“How do I know you’re not just trying to get me to show you who the rest of my group are?”
“I’ve seen you together every day since I came on the boat. I think I know who the rest of your group is.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess that’s true. Ok, I need to do something, and it’s going to look weird, but it’ll only take a minute.”
She squinted and said, “Ok, do what you have to do.”
I covered my mouth and whispered, “Ava, what should I do?”
“This has certainly taken an unexpected turn. It’s difficult, but I detect shades of hope in a sea of uncertainty. Pull a Nike.”
Oh, great, not again… “What does that mean, ‘Pull a Nike?’”
“Just do it.”
Ms. Perez grinned and squinted again, and although I was a still little scared and unsure about what to do, I was also distracted by how pretty she is. I guess when you’re fourteen you start noticing things like that… even if you are mostly an android… “You’re right, that did look weird. There was a rumor about a super-advanced A.I. being included in your structure. Please, Lucas, tell me. I’m not a threat to you, I’m on your side. Is it true? Were you just accessing the A.I.?”
She seems real, sincere… I’m not good at judging motives, though… that’s why I need dad and Benji around, so they can help me with this kind of stuff… on the other hand, what would it hurt to tell her? She already knows… “That was Ava. She helps me, although mostly she confuses me. She keeps my… my system working.”
“So, it’s true? You’re made of nano-parts?”
“Well, not completely. I have a normal brain, one of my eyes, and most of my body from the waist up, except my arms.”
“But you look so… I honestly would not know. This is remarkable, miraculous. Oh, there is so much to ask… How much control do you have over the system?”
“Well, I don’t know yet… I’ve only been like this for two weeks. Before that I was in a coma, so I’m still kind of getting used to it and figuring things out. Here’s something cool I can do, though… watch this.” I concentrated for a moment, and my hair formed the shape of a unicorn on top of my head. Ms. Perez’ mouth dropped open and her eyes bulged out, and I knew that expression meant surprise.
“So… oh my God. What… I don’t know what to say. Are there defenses built in to the system?”
“Well… how about this: try to hit me and see what happens.”
“Oh, I don’t want to hit you, Lucas. I couldn’t do that.”
‘No, go ahead, it won’t hurt. Well, it won’t hurt me, anyway.”
She hesitated for a moment, and said, “Ok, if you say so.” She stood and swung her hand at my shoulder. When she made contact, there was an immediate recoil and she spun backward, almost falling to the ground. “Oh, this is amazing! I must know more. Look, take me to your group, there is only one of me and five of you, and if I’m not a threat. We are on the same side in this, you’ll see.”
18
W e walked back up one deck and down the corridor toward our cabin. It was now about midnight, so we moved as carefully and quietly as we could and finally arrived, slipping silently through the door. It was dark inside, but due to my unusual vision I could tell that Benji was sitting up in bed.
“Oi, mate, where ya been, and who’s that withya?” he croaked. Then I noticed that, although he was still lying down, dad’s eyes were open, and his muscles were tensed as if he were ready to jump out of bed and attack.
“Um, guys, don’t get too excited. I’m going to turn on the light. I have Ms. Perez with me, she wants to talk to you.” They both bolted up out of bed, Benji tumbling from the top bunk and landing like a cat on his feet. “Ok, wait, she’s just here to talk. Don’t worry, I checked her out. She already knows pretty much everything.”
I flicked on the light, and after a moment Ms. Perez started giggling. Both dad and Benji were wearing underwear and baggy t-shirts, and their hair… they looked like they had just been released from a psych ward. Benji had drool marks on his chin, and when dad lunged to a standing position, he exerted himself a little too hard and a loud fart snuck out. Dad quickly smoothed his hair and said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Perez, you have us at a slight disadvantage. Would you mind if we dressed before talking?”
“Well of course not,” she said, still snickering. “Take your time.”
They threw on their work coveralls, dad got a little chair from the closet for Ms. Perez, and dad, Benji and I sat on the bottom bunk. “Should we get Mr. Harutyunyan and Ms. Houng?” I asked.
“Nah, it already feels bloody tight in here. Whatcha say, John-o?”
“I agree, at least for now. Ms. Perez, forgive us for being suspicious, but please tell us how you know about Lukey and what else you know.”
She looked down for a moment and seemed to be thinking about what to say. “You’ve heard of The Bright Hand, I assume?”
Dad and Benji stared at one another, their eyes bulging out. “The international terrorist organization? Of course, we’ve heard of it, but… you’re with The Bright Hand?”
“That is the government’s propaganda machine hard at work to delegitimize and discredit them, and if they have convinced you, then the machine is obviously working. They are not terrorists at all. They are just like you: scientists, engineers, inventors, smart people who want to help the human race progress and have no interest in their work being put to military use. It is the underground, the resistance to the military-industrial waste machine that is rapidly grinding up everything of beauty and utility in this world.”
“Crikey, John-o, our little Shiela here is on fire, dead set. So, miss…”
“Please, call me Zoey.”
“Zoey, how can we trust ya? Just a few minutes back we assumed you worked for the bloody shadow people. How can we know you’re not callin’ ‘em to us right now, eh?”
“Well, I don’t suppose you really can know, at least not at this moment.” She turned and looked at me for so long it made me feel uncomfortable. “I told Lucas that I would not reveal the identity of the others on board who are on our side, yes, our side. Yours and mine. Perhaps bringing one other in would help you to believe, though.”
Dad rubbed his chin and seemed to be thinking hard. “It appears that we are in a bit of a standoff. You could bring someone else in, but there is no guarantee that this other person isn’t just going along with your ruse, designed to keep us complacent and unguarded, making us easier to capture when the time is right. On the other hand, you don’t seem to pose us any danger in the present… Lukey, I assume you asked Ava if Ms. Perez, sorry, Zoey, was a danger to you.”
“Yeah, she said she detected shades of hope in a sea of uncertainty, and that I should pull a Nike. I didn’t really know what she meant, so I asked, and she said…”
“Just do it, eh? Bloody clever, that Ava,” Benji interjected. “When your daddy and me were just little pollywogs that was the tagline from an advert of a famous shoe company.”
“Oh, no wonder I didn’t know what she meant.”
“Yes, well, Lukey, would you please ask Ava if Ms. Perez here poses any threat to the rest of us? She might not possess anything to harm you, but she could be a threat to Benji or me. You see, Zoey, Lukey’s system is riddled with sensors and is likely to be able to identify almost any kind of potential danger.”
“By all means, please have her assess me. I am the opposite of a threat to you.”
Since everyone present knew about Ava, there was no reason to cover my mouth, so I said, “Ava, does Ms. Perez have any means on or with her to harm any of us in this room?”
After a few moments came the answer: “Words are her only weapons at present. Proceed with all due haste.”
I told the others what Ava said, and they all chuckled, although again I didn’t really get what was so funny.
We sat quietly for a moment, and then Ms. Perez began: “I have been waiting for a good opportunity to speak to all of you, and so much
time had gone by that I was beginning to think an appropriate moment would never come. I took a big risk in coming here tonight, and simply got lucky that Lucas answered the door, and even luckier that I was able to get him to come with me so that I could verify that the rumors were true. The Bright Hand has been monitoring your work for quite some time, as best they could, and had an inkling of what you were attempting. They detected a drastic uptick in your progress about five years ago and have been noticing you reaching out to others in the underground community. We knew of your connection to Dr. Walker, here, and Dr. Euclid in Canada. The assumption was that you were attempting to build a highly advanced android, but you took it much further than anyone would have reasonably expected. Lucas is the closest thing to a true miracle that any of us have ever experienced.” She appeared emotional again and stopped speaking for a moment.
Of course, Benji jumped in to fill the void. “We had heard tell of the underground, but we never put them and The Bright Hand together. I reckon that was by design, eh? Keepin’ the hoons off their tail.”
Ms. Perez cleared her throat before responding. “All of the events that have been attributed to The Bright Hand have been either invented totally or twisted to the government’s narrative. Remember the Norwegian Tower shootings? The London bombing? The Bright Hand has never participated in any terrorist event yet was blamed for both. It is true that The Bright Hand is interested in the overthrow of the government, but not through violence. That is not their way.”
“Clearly there is much for us to learn about this group. Tell us your connection, if you don’t mind.”
Ms. Perez hesitated before speaking and seemed to be trying to decide what more to tell us. “Although I have been working for the government, I knew of, and was sympathetic to, others in the government who are trying to work from the inside to change things. I think that there’s little chance of actually changing things from the inside, but there are those who are trying. One such person introduced me to a man who eventually revealed to me that he was with The Bright Hand and he… well, I guess you could say he recruited me. Truthfully, not much recruitment was necessary, I was ready to go. I met others, and they helped me to know the ideas and mission of The Bright Hand, and one of my tasks was to do whatever I could to convince all of you that we need you with us. With your talent and expertise, and the graphic example that Lucas represents, we believe we can foment real, positive change. This will sound dramatic, but we see it as the last chance for the human race as a species. If we don’t evolve out of our primitive state, we will not survive. I think you see that.”
Oi, mate, I’m concerned with myself survivin’, much less the whole bloody race. Whatcha think, John-o?”
“I think we agree with your words, but still are not convinced that you are who you say you are. You see our dilemma, no doubt. How can we be sure?”
“Well, suppose I bring to you the man who recruited me to The Bright Hand. Would that help?”
Dad and Benji looked at one another, and both shrugged their shoulders. “How would you do that?” asked dad.
“He’s here on board. I believe you are already acquainted with him.”
Surprise is one of the expressions that I can usually recognize, and it was on both dad and Benji’s faces. “This room is going to get very crowded in a moment, Ms… I mean Zoey. Benji, go get Mard and Minh. They should be in on this and should be present in case we need additional… support.”
Benji grinned and clapped his hands. “Bloody good idea. Be back in a sec.”
“In the meantime, would you like to go to get your associate?”
Ms. Perez smiled. “Love to. He’s just a couple of doors down, by the way. He’s been watching you, making sure things go well. I’ll call him.” She took off her black hooded sweatshirt, which seemed strange, and tapped and held in a slightly raised spot on her right shoulder with her fingertip.
“Very clever. Literally a chip on your shoulder. Lukey, when you asked Ava to assess any potential weapons, you didn’t ask her to also look for means of communication, did you?”
“Well, no, but I guess I should have. Want me to do it now?”
“It’s probably not necessary, I think we have just seen what she has. Are there any other surprises, Zoey?”
“Not on the tech side of things.”
At that moment Benji returned with Mr. Harutyunyan and Ms. Houng. They looked like they had just been pulled out of a deep sleep, which they probably were. Their eyes widened when they saw Ms. Perez, and they crowded into the small cabin, standing at the foot of the bunks next to the tiny closet. “So, is interesting development, yes?” offered Mr. Harutyunyan, Ms. Houng nodding affirmatively.
“Indeed, most interesting. Ms. Perez, or I should say Zoey, is offering us some form of assistance, it would seem.” Over the next couple of minutes dad gave them a brief description of everything that had happened so far.
“So, problem still exist. How you tell what is true? Still, she is here, no weapons or defenses. Would she put herself in this position if she was to be lying? I don’t know,” said Ms. Houng.
At that point there was a soft tapping at the door.
19
B enji swung the door open, and in walked… Sasha. There were confused looks all around (that’s another expression that I can usually recognize), and I instinctively dove for my wig. He chuckled, and in a very American accent said, “Hey, it’s ok. I know who you are, I was just playing the part to keep everyone off our tails. My name’s Mike, by the way, not Sasha. I was pretty good, right? Had you all fooled. You gotta admit, it’s kinda funny now that you know.”
I didn’t really see what was funny about it. I could see the logic in it, though.
“But we hear you speak Russian. I am from Armenia, I know what Russian sounds like,” argued Mr. Harutyunyan.
“Yeah, I lived in Russia for a couple of years, doing research on energy systems. That’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to actually meet all of you, especially the great Dr. Benji Walker. You’re a legend in the field, sir.”
Benji seemed uncharacteristically tongue-tied for a moment, but quickly recovered. “Well, of course, mate, it would be dishonest to deny it, eh?”
“We hadn’t planned on revealing ourselves until the last minute to avoid tipping anyone off to our plans, but Zoey was adamant that she needed to contact you, so we gave in and agreed to that only. Of course, once the door was opened, plans had to change. We need you to believe and trust that we are here to help you. I think you know of the plan to capture all of you when we disembark. We have a counter-plan to stop them, but we don’t know exactly what kind of form their attempt will take, so it may be a close thing. Let me tell you what we have so far.”
Over the next few minutes, he and Ms. Perez explained their scheme, or I should say The Bright Hand’s scheme, as they referred to them frequently.
“Let’s assume that we decide we can trust you. What happens for the rest of our voyage?”
“We just continue on as normal until we reach port. At that point we will handle those on board who have been hired to funnel you into their trap, and our people on the ground will take care of whatever force they bring to capture you. There will be a vehicle to take all of you to our headquarters, which will be a couple days’ journey west.”
There was a moment of silence as we pondered, and then dad said, “Listen, you must be able to provide us with some evidence that you’re not with the government. I’m sorry to be so defensive, but we do not want to take any chances.”
“Have you seen The Bright Hand’s symbol?”
“I haven’t. Any of the rest of you?”
Ms. Houng said, “I have seen. Shape of fist, color green. It showed up on walls and fences in Viet Nam maybe ten year ago. Green fist, underneath it say, ‘The Bright Hand’.”
Mike, who used to be Sasha, stood, put his thumb on the outside of his cheek and his index finger into his mouth, flexing it outward. This allowed us to see a sma
ll but clear tattoo of a green fist on the inside of his cheek. Ms. Perez then did the same thing, revealing the same tattoo. “Let me tell you, that sucker hurt,” said Mike.
“Ya got a chip on your shoulder and a fist in the mouth. Sounds like you’re lookin’ for a fight, mate.”
“Ha! I never thought of it that way, but I guess you’re right, it does make it seem like that. Listen, it should be clear that we would like, no, be overjoyed if your group would join us. In lieu of that, if you could advise us that would be a great thing. Either way, we can get you to a safe place and then you can decide what you want to do. What do you say?”
Dad stood up and looked around the room. “I think we will need to discuss it amongst ourselves and give you an answer in the next day or so. That’s the best we can do right now. Any disagreements?”
Mr. Harutyunyan, Ms. Houng, and Benji all shook their heads. “One last thing… tell us a little about the communication device you have implanted.”
Ms. Perez said, “It’s basically a near-range pinger. Each has a signature vibration, so you know who it’s coming from, and a locator. There’s a second small chip implanted in the ear for audible messages, although so low that only the wearer can hear it.”
I slowly raised my hand. “Well, that’s not exactly true… I can hear it. I didn’t know what it was, but you must have gotten a message when we were in your cabin, because I could hear it buzzing.”
Mike and Ms. Perez made eye contact. “That’s amazing. I did get a message, but I can’t believe you could hear it. I could barely hear it and it’s attached directly to my cochlea.”
Dad patted me gently on the head. “That’s my boy. Now, if you don’t mind, we have much to discuss, and need some sleep.”
Ms. Perez and Mike both rose. “Of course. I hope you will come to understand that we are sincere and working toward the same goals. Even if you decide not to be a part of our mission, we’ll get you off this boat and out of harm’s way. And, obviously it would be best to pretend none of this ever happened.”
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