Voices of the Storm

by Brad Munson

  “Oh, excuse me, Mr. Josephson is there?” Maggie asked.

  The sleek executive with the hundred-dollar tie cleared his throat. “Uh, yes. Hello, um, Maggie.”

  They could all hear the smile in Maggie’s voice. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir, even at a distance. I was so glad to see that your wife’s surgery went well.”

  Josephson’s eyebrows went up. “How …?”

  “Oh, forgive me, sir,” Maggie said. “I’m an incurable reader of the society pages. There was that whole piece about her in the Times last week.”

  “Oh,” Josephson said. “Right.”

  “And your daughters looked so lovely at that Bonaventure affair last month. You must be very proud.”

  He was thoroughly charmed. “Well, yes, we are.”

  “Rachel going to Stanford and all…”

  “Yes, we–”

  “Listen, um, Maggie,” Cling interrupted, sounding remarkably patronizing with only two simple words, and earning him look of annoyance from his boss. “Can’t you just run the disk down here? It’s a small town, you can’t be that far away even in the rain, and that would take half the time of a messenger.”

  “Mr. Cling, there’s nothing I’d like to do more, though I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  He looked put off. “How did you know who...?”

  “Oh, I recognized your voice. I caught your interview on MoneyLine last month, about VeriSil and those intellectual property lawsuits. Very nicely done, sir, really.”

  He blinked. It was obvious that no one ever recognized him. “Oh,” he said. “Oh. Well, why…why is it you can’t bring it down?”

  “Well…”

  “Maggie…” Ken began.

  “Because I don’t actually have a physical body, you see. Sir.”

  The three executives stared dumbly at the speakerphone. Josephson himself was the first to speak.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “What?”

  “I have no body, Mr. Josephson. I am simply Ken Mackie’s personalized copy of Everybody’s Assistant.”

  It took them all a moment to absorb it. Then a huge grin grew on Marty Fein. “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said under his breath.

  “Not a chance, Marty,” Maggie said, sounding like a modern-day version of Rosalind Russell. “You’re way too sweet for that.”

  They all laughed this time. “That’s amazing,” Josephson said. “Truly? Not a trick?”

  “Not at all,” Maggie and Ken said together. Everyone laughed again.

  The color came back into his face. “Okay, I admit it. I didn’t forget the demo. It’s right here.” He held up a golden DVD he had found right where he’d put it. “And forgive the little dumb-show, Mr. Josephson, I–”

  “Hey!” Maggie said from the speakerphone, “Who are you calling dumb?” and they all laughed again, Ken included.

  “Not you, Maggie, obviously,” he said, grinning now. “I wanted to show you how amazing, how astonishing, this new artificial intelligence application really is.” His eyes were alight now, and the others were staring at him with a mixture of awe and wonder. He loved that expression.

  “Forget ad copy or market analysis,” he said. “Just listen to Maggie. She may be ‘artificial’ in a technical sense, but this is real intelligence, a real personality. She can put things together. Deduce, conclude, extrapolate. Make jokes. And she has access to virtually every source of public information instantaneously, through the satellite referral system that’s built into the box. This is what happens after only a few days of interaction with her...host? Sponsor? Boss?”

  “My god,” Josephson said. “So everyone can have one of her?”

  “Well, not me personally,” Maggie said. “I’m one of kind.”

  A chuckle from the group. “You got that right,” Ken muttered.

  “My specific persona has evolved directly in response to Ken Mackie’s unique wants and needs, and it didn’t happen by filling out questionnaires or speaking test words into a mike. My heuristic structure allowed me to infer it, building from the first moment he spoke to me.”

  “It took about two days for her to become…her,” Ken said. “Before that she was a highly efficient voice-enabled calendar program, much like the one I described to you a minute ago. On that third day, however, she was… Maggie.”

  “Your Assistant, Mr. Josephson, or yours, Marty, or your wife Stephanie’s, will be very different, but just as easy to evolve. As good for you or him or her as I am for Ken… but different.”

  No one said anything for a long moment. In that silence Ken knew that he’d done it. He’d sold them.

  All three of them had questions, and they all asked them at once. For the next fifteen minutes, he sorted them out and answered everything he could, referring to the notebooks he’d brought, explaining the satellite referral system.

  It was done. He had won. They were reaching a real understanding about the next phase of development –

  –when Maggie interrupted.

  “Ken?” she said. “Ken, you have to get out of there.”

  He stopped short and frowned.

  “What?”

  “You all have to get out of there. Now.”

  “Um, Maggie, look, I think we’ve–”

  “It’s the storm, gentlemen. And no, this isn’t part of the presentation. This is real.”

  Cling, who had been remarkably silent during the enthusiastic conversation, gave another liquid sigh. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

  “I’ve been monitoring the security cameras around the VeriSil campus while we've been speaking,” she said. “Keeping an eye on things. The water level is getting out of control, and a sand levee on the construction site just let loose and it’s flooding the lower levels of the parking garage right now.”

  “Oh, shit,” Marty said, and stood up fast. He looked wildly at his CEO. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said. “I was assured–”

  Josephson stood as well. “Nobody expected rain like this,” he said. “We’ll deal with it. But if what Maggie says is true—”

  “It is,” she said. “Believe me. You’ve got less than ten minutes to get out of there before the whole garage fills up and the power fails.”

  Now all of them were on their feet. Marty opened the door and called to his secretary. “Adrienne, call Security. Get everybody out of the building, send them home.”

  “But–”

  “Now,” he said sharply. “I’ll explain later.” Then he led Josephson, Cling, and Mackie out of the room and down the corridor to the express elevator. They could hear the announcement over the PA; phones were ringing at desks all around them.

  “You believe her?” Cling asked, fussing with his briefcase and iPhone as the trotted towards the elevator. “I mean…it?”

  “She’s never lied to me before,” Marty said. “Besides, I owe her one for that necklace.”

  The elevator went ting and the doors opened. It was empty. All four men piled in and Marty hit the P1 and P2 buttons at the same time.

  In that instant, Ken’s cell phone rang. He already knew who it was. “Hello, Maggie,” he said. “Thanks for staying in touch.” He set the phone to SPKR.

  “I’ve got you on the security cam,” she told them all. “You’ve still got a couple of minutes. But Marty, get out on P1 and ride with Ken or Mr. Josephson.”

  “I can’t,” he said gruffly. “I parked on P2 today.”

  “Marty,” she said, and they could hear the gentle admonition in her voice, “forget about the Lexus. It’s already underwater.”

  “What?” he said. He sounded positive wounded. “No, come on.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Things are happening very fast. Mr. Josephson, Mr. Cling, it’s lucky you drove an SUV today. If you hurry, you’ll be able to make it to Highway 181 and out of town before things get much worse.”

  “Thank you, Maggie,” Josephson said.

  “Carl,” Cling said, “you don’t actu
ally–”

  “This would be a good time to stay quiet, Stefan,” Josephson said.

  The elevator made another musical note and the doors opened on the first level of underground parking.

  It was chaos.

  Water was gushing down the walls, and it was already three inches deep on the polished concrete. Employees were dashing down the stairwells and splashing towards their cars, desperate to escape as the overhead fluorescents flickered and started to fail. The harsh sodium emergency lamps above the EXIT signs kicked in with a buzzz, bathing everything in a sickly lemon-yellow light.

  “Just get to the Rover, Ken,” Maggie said from his cell phone. “I can talk you through to West Ridge Road; I have access to the traffic cams.”

  The two out-of-town execs and Ken bolted out of the elevator at the same moment and started towards their cars, parked next to each a few feet away. Then they stopped and turned together.

  Marty was still in the elevator. He was poking at the P2 button.

  “Marty, don’t do it,” Ken said. “Maggie said–”

  The phone in his hand spoke. “Marty? Please. The water’s past six feet down there. If the elevator opens down there, it will flood, you could be–”

  “It’s my Lexus, goddamn it,” Marty said, almost whining. “That’s a seventy-thousand-dollar car.”

  “Marty,” Maggie cajoled. “Please…” ... and in that instant, Ken realized that her vocal coding didn’t allow her to scream or shout or even cry. This was probably as passionate as she could sound: concerned. Urgent.

  They all started talking at once. The water was still rising.

  “Marty, for Christ’s sake,” Josephson said. Ken looked at him in surprise. It was the first time he’d hear the man speak with any emotion at all. “Leave it the hell alone! Come on!”

  “One second,” Marty said, and hit the CLOSE button. “One second.”

  The elevator door closed.

  Nobody moved. The three men stood there mute as the elevator lights moved to P2.

  They heard the churning of the cables and the thunk of the car as it stopped one floor down. Ken held his breath for a long moment, waiting … and then he heard the doors part with a prolonged squeeeal.

  The water roared under their feet, deep and loud, nearly erasing the musical drip-and-gurgle all around them. The elevator doors in front of them shivered at the impact, and Ken took an involuntary step forward when the screaming came.

  It was Marty. High, throaty, panicked, but still Marty, cutting through the pounding of the water, rising and rising until, quite suddenly, it was swallowed up in a sudden, liquid gulp.

  Then something exploded on P2. It made the concrete floor buck under their feet like a restless animal. Cling nearly lost his balance; a woman dragging herself towards her mini-truck fell flat into the water with a huge splash.

  “What’s happening?” Cling asked, staggering and clutching at his stomach. “What’s happening?”

  Ken raised his fists to pound on the elevator door, but Maggie interrupted him, almost as if she could see him. “You can’t do anything now, Ken,” she said. “Go. Just go.”

  “But—”

  “Please. There’s no time.”

  Ken stared at the door for a long moment. “Shit,” he said, and turned away. His eyes met Josephson’s where he stood a few feet behind him.

  The water was past their ankles and rising every minute. It was done. They had to go.

  Carl Josephson’s own cell phone rang, a dignified excerpt from Mahler. “That’s me calling, Mr. Josephson,” Maggie said through Ken’s cell. “I’ll make sure you get out of here safely.”

  Josephson looked miffed in spite of himself. “This number is confidential,” he said. “How did you–” He looked up at Ken with new respect. “Oh,” he said. “She’s good.”

  They were in their separate cars an instant later. Ken took two full seconds to admire the cream-colored Audi SUV, then it jumped away from him as Josephson put it into gear and sprinted for the exit.

  Ken gunned the Rover and followed, barreling out the exit ten yards behind him, cutting off the last of the other evacuees.

  The storm hit them like a stone wall. It was even worse than he had expected. Ken had to turn the wipers to their highest setting to see ten yards ahead. It was just as Maggie had said: VeriSil Road, the usual route to Highway 121, was already choked with cars trying to flee the rising water, and speeds had dropped to near-zero.

  “Make the first left,” Maggie told him. “It will take you along the north edge of the construction site.” Ken did has he was told, and glanced over to see Josephson doing the same thing. The CEO was in two conversations at once: one with Maggie on the cell, nodding and answering her questions in short, simple sentences; the other with Stefan Cling, who seemed to be going on and on and on about something that Josephson simply didn’t want to talk about at the moment.

  Ken made a hairpin turn onto the rutted frontage road, Josephson’s brake lights flickering in front of him. This road was only intact because the rainwater wasn’t building up on it; it was sluicing off from north to south and spilling into the huge pit, five stories deep, that was scheduled to be the future subbasement of the newest VeriSil building.

  If anybody lives long enough to build it, Ken thought grimly. If we ever come back here ag—

  Josephson slammed on his brakes, and Ken pounded on his own an instant later. He fishtailed to the right, cranking the wheel as hard as he could. He missed ramming the SUV by mere inches.

  “You stopped,” Maggie said. “What’s the problem?”

  “Don’t know,” he said shortly. “Be right back.” He popped the door and lurched into the rain. He saw the problem even as Josephson climbed out of his SUV.

  A huge supply of steel reinforcement bars had fallen into the roadway, blown and washed down from a graded storage area that had simply disappeared in the storm. Even a four-wheel drive couldn’t climb over the spiky mess without blowing its tires.

  “Let’s clear a path!” Josephson shouted, his voice barely audible over the screeching wind. Ken nodded and they set to work, seizing armfuls of the eight-foot lengths of bar and throwing them onto a wooden skid that was off to one side, resting on more stable ground. They were soaked to the skin within seconds, but they kept at it, covering their hands and feet with mud as they worked.

  Ken distantly admired the fact that the millionaire CEO didn’t seem to give a damn about ruining his thousand-dollar suit or his five-hundred-dollar shoes in the downpour. It wasn’t until their fourth load had been dropped that Josephson turned and glared at his assistant, still huddling inside the SUV and looking terribly miffed.

  Josephson grinned as he leaned into Ken’s ear. “I was going to fire the little shit!” he shouted. “Now I guess I’ll just have to kill him!”

  His ball-bearing eyes, cold as blued steel, clicked to meet Ken’s. Then he kicked a smile into place to show he was only kidding.

  It took five more slippery, filthy minutes, but they managed to clear a narrow path that would accommodate one car at a time. When the last of the metal clanked onto the pile, Ken noticed that it was actually floating like a raft. Josephson had even tethered it to a leaning lamp pole at some point to keep it from drifting away.

  This was getting bad, really bad.

  They didn’t stop to admire their work. The moment it was done Josephson simply shook the water out of his eyes, stuck out his hand and said, “Thanks.”

  “Thank you,” Ken said, and gripped the CEO’s tightly for a moment.

  Their eyes met again. “I’ll call!” Josephson bellowed. “We’ll talk!”

  Ken felt a rush of excitement, and then a little sick. In spite of the disaster, in spite of his oldest, best friend in town drowning mere minutes before…that felt good.

  God, that felt good.

  Ken levered himself back into the Rover seconds later. “—e when you get back,” the phone was saying over and over. “Tell me when y
ou get back, tell me when you—”

  “I’m here,” he said, “I’m here.” He instantly left an inch-deep puddle on the Rover’s rubber floor mat.

  “Good,” Maggie said, and he could almost believe she sounded relieved. Not possible, he told himself. It’s only a really, really good voice simulator. I think…

  “You’ll both come to a ‘T’ intersection about two hundred yards ahead,” she told him. Ken imagined her saying the same thing to Josephson on his own cell as he gunned the Rover’s engine and the SUV pulled out first. It took a long, nasty gouge from one errant piece of rebar as it wedged its way through the gap they had made. Ken got the Rover past unscathed.

  Just as Maggie had told them, the intersection drifted out of the silver mist a few hundred yards farther on. “Ken,” she said, “you’ll go to the left; Josephson will go to the right. I’ll send him north on Indiana, and he can enter the freeway up by the DH Emporium.”

  Even as he watched, the Audi SUV turned abruptly to the right and surged up the steep incline. Rooster-tails of mud and water flew out behind it as wheels spun, but it bit in hard and took the hill like a charging rhino.

  Ken learned from watching. He turned sharply to the left as he hit the ‘T’ and gunned the engine, bounding upwards, struggling with the wheel. He nearly fell back once, and then again, but the tires found purchase and pulled him up, up, up to the crest of the ridge. The rubber squealed on water-soaked asphalt.

  He crowed when he hit the roadway and tapped his brakes, turning to look over his shoulder, across the man-made arroyo in hopes of catching a last glimpse of the escaping Audi.

  Josephson had stopped at the top of the ridge, directly across from Ken. He wasn’t moving at all. Ken turned all the way around, wondering if there was some kind of trouble, staring at the rear of the vehicle when the SUV’s passenger door flew open and Stefan Cling toppled out in a backwards stagger. He looked as if he was being propelled from the car against his will. Ken was almost sure he saw a muddy black shoe pushing the executive assistant out into the rain.

  Cling struggled to find his feet, sliding and slipping in the mud as he screamed soundlessly and pawed at the door to get back in the cab to no avail. This time Ken got a clear look at Josephson’s hand as it reached out of the SUV, seized the passenger door by its recessed handle, and slammed it in the plump little man’s face. Cling fell back again, stunned, staggering to keep from falling on his ass.