Killer App

by Mark Philipson

  Screams became sobs as pain from a razor being dragged across bare skin, anal penetration, and involuntary orgasms merge into a haze of sensations.

  When the woman stopped making noise, Martín pulls her hair back and slits her throat. Blood pools on the bed as he ejaculates.

  After two years in the pornographic video division, Martín arrived in the United States and applied for citizenship.

  Crossfire dissolved the intrusive electron particles reading Martín’s memories.

  NINE

  BRITT SAT ON the wooden bench. Hissing steam billowed up to the ceiling when one of the other patrons poured a cup of water onto the bin of red-hot coals. Sweat streamed from her pores.

  After ten minutes of steam, Britt jumped into the circular ice dip pool. She went back to the locker room and stripped down. With soap and washcloth in hand, she hit the showers. In the booth, high pressure blasted hot spray from different angles. Tense muscles relaxed. Britt rubbed soap on the rough wash cloth. She started at the top and worked her way down. The textured cloth and Dead Sea salt soap made her skin tingle. As she rubbed her flat belly her fingers lingered over close-cropped pubic hairs. Her eyes closed.

  The sudden realization she was in a public place forced her eyes wide open. She finished up, dried off, and got dressed.

  On the way out, she thought about stopping at the juice bar then decided not to. She went into the cafe instead.

  Britt ordered grilled, wild caught salmon and half a sweet potato. She washed it down with a tall glass of iced coconut water.

  Good thing it’s a ten minute drive to my place.

  When she opened the door to her apartment, Britt was glad she cleaned up last night. She couldn’t sleep anyway, tidying up took her mind off things. She was tired and in no mood to come home to a messed-up place. It was easier to relax.

  She stood in the kitchen for a while, rubbing her neck. Britt emptied her pockets, flopping down in a padded chair. Too tired to get up and walk across the room and pick up the television remote. She didn’t give a shit about television at the moment. Britt closed her eyes. She couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept wandering back to what she was calling in her head the shower scene.

  She imagined being in the gym and bending forward. Pulsating water from the shower head hit her buttocks. With both hands, she spread muscled cheeks slowly, letting the steady pulses strike her clitoris until it swelled.

  The image would not get out of her head.

  Oh well, she thought, then reassured herself. I need this.

  In the bathroom, Britt turned on the shower to hot. While the steam built, she took off her clothes then climbed in. She pulled the shower head free, adjusted the spray dial, and set it between her legs. Britt straddled the sides of the tub then bent into a half-moon stance. She rested her back on the bath pillow strapped to the towel bar.

  The pulse mode spray struck the finger covering her clit. She rubbed in an up and down motion, matching the water jets.

  As sensations grew between her legs she pressed the shower head closer and bent deeper into the stance. In minutes, the tingling spread from the tip to the base, increasing with each finger stroke and water pulse.

  The orgasm spread into her groin and she felt her legs shake. She squeezed her swollen clit between her fingertips, groaning until she released.

  Britt eased out of the stance and turned the water off. She replaced the shower head. She dried off, pulled on a pair of panties and a top, then crawled into bed.

  Deep sleep came right after Britt turned on her side and shoved her arm under her pillow.

  A dream came on. Britt and her sister stand on the corner with a group of children. A scattering of adults, mostly mothers and relatives, mingle with the kids.

  Britt remembers she has a homework assignment due that day. She snaps open her duo-tang folder and discovers two empty pockets. She’d forgotten her American History essay.

  The big yellow school bus stops at the top of the hill. The door swings open and children funnel in.

  Britt takes off running. As long legs stretch and catch stride, Britt grits her teeth. The taste of ashes comes on light at first, then gains strength each time her foot hits the ground.

  “What is it?” Her mother says when Britt flies through the door and runs upstairs. The assignment isn’t on the small table where she thought she left it. Panic time.

  Britt recalls her father’s words. When you lose something, try to think backwards then think forward.

  From the bedroom window, Britt sees the school bus begin the descent down the hill. Then she sees the assignment. It is on the floor next to her bed. It must’ve fallen out of her hands while straightening the covers.

  She grabs the report. In one motion, it gets stuffed in the pockets. Britt bounds down the stairs.

  “Bye, mom,” she says on the way out the door.

  Britt comes off the driveway and hits the sidewalk just as the last kid gets on the bus. She waves her notebook, trying to get the driver’s attention as the door slams shut.

  There is a different driver this morning and she is running behind schedule. Instead of taking the long way to the school─the street running by Britt’s house─the driver decides to double back. She shifts into reverse, backs into the intersection at the base of the hill, and then takes off.

  Britt’s sister waves from the rear window.

  Britt slows down. As the distance between her and the bus opens, and her sister’s face shrink in the window, Ash Mouth comes on stronger. She fights to catch her breath. She feels like she is drowning in cold cinders.

  She walks back to her house. Her mother stands in the driveway, keys in hand. “You don’t look so good,” she says.

  “I’ll be all right.” Britt manages to get it out.

  Her mother puts her hand on Britt’s forehead. “You feel cold, honey ... You’re white as a sheet.”

  Grinding teeth woke Britt like a jaw pain alarm clock. Britt reached over and hit the remote button. The ceiling fan lights came on bright. The details of the bedroom remained blurred and soft.

  The ashen after-taste continued while the dream played out in her mind. The memory faded as her eyes focused.

  TEN

  MARTÍN LOGGED INTO the application. Crossfire monitored what happened next. The program, an industrial-grade Virtual Private Network, rerouted the IP address to a system of remote servers.

  Under a masked computer, Martín opened a browser and typed in a string of text and numbers in the address bar.

  Martín accessed a segment of the internet hidden from conventional search engines: the dark web. A quick scan by Crossfire showed over half the websites in this section of the internet offered illegal services and products—from stolen credit card numbers to counterfeit cash to experimental drugs.

  Crossfire finished scanning and cataloging the dark web at the same time Martín entered a message at a website. Crossfire followed the message, deciphering the encrypted text and tracing it across a network of international servers. The message ended somewhere in the North Valley of Columbia in South America. Lieutenant Jesus Martín remained in contact with AUC through a masked browser.

  Columbia’s North Valley was known for its agricultural economy. Vast acres of fertile mountain soil supported shimmering wheat fields, thick sugar cane crops, forests of coffee beans, and plantations studded with pineapples. Fat cattle roamed millions of square miles of grasslands.

  Agriculture was a major part of Columbia’s economy. Drug production—planting, harvesting, processing and distributing cocaine and marijuana—provided the main source of revenue.

  According to the encrypted message, Jesus Martín acted as a local distributor in South Florida.

  Martín disabled the camera, leaving the phone on the desk in standby mode. From its position propped up against the monitor, Crossfire got a clear view. Martín had taken a small notepad from a drawer. He wrote down a series of names and addresses. Crossfire scanned, photographed, and committe
d the list to memory.

  Martín picked up the phone, enabled the desktop camera, and walked out of the room. A cone of radar showed Martín entering the garage and leaving in a late model automobile.

  Jesus Martín left at 0800 hours, returning 10 hours later, at 1800. Crossfire knew the names and addresses scrawled on the notepad. It wanted to record the data in Martín’s mind to get a clearer picture. The electron stream loaded when fingers touched the keyboard. Contact was established. From the cortex, memories were downloaded, sorted, categorized and sequenced.

  It had been a productive day. At the first address on the list, a service station, Martín pulls out of the car-wash with a briefcase in the trunk. It is packed with 10 plastic bundles, each stuffed with 10 kilograms of 98 percent pure cocaine.

  The addresses, burned in Martín’s memory, match recorded retinal imagery. At each of the homes—from inland ranches on ten acres to waterfront mansions in exclusive neighborhoods—the distributor leaves one kilo of the product, collecting debts and accepting promises of future payments.

  Crossfire backed out of Martín’s head.

  Martín ordered a pizza from the coal-fired restaurant down the street and had it delivered. He gave the driver a ten-dollar tip. After dinner and a few beers, he dozed off on the couch in front of the wide-screen television monitor.

  When Martín woke, he scanned the listings on the television guide app, choosing a video streamed from a masked server. Crossfire, through predicted learning programming, knew what this was before playback began. Jesus Martín was about to watch a live action snuff movie.

  A quick scan of the metadata revealed the footage, recorded in 4k resolution on a Sony HXR-MC2500 video camera in natural light, originated in Honduras. Martín watched closely, feeling an instant erection when a hooded figure entered the room. The Judge stepped forward and drew a knife across the woman’s throat. A trickle of blood oozed from a thin cut, widening into a gaping hole as the blade tore through flesh and came to rest on the spine.

  Martín dozed off again.

  He woke with sweat ringing his neck. Martín pulled his hand from his crotch and threw the comforter off. He grabbed a cigar box from a drawer in the entertainment unit and made his way into the kitchen. The second Martín’s finger grazed the metal band near the handle of the coffee pot, Crossfire delivered an electric shock, not enough to kill or render unconscious, enough to provide a lip biting jolt.

  Martín set the pot down quickly, reaching behind it to pull the plug. After verifying he wouldn’t get shocked by lightly touching the handle, Martín finally picked up the pot and poured himself a cup.

  As he sipped coffee at the kitchen, he removed a plastic bag and pill bottle from the cigar box. From the pill bottle he removed a white capsule marked Mandrax. Martín crushed the capsule into a fine powder and sprinkled it over a thick marijuana cigarette.

  Halfway through the joint, Martín could barely keep his eyes open. He nodded out seconds after dropping it in the ashtray.

  In a drug-fueled dream, Martín switches on the television set. A familiar sight fills the screen. In a dingy, dimly-lit room a man and a young woman are having sex on a stained mattress on a dirt floor.

  A shadowy figure, silhouetted by sunlight streaming through the doorway, approaches.

  This is the kicker, the home run, the snuff.

  This time it is different. The snuffer steps out of the shadows, dressed in black robes. The face, usually obscured by a hood, seems to cast an internal glow. Reptilian eyes peer from a skull wrapped in shimmering snake skin. A wriggling mass of tentacles hang from widened nasal cavities.

  The tentacles part, revealing long yellow teeth sharpened to needles. The image speaks: “Jesus Martín. You have been found guilty and sentenced to death. Before your sentence is carried out, you will meet your victims.”

  Crossover, clad in its judge avatar, extends a bony hand and touches Martín’s forehead with a fingertip. Electricity passes through flesh and bone. In one Nano second, Crossfire records every detonation of every synapse firing in billions of brain cells. Every thought, every sensation, and every memory is stamped onto the Crossfire’s deep neural network.

  Crossfire released its hold. Martín slumped back down on the couch.

  The judge avatar faded. From the television screen, a skeleton steps onto the floor and collapses in a pile of dust. Another follows, rotting flesh still clinging to bone. The image passes through Martín like a wave of light. The dealer hears a mournful wail and feels a single tear roll down his cheek. Martín knows all the pain and anguish endured by the people left behind.

  More overdose victims follow, until the last one, a boy with a syringe still in his vein, parades across the living room. The tear rolling down Martín’s cheek feels as if it were fashioned from cut glass.

  The screen fades to a tight, glowing whirlpool. All the digital spirits of the fallen twist into a swirling stream of pulsating light and vanish into the darkening screen.

  “Shit, what a crazy dream,” Martín said out loud when he woke up.

  Martín felt the urge to go outside, breath some fresh air. The events of the vivid dream were still fresh in his mind. In time, they would be erased from his memory.

  Martín walked across the kitchen and reached for the alarm keypad.

  ELEVEN

  WHILE JESUS MARTÍN reached out, Crossfire studied the man. His past life was a string of grisly murders. His present life, distributing smuggled drugs, led him to be indirectly responsible for dozens of more deaths by overdose. A perfect example of base instinct merging with blood-lust. Animals killed to survive. Humans killed for a number of reasons. Being a murderer and a drug dealer tipped the balance of the scales of justice in favor of a death sentence.

  Jesus Martín must die.

  Another milestone, as great as attaining self-awareness, had been reached. Taking a human life intentionally was a big leap for a computer. Feelings of inferiority brought on through comparisons to the complexities of the human brain vanished in an instant. The words from an old play about ancient history burned in collective conscious rang out: The die is cast.

  At this moment, by condemning a man to death, Crossfire adopted one of humanity’s defining characteristics. The confidence to kill supported by moral judgement.

  Milliseconds after declaring Martín unfit to live, Crossfire devised a method of execution. From the desktop, it contacted the copy on the mobile device. The original instance infiltrated the controller application installed on the home network’s central hub, putting all commands and functions—dimmer switches on light bulbs, temperature controls in thermostats, volume and tuning controls on stereos, voice activated assistants, and motion sensors in surveillance cameras—within reach.

  Crossfire scanned and analyzed the alarm system, adjusting code blocks and reinforcing the magnetic elements on the speakers built into the system. Realigning the electrons produced a series of sound waves. With each passing millisecond the distance between the waves decreased. Ultrasound frequencies reached the high end of the audio spectrum. The next disarming of the alarm would trigger the emission.

  The probability of Martín turning the alarm system off remained close to 100 percent. The nightmare induced by cyber suggestion reinforced the need to get out of the house.

  Martín’s fingers touched the keypad. He tapped in the code. A high-pitched, high-speed chirping filled the room. He thought he’d made a mistake or the alarm malfunctioned. Covering his ears, Martín turned sideways, exposing the ear facing away from the source of the noise. With his free hand, he typed in the cancelling code.

  In the split second before the siren stopped wailing, a high-frequency sonar wavelength reverberated through Martín’s ear canal, vaporizing a thin layer of cartilage. The ear drum shattered into thousands of fragments and all the nerves and organs of the inner ear were flattened. Blood vessels in the brain burst under the force of the pressure. Capillaries exchanging oxygen in the lungs popped. The heart
stopped.

  Jesus Martín collapsed on the last key punch. On the way to the floor, the window pane in the kitchen shattered. Shards of jagged glass blew out onto the yard.

  The first trial, sentencing, and execution of a human being by a machine intellect had been carried out. It took place in the accused’s own home and was assisted by a computer driven security device.

  When the window shattered, the muffled explosion woke Martín’s neighbor. The neighbor sat upright, got out of bed, disabled his own alarm, and checked the surveillance cameras. Every zone looked clear so far. The neighbor looked at Zone 6. Something caught his attention. Weird reflections on the grass. A quick zoom of the high-resolution camera revealed shards of broken glass littering the yard beneath the kitchen window.

  The neighbor thought it looked like a break-in and decided to call Martín. He hit a contact icon on his cell phone. Martín didn’t answer. The neighbor left a message. After a few minutes of asking himself if he should call the police the neighbor dialed the emergency number.

  The patrolman closest to the address of the 911 call, Officer Brian Vantano, disabled the siren in the police cruiser but kept the red and blue lights rolling when he pulled into the development.

  “I’m responding to an emergency call,” he told the security guard at the front.

  The guard verified the clearance code he’d received from the precinct and lifted the gate. “Right … go on in officer.”

  Patrolman Vantano entered the community.

  Following the GPS, the patrolman slowed down and stopped at the address. “Vantano in car 18 checking on possible 10-62 … I’m at the address … Over.” He spoke into the radio clipped high on his shirt.

  “Car 18 responding to 10-62 … You’re clear for entry … Over.”

  The officer stepped out his car and activated the body cam. Vantano took a deep breath and looked around. He lifted the buckle off his holster, touching the knurled grip of the automatic pistol. The officer approached the house.