The Perfect

by Greg Juhn

  “What are you doing?” I asked lamely, but one grabbed me by the arm and pushed me toward the back of the bathroom.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” one of them said, “But you have to come with us.” He flashed a Whammy Stick. I didn’t want that shoved up my ass. 40,000 volts of paralyzing synaptic death.

  The other waved his hand and a door popped open. We stepped through and it shut behind us. I decided not to protest. I had no option but to go along with this, and see where it led.

  A long corridor stretched to my left and right, dimly lit and empty in both directions. Another corridor headed straight off in front of us, also dimly lit. They shoved me in that direction, and we continued our walk. At the end, we turned left and I heard the hum of loud machinery. I hoped it was the building’s massive HVAC system and not some mechanical method of snuffing the life out of cheaters.

  The three of us entered an unmarked room. One guard brought up the rear, blocking my escape should I make a desperate bid for freedom.

  A Hispanic man in his forties, with dark rawhide skin and blazing fake blue eyes, stood in the room, surrounded by four others.

  A single table stood in the middle of the room. Several comfortable chairs were positioned around it. An ancient tune played quietly, a moody electronic tango, Gotan maybe. Other than a security monitor attached to the table and the small group of scowling men, the room was empty.

  “Have a seat,” the leathery man said as they pushed me down into one of the chairs. I noticed Josh on the screen, finishing a hand.

  He introduced himself as Fetus. At least that’s what I heard him say. I wasn’t going to ask him to repeat it.

  He gestured to the others. “I think of them as my Anomaly Team. We have some nifty tricks for catching people like you. Cheaters all exude a certain phoniness.” He addressed the guard who had handcuffed me. “Dro, does he set off any red flags?”

  Dro leaned close, staring in my eyes from inches away. I caught a whiff of sweat and perfume. He glanced at his boss and nodded. “I’d say so, Fetus.”

  You had to be some kind of sick crackhead with a name like that.

  “There you have it,” Fetus said.

  I glanced at Josh sitting at the blackjack table, then forced myself to meet the crackhead’s gaze, his eyes boring into me. “I wasn’t cheating.”

  “But you were collaborating with your friend in some way.”

  When I looked back at the screen, Josh was gone.

  Dro said, “Where’d he go?”

  One of the other guards flipped through the camera views. He was a red-mustached, stocky, take-charge kind of guy. He zoomed in on a shot of Josh striding across the floor.

  “He’s leaving,” the guard said. “Chi, notify the advance guard at the front entrance.”

  Chi, the other guard who had dragged me here, tapped his ring finger and left.

  Dro fished around in my pocket and pulled out my phone, placing it on the table.

  Fetus started vaping. An unidentifiable smell drifted through the air, faint and fleeting. For a while, he said nothing. I glanced from one man to the other, but no one said anything.

  “Your friend is good,” Fetus said.

  “Yes, he’s a natural. And lucky.”

  “Mmm.” He stared at me. Another long pause. Their silence was unbearable.

  Finally he spoke again. “You know, it is illegal to cheat in a casino.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Your friend was playing an edge.”

  “You mean counting cards?”

  “He was doing more than counting cards.” Fetus looked pained, as if he might pass gas. “When someone counts cards, we put them on a list and toss them out. But it’s not illegal.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Take Charge Guy spoke slowly. “It’s okay if you’re smart,” he tapped his head. “But it’s not okay to use a machine to help you beat the house.”

  “A machine?” It was all I could think to say. I was in deep shit.

  More silence, except the Latin rhythms playing softly. Then Fetus said, “We don’t care what’s legal or illegal. We play by our own rules, and we need to make sure that no one has an unfair advantage.”

  “I can understand that.” My shirt was dripping wet.

  “So why don’t you tell us exactly what was going on in there.”

  The room was hot and they were going to kill me. Throw me out back. Dump garbage on me. I thought I might pass out. I couldn’t think of anything to say. They were all staring at me. The tempo of the music had picked up.

  “Why did your buddy leave?”

  “Maybe he’s looking for me.”

  Take Charge Guy consulted his phone and whispered into his boss’s ear.

  Fetus crossed his thick arms and scratched his chin. “Sorry to break it to you. He left the premises. Fast.”

  “Well,” I said, searching for words, any plausible theory that I could grab onto and extend to them for consideration. “Maybe he’s worried his luck won’t hold out. Maybe he’s decided to leave while he’s ahead.”

  Fetus sighed in such a way that I knew he was officially tired of the conversation. This was the point where they started cutting off fingers. “We don’t know what’s going on, but we are going to review every minute of our security video from the moment you arrived. We are going to figure out how you won those hands. And when we do, we’ll come find you.”

  They told me the chips had all been cleared. No funds were transferred to my account. The whole thing was a bust. My bets were wiped clean. It was as if the incident had never happened.

  Then one of them hit me on the back of my neck. I felt searing pain.

  “That’s a tracker, asshole. Don’t try to take it out.”

  I rubbed my neck. Someone snatched my hand away, then clamped a heavy cloth bag over my head. The air was far hotter in the bag, and I had trouble breathing, but oddly I felt a sense of relief. The tracker was good news. They don’t send you off with a tracker and a warning if they are about to shoot you.

  I was yanked to my feet. Through the bag, I heard Fetus’s muffled final warnings.

  “If we can’t see what you are doing on the security cameras, we will come find you for clarification,” he said. “Either way, we’ll be in touch.”

  I was shoved into a trot again and out into the hall. The door shut. I guessed Fetus wasn’t coming along for the trip.

  The bag was stifling and I had to fight waves of panic. Back up the elevator, down some more halls, yanked left, yanked right, through more doors, and then I felt the chill of the evening air.

  They tugged on my handcuffs; I braked. One of them dragged the bag up and over my face. I breathed deep. The cool air was wonderful, though it smelled of sulfur from a nearby factory.

  We were on a dark street. An access road out back of the casino, for deliveries.

  A car pulled up and the doors popped open.

  Dro turned to me. “You’re not fooling anyone,” he said.

  I nodded.

  He unlocked the cuffs and handed my phone over. “Get the hell out of here and don’t come back.”

  The little contingent of goons that had escorted me out here piled into the car, and off it went. As soon as they disappeared, the bushes in the woods along the road rustled, and Josh emerged.

  “Where the hell did you go?” I demanded.

  “I had to get out of there. Shit was going down.”

  “Damn right, shit was going down. They handcuffed me and took me to their interrogation room!"

  “I’m a lot more valuable than you are. It was imperative that I protect myself.”

  “Well, aren’t you a piece of work.”

  “After you left the gaming table, I checked the GPS on your medical monitor and saw you heading into the building’s depths, so I figured they’d pinched you. I left. They probably figured they’d nab me outside, but I followed a group of tourists onto a bus.”

  “You l
eft me.”

  “I wasn’t far. Got off at the first hotel a half mile away and ran back. That gave them the slip. It was the best strategy, trust me. If I had been down there it would have gotten ugly. Imagine if they had placed a magnet or metal detector against my skin. We would have been exposed. Don’t worry, I was monitoring your blood pressure and breathing. I would have swooped in if your body was shutting down.”

  “You wouldn’t have been able to get to me in time.”

  “I can get through secure places pretty fast.”

  “I don’t like you running off. You need some kind of tracker so I can keep tabs on you. Don’t you already have that built in?”

  “Of course, but you don’t have access to it. Only Barry and a few engineers. I was thinking the opposite – you need a tracker so I know where you are, in case you need my help. And a microphone, so I can hear anyone talking to you.”

  “Well, I have one now. Look at my neck!"

  Josh turned me around and examined it. I felt his fingers begin to dig into my skin. I protested, but he plucked it out and threw it into the woods.

  “Son of a bitch, that hurt! They told me not to take that out or they would hunt me down!"

  “They don’t own you,” Josh said.

  The casino had been a terrible idea. Now God knows what kind of trouble I was in. My life was in danger. I was a father with a son. “Josh, we can’t risk it. This place is probably run by the mob. Go find that tracker.”

  “They know where you live, so they know where to find you. But don’t get yourself worked up.” He smiled. “While we’ve been having our chat out here on this dark empty road, I’ve requested a car. It will be here in less than a minute.”

  “They said they were going to review all of their surveillance video,” I said.

  A shadow crossed my robot’s face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late to do anything about it now.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Did we reveal our secret to winning?”

  “Yes. The minute we got there. They will figure out what is going on. The power brokers will find out about me, soon enough.”

  “So is the danger over – or not?”

  “Probably, as far as you are concerned. But I think there will be more trouble before NeoMechi’s product launch. It depends on how this information spreads. At least a handful of influential people outside NeoMechi will find out what is going on, and it won’t matter what side of the law they are on. Rumors spread fast. They are going to come after me, not you. Once they realize there is a new type of superior being running around, they are going to want to get themselves one.”

  This wasn’t good. Especially for me.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Josh said. “In less than a week, your field work will be done. Let’s enjoy our time together.” The car pulled up. “I’m guessing they took all the money I won for you. Sorry about that. We were doing well.”

  “We were lucky!" I said. “Screw the money. I deserved what happened to me. My plan to cheat the casino was wrong and foolhardy. I guess I couldn’t expect you to know that. I was stupid. We humans are defined by our actions, and I took a greedy misstep.”

  I had to be more careful about Josh. His talents would be worth a fortune, and I wouldn’t be the last person to want him for greedy or shady purposes. As soon as the world saw the unveiling of the Perfectus 2050, people would go crazy. NeoMechi would need a bulldozer to shovel up the checks. His brains had obvious applications for security, investing, fantasy football, money laundering, CIA operations – the list was endless.

  His potential was unknown. The power structures of society and business might spin. Tonight, I had glimpsed how easily all hell could break loose in his wake.

  Immediately upon awakening, I went down the hall and opened Zach’s bedroom to check on him. Once I saw his face, saw him in his usual morning position wrapped in his blankets like a burrito, snoring quietly, I shut the door and padded back to my bedroom.

  No parent wants the world their children inherit to be a bad one. Overall, the world continues to get better. These super-sophisticated software systems – they were a good thing, right? There was no turning back, regardless.

  I rubbed my neck. It didn’t hurt quite as much anymore.

  The events of the previous night cluttered my thoughts, making it almost impossible to get anything done, even simple things like making toast. I forgot to press the lever down and returned a few minutes later to a cold slice of bread.

  Rubbing my chin, I reviewed the situation. Were Zach and I in danger? Should I send him away for a couple days? A friend of mine had a lake house in Shrewsbury, about an hour away. He lived in California most of the year and liked me to check up on his east coast home from time to time. I debated whether to send Zach there for a few days.

  I pushed the lever down on the toast and walked away.

  In the daylight, the events at the casino became easier to dismiss. Sure, we’d been caught red handed. They got us. Big deal. They took our winnings back. No harm done. If they wanted to hurt us, they would have done so last night.

  Nevertheless, Josh believed that we had somehow revealed his true nature. I didn’t see how that was possible. I was right there with him the whole time and I hadn’t seen anything. But if true, then I would have to be doubly on guard. Who knew what sort of characters might want to steal the world’s most valuable machine.

  To take my mind off these distressing thoughts, I called up the news to get the latest updates on the graphene foam ball from hell, the "Graphene Monster,” lurking in the waters off Long Island.

  Liquid graphene, wonder material! A week ago I had never heard of the stuff, and neither had most of the world’s population. When the story broke on the news, I thought the station was playing it for laughs. A foam ball the size of a football field had appeared on the surface of the ocean south of New York City. No one knew how it got there, but they said it was made of a slimy lubricant called graphene – the same stuff, it turns out, inside Josh’s motors and gears. The foam was growing fast, like the Blob from outer space. Jokes were made, heads were scratched, blame was placed, no one did anything. The next day, the ball was 250 miles long and spreading up the coast toward Maine. Now it was the only thing the news talked about. Planes and helicopters swarmed over it night and day, dropping millions of gallons of neutralizers. At best they were keeping it at bay. The military jets that had passed over the soccer game were flying seaward to map the Monster’s growing contours. No one knew what to do. The optimists said it would eventually collapse. The pessimists said it was combining with pollutants and would expand indefinitely: they claimed it would cover the ocean and inch up the streams until it reached our lakes, strangling our entire fresh water supply.

  Naturally, like everyone else, I was keeping an eye on it.

  I had considered rushing to the store to stock up on water, but what was the point? Buying water bottles would only buy you a little time. If the freshwater supply really did choke on graphene foam, the world would rapidly descend into anarchy and extinction.

  Like most people, I failed to accept this possibility and was going about my business. The end of the world never happens. Y2K, bird flu, the panic of 2024... none of these started the apocalypse. Someone, somewhere, would think of something and solve this foam problem. Or it would just go away and the news would move on.

  I glanced at Josh. “You following this?” I asked.

  “Sure. I sent my recommendations to the lead research team. I hope they act on them. But then, I don’t need water to survive.”

  I clicked off the news. “I want to show you something.”

  “Okay.”

  I led Josh down the hall, into the storage room and across to a door on the far side. This led into an unfurnished, brightly-lit room filled with easels, canvas, paintings, and brushes: my art studio.

  I shut the door behind Josh
without saying a word. I didn’t heat this room as much as the main house and it was a little chilly this morning. He looked around at the paintings stacked against the walls, the paint tins, the tarps and stools splattered with color. He analyzed the single wooden bench piled with paint tubes and thinners, the Styrofoam cups with floral arrangements of brushes in every size. His eyes drifted across the floor, every inch covered in splatter and paint-smeared paper plates and bottles and tubs of cleaners and rags. He processed every pixel.

  This room was my escape. There was no graphene foam here, no messages from work. No ex-wives. I could come here to stop thinking about gangsters from the casino, too.

  This room was the only place on earth that I considered sacred. It was my Sunday morning spot.

  Initially, I wasn’t going to show this place to Josh. It was too personal, too special, too important. Then I realized that art was one thing I could do better than him.

  “Bet you can’t do this,” I said and pointed to my most recent work, still propped on an easel where I had left it on Sunday. On the lower half of the canvas, bold red and black dabs of paint transformed into searing coals. Fire shot upward, the fingers of the flames seeking fuel to consume. In the midst of the fire, I had painted an animated figure, a man in motion.

  “There’s a red drip on it,” Josh said. He pointed.

  “I can paint that out. Ignore that. I call this Playing with Fire." The title had come back to me.

  Josh stared at it, didn’t say anything. I wasn’t surprised. He didn’t know how to process it.

  Was there any way to explain it to him? "See, Playing with Fire is an ironic title. He’s not playing at all. He is engulfed in flame and though he’s scrambling to escape, the painting doesn’t offer that hope. But your... artificial intelligence... let’s be clear on that point – can’t really understand art, irony, or any of that.” I jabbed a finger in his direction. “I have you there.”

  Josh’s face betrayed a battle passing through his algorithms. His mouth started to contort.

  “What?”