Operation Indigo Sky

by Lawrence Ambrose

I decided I wanted to know about that project.

  "What's your schedule like tomorrow?" I asked.

  "On Sunday I usually relax catching up on science articles."

  I chuckled, though I doubted she was kidding. "Would you be up for something a little less relaxing?"

  "What did you have in mind?"

  "We were talking about dinner..."

  "You know what I'd like?" she announced with sudden passion. "To get the hell out of Palmdale. Go somewhere near water."

  "I've heard the Pacific Ocean has some of that. What do you think of Santa Monica?"

  "It's a little wild for me. But it could be fun."

  I hung up a after we agreed on my coming over at 10 A.M. I kicked off my shoes and was working on unbuttoning my shirt when a soft knock sounded. I opened the door.

  "Just thought I'd check in," said Lilith, brushing past me into the room. A heady gust of aromas – Lavender? Cinnamon? Personal musk? – wafted in behind her. She collapsed in the leather recliner. "Do you have anything to drink?"

  "There's some beer in the mini-fridge."

  "I'll take one."

  "Help yourself."

  She scowled up at me and shuffled with an annoyed grunt to her feet.

  "I'll take one, too," I said. She shot me another evil look, which lapsed into a reluctant smile as she pulled two out of the fridge.

  Lilith dropped back down in the chair, breathed out twice, and then sucked down about half the bottle.

  "This is not what I'm supposed to be doing," she said.

  "You mean you should be drinking expensive wine?"

  Another evil look. I grinned.

  "Didn't go as planned, I take it?" I asked.

  "It went exactly according to plan."

  "Then what's the problem?"

  "My problem is it's bullshit. It's all bullshit."

  "Lying to these people? The investigation?"

  "'All' is all-inclusive. Didn't they teach basic logic in the Marines?"

  I drank from my beer to prevent certain words from leaving my lips. Lilith raised an eyebrow at me as if waiting for me to unload on her – and then her scornful scowl drooped when I didn't.

  "Sorry," she said. "But this investigation, what we're doing..." She pressed the beer bottle to her forehead as though to chill her thoughts.

  "I know."

  "No, you don't."

  "What don't I know?"

  Lilith let her head flop back onto the chair and eyeballed the ceiling. "You don't have a clue what it's like to be me."

  "Why don't you enlighten me?"

  She made a sputtering noise. The poor, misunderstood female who berates the guy for not being psychic about her. I was a veteran of that particular game.

  I couldn't help contrasting Lilith with Janine. Lilith was like the archetype of every self-entitled beautiful woman, despite her occasional slumming as a real person. Physically, Lilith was a pyrotechnic burst of color next to Janine's quiet light, but at the moment Janine clearly outshone her in my eyes.

  "So what happened with Bronstein?" I asked.

  "I told him I was on my way to visit a friend. He asked about me and I told him I was a MS biologist working on a graduate degree in neuroscience – which happens to be the truth – and he was properly impressed. He got the Triple A people to come start my car. Not too difficult – just involved inserting the key in the ignition and turning – and then he invited me to dinner. We had a long talk, mostly about himself, and he pitched me about a job, saying Lockheed Martin was looking for people in my field to expand their A.I. program. 'We're not just about building planes,' he said. 'We're about stretching the bounds of reality.'"

  "From what Janine told me, he called that right."

  "What did your nerd princess tell you?"

  I scowled at her over my beer. "You know the organism your dad's people found in the canister – the one they believed was a bioengineered fungus?"

  Lilith sat up slowly and stared at me. "She had something to do with that?"

  "She did." I smiled at her stunned expression. "Turns out they were designing an organism with some pretty weird traits."

  I summarized our conversation. When I finished, Lilith was staring at me with wide, dazed eyes, as though she'd taken a few good shots to the head.

  "That..." Lilith was at a rare loss for words. "That's really strange."

  "That was her thought as well."

  "But that project was in the past. Did she say anything about what she's doing now?"

  "No. I thought I would try to find out. I'm seeing her tomorrow."

  Lilith helped herself to another beer from the mini-fridge. I made a mental note to refresh my supply tomorrow. She studied me as she drank.

  "You like her, don't you?"

  "She's a good person."

  "You know that's not what I meant."

  "It's nothing romantic, if that's your question. She's just a funny, cool, super-bright person." I couldn't help adding with a pointed smile, "And she seems to lack that bull-busting urge some women have."

  Lilith snorted out a laugh. "You think I've been busting your balls? You should talk to some of the guys I've actually done that with. I've barely tweaked your testicles."

  "I suppose I should be grateful."

  Her smile drifted away. "But this is big news. Particularly the part about targeting certain genotypes. My dad and his people will need to look into that."

  "What are your plans tomorrow with Bronstein?"

  "He's taking me museum-hopping in L.A., followed by a Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl."

  "Sounds like quite a day. I'm taking Janine to Santa Monica."

  Lilith slumped back in her chair again, slowly sipping her beer, as if she planned to stay awhile. I was kind of hoping she'd leave so I could relax and sort through my thoughts, but I couldn't help appreciating – in a purely artistic way, of course - the vision of her sprawled out like Tanya Roberts in Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. One of my childhood favorites.

  "Your dad had some news," I said, my brain turning to darker thoughts. "Ethan Ellenberg was found dead in his house this morning."

  Lilith lowered her beer. "You're kidding. Dead from what?"

  "The newspaper article didn't say. But it sounds as though he was found in the position I left him. Looks like natural causes. He had struck his head falling into the pool."

  "You mentioned that." But Lilith was chewing on her lower lip. "Did he seem that badly injured to you?"

  "An injury like that is hard to gauge."

  "Maybe someone was monitoring him, and heard him blabbing?"

  "Even if they were, the response seems too quick, not to mention extreme."

  Lilith examined a speck on the wall, her lips pursed. "What do you think the odds are that Lockheed monitors its employees – especially the ones entrusted with 'sensitive information'?"

  "They have thousands of employees. Hard to believe they'd bug many or most of them."

  "But how hard would it be to bug their phones and computers?"

  "Maybe not that hard," I said reluctantly. "And when you consider that 90% of their work is classified, that doesn't seem too far-fetched."

  "That's what I was thinking."

  We didn't speak for a few minutes as she finished her beer. The dark shadows in the room seemed to develop a sinister edge in the silence.

  "If they are surveilling their employees, that could put a hitch in our plans," I said.

  Lilith made an uneasy face. "What could they do? We're not doing anything illegal."

  "Not much to us, probably. Plenty to their employees who signed non-disclosure forms."

  "I'm not going to lose any sleep over people whose consciences let them create weapons and machines that kill people."

  "I don't think it's quite that simple, Lilith. They believe they're patriots helping to protect our society."

  "I know." She rolled her eyes, expelling a disgusted breath. "I've been hearing that argument all my li
fe. I'm sick to death of it."

  "Really? Who have you been hearing it from?"

  Lilith gave me a strange, weary smile. For a few seconds she looked about twenty years older than she was.

  "I should go," she announced, rocking to her feet. "Unless..." She paused, frowning at me as if having a sudden revelation. "Unless you want to watch a movie or something."

  I fought down the surprise rising in me. Don't make more of this than it is, I told myself.

  "I wouldn't mind, if there's something decent on," I said. "And you promise to keep your hands off me."

  She made a growling sound under her breath. "You're so full of yourself."

  " I'm so full of myself?"

  "You think you understand me? You haven't a clue."

  "I know, you're so mysterious. And of course, you would never deign to explain, because then you couldn't berate me for not understanding."

  "You're wrong, Hayden. I would love to explain. And someday I will, and when you understand you will feel foolish about your presumptions. I admit I will enjoy that, if nothing else."

  Her smile was more sad than mocking. "But for now, let's just see what's on television."

  Chapter 11

  ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL SUMMER MORNING, if you defined "beautiful" as cloudless blue skies, blazing sun, and eighty-seven degree temps at 9:30 in the morning. But of course it was a dry heat. I looked forward to cooler, wetter air in Santa Monica as I headed across town to pick up Janine.

  Janine was glass-less, makeup-enhanced, and resplendent in a flowery summer dress when she opened her front door.

  "Wow," I said, stepping back and shading my eyes. "I should be wearing my sunglasses."

  "I decided I'd try being a bright and shiny person for a change." But then a frown of self-doubt inched into her smile. "Is it too much?"

  "I just need to get used to you without glasses. I didn't realize you had such pretty eyes."

  "Hmmm." She looked away, her face turning a bright watercolor red. "Thank you. I only wish contacts weren't so damn annoying."

  We climbed aboard my rental van and after a short jog west caught Highway 14 going south.

  "You know," said Janine, "I know next to nothing about you, other than you were a Marine and like martial arts and work for a security firm. Do you have family? Friends? Where do you call home?"

  "Phoenix. Where I live is a lot like here climate and geography-wise. My mom died about ten years ago. I have a father in Florida, an aunt in Wisconsin, and cousins scattered over the Midwest and California. My best friend lives in Sacramento. And you?"

  "My parents live in Issaquah, Washington, a small city a few miles east of Seattle. That's where I grew up and where most of my friends are. I've sort of lost track of them during the last few years, which is something I'd like to change when I leave Palmdale."

  Traffic ground down to a trudge and I busied myself with not smacking into the cars ahead of us. I noticed some aggressive jockeying behind us in my rearview mirror. One dark SUV in particular appeared intent on making its way up the traffic food chain. Janine gazed ahead, oblivious, her face pensive.

  "Thinking about your job?" I asked. "What you're going to do?"

  "What do you know about artificial intelligence?" she asked.

  "Not much. Why?"

  "Well, while AIs aren't yet building smarter AIs that in turn are building even smarter machines, ad infinitum, there still have been some rather large advances in that field that aren't known by the general public."

  I felt a frisson of excitement tinged with fear. "I hope you're not going to tell me Skynet is up and operational."

  "It might be, minus the evil intelligence part. I'm not in the know about the space program. But from what I've seen, we're way beyond the cute shambling robots in the DARPA videos. They're just for public relations."

  My throat constricted. "How far beyond?"

  Janine hesitated. A muscle twitched along her jaw.

  "It's okay," I said. "I understand if you don't want to spill any more state secrets."

  "As if I haven't blabbed enough already. What's the point in holding back now?" She closed her eyes and breathed in while I kept my expression neutral. "Have you heard of the D-Wave computer?"

  "The quantum computer? Though isn't there some controversy about what it's really doing?"

  "Yes. But we have an actual, non-controversial quantum computer that uses something called neuromorphic chips. They incorporate brain-like neural nets. It's literally a quantum leap beyond the D-Wave." She gave me a dry smile. "They were already several generations in when I arrived, and my team and I improved it significantly."

  "That sounds huge," I said. "Do you know how it's being used?"

  "Everything we've been asked to design and program indicates it's going to operate in space or a hostile environment – capable of making extremely difficult and swift calculations involving orbital and EDL mechanics – entry, descent, landing – along with controlling what appear to be some very exotic weapons systems. We designed a system that can take directions but also is quite capable of independent initiative. In theory, anyway."

  As I attempted to digest that, the traffic picked up to a rip-roaring thirty miles per hour. I had to remind myself that I wasn't in a hurry to get anywhere. The important journey was into the brain of the person beside me.

  "So this quantum A.I. you're working on is probably going to operated in space?"

  "It looked that way."

  "Which could tie into the asteroid threat theory."

  "Except there doesn't seem to be any asteroid threat."

  "So I've heard."

  The freeway slimmed down to two lanes and merged into the Pacific Coast Highway.

  "Are you ready for lunch, or do you want to take a walk?"

  "A walk sounds good."

  I parked in a lot by the pier - $7 a day didn't seem bad at all – and we began a leisurely stroll down the beach toward Venice. Janine removed her sandals, and I followed suit with my athletic shoes as we followed a wet trail of sand between the ocean and the beach.

  A young couple walked a short distance ahead of us, arms entwined, pausing occasionally to grin at each other and kiss.

  "One reason I don't spend a lot of time at beaches," Janine grumbled.

  "I've never been much for public displays."

  "Me, neither."

  The loving couple veered off toward the boardwalk. Janine surprised me by holding out her hand.

  "Now that we're no longer under any pressure."

  I smiled through my surprise and grasped it. It seemed strange how shy she was and yet how bold she could be. We walked along, hands swinging in a controlled arc, as I wondered how to disentangle myself graciously. Hand-holding was definitely not part of my plan, but refusing would've shut everything down. I had to be honest with myself. I was headed down the exact same path that I'd already traveled with Sonja, and would soon face exactly the same ethical dilemma: aborting, and possibly losing important information, or continuing and losing a chunk of self-respect. I couldn't pretend I didn't know the score this time around. I knew Janine liked me, and despite my best intentions, I liked her. I had to admit, there was something about her that tugged my "heart strings." Or maybe I was just too hard-up and lonely for female companionship to handle this kind of work?

  On Janine's suggestion, we picked up hotdogs, fries, and iced tea at the boardwalk, and returned to the beach to eat. No longer holding hands, to my relief.

  Strains of music drifted to us: a solo guitarist playing a Jimi Hendrix-like riff dueling with a trio's bouncy Irish jig. As we ate and gazed out at the ocean, I wondered how Lilith was making out with Sheldon Bronstein. I hoped not literally making out, though I didn't see why I should care.

  Janine pointed to fins traversing the water maybe two hundred yards out. "Sharks?"

  "Dolphins, I think."

  "Cool."

  A trio of noisy kids skittered past, kicking up sand. We both held our paper plate
s near our chests. Out at sea, the presumed dolphins danced from view to the south.

  We drifted in toward the basketball courts and the outdoor gym. Some dudes were negotiating teams for a full-court game. I felt the usual itch to get involved, despite the circumstances.

  "You could play, if you want," she said. "I'll watch."

  "Nah," I said. "I can play basketball anytime."

  We stopped on the outer circle of an audience watching a young dude with golden hair and an angelic face playing guitar and singing a soulful ballad. When he finished, Janine moved forward with the others and dropped a five dollar bill in his guitar case. I noticed the young couple from the beach in the pack of contributors, ensnared in each other's arms as the girl doled out dollars.

  We settled down on a nearby bench as he launched into another song.

  "Impressive," said Janine. "I barely could manage the clarinet in high school."

  "Trumpet," I said. "My recruit officer suggested I consider auditioning for the Marine bands, but that really wasn't how I envisioned my military career."

  Janine sat watching the blond, soulful singer with rapt admiration. The singer finished the song on a high, warbling note, and the crowd surged forward with more dollars. The female half of the enamored couple caught my eye and smiled, as if we shared membership in a secret fraternity.

  We hung out for another hour before strolling back toward our parking lot. Janine's face had turned pensive.

  "So do you have any plans about breaching the security at Skunk Works?" she asked.

  "I'm kind of rethinking that whole idea. I'm not sure it's the thing to do given my knowing you."

  "I'm glad to hear that." Her expression lightened. "Do you have another assignment waiting?"

  "I have some things waiting in the wings."

  We didn't say much on the drive back. What was there to say? I'd plumbed her dry of information – or so it seemed - and anything personal seemed pointless. Still, I took the Palmdale exit wishing I had more time to gather my thoughts, which seemed to be in a state of paralysis. But then we were turning into her driveway and rolling up to her house.

  When we stopped, she sat staring at her small hands folded in her lap.

  "Well," she said, reaching for the door. "Goodbye, Scott."