by Melody Clark
The walk to the old house ventured through the garden by way of a forged path around an English roses hedge.
“Eight bedrooms, four reception rooms and seven bathrooms at its largest. The family vacated it in large measure in the late nineteenth century and built the new house. It was still occupied as a servants quarters into the early twentieth century. Since then, the various family branches have been arguing about whether to tear it down or carry out very expensive preservation. At the last moment, the conservancy miraculously found our grandfather and here we are.”
“I can’t even conceive of tearing this down,” Edward said softly, stepping forward to wonder at the several corbel-set stairs up to the entry. He nudged the toe of his shoe against the first stone step. “It’s almost miraculous.”
“Well, it’s very expensive to maintain, Eddie.”
Edward nodded, staring at the hard rock façade of the doorway arch before finally touching it. “I’m sure, but think of the great cost of losing it.”
“This area is the oldest section. The entrance was rebuilt in some other age, 15th century I think.” Andrew nudged at his shoulder. “You know, you don’t have to only stare at it. You can actually walk into the old hut.”
“May I?” he asked, turning around. “That’s allowed?”
“Of course. Go in. Just mind the walkway out to the side carriage step. It’s tried to kill less foolhardy souls. It’s the main reason the house isn’t in use.”
Edward breathed deeply as if before plunging under water as he stepped through the front entrance door. Much of the inside house had been stripped to its essentials. The construction methods of multiple centuries had been laid bare. The only perceptible feature in the whole space was the gigantic fireplace that overwhelmed the room. In its day, the fireplace was the center of the home – for warmth, for cooking, for survival in the coldest months. The immensity of the room seemed in scale with its age.
He could barely imagine multiple generations of his family marching back beyond truly modern time. He reached a hand toward the mantle, then looked for permission at Andrew.
“Go on,” Andrew said, reaching up to thump it soundly. “It isn’t going to fall over anytime soon.”
Edward reached up to gently touch the mantle that jutted out from the fireplace. He tried to feel for whatever energy of time might be locked inside it, desperate to feel anything at all. He felt nothing. He bowed his head for a moment.
He turned around to gaze back across the house. Trying to grasp the enormity of time – his link to it. Trying to find some speck of himself in the sunlight streaming through these deeply old windows.
From the look on Andrew’s face, Edward realized he must have looked distressed.
“Are you all right?” Andrew asked.
Edward knew there weren’t any words. Nothing he could say that would translate this into language Andrew might understand without Eddie revealing himself in a way he could never do here.
“What is it like?” he heard himself asking.
“What is what like?”
He had already asked it. He had nothing to do but finish the question. “What’s it like to live somewhere like this? Where your ancestors have lived for centuries? What’s that like, to really, really belong somewhere? No demands, no proof required, no validation necessary. It’s your home. You belong to it as much as it belongs to anyone.”
Andrew shook his head and smiled sadly. “I’m not sure how to answer that, Eddie. I don’t have any other frame of reference.”
Edward nodded. “It’s hard to put into words why that’s different – at least to me. It’s something I miss very much in my own experience. I wanted to feel that here, I really did, but I can’t somehow.”
“Perhaps you should give it some time,” Andrew said.
“Maybe.” Edward tried on a smile. He checked his watch. “Tempus is fugiting, as my father says. The group should be forming shortly? We have a presentation to give.”
Chapter Four
Edward turned to face the working group as it collected around him. They had assembled in the great room, looking like what Edward imagined a meeting of an old English literary society might resemble. Standing before the wall-sized oil portrait of a distant ancestor, he felt far too connected to this place in time, and yet disconnected from it. The combination made for a perfect aggregate of unease.
Edward strained to look at the display screen he had propped up on a table. The SAGE/Brice emblem encompassed the monitor. “The whole idea of SAGE was to take the existing mind-guided system, Brice, which both Croftdon and Bakunin had developed, together and separately, in recent years, and make it consciously interactive through an intermediary script – not through a secondary agent, but directly and synergistically with conscious participants. We knew that, in this way, we could put power behind the purpose – kudos to my associate Andrew for that phrase – and really achieve something important on a human scale.”
“Yes, well, very nice words,” said the balding man in the gray suit in the first seat to Edward’s left. “But what’s it do?”
“What doesn’t it do?” Edward asked, clicking the remote in his hand to bring up a grid display of all its functions. “This whole system has the real potential to change everything about how humans interact. About how we understand each other and cooperate. Verbal and written interaction will become a secondary backup unit. We can actually exchange data through a guided interface’s central arbiter. It’s essentially digital telepathy. No magic behind it, just science.”
“And this will help us how?”
“We won’t need to rely on abstractions like language anymore. We’ll have direct access to meaning, to context. We will be able to feel those impulses in our own nervous systems. We will actually understand each other, with no limitations.”
“You don’t think that will cause more problems? What about secret keeping, personal privacy?”
“How about preventing wars through eliminating misunderstandings,” Edward said. “Creating real trust. A real exchange of ideas as literal digital abstractions, not vague cognitive content. Think of the benefits to education.”
Tad, sitting to the sidelines, leaned forward. “I can certainly see a lot of mental health related gains in this, too.”
“Conveying sanity – real clarity to the mentally ill,” Andrew offered. “In a matter of moments, through an interface –”
“Wouldn’t that be brainwashing?” asked the gray-suited guy.
“If you looked at it that way,” Edward replied. “You could also see it as healing a sick mind. There would be safeguards against the abuse of the system.”
Gray suit guy sneered. “Yes, there are always safeguards, aren’t there? Yet we’ve seen such systems used–”
“No, we haven’t,” Edward cut in sharply, “we’ve seen cognitive concepts used that follow along these lines. We have never had direct input and output between minds before. Ever. There would be a safeguard in the central arbiter to prevent any abuse. That’s what it’s there for. That’s why I’ve spent many years creating it, with Andrew’s work as well.”
“How do we know this system couldn’t be used as a weapon?” another man asked from the back of the assembled people. “Seems to me we could effectively spy on people, with this.”
“Of course it could be weaponized,” Edward said. “But my sole condition for participating in this project was that there be no military application of it.. It could be a formidable weapon for spying and worse, which is why it has to be strictly regulated through the central interface. Without SAGE, our central arbiter, this would be a weapon of unlimited mass destruction.”
“It could turn everyone in any group into a killing squad, if accessed from outside the system,” Andrew explained. “Edward and I have worked an extra year to fortify Brice with SAGE – Safety Actuating Gendarme Enforcement.”
Edw
ard nodded. “We think we have it to a point where we can begin direct mind to mind testing. We would like to start that within the week. What we’ll do today is just a demonstration.”
“Are there any dangers to this?” Tad asked.
Edward nodded again. “That’s why I’m going to be one of the experimenters. We have several other researchers who are considering being the host-reverse host. It won’t be Andrew because one of us has to be safe for further implementation, should something go awry. And also because I’m older and I can pull rank.”
Andrew looked around in surprise. “Well, aren’t you protective all of a sudden.”
“I’d have told you before, but you’d have argued with me,” Edward said.
“I’m the other experimenter,” Arvo spoke up from the back of the room. Edward, who hadn’t seen him until that moment, looked up to watch the man, his arms folded, traverse the room. “It’s in our contract.”
“Andrew will be monitoring at all times,” Edward added. “He won’t have access to direct input and output for safety reasons, but he will see anything that crosses the threshold. Anyway, the testing events are very cursory. We’re not at a place yet to safely transfer more than isolated chunks of recorded data. No emotions yet. No complex, multi-location content. But we’ll get there eventually, if it can be done safely.”
Arvo sat down at the card table that had been arranged.
Edward set his laptop next to the secondary unit. He removed from a satchel two objects that looked like baseball caps. He handed one to Arvo and placed the other one on his head.
“No American imperialism intended, these are just the two caps I had at home,” Edward said, happy to have garnered a nervous laugh from the group. “It’s all done with cross-coded WIFI. No wires necessary, so long as the test subjects are within arm’s reach of the unit.” Edward sat down in the chair opposite Arvo. “We have arranged a number that only Andrew has a copy of. I will attempt to read the number from Arvo. We’ll begin when I tap the touch pad.”
Most of the group members remained where they were seated. Tad leaned forward. Edward noticed Thomas work his way toward the front of the group and over to his side.
Edward reached for the touch pad and patted it. Immediately, an image of a cloud condensed in his visual field. It was a ready image part of the symbol set the system used. He knew immediately what it meant.
He opened his eyes and focused on Arvo. “Speaking of being protective – why are you blocking me?”
Arvo sat back sharply. “I’m not blocking anything.”
“You are. You’re protecting your memory with a distracting technique. To keep your mind moving around information you want to protect. What are you hiding?”
Arvo held up both of his hands as if in surrender. “Honest, man, I’m not hiding anything.”
“You are. Either desist your distracting technique or vacate the chair and let someone else be the sender.”
“No way,” he said, “I’m staying right here.”
“Then stop it,” Edward said firmly.
Arvo shrugged ambitiously. “I don’t know what to tell you, bro. I’ll relax more?”
“Do that,” Edward snapped. He closed his eyes again. After a moment, his eyes flashed open again. “What is Op TinTin 71.98?”
“That isn’t the target number,” Andrew said.
“Write it down, though, would you, Andrew? I know it from somewhere.”
“I’ve noted it. Go on.”
“77939045182, is the target, I think.”
Andrew lifted up the large piece of paper with the target number across it: 977390451821288.
“That is close,” Tad said.
“Close enough,” said the man in the gray suit. “Very well, to get all of this behind us, combined with the data we have already received, I’m prepared to approve continuation from where we are. When will there be an update?”
Edward was still staring hard at Arvo. He glanced back at the gray suit guy, but then looked suspiciously back at Arvo again, still answering the other man’s question, “Soon. We’ll alert you. Stay in touch with my brother.”
He waited until the visiting men had filtered out of the house.
Still staring at Arvo, Edward finally said, “What does that code mean, Arvo?”
“What code? I have no idea –”
“You do know,” Edward said, slowly and carefully. “I know you know. What does it mean?”
“Look, I’ve got shitloads of work to do for your dad. I don’t need to sit around and get accused of crap.” Arvo Nurmi stood up. “I’ll be back at the hotel.”
“Just a while ago, you were doing everything you could to overshadow me. And I didn’t accuse you of anything, Arvo. I asked you a question. A simple question.”
“You’re as paranoid as Wendell,” Arvo said, walking out of the room.
Edward followed him into the foyer where Ken was waiting, reading his tablet. Ken looked from one man to the other.
“Ken, what does Op TinTin 71.98 mean?” Edward asked.
Ken shrugged noticeably. “Beats the hell out of me. TinTin is a European comic, isn’t it?”
Edward nodded over at Arvo Nurmi and then looked back at Ken. “Why would he have it in is head and want to hide it from me?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, Eddie.”
Edward considered the two men a moment. Finally, he looked toward Ken. “I believe you.”
“But you don’t believe me? And I’m the one who is straight with you,” Arvo said.
“You’re withholding something. I know it.”
“Fine, Eddie. Here’s what I’m withholding. My presence,” Arvo said, walking around the other men. “I’m so fucking out of here.”
With that, Arvo Nurmi opened the front door and slammed it behind him.
Ken squinted hard toward the din of the slamming doors. “What is up with him?”
“I don’t know. You can go, too, if you want,” Edward said. “I have some work I want to do. And I’d like you to keep an eye on him. He’s up to something.”
“Sure. You want me to come back and pick you up later?”
Eddie shook his head. “No, I’ll grab a cab back. Anyway, it’s going to be a long afternoon.”
After Ken left on his appointed rounds, Edward returned to the library. Andrew had already amassed Edward’s necessary energy drinks. There was a standing carafe of coffee. Edward was about to toss back his fist of herbal supplements, pitiful though they might have seemed to him, and then pop a can of Red Rover, when he saw Andrew staring up at him in nothing at all short of amazement.
“What’s wrong?” Edward asked.
“You called me your brother,” Andrew said, beginning to smile.
“I did?”
“Yes,” Andrew said, nodding zealously. “Before. You told the group of money-lenders to stay in touch with your brother. And I’m the named contact.”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess I must have. Is that okay?”
“Is it okay? No, it’s not okay. It’s bloody fucking wonderful. In fact, if you don’t sit down quickly, I’m going to stand up and hug you harder than a mother anaconda. Since I’m English, that must tell you something.”
Grinning, Edward sunk into the office chair. “Thank you for the warning.”
“I hope it happens again.”
“Wait, what is this,” Edward said, leaning toward the screen. He tapped the screen to bring up the firewall notification. “Someone tried to hack into the system. Your WIFI has a pretty hefty password system. Wait – no, let me correct myself, someone did hack into the system.”
“What?”
“Look,” Edward said, “they’ve got some pretty tough tracks behind them, too. They made it all the way to a file –”
“Which file?”
Edward clicked on the file as read-only. It opened – Op TinTin flashed into view.
/> “Wait, isn’t that –”
“Yes, that’s the phrase I harvested out of Arvo’s memory archive.”
Andrew leaned over Edward’s shoulder to study the screen. “Yeah, you’re right, there it is. Is there any chance it was just a phantom floating around in your head. Maybe the system mistook it for the test subject’s archive when it was only in yours?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“This intrusion, though, makes me suspicious.”
“Me, too. Definitely.” Edward hit the arrow until the file paged down. “Look at the path. It was trying to access it directly.”
“What the hell is it doing that for?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Edward said. “This doesn’t even make sense.”
“I’m afraid it does to me,” Thomas said, where he had entered in the library door. “I’ve just phoned someone to come out and join us. He’ll tell you what I cannot.”
