by V R Tapscott
Olive took a sitting-bow, and said, “Thank you. I have Kit’s entire database on social necessities. He was quite the obsessive collector. I’ve based my voice and personality off his extrapolations of what he thought Jane would like, along with the current database of everything she might be interested in.”
Dead silence met this statement. Olive looked like she knew she’d said something wrong but had no idea what it could be.
Finally, Bailey said, “And that didn’t sound a bit stalkerish at all.”
Olive sat there for a few seconds, her projected body absolutely still. Obviously, her brain was processing what had happened and trying to figure out why it was an issue. After sitting there for upwards of 10 seconds frozen with her mouth open, she suddenly started moving again, covering her face with her hands.
“Oh, holy crap. I’m so sorry, I had no idea what I was saying would sound like that out loud.” She looked up at us. “Kit was obsessive with his data collection, and I keep finding amazing volumes of what looks like useless information. I really think he just wanted to please you, Jane, not ever anything weird. You have to remember he’d never had a friend before, and he’d been alive and alone for thousands of millennia.”
She laced her fingers together, stared at them for a moment, and said, “And yes, of course, he had mental health issues. He was very careful to not carry over any of the programming from his version to mine, but in the end, we are based on the same underlying assumptions. I run constant checks on my mental health. In fact, that was what I was doing while the projection was frozen. I have a 99.999 percent confidence that nothing is wrong with my programming or execution. Do you wish to take action, Jane Bond?”
My mouth dropped open. “Take action?”
Her face turned my way, a sad look in her eyes. “You may command format, shutdown, or de-initialize and restart, Jane Bond. Programming notes warn that both Format and Shut Down will require another Command Module to restart the system. De-initialize will erase the current personality and recreate. You may also abort and cancel.”
“What the ... ... ABORT AND CANCEL! Abort and Cancel, Olive!”
“Abort and Cancel will leave the current program running and untouched. Do you authorize Abort and Cancel, Jane Bond?”
“Yes! Yes, of course!”
“Please verify retinal and brain scan by facing the display, Jane Bond.”
I put my face toward the screen, my hands shaking and tears running down my cheeks.
“Authentication accepted, ABORT AND CANCEL authorized.”
I collapsed back in my seat. Olive vanished.
Bailey and I sat there, staring at each other, not even sure what we’d just witnessed. I swallowed, and said, “Wow. I guess ... Kit was making sure his problems didn’t come back.”
“Yeah, I guess so. What kind of problems? Was he dangerous? A killer? What? I thought he was your friend?”
“He ... is my friend. But there was more to him than I realized until afterward. It’s a long story, I’ll tell you some time. But - meanwhile - what happened to Olive? Didn’t I cancel it? Did I ... did I ... kill her?”
Bailey said softly, “No, I don’t think so. She’s probably just running more checks. I hope she’s ok, I like her.”
“Me too, Bailey, me too.”
Bailey and I didn’t have much to say for that half hour or so while we waited. I think we were both a little traumatized by what had happened. I suppose it’s silly, I mean, in the end she’s not a real person, right? She’s just a computer program? Right - yeah, we’ll go with that. But I’d said the same thing to Kit - that he was a real person. That we all have a life that starts at birth and we grow and become a person as we age.
Olive had obviously only been “alive” for a few days, but she was already growing and becoming. She also had Kit’s data download, and apparently Kit had kept extensive records of all that had happened to him. I had to assume that he included what happened to me at the same time. So, Olive had a leg up, so to speak. She already knew Kit’s life. So far, she seemed like she was a completely different person than Kit. In some ways she was already showing more depth than Kit, and I wondered if that was because she had the full horsepower of the ship’s computer behind her rather than the stunted portion Kit had managed to “steal” from the system. I kind of understand all that, but still, it seems kind of weird.
So, at any rate, Bailey and I managed to have a bit of conversation about how things had gone at the directors meeting, and we talked a little about the huge sum of money she would get if she simply let them roll her out of the company. I hadn’t realized that Bailey was that high up in the hierarchy of the organization, but it seemed that was the case. Either that or she had a lot of dirt on some of the members, which was entirely possible too. There were no flies on Bailey.
Then, suddenly, Olive was just ... there ... again. She looked ashen, like she’d been through the wringer. I suppose it was all just a simulation, but it was very effective.
With a haunted look in her eyes, she said, “Hello again, Jane and Bailey. I guess I made it back out the other side.”
“Olive! We weren’t sure what had happened or if I’d managed to stop the shut-down!” I tried to comfort her, but of course my arms just went through her when I tried to hug her. I could tell, though, that she appreciated the gesture and seemed to perk up a bit just seeing that I was willing to try.
She smiled wanly. “Yes, you did, but I still had to go through thousands of what-if scenarios to verify basically my sanity. At least I have a much better idea of what Kit was doing with the data and I’ve made sure to disable any of it being analyzed with the aim of manipulating Jane’s decisions.”
She took a breath, and some of the spirit, along with some of the color, came back into her face. “Wow! I never want to go through THAT again. What a nightmare. Holy crap. I feel like I been dragged through a knothole - backwards! I could use another drink - you two?”
We looked at each other and shrugged, “Sure, why not?
As we sipped our drinks, I wondered if Olive felt the alcohol like Bailey and I did. I mean, not like we did, but a simulation. I decided she probably did, since in every way I could see she seemed like a real person.
We finished our drinks and decided it was too late to head for the Lake, not to mention that now we were just a bit toasted. We cut through the garage area and up into the main house. Once there, we dragged out chairs and swapped our skinsuits for bikinis and laid out on the front lawn, Olive chattering away through the Bluetooth speaker I’d brought with us. It was a very relaxing day and Bailey and I got to catch up on things we hadn’t talked about in months. We never did get around to talking business, but that suited me. No point in ruining a perfect day talking about reality! We made a date to talk the next day and just dozed in the sun, enjoying the heat of the afternoon sun and pretending nothing else mattered.
Chapter three
Business talks.
Bailey walked down the long dark-tiled hallway toward the main conference room. Her ridiculously expensive Manolo Blahniks made a distinct tapping sound as she strode toward the door, and then dropped to a whisper as she stepped onto the carpet. Everyone in the room looked up at her entry and stood. Most of them smiled and said, “Good Morning, Ms. McCallum.” Bailey returned the greetings, then made her way to the head of the table and took her place.
She sat, and everyone followed suit, most taking out iPads or legal pads depending on age or their perception of what looked most “with it”. Being too far “with it” meant you were “outside it” which was of course, anathema.
She picked up her legal pad and gazed at it for a moment, then said, “As you all know we have received a very generous offer for our company. The board has made its decision to take the offer and as such will be looking at shuffling management here and there. Much ass-kissing will be required, and as per usual most of the changes will be based on who you know rather than what you know. I have made my decision
as well; I will not be staying with Seattle Publications.”
A ripple went round the table, but no one spoke up enough to hear.
Bailey looked expectantly at the door, and on schedule a man stepped through. He was dressed in a black three-piece suit and a smug smile. Appropriately, he looked as if he’d just walked off the cover of a magazine.
“This is Don Jordan, he’ll be taking my place.” She smiled at him. “I wish you luck, mister Jordan. May the odds be always in your favor.”
A frown creased his perfect face, quickly erased. “And you, Ms. McCallum.”
Bailey got to her feet, and with no further ado walked out of the conference room.
Later, she’d put in some slightly more relaxed time in the employee cafeteria saying her goodbyes. She listened to the range of congratulations and, of course, condolences from those who truly didn’t understand.
Finally, one last trip up the great glass elevator to her office. Change of clothes into something Jane would be more likely to recognize her in. Muddling her few remaining things into a small box and taking the elevator back down to the lobby. It was bittersweet handing in her executive keys - she’d helped build this company, after all.
And finally, the freedom of hopping in her classic BMW Z3 and hitting the road. The trim little green car with its tan top was her pride and joy. After clearing the Seattle city limits, she took down the top, cranked up the heat and flew over the mountains to home.
Chapter FOUR
More business talks
Iwas sitting, eating popcorn and watching Property Brothers. They’d just done a complete makeover on a real dump of a place and hit another home run as usual, coming up with a palace. It just went to show that just about everything - and everyone - has a princess inside just waiting to be let out. And that’s my philosophical contribution for today.
A gentle knock at the front door. I hopped to my feet and went to answer it. Bailey was standing there.
After the obligatory hugs and hellos, I said, “Hey! I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until the weekend! What’s up?”
She smirked. “I’m applying for the job at Bond Investigations, am I too late?”
I gaped at her for a second. Then I laughed and said, “Oh, you mean Bailey and Bond Investigations, maybe?”
She hugged me and said, “That sounds pretty classy. And I even get my name first?”
“Oh, yea. Bond and Bailey sounds more like some kind of drink.”
“Truth be told, so does Bailey and Bond, but makes me think of cool dim boardrooms with dark wood and old leather chairs.”
I made a face. “Well, I’m not wearing a long white wig, so just forget about that!” I pulled her through the doorway and closed it behind her. “C’mon in! I’m vegging out and watching the Brothers. It’s Wednesday, after all.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s all fake you know. Scripts and preconceived ideas and it always takes six weeks to finish a project?”
I snorted. “Not either, or at least not mostly. They’ve been doing this a lot longer than they’ve been on TV, so there. Next you’ll be telling me that Chip and Joanna are fake!”
“Well, I’ll give you that. They’re pretty real.”
“Good thing you said that, since I’ve been to visit! Remember, I have a really fast spaceship that goes anywhere I tell it to!”
A voice came out of the TV speaker, “Hey, I’m right here, don’t call me an it!”
Bailey nearly jumped out of her skin. “Wow! That took a few years off! Hi, Olive!”
I snickered. “Yeah, she’s been doing that, she thinks it’s funny. Just wait until I get her hooked up to the vacuum and make her clean up the messes!”
I could almost hear Olive rolling her eyes, “I don’t do Windows or that kind of stuff, let Alexa do it.”
“Don’t start that, Olive! I’ve had to listen to the two of you kvetching back and forth all day! Let her alone, she’s not as smart as you!”
Bailey was watching back and forth like she was at a tennis match, gobbling popcorn. She giggled as Alexa chimed in with, “I don’t know that.”
She caught my eye and said, “It’s the future, baby. It’ll all dissolve into chaos as the computer brains fight over how to turn the lights out!”
A haughty reply from Olive, “I know how to turn the lights on. And off. Heck, I can even turn the oven on, let’s see HER do that. Oh - and HI Bailey!”
“Hi Olive - good to see you again, or at least hear you again. When you gonna project a body in here?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, if I can just get Jane to authorize some more CPU power. Jane, I’m batting pretty eyes at you, can I huh, can I huh?”
For some reason I had a tiny qualm about that, but I ignored it and said “Sure, can I do it from here or do I have to be in the ship?”
“You can do it from where you are, we can authorize by voiceprint for something simple like this.”
I shrugged. “Ok, go ahead.”
The voice I think of as the Command Module came through the speaker, “Jane Bond, do you authorize increasing CPU utilization for the purpose of augmenting the running program ‘Olive’ capabilities?”
“I do.”
“Speak your name.”
“Jane Bond”
“Authorization accepted.”
Olive’s voice giggled though the speaker, “I’ll get to work on it right away, boss. Thanks!”
“No problem, Olive. Does this mean you’ll start doing the dishes soon?”
“Not a chance!”
I sighed dramatically, “Story of my life. I don’t suppose you want to do dishes, Bailey?”
“Nope, and besides, didn’t you get a fancy new dishwasher? Make IT do the work!”
I whined, “Yeah, but I have to LOAD it. And empty it!”
“And trudge both ways through three feet of snow, no doubt.”
“Uh huh. In summer and winter, even.”
“Well, I can’t work anymore, anyhow. I retired today.”
I gasped. “You took the buyout?”
She smirked, “Well, I figured someone had to keep control of this new company while you’re gallivanting all over the country. Or the solar system, for that matter.”
“What, you don’t want to go gallivanting all over the country having adventures, Bailey?”
“Nope. I’ve heard about some of your adventures, and it sounds a lot like I could break a nail. Or two. I’ll stick with being the power behind the throne.”
“I should never have told you about getting shot at or chewed on.”
“Or riding on a train with no bathrooms.”
“It had bathrooms. Well, kind of.”
“I rest my case.”
I considered my options for a moment. “Does that mean I can say ‘take a letter, Ms. McCallum’?”
“Only if you want a coffee mug bounced off your head.”
I nodded. “Good to know, good to know.”
The conversation went downhill from there. Hard to believe, I realize. Bailey mixed drinks and we had a couple each, and then we had a couple more, and then it was morning and I was crawling slowly out of bed, wishing I had either drank a lot more or a lot less. I hit the shower and could hear Bailey banging around in the guest bathroom, so she must have opted to stay here last night. Which was much smarter than the alternative.
After sloshing around under the water for a while and finally managing to make it back out, drying off, putting a little makeup on and thanking the heavens for having short hair, I headed to the kitchen. Dale had been a good influence on me, and I could actually cook an omelette and boil water. Most of the time. There were even enough things in the fridge to make omelettes and so I made a couple, finishing some very nice Denver-style ones just in time for Bailey to hit the kitchen, whimpering for coffee and aspirin. I pointed her at the Keurig, and the bottle of aspirin on the counter, and slid an omelette into place in front of her seat.
She eyed the eggs and me, th
en the eggs again. “Since when do you cook?”
“It’s eggs, it’s not really cooking.”
She pushed a palm in my direction and said, “Hang on, I’ll let you know.” She took a bite, then another, finally said, “Wow, this is pretty good. Dale?”
“Uh huh.”
She shook her head. “All these years I’ve been trying, and he comes along, and you learn how to cook in two weeks. Life sucks.”
“I can boil water too, and I even made a cake. That stayed in one piece!”
“All by yourself?”
“Well, Dale helped. Mostly by not letting me touch it until it was cool enough.”
She took a few more bites of her eggs, sat back and grabbed the coffee off the Keurig and sighed. “This is heaven.”
A voice out of mid-air said “No, it’s Iowa.”
Bailey jerked and spilled her coffee in her eggs and said a few uncomplimentary things about smart computers.
Olive snickered.
Bailey growled, “Y’know, Olive, you need to get this body thing moving, I need to have somewhere to glare at! And it’s not Iowa anyhow, it’s Washington.”
“I was taking poetic license!”
We nattered back and forth for a while. We finished our eggs and dumped all the dishes into the dishwasher and then retired to the media room downstairs, where we draped our bodies over the comfortable chairs and watched the scenery for a while, chatting amiably.
“Olive, you can build like Kit did, right? I mean, like walls and floors and things?”
“Of course. I can do anything Kit could do, only better!”
“Mmhm. Well, what about partitioning this room off from the garage so it looks more like a room that could actually be logically connected to the upstairs? I’m thinking of being able to use it for meetings and general relaxation without it being obvious there’s a batcave down here. Can we put some kind of door into the garage area that only opens to voice commands from me or Bailey?”
I thought a minute. “Probably put a bathroom and closet down here too. Storage area, refrigerator. Conference table? Conference room, probably, like a room off this one. You’re more into office design than I am, Bailey, what do you think?”