A Long Ride

by Henry Roi

  “What just happened?” Shocker's mouth was open. “Did you just scam that lady?”

  “Nope.” My canines lengthened. “She scammed us.”

  “How…What???”

  “She may not have bought it. We simply presented her a deal she couldn't pass up.”

  “But she thinks she…”

  “Ripped us off for ten bucks?” I expressed offense. “Damn broad stole from us. I hope she comes back and does it again.”

  “Razor believes everyone has the capacity to steal.” Big Guns told Shocker, Ace and Bobby.

  “Larceny is in everybody,” I agreed, sipping my espresso.

  Silver smile. “So every once in a while he creates a scenario that brings out the thieving monkey in all of us.” He grunted. “I think he just likes to fuck with people.”

  “Thieving monkey,” Anh Long muttered humorously, shaking his head.

  I threw my empty cup in the trash. “Everyone has stolen something at some point in their life. It's in our nature. Even old Christian grandmas like to beat the system out of a few bucks. That lady,” I pointed to the front doors, “clearly heard me say sixty-two dollars. Yet she hurried up and paid fifty-two and left before the mistake was discovered. Greeed.” I ruffled Crystal's hair as she brushed past me, pulling it loose from clips and whatnot. “I love it! Good job, Grasshopper.”

  Crystal froze in her walk, blinking in disbelief. She clenched her fists, stomped a sandal. “Mister Man! It took me for-ever to get that right.” She patted her 'do. “Oh my GOD.”

  “You have my permission to hit him,” Blondie said, taking a dainty sip of espresso, one eyebrow arched.

  “Mine too,” Shocker added.

  The men looked at me like, You're on your own with that one, pal. Crystal ughed me once more, stomping off to the ladies' room. I pointed and hollered at her. “Hey! I just made you a thirteen dollar tip. You're lucky I don't make you split it!”

  “Forget you, Mister Man!” her muffled voice spat from the hall.

  “All right. Well. That was fun.” I clapped my hands once, faced the room. “Now that my inner-crook has enjoyed a taste, he wants more. Shall we go add a few more ingredients to our criminal brew?” I motioned for everyone to follow me. They got up, the men smirking, women shaking their pretty heads, followed me into the hallway.

  The door opposing the bathrooms accessed the business next door. Emotion Art. Another of my girl's excellent enterprises. It was closed today, all appointments canceled because we needed to get some things and do some things without witnesses. The new carpet smell was strong after huffing the perfume and coffee ambience of the boutique. Blondie took point. I closed the door after everyone filed through.

  Emotion Art had the same floor space as the business we had just left, though it was configured differently. The front had a desk by the entrance, facing four small chambers with soundproof walls and thick steel doors, each with a stylishly scripted sign designating their purpose. From left to right: Chapel, Sensory Deprivation, Video, and Audio. Blondie gave a tour and elaborated on the business model.

  “You guys know what a Rorschach test is?” she asked as they looked at the chambers curiously.

  “Those old ink-blot flash cards. Doctors showed them to patients and asked what they saw,” Ace answered.

  “I like those,” Bobby said. “Little miniature Jackson Pollock paintings.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Blondie agreed, flashing a grin at the giant. “They are paintings that elicit emotion. What I've done here,” she waved at the rooms, “is reverse that concept. Emotion elicits paintings.”

  “How?” Shocker was fully intrigued.

  Blondie opened the Audio room. The heavy door unlatched loudly, pulled open silently. She nodded into the chambers. “Electroencephalography.”

  “EEG? Awesome.” Ace's eyes were screens televising the Geek Show. “I had an EEG when I was twelve and studying neuroscience. I used it to scan the brain waves of dogs and cats while they were eating and sleeping, or playing in aggressive states -”

  “Pusssht.” Shocker pinched his lips together. Smiled, shaking her head gently.

  “Yes, dear.” He shrugged apologetically to Blondie. Received a quick kiss from his girl.

  Blondie's eyes broadcasted her own brand of Nerd TV. Feeling like a boy lusting on his science teacher, I focused on her foxy gestures. She said, “An electrode cap is placed on the customer's head so that the EEG can scan the brain's cortex. Every thought, action, or feeling has its own unique wave signature.” They nodded in understanding. I stuck my hand in my pocket to pinch the arousal out of my Johnson.

  But she's so hot when she talks smart! he argued.

  I pinched harder, Later, and he squirmed, attempting to dislodge my submission hold.

  She went on, unaware of my plight. “These wave signatures are converted into digital code by an algorithm, which determines what color, shape, density or speed the airbrush 'bot paints.”

  “Wait,” Bobby said, arms crossed, one large finger aimed at her. “There's a painting robot in there?” He pointed at the chamber.

  Huge perfect smile. “I have four of them. Look.” They eyed the interior of the Audio room. The door and walls were covered with rows of tiny pyramids, sound dampers that isolated a customer's senses from the outside. In this room people listened to their favorite songs while the apparatus created art from the emotions. Upbeat songs excite the cortex and create paintings with fast sweeps and lively colors, showing the energy felt by the music. Melodramatic songs produce gloomy renderings, sweeping grays and blues. And so on. It was surprisingly accurate.

  A white leather recliner sat in the center facing the door. White being a neutral color, had little influence on the mind. A small stand next to it with drawers contained headphones and differently sized EEG caps. The back wall was a sheet of thick, clear Plexiglas, showcasing the robot and easel beyond it. The 'bot was cylindrical, titanium, about the size of a large fire extinguisher. Highly polished. It had five arms: two on each side, one in the center, triple-jointed with tiny hydraulics, hoses, servo motors and airbrushes for “hands.” A color was assigned to each arm, primary tones that could combine to make any shade on the color wheel. Blondie said with pride, “The Plexiglas separates the customer from the compressor's noise and the fumes.”

  “Whoa yeah,” Ace breathed.

  “I like the Sensory Deprivation chamber,” Big Guns divulged.

  Shocker nodded to him. “I tried one during a training camp in Colorado. I was blinded with black goggles, ears and nose plugged, while I floated in a tank of water. There was no sensation to distract me. I could do complicated math problems in my head.” She looked wistful. “Ugh, I wish I had one at home. Thirty minutes in that thing and I felt like I slept all night.”

  Big Guns laughed. “Same with me. I could think clearer, deeper and,” silver grunt, “ 'paint.' I can't draw a stick man on paper –”

  “No problem drawing bombs, though,” Blondie muttered, then smiled at him to continue.

  “Yeah. I said I was sorry about that.” He glanced at me. I shrugged, Between you and her, pal. I was okay with what happened. He mumbled a curse, then turned back to Shocker. “With her machine I can paint abstract scenes that actually look good.”

  “Clarice taught me how to paint on canvas,” Bobby told us, looking at Shocker. He told her, “Boss, you said robots would take over everything.”

  “I meant car manufacturing,” she said in wonder. Looked at Blondie. “How does it know what to paint?”

  “Again, it's a reverse Rorschach concept.” She walked into the room, ran a hand over the recliner's headrest. “If you look at a triangle, for example, your brain emits a specific electrical signature. Colors do the same thing: red revs the libido or evokes competitiveness. Like that. There's decades of research on that stuff. Whatever you think, feel, or visualize is interpreted by software and painted on canvas by the 'bot. We have different canvases for different time limits.”

&
nbsp; l pointed at the Chapel. “People that paint their prayers use a small canvas for ten minutes.”

  “Most of my prayers are full of curses these days.” Shocker looked dour. “Don't think I'll be using that one.”

  Anh Long had remained quiet during Blondie's hosting, standing behind everyone with increasingly impatient eyes. He broke his silence. “This is all very impressive, but you didn't bring us here to have us paint our muses.”

  “True.” Blondie turned to look at the old man, her congenial spirit vanishing. Ms. All Business: “This way.”

  She shouldered through our group and strutted with purpose down the hallway.

  Shocker frowned at the Elder Dragon before taking Ace' s hand to pull him away from his inspection of several Emotion Art paintings hanging behind the service desk. Large and small canvases were framed in titanium, each with golden plaques engraved with titles. My favorites were the huge one with twisting sprays of greens and yellows titled, “Prayer To Legalize It”, and the blank white one that said, “Boyfriend's Thoughts On Marriage”. A small one to the far right with broad splashes of pink was enscripted, “Child With Lollipop”.

  …worth their paint, my subconscious opined as I took up the rear of our train.

  The back room had a steel door with a thick seal to contain all the noise produced by Blondie's inner mad scientist (who by the way, is hell on heels). It was a workshop for researching and developing EEG concepts. Two long steel tables stretched the length of the floor, both covered in electronic components, soldering and jig stations, engineering manuals (written and illustrated by Blondie) and several laptops. Boxes of chemicals and safety gear were stored on shelves on the back wall, a sandblasting machine and 3D printer in either corner. My girl did some serious fabricating in this room. The smells of various consumables and new cables piqued the craftsman in Ace, Shocker and Bobby. They peered around at the specialty tools and diagnostic machines with unreserved delight, right at home.

  “What's down there?” Ace asked, pointing to a corner junction box with electrical conduits running into the foundation. A large black rubber mat lay in front of it, hiding a door to an illegal basement.

  Blondie glanced at me with a hint of irritation. I nodded, Might as well, and she relaxed, said, “Guess I shouldn't be surprised you noticed that.” Shocker looked at her man with glowing approval. Blondie sighed and told everyone, “I don't like to show anyone my garden -”

  “Our garden,” I cut in, gaining odd looks.

  “Our garden.” Flip of luscious hair in my direction. “We'll take a tour after we look at the helmets.”

  “Helmets,” Bobby said. He made a weird face, What next?

  Big Guns looked at him. “Yeah. Doesn't sound good, right?”

  “For real. When you need specialized helmets for a job you know it's gonna be a mother'.” His chest and arms jumped for emphasis.

  “Wire pullers,” Anh Long said, “use secret means to influence or undermine an organization.” The corner of his mouth turned up as he looked at Bobby. “It is wise for a wire puller to have proper safety gear.”

  Bobby frowned thoughtfully.

  Anh Long turned to Blondie. “Did you make one for me, dear,?”

  She smiled sweetly. “Nope.”

  He pretended to be hurt, holding out his hands like, You think I'm too old for this business??? He waved both hands, Bah! and chuckled. He was aware she thought him rude earlier and was attempting to ease the tension.

  Blondie pointed at a machine the size of a large deep freezer. “Additive manufacturing. Took about twenty hours to print each helmet.”

  “Three-D printing.” Shocker walked over to the machine. “I've read about these but haven't seen one yet.”

  “That model can print anything,” Ace stated next to her. “It can use plastic polymers or metals in liquid or powder form. An electron beam melts the particles in a pattern dictated by a CAD file.” He gestured with his long arms. “The machine's rake distributes a fine layer of material across the build platform. The platform lowers slightly and the process repeats until the object has been fully printed.”

  “CAD?” Big Guns was acutely interested.

  “Computer-aided design,” the geek supplied. “Allows engineers to tweak the design on a computer before building begins. Saves a lot of R and D time. And money.”

  Big Guns' inner gangster bloomed on his wide face, exuding criminal swag. In a voice loaded with illicit intent he asked, “Can it print guns?”

  The Viet underboss was known for customizing .45 Smith & Wessons, and had a nearly daily habit of sketching ordinance of his own design on whatever scraps of paper he randomly found. The crazy bastard was wide open with it at times. Once he drew an ammonium nitrate bomb on a napkin while we were eating with Blondie and Trinh at a trendy restaurant. The waiter saw it, peered curiously at it, and froze with recognition. His Hello-My-Name-Is-Mark face took one look at the bomb artist's intense, gangster eyes, and turned around and proceeded to the nearest phone to call the police.

  “MFer,” Blondie scolded Big Guns, throwing her napkin in his face before we hurriedly left the restaurant. Trinh put him on kitty cat restriction, and Blondie was pissed the evening was ruined. I, on the other hand, saw the plus side: we didn't have to pay for the meal we nearly finished!

  Blondie looked at Big Guns and said flatly, “We are not going to start a gun factory.”

  “Not 'we'.” Silver flash. “I. With my own machine I'll be purchasing soon.”

  She narrowed her green gaze for a moment more. “Then yeah. This model will print the individual parts. You'll have to use a micrometer to check the specs and do a little slag filing. Then assemble the parts.”

  His face split into a grin that made his teeth emit chromatic flares. The man was experiencing a life changing moment. He ran a hand over the viewing glass on the front of the printer. “I want to see my helmet.”

  “Me too.” Shocker wore an enthusiastic glow too, though hers was more of a teenager in a shopping mall that couldn't wait to try on the latest fashion accessories.

  Large steel cabinets flanked the 3D printer. I watched Blondie's glutes as she sashayed a few steps over and opened the one on the right. Inside, full-faced motorcycle-style helmets, jet black, were positioned in rows on the top two shelves, each almost imperceptibly different in size. She grabbed the largest one and handed it to Bobby. He grinned, accepting it. She handed out the rest and we tried them on.

  “Carbon fiber and Kevlar composite.” Ace's voice was muffled until he opened the clear face shield. He tapped the side of the helmet. “Bulletproof, to a very high degree.” He shook his head, hard. “Nice fit.”

  Blondie beamed at the materials scientist, then walked around the back of everyone, flicking a small toggle inside the helmets by the neck. She turned to face us, pushed and held a button under the chin of her helmet. She took a breath and pressed her lips together in concentration. In the helmets we heard a robot Blondie say, “Good to go.”

  Big Guns' helmet jerked back as if to avoid a punch. He stared at her incredulously. “Cac! What the hell was that?!” Everyone else looked just as startled. He continued staring, blinking, comically confused in his Star Trek headgear. He knew her lips hadn't moved.

  “Covert op tech for now,” I said, enjoying their reaction to my girl's masterpiece. “Though in a few years it might be Big Brother in your head.”

  “I'm blown away,” Shocker said, looking at the Elder Dragon. The old dude crossed his arms, patience challenged. He wanted to try on a helmet.

  “Did you get this from DARPA?” Ace muttered, then answered himself. “No, couldn't have.”

  The girl-beast peered through her face shield at Ace. “Defense Advanced Research whatever?”

  “Projects. Yeah. They are developing this tech for the intelligence community. It's potentially an evil tool. Literally a mind reading device. Government special operations teams use these in the field to help them pick friends from enemies among c
aptured people.”

  “Sounds like something you'd see on SyFy,” Bobby rumbled.

  “Yesterday's science fiction is today's reality,” I felt I had to say. Then commented to Bobby, “That futuristic helmet makes your muscle-towered ass look like a super ninja action figure.”

  “Super Nigga,” he replied, nodding. He gripped his hands behind his back, executing a triceps pose.

  Shocker chimed in with a burst of squealing humor. “Blondie could make little Bobby figures with the three-D printer.” She gave her friend a teasing look that made him step into an impressive chest flexing pose. She squeezed his heavily muscled arm. “Every kid would want to chew on it and smash it.”

  The room reverberated laughter. Bobby took off his helmet and shook his head at her, That's just wrong, Boss. He was too dark to show a blush but we all knew he was.

  Blondie refocused the group. “Veritas Scientific started developing this technology about seven years ago. Their designs aren't public so I couldn't copy their work. But I knew it was possible. I just had to figure it out myself, while perfecting the Emotion Art concept.” She glanced at me. “We wanted to be able to communicate on jobs without talking out loud.”

  Nodded in her direction. “Her sign language sucks. It's like she has four middle fingers.”

  Ace frowned at her. “Does everyone hear your voice?”

  She shrugged sheepishly. “Haven't had the chance to write new software. My helmet transmits his voice.” She pointed at me with her middle finger.

  Big Guns pushed his transmit button. “This will be useful…” Blondie's computer monotone said. He spoke out loud. “How many words can it pick up?”

  Blondie took her's off. Everyone followed suit and she lectured, “The EEG measures brain activity with electrodes lining the helmet. They pick up specific words. So far I've managed to find about four hundred words. And it took a year and hundreds of cortex scans to recognize that much. The helmet can also be used as a lie detector.” For some reason she looked at me. “I had a great subject to calibrate that function on.”

  My voice adopted a boasting inflection. I pointed at myself. “Great subject.”