attached to his brain, he’ll need to learn and adapt like the rest of us.
Like the human that he is.
It takes a full minute for the smartphone to interface with the interrogation software, but not long after that I’m in business.
First I check the CAIN interface. Frank is about where he should be in the protocol queue. If the computer had discovered that Frank was having difficulty with a certain stimulus or process, it would note that issue and then loop Frank back through that same protocol. But the system seems to be working fine, and the computer hasn’t red-flagged any glitches or out-of-bounds behavioral responses. So far, so good.
Next I access the system that logs Frank’s brain activity. Basically, the first data set told me how the computer was interfacing with Frank; this data set will tell me how Frank is interfacing with the computer.
The readings are off the chart.
The cigarette drops from my lips and I have to stomp it out before it can ignite the ancient, crumbled hay that litters the floor. The last thing I need to do is burn down this barn with Frank and me in it.
Then again…
I shake my head, trying to grasp what I’m seeing. Although Frank should be completely occupied with the CAIN protocols and intervention training, these readings suggest that he’s also managing to access his onboard computers.
No—let me correct that. While Frank is actively and successfully passing his CAIN tests with flying colors (and these are tests that should tax his mental capacity), he is simultaneously playing with the computers and databases in his head. He’s working the computers. And he’s doing so with three times the activity he’d be expected to have if he were… well… if he weren’t Frank.
I try to understand what’s happening. I scan the graphs and bits of data for anything that can tell me just what Frank is doing with the c
omputers in his brain.
And that’s when I notice something else. Not much, really. Just a shadow. An echo that shouldn’t be there. There seems to be some data activity that isn’t part of the two-way interface. It’s not coming from either Frank or the computer.
If this were a normal system and I were talking to a client, I’d tell them they had spyware. Or that some hacker was accessing their system.
But this isn’t a normal computer system. This is the most advanced defensive weapon in the world, and I am its creator.
And someone other than me is talking to it.
I look down at Frank. He looks so innocent, resting peacefully, the blanket covering his nakedness. Like a real man.
“Who is talking to you, Frank?” I ask. But Frank is powered down. He can’t hear me.
CHAPTER 9
If I had been thinking properly, before I came here from that bar I would have found the warehouse in town and retrieved the alternate vehicle and new identification stashed there. But I wasn’t thinking properly. I was getting drunk in a bar like a loser. Listening to Linda Ronstadt sing “Blue Bayou” and thinking about nothing but myself. Like always. And now Frank has destroyed his clothing. Walking into town with him in the morning will be impossible. The cops would pick us up in no time. And then all hell could break loose.
I know what I have to do. And it’s crazy. I have to leave Frank for the second time in one night and walk back into town. I have to find the warehouse and get the stuff we need so we can get back on the road toward New Orleans.
But what if Frank manifests again? What if he goes truly ballistic this time?
Nothing I can do. I can only hope he’ll stay powered down. Because staying here is not an option. The bad guys know we’re in the area.
The moon is still full, but it looks smaller to me, like a bright dot in the distance haloed in the ocean of sky. As I slip out of the barn to head back into town, I notice that it’s darker too, and now there seems to be a chill in the air that I didn’t feel before. Maybe the scotch is wearing off, or maybe the full reality of what I’ve wrought is just now occurring to me.
How can anyone predict what the results of this computer/brain interface will be? No one has ever tried anything of this scope on a “normal” brain, much less on the brain of an autistic. Frank’s neural stimming, the repetitive circles of behavior that happen in his mind. If he obsesses on hacking the computer, and if he can unleash the full potential of the machine…
Who knows?
Thank God his weapons aren’t armed. He’s deadly enough without the projectile weapons. Without the missiles and lasers and guns.
I notice that my inner voice—the one that challenges me by bringing up uncomfortable truths—is beginning to sound like Cruella. Like Marilyn.
You never did think things through.
Shut up, Cruella.
* * *
As I walk, I pull out my second burner phone to call Carlos. Despite the hour, he answers on the third ring. Both of our voices are scrambled, but somehow my mind still pictures Carlos as I listen to the mechanical female voice that answers the phone.
“About time you called.”
“I’ve had some problems,” I say.
“No shit.”
I pause for a moment, not sure what Carlos knows and does not know. “As you might have gathered, DARPA took out the Excursion with a missile from a jet,” I say.
“Wasn’t DARPA. Technically,” Carlos says, “although they’re definitely the ones who called out the dogs. The dogs, however, are mercs. Contractors, I think—paid operators. Blackwater types, I bet. But even I can’t find out who they really are. There’s chatter about a new Transport Agency, but even we know nothing about them.”
There’s that name again: Transport. Who is that? I laugh, but the laugh is hollow. “How are you doing anything at all, man? Aren’t they looking for you? Are the Arms still active? I mean, they knew you were working with me.”
“I didn’t stick around to find out. I’m on the run too. But I’ve been meaning to get outside the fence for a long time, so I’m not too pissed about it, and there are other things going on you don’t know anything about. Besides, you paid me—are paying me—well enough that I can disappear and retire forever if I want to. After all this is over.”
“Retirement?” I ask.
“Maybe something like that,” Carlos says.
“But for now we have a problem.”
Carlos pauses. And then: “I gathered as much.”
“Somebody is in the programming, man. Someone is in Frank’s head, and it ain’t me,” I say.
There is silence from the other end for an uncomfortably long time, and I can hear Carlos breathing, even through the voice-altering software.
“That’s probably me,” Carlos says.
“What do you mean it’s probably you? Did you build a back door into Frank’s system or didn’t you?”
Carlos sighs loudly. “I did.”
“And have you been communicating with his system?” I don’t bother to mask the growing hostility in my voice.
“Listen, man,” Carlos says. “This thing has always been an iffy proposition. We always knew that leaving Frank without an ‘off’ option was both dangerous and stupid. So I left a portal open. Just the tiniest of back doors—”
“I can’t believe this!” I say, growling into the phone.
“—I didn’t even know if it would work, but I thought, if this thing goes haywire and starts killing people, maybe I can get in later and bring him down with a virus or something.”
“You left a damn vulnerability in my project?” I ask.
Now it’s Carlos’s turn to laugh. “Yes, but not as big as the vulnerability you built into it. Not as much as… I don’t know… putting the brain of an autistic boy into what could be the deadliest war machine ever invented!”
He got you on that one, idiot.
I’m silent for a while, and I can hear Carlos typing on his laptop, although the sound is being altered on its way to me. There’s a mechanical resonance to everything I hear through the phone. “So where are we? You hacked him? What? Are you tracking us?”
“A little. Not much.”
“A little!”
“I’ve been tuning up the interface. If you don’t hit the kill switch at the sixty-day point, I want his interface to be as smooth and flawless as possible.”
“And?” I ask.
“That’s pretty much it. And I look for interference.”
“Have you seen any?” I ask. “Is anyone else in there with you?”
Carlos sighs again. “Not that I know of.”
“Yet someone tracked us down,” I say.
Carlos doesn’t reply. The line is silent. I notice I’m getting close to town, and I look around to see if anyone takes notice of me. I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Paranoia. Maybe it comes with this business.
I remember the general area where the warehouse is, and I move in that direction. Dogs bark from within fenced yards, and I hear a catfight down an alley.
“Someone took out the Excursion,” I say.
“I know.”
“They knew where we were. What we were driving and what direction we were heading in.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t think there’s anyone else in there, tracking Frank?”
“I think he’s clean,” Carlos says.
“When we were leaving the diner, he told me not to go back to the Excursion.”
“That was me,” Carlos said. “I heard the military chatter about the Excursion and I knew it had to do with you. I pushed that thought at him through the vulnerability in the interface.”
“You do realize that you are talking calmly about a ‘vulnerability in the interface’ of a multi-billion-dollar killer robot, don’t you?”
“I exploited a slight defect to communicate with the retarded kid you stuck in that weapon of mass destruction!” Carlos�
��s voice is angry, defensive. “And I did it to save your stupid life!”
“He’s not retarded!” I yell. “He’s autistic! And he’s smart, and he’s thoughtful…” I shout louder than I should have and I wipe some spittle from my mouth as I look around. Still no one around me that I can see, but that paranoia encourages me to moderate my temper. “Mildly autistic,” I say, quieter this time.
“Doc, listen. I’m keeping an eye out for interference. Looking for other hackers. That’s all. If I can tweak something or warn you, I will.”
“Is that vulnerability open to anyone else?”
“If it can be hacked, someone will probably find a way,” Carlos says.
“Close the vulnerability. Now.” I am adamant, and I want Carlos to know it.
“But—”
“Close it!”
“And if he goes off, and you can’t shut him down?”
“Just close it.”
“Okay. Fine.”
After a few seconds of silence, I hang up the phone and put it back in my shirt pocket. I can feel that my heart rate is elevated, and I take a few deep breaths to try to calm down.
Carlos screwed you. He probably gave you up to the feds.
That’s not true, Cruella. No way that’s true.
How do you know?
Because if he wanted to, he could have let us get in that Excursion. He warned us off. Twice. Perhaps he could have even shut down Frank for good, but he hasn’t.
You’re a chump.
Be that as it may, I know that Carlos is probably the only man alive I can truly trust. And that gives me no comfort.
I smash the burner phone. I drop pieces of it in a dumpster and throw the rest in some bushes.
* * *
I make my way to the block where the warehouse sits, nearly abandoned, set back from a forgotten side street and shaded almost completely by maples and buckeye trees.
Buckeye. Of course. This is Ohio. That’s important. I remember now that the first three letters of the tree, B-U-C, when converted to the letters’ positions in the alphabet, spell out the combination to the lock on the warehouse door.
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