Neural Web

by Dima Zales

  Her look is so full of sympathy that I stop talking and blink in confusion.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to you.” To heighten the sincerity of her words, she momentarily stops chewing, though I get the sense that she’s dying to resume. “The RHO is a peaceful organization, and I would never authorize violence of any kind, even against you.”

  “Then how do you explain this?” On the tablet, I pull up a picture of her and Lennox Dixon, the guy who blew up our apartment, and transpose it with the news articles about the bombing.

  I hold the screen toward her, and she puts down the water and grabs the device out of my hands. If Joe mentioned any of this to her during his mysterious interrogation, there’s no sign of it. She looks shocked, her eyes filling with tears.

  “If this is a trick,” she says, blinking rapidly, “it’s very cruel. Even for someone like you.”

  “Can you stop saying that? I’m not the devil.”

  She glances around the storage room as if to say, “I’m here, a prisoner, and you’re in charge—do the math.”

  “Your being in this room is just a misunderstanding,” I say. “We’ll obviously let you go as soon as we understand who’s trying to kill us and why. Besides, didn’t you catch the part where the authorities want to question you?”

  “Why shouldn’t I talk about you as though you’re the devil?” she asks, her gaze hardening now that she’s no longer staring at the tablet. “You’re about to usher in the apocalypse for the human species. That makes you pretty much the textbook antichrist.”

  “So you admit you tried to kill me.” I speak quickly, trying a persuasion technique I’ve used a few times on investors. “You wanted to prevent the apocalypse.”

  The miserable expression returns to her face, and she shakes her head, her gaze on the tablet once more.

  “I would never do that,” she says. “Nor would Lennox ever do something like that, for that matter.” She looks thoughtful for a moment, then shakes her head again. “No, he really wouldn’t.”

  I latch on to her hesitation as a clue. “Yet he did. There’s something you’re not saying.”

  “Lennox didn’t have long to live,” she says after a pregnant pause. “A brain tumor. But he acted normally. Besides, where would he get a suicide vest? Why would he bomb your apartment, where your family might be? It just makes no sense.”

  “And yet it happened.”

  In VR, I ask, “Why didn’t we know about his tumor?”

  “Unlike Coney Island Hospital, most doctors’ offices encrypt their records using Tema,” Muhomor says defensively.

  “We should see if anyone else had a terminal illness,” I say in VR.

  In the real world, Tatum frowns at me uncertainly. “Maybe someone offered him money? He was worried about his dad, but I told him we’d take care of his family.” She begins to cry.

  I feel like a monster, even though I haven’t really done anything. I fight the temptation to walk over and touch her shoulder reassuringly. Comfort from “the antichrist” would probably make matters worse. “Can you think of anyone who would’ve paid him to do something like that? Maybe a more zealous part of your organization?”

  “We don’t have bloodthirsty zealots like that.” She wipes the remnants of tears from her eyes to make sure I register the scathing look she gives me. “Most of us are unemployed, thanks to you and your company. We’re as useless as the rest of humanity is going to be soon, if you’re not stopped.”

  “Tell her about our plans to allow people to make money as artisans in their fields,” Alan says, raising one of his favorite topics. “Also mention our plans for universal basic income.”

  “No zealots,” Ada says, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she ignores Alan’s tirade. She appears as an angel avatar next to Mitya’s devil and gives Tatum an unsympathetic once-over. “Ask her how they planned to save humanity, then. By being a nuisance?”

  “If you truly believe that we’re bringing about the end of the world,” I say instead, “isn’t it just a matter of time before someone gets violent?”

  “If Gandhi could drive the British out of India with patience and without violence, we should be able to reverse the harm you’re doing using the same methods,” Tatum says. Her dimpled chin juts upward.

  “Did she just compare herself to Gandhi?” The tiny Mitya devil lands on Tatum’s right shoulder. “Why not the Dalai Lama? Or Santa, while she’s at it?”

  “I bet fifty bucks she’s going to compare us to Hitler at some point in the next few minutes,” Ada replies, matching Mitya’s tone.

  I do my best to ignore the commentary from Augmented Reality. “Do you still think I fabricated what this tablet is showing you?”

  “No.” Tatum visibly deflates.

  “Then you agree that despite what you tried to do, violence happened.”

  She nods.

  “Then help us figure out who’s responsible,” I say. “If RHO is innocent, then it would seem someone is framing you guys. You should be as interested in getting to the truth as I—perhaps more so, since the authorities are looking for you.”

  She’s silent for a moment. Her nicely trimmed eyebrows move animatedly on her forehead as though they’re a window into her brain. “I don’t think you’re fabricating this.” She gestures at the tablet, looking genuinely miserable. “I just don’t know how I can help.”

  “Joe is right,” Muhomor says in the VR room. “She’s useless.”

  “I agree,” Ada says. “Let’s let her go after I land.”

  “I’m not convinced.” Mitya’s avatar flies from Tatum’s shoulder, grows to the size of a small dog, and lands a foot away from her legs. “The fact that she doesn’t have Brainocytes does open an interesting possibility. We could force her to get Brainocytes with a modified AROS interface that has the Polygraph app running in the background. We could then find out for sure if she’s telling the truth.”

  “No.” Ada’s angel grows bigger than the devil avatar and flies through the room to place herself between Tatum and Mitya. “We’re not doing that.”

  The Polygraph app was a failure created by the intelligence community, designed to test its own people. It’s a Brainocyte app that can accurately spot if the person running it is telling the truth. It’s a million times more reliable than the polygraph exam from which it takes its name. Even before Brainocytes, tools like fMRI and other brain-scanning technologies were used in lie detection, but Brainocytes took such technology to new levels.

  The reason the project failed was that we designed Brainocytes in such a way that no one can force someone else to run a specific app; you must rely on the person to do it on her own. That led to an easy way to thwart the Polygraph app: a spoofed version of the app that doesn’t keep an eye on the user’s brain but instead shows results that look like the output of the Polygraph app.

  What Mitya suggests would work around the spoof problem because Tatum would get Brainocytes for the first time. As a new user, she’d not be able to figure out how and where to get the Polygraph-faking app. Also—and this is probably why Ada is so upset—Mitya is suggesting that her Brainocytes would run an app in the background without her explicit consent, something our lobbyists are trying to make illegal in as many countries as we can.

  “That’s an interesting idea,” I say to my friends telepathically. “If we made sure she’s not connected to the internet, we could be certain the Polygraph app is working as intended. Or that the custom AROS build wouldn’t even have internet. Hell, we could even give her a normal AROS interface and just insist she run the Polygraph app without internet. This way—”

  “I said no.” Ada’s head turns toward me, her amber eyes burning with ire. “It’s extremely unethical.”

  “Oh, she’d like us to do that,” Muhomor says. “Confirmation bias. She’d love it if we confirmed every fear the RHO has about us.”

  “No,” I say to Muhomor. “I just read some of Tatum’s blog posts, and I think Brainocyte
s would be her worst nightmare. I guess we’re back at square one.”

  “I think you’re telling the truth,” I say to our victim in the real world. “My cousin said as much.” I say the last bit out of curiosity. I’d still like to know what Joe did to her to reach his conclusion.

  “You mean Joe?” To my shock, her expression is less dire than I would’ve expected at the mention of her tormentor. It’s almost excited, even. “You’re related?”

  “His father is my mother’s brother.” I raise my eyebrows in VR as if to say, “What did he do to her?”

  “I see,” Tatum says, her expression unreadable again.

  Ada, Muhomor, and Mitya all shrug.

  “I’d like you to stay with us a little bit longer,” I say after a long and uncomfortable silence, during which Tatum finishes both her food and water.

  “Stay your prisoner, you mean?” she says. It’s hard to say if she’s really upset or she’s just using the chance to poke at the antichrist.

  “I’d prefer to look at it as giving you shelter while we figure out how to clear your name.” I wave at the tablet.

  “Since I don’t have a choice, I don’t see why not,” she says. “Any chance I can take a shower, use the bathroom, and take a nap?”

  Mitya sends me the bunker schematics with one room circled. “Nine suites, two of them unused. That one has a door that someone can guard.”

  “Let me see what I can do for you,” I tell Tatum.

  After some quick setup, Gogi takes her to the room Mitya picked out.

  “Dominic,” I say. “Do you mind taking the first watch?”

  Instead of answering, he assumes his position. I believe his exoskeleton would allow him to stand like this for days, but I’ve never double-checked by asking if it’s true. Dominic doesn’t like to talk about his body.

  “Hey, Dad.” Alan is using his real-world, hard-to-resist kid voice, which means he’s about to say something I won’t like. “Can I speak with her?”

  “Tatum?” I glance at Dominic for support, but the guard’s Augmented Reality face shows no emotion. “You want to talk to the woman who might’ve ordered that bombing?”

  “We decided she didn’t do it.” He speaks telepathically now; he knows that when it comes to arguing, you sound less persuasive when your voice is that of a four-year-old.

  If I start arguing, he’s probably going to get his way, as well as delay my getting to sleep by precious minutes. So I do the easy thing and give in.

  “Put another guard at the entry and take Dominic with you when you go inside.” I make sure Dominic gives me a little nod.

  “Okay,” Alan says reluctantly.

  “And run the Share app, recording every word she says.”

  “Well, of course.”

  “You okay with this?” I privately ask Ada. “I’ll be the bad guy and say no, if you want.”

  “Let him talk to her,” she replies, her message almost free of anxiety. “Dominic will be with him.”

  I send Dominic a private message. “If she so much as looks at him wrong or says a mean word, pull him out. If she touches him in the wrong way—in any way—break her arm.”

  The big man gives me another nod.

  “And can I pick up Mom when she lands?” Alan asks, his eyes glinting mischievously. He knows what I’ll say, but he’s testing me anyway.

  “Absolutely not.” I try to look as authoritative as I can.

  “We’ll discuss this after you get some sleep,” he says. “You’re not in the best of moods now.”

  “My answer will be the same.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I send a private telepathic message to my cousin. “Joe, make sure to wake me up before you go get Ada.”

  “Obviously,” he replies.

  “And when we go, please have someone check the car to make sure Alan is not stowed away in it someplace. He’s gotten it into his head to go with us, which I don’t think is safe.”

  “I agree,” Joe replies grimly. I get the feeling that if he does catch Alan in the car, my son might get his first-ever spanking. Or worse.

  “Can someone interview the family of the Curaçao bomber?” I ask in the VR room with a demonstrative yawn. “And can someone else do the same in the other locations?”

  “I now can control a dozen more robots than when I was corporeal,” Mitya says. “I volunteer.”

  “All right. Then can the rest of you guys please watch over Alan while he goes to talk to that witch?” I yawn again. “I can almost get a solid’s night sleep before Ada’s plane arrives.”

  “Not fair,” Ada says. “I’m exhausted and want to go back to sleep also.”

  “So?” Muhomor says. “You don’t trust me to watch over the offspring in a bunker full of guards?”

  “Fine.” Her yawn is even more contagious than mine. “I’m sleeping for the rest of the flight.”

  “Anything else we can do while the two of you slack off?” Muhomor asks sarcastically.

  “It would be nice to look into the people who drove those cars earlier,” I say. “My face recognition app didn’t catch their faces, but maybe you can hack into police department or the morgue to find out who they were.”

  “Fine.” He looks embarrassed. I guess this is the first time he hasn’t already thought of hacking the answers.

  I gulp down a smoothie I made while speaking in VR, then make my way to the master suite and plop down on the bed. I make a mental note to upgrade it to the Mitya-designed WhisperAir mattress at some point in the future. This mattress is the ancient memory foam variety.

  Then I realize I’m accepting the need for bunkers too readily. The terrorists (or whoever they are) are winning.

  “Watch Alan,” I tell Mr. Spock. “Make sure the woman he’s about to talk to doesn’t upset him.”

  “If someone hurts Alan, I will bite them,” Mr. Spock says, his basic Zik message full of wrath.

  “It might be enough to run up to her and squeak,” I tell him. “If violence is required, let Dominic deal with it.”

  “If she makes me squeak, I might not be able to stop myself from biting,” Mr. Spock says.

  I’m very proud of Mr. Spock’s self-knowledge. “Do your best, bud.”

  “Sleep well.” He scurries out of the room.

  As my eyelids close, I send Ada our usual telepathic good-night message and blank out.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The hospice tries to be as cheerful as such a place can possibly be, but with every step, I’m drowning in sorrow. A long gray tunnel in front of me ends with a large door marking my destination. Each step echoes through the hallway, and my legs seem to move without my conscious consent.

  I know what waits behind that door.

  Mom is there, her body a battlefront of cancer.

  I feel as if I’m falling instead of walking, and the feeling of falling makes something click in my psyche. I’m pulling the door handle when I become certain that this is a nightmare—a dream inspired by the Join app experience during which I saw what happened to Ada’s mother through Ada’s eyes.

  Bright light hits my retinas as the door opens. Will I see Ada’s mother or my own mom in this dream? Or is this a dream at all?

  Instead of anyone’s mother, Einstein’s grinning face greets me. The AI is wearing a gown and has tubes attached, just like in Ada’s memories.

  “You’re getting much better at recognizing and controlling your dreams,” he says. “Will you be practicing lucid dreaming now?”

  Instead of answering, I focus my attention and transform the room into a rose garden. Once a sweet-scented breeze replaces the stuffy fumes and there’s no hint of the hospice, I manifest Ada into the scene.

  “Haven’t you had enough of me when awake?” dream Ada asks seductively. She loosens the right strap of her yellow summer dress.

  “Never,” I whisper and float toward her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You have been unconscious for eight hours and fo
rty-seven minutes,” Einstein reports somewhere in my groggy brain. “Current time is 8:55 a.m.”

  I jackknife in bed and send Ada a frantic telepathic message: “Are you back? Did Joe go pick you up without me?”

  She doesn’t reply, so I put together another Zik message. “Joe, where are you?”

  Joe doesn’t reply either. As my real-world hand reaches for my pants, I pop into the VR room, hoping either Ada or Joe are there, but they aren’t. The only person in the VR room is Mitya, but his avatar looks strange. His face is like that of a statue in Madame Tussaud’s museum, his open eyes glassy.

  “Dude,” I say when I realize he hasn’t blinked for an unnatural length of time. “What the hell is going on with you?”

  Mitya’s eyes slowly blink and recover some of their liveliness. In almost no time, they sparkle with their normal intelligence, and his face animates into a smile. “Oh, hey.”

  “Hey,” I reply cautiously. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “What was the question?” He raises his arms over his head in a catlike stretch. “I’m afraid I was a little out of it.”

  “No kidding,” I say. “What was up with your eyes being glazed over?”

  “Is that what it looked like?” He stretches his neck, tilting his head side to side. “Since everyone was asleep, I figured it was as good a time as any to experiment with sleep and dividing my attention.”

  “So that was you sleeping?” I say. “Your eyes were open.”

  “Do you think anything about me has to do with this avatar anymore?” His body morphs into a row of miniature computer servers. “This is what I really look like now,” he says in a slightly metallic voice. “Not this.” His avatar is back in the room and continues to stretch his limbs as though nothing happened. “I don’t need to breathe,” he says on an exhale. “I don’t need to worry about my weight.” A banana sundae appears on the meeting room table. “I don’t—”

  “—need to sleep?” I’m eager to get back to the subject of Ada. “Did you rid yourself of sleep? Was that what you experimented with?”