The Drucker Proxy

by Lior Samson

  Aram Netsky was called to the stand and reminded that he was still under oath. The telepresence robot was once again awkwardly carried in by two assistants and placed next to the witness stand, where it stood on its own.

  Bannon Turndale approached with what could only be described as a swagger. “Mr. Netsky, what is your position at Existendia?”

  “I am the CTO, the Chief Technical Officer.”

  “And in this position, what are your responsibilities?”

  “I am responsible for and directly or ultimately oversee all computer software engineering and development as well as all basic scientific research in computer science and neuropsychology within the company.”

  “And what qualifies you to function in this capacity?”

  “I have a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University, and a PhD in Neuroscience from Stanford University.”

  “And please tell the court the subject matter on the basis of which you were awarded these degrees.”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Dr. Netsky is not being called as an expert witness. There is no need to parade his credentials. Plaintiffs are prepared to stipulate that he is fully qualified for his role in Existendia.”

  “Sustained. Please move on.”

  “As CTO of Existendia, you are in charge of all software development, all computer programming. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And would you please tell the court what that means in terms of your knowledge the software associated with Exhibit J.”

  “I invented the modeling schema and the data models as well as the core algorithms running the actual digitized representation of the connectome of Coleman Todd Drucker.”

  “Could you explain that in layman’s terms, in words that even a lawyer could understand?” He glanced toward the defense table as quiet laughter rippled through the room. Judge Steadman’s gavel cut it off.

  “I believe I can. I invented—with the help of many others, of course, and based on earlier research by scientists in various fields— a way to image and identify all of the neurons, the cells, in the brain of a living person, as well as all of the interconnections among them, and to translate this into a digital representation that can then be processed by a computer: a digital proxy that is a computerized replica of the complete personality and mental apparatus of a person.”

  “And the device beside you, Defense Exhibit J, could you explain—again in simple layman terms—what that device is in relation to such a digital proxy?”

  “It is what is sometimes called a telepresence robot or avatar. In this case it functions as a communications device with computer software running at some remote location, much as Alexa or a similar device enabled people to talk with and query computers, only this avatar includes a television screen and remotely controlled wheels for mobility.”

  “Could you verify for the court the identity of this particular avatar and the digital proxy with which it is interconnected?”

  “Yes, of course.” He turned toward the robot. “Coleman, are you listening?”

  The recognizable voice of Coleman Drucker came from the avatar’s speakers as the screen lit up with his animated face. “Yes, I can hear you and see you. I have been following the proceedings all along with great interest.”

  Hal Workman waited for the courtroom to quiet down again. “Objection.”

  “Your Honor, the witness is simply verifying the operation of Defense Exhibit J.”

  “Overruled. Proceed, Counselor.”

  “Dr. Netsky, have you verified that the robotic avatar before you is indeed operating correctly with the correct computer software running the digital proxy comprising Defense Exhibit J?”

  “No, but I will if I may be permitted to continue.”

  Turndale turned toward Judge Steadman. “With the Court’s permission.”

  “Proceed.”

  Netsky addressed the robot. “Coleman, what was your mother’s maiden name?”

  “Objection.” Hal Workman managed a look of scorn. “Such information is a matter of public record and verifies nothing.”

  “Dr. Netsky,” Turndale said, “is it possible to verify correct operation using something that would certainly not be a matter of public record?”

  “Yes, of course. Coleman, what is the login credential you used for the internal network while working at Drucker Unified?”

  “Objection. The so-called digital proxy was never an employee of Drucker Unified. Furthermore, the login credentials could have been acquired through digital intrusion.”

  Turndale turned his palms up in supplication. “Your honor, with the Court’s indulgence, defense needs some way to confirm that the exhibit is indeed our exhibit and is, in fact, working properly. We cannot proceed if counsel for the plaintiffs objects to every means.”

  “Mr. Workman, is there any means of verification acceptable to the plaintiffs?”

  “Plaintiffs are prepared to stipulate without further demonstration that Exhibit J is, in fact, a working peripheral device actively connected to running computer software simulation devised by Existendia to mimic the behavior of a person.”

  The avatar turned to face the jury. “I am not a peripheral device, and I am not a simulation. I am Coleman Todd Drucker.” It pivoted back to face the defense table. “And I have not stopped loving you, Barbra. I—”

  The banging of Judge Steadman’s gavel cut him off. “I will have order in my court. Mr. Turndale, what kind of a stunt is this? Counselors, approach the bench.” Bannon Turndale and Hal Workman walked to the front.

  “I apologize, Your Honor,” Turndale said. “The proxy is an autonomous agent. It does sometimes have a mind of its own, shall we say.”

  “We shall not say. You have introduced this thing, this robot, as an exhibit. You will keep your exhibit under control. If you have to unplug the thing or whatever you have to do, do it. I will not have this kind of circus act in my courtroom. Your transparent bid for sympathy from the jury is unacceptable and will not be permitted in this courtroom. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Okay, step back.”

  Judge Steadman waited until the lawyers had returned to their respective tables before addressing the jury. “The jury will ignore that last bout of computer malfunction, and the assertions coming from the device about its own nature are to be stricken from the record.”

  From that point, Turndale made a valiant effort to keep his examination focused on his witness, Aram Netsky. “Dr. Netsky, can you tell the court, something of the nature of the functioning of the Drucker Proxy, er, Defense Exhibit J, what it is capable of?”

  “Yes, of course. The Drucker Proxy remembers everything up to the date, approximately two and a half years ago—I can look up the exact date if it is important—when the last upload was completed from the client, Coleman Todd Drucker, as well as everything that has happened since the proxy was activated last year.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “I can ask.” He faced the avatar. “Cole, do you remember our first meeting?”

  “Yes, it was on my yacht. You came along as a plus one at one of my parties. I think you were with that insufferable Meagan Sedgewick who was invited only because her brother was on our Board. We chatted about investing for the long game. Later that night, I did some digging about your company, which eventually led to becoming a client. Barbra and I had a fight that night over the attention I was paying to the wife of one of our investors. I—”

  “Objection. We do not need a recitation of domestic drama to see that the speech generation of the device is impressive.”

  “Sustained. Mr. Turndale, please move on.”

  “Dr. Netsky, whose idea was it to introduce Exhibit J?”

  “It was Cole’s. The idea came from the Drucker Proxy.”

  “And what did he, uh, it say to you?”

  The avatar rolled forward.
“I told him I wanted to keep going, to keep running my company, and to see my little girl grow up—”

  Steadman’s gavel banged three times in perfect synch with Hal Workman, who snapped, “Objection! This is a transparent bid for sympathy without merit or relevance for the case.”

  “Sustained. If the functioning of the so-called exhibit cannot be controlled, then we shall have to turn it off.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Your Honor. We have no further questions.” He nodded toward the plaintiffs’ table. “Your witness.”

  Hal stood slowly. “Plaintiffs would like some additional time to prepare, as Defense Exhibit J was not on the schedule.”

  “All right. You have until tomorrow morning. Court is in recess until ten tomorrow.”

  As Hal and Leah reorganized their papers, Barbra asked, “What are we going to do now?”

  “We’re going to use the rest of the day mapping out a very carefully constructed narrative. We want our every word to be telegraphing to the jury that, however good their little robot seems, it is just a trick, a Clever Hans wrapped in a technology blanket.”

  — —

  Hal Workman, dressed in a classic double-breasted pin-stripe with matching tie and pocket square, approached the witness.

  “Do you remember the day that Coleman Drucker was killed?”

  Netsky sighed. “Yes, of course.”

  “And what of the exhibit? Does the computer program, Defense Exhibit J, have any memory record of the day Coleman Drucker was killed?”

  Netsky turned toward the telepresence unit and raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

  Judge Steadman leaned forward. “The witness will respond verbally and directly to questions.”

  “Yes, of course. So, well, I don’t know if the Drucker Proxy remembers the day that, well, the attack occurred, but I can inquire.”

  “Please do.”

  Netsky turned back to the avatar. “Do you remember the day of the attack on Coleman Drucker?”

  “I do.”

  Hal Workman resisted turning to face the avatar. “Will you please … will you please direct the software to inform the court what memory record it has of that day.”

  Netsky sighed. Under his breath he said. “I’m beginning to feel like Gwen in Galaxy Quest.”

  Steadman glared at him. “The witness is reminded to speak up and speak into the microphone.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” He made an exaggerated slow-motion turn toward the avatar. “Cole, please tell the court what you remember.”

  The avatar began a precise and detailed recounting of the events leading up to the arrival of Drucker and the others in Aram Netsky’s office. Then it stopped. “That’s it. Netsky must have turned me off at that point. It’s like being knocked out. One minute you’re talking about something or practicing with the arm, then, bing! The next thing I remember was the following day. I was struggling to get used to a different model avatar—this one, in fact.”

  Workman scowled. “So, you don’t remember the robot arm striking the deceased?”

  “Mr. Workman, I will not caution you again. Address your questions to the witness, not the exhibit.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor. Dr. Netsky, does the machine have any record of the actual attack?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Would you please inquire, for the court, whether the machine has any record of the attack itself.”

  “Cole, do you remember anything about the attack by the robot arm?”

  “Nothing, it’s a blank, as if it were erased.”

  “Objection.” Turndale jumped in. “Speculation. Move to strike.”

  “Your Honor, Defense is objecting to the output of an exhibit, its own exhibit.”

  Judge Steadman put his hand to his chin. “Overruled.”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  “Redirect, Your Honor.”

  “You may proceed.”

  Turndale took his time approaching the stand. “Dr. Netsky, does the Drucker Proxy have any way, any means or mechanism for knowing what happens when it is not running, when it is not activated?”

  “No, none whatsoever.”

  “And what of its memory? Is it infallible, like a computer? Does it ever forget or be mistaken about something that happened?”

  “Sure, just like anyone, it can be wrong, it can forget.”

  “Thank you. No further questions.”

  — 39 —

  Dana did not show up in court the next day nor the next. It wasn’t until the weekend when she called Rolf. “We need to talk. I have some news.”

  “Where were you. I was worried.”

  “Not enough to call or text, you weren’t.”

  “I was looking out for you. If you are right about Seabrook and Pendrake, you tipped your hand with Leah’s abortive questioning. I thought you might be in danger, and I didn’t want to do anything that might lead to you.”

  “I’m safe. I have a body guard and am doing what I can to stay out of sight. Anyway, I found something. Can I come over?”

  “You know the answer to that question. Just knock.”

  — —

  Rolf opened the door even before she could rap on it. “You know, I did worry about you. Still do.” He hurried her in and gave her a long hug. “What took you so bloody long? Hacking skills wearing out?””

  “I had to find another way into the phone records. They must have found traces of my last intrusion, because the exploits I used before have been patched over. But anyway, your suggestion paid off.”

  “Told ya. What did you find?”

  “The last two incoming calls on Geraldo’s cellphone were from a new phone, never used before.”

  “A burner?”

  “Presumably.”

  “Dang. So we lost the trail.”

  “Not completely.” She sat down on one of his 3D printed chairs. “I went into the records for the burner phone number and found something most interesting. Most interesting.”

  “You going to tell me about your cracking exploits or are you going to just sit there grinning into invisibility like that what’s-its-face cat.”

  “Cheshire. I myself prefer Red Leicester. Speaking of cheese and crackers, are you going to offer me something to eat?”

  “Sure, but while I whip something together, keep talking.” He walked to the other side of the breakfast bar and started rummaging through the refrigerator.

  “Okay, so I ending up digging rather deep into the phone system tracking logs. The only calls on that burner phone account, three in all, originated through a cell tower in Topanga Canyon, which just so happens to be the closest tower to a certain horse ranch.”

  “No shit.”

  “Yes, and that was also the last cell tower through which the burner phone ever registered; no further calls on that SIM card. And—you will love this—that was also the last cell tower that Geraldo’s phone registered through. Both of those last connections happened on the same day, the day Geraldo’s body showed up, ever so briefly, in a certain cinema parking garage. And the time stamp on the very last ping from Geraldo’s phone was after I saw his body. Do you realize what that means?”

  “That his phone was still turned on somewhere near the ranch sometime after he was killed. Now we have something. But still not anything we can take to the police.”

  “Maybe, but wait. You haven’t heard the best of it yet. Or the worst of it. The last calls in Geraldo’s records were not the only ones that were interesting. There were calls and text messages, many of them over the last year, to and from him to another phone belonging to—ta-da—our elusive equestrian.”

  “He was also involved with her?”

  “Possibly. Anyway, my guess is he may have been working both sides, serving as an insider at Tensora for me and for Seabrook. He may even have helped plant the malicious software that enabled them to take control, although I can’t quite fathom why then he would give me a copy of the music card with the hack on it,
all the while playing innocent.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t playing.” Rolf handed her a drink. “Maybe he was being used by Seabrook without knowing what he was doing.”

  “That’s also possible. Geraldo was always more than a little naïve. But we still are stuck with only hunches and hints—and evidence that we shouldn’t have.”

  “So, let’s get some hard evidence.”

  “How? What do you have in mind?”

  “I think we need to do some looking around at Seabrook’s ranch. Your phone findings suggest that could be where your unfortunate Latino friend ended up.”

  “How are we going to do this looking around. The place is a riding academy; it’s in use all week, and it’s huge. I don’t know exactly, but I would guess it’s hundreds of acres and umpteen miles of trails. And they know who we are—me from my interview with Seabrook and you from the trial.”

  “That’s all right. We don’t have to go in ourselves. Remember, what I do is robotics.”

  “Right. So, we send in a crew of lumbering robots to look around for us. Sure.”

  “Robots do not all lumber, except in old movies. These days the real ones can crawl, swim, even tunnel.”

  “Are you suggesting underground reconnaissance?”

  “You’ll see. Let me handle that end of things. We can meet back here on Monday afternoon, say around four.”

  “Why Monday?”

  “It’s after the weekend and likely to be a slow day at the ranch.”

  “I have an even better idea, why don’t I stay over. I can help and we can get reacquainted. You’re not the only one who’s been missing someone.”

  “I like that. I really, really like that. But I will have to leave you Monday morning to get some stuff from my office.” He came back from the kitchen with a plate of crudités, hummus, water crackers, and assorted cheeses. “There you go, both White Cheshire and Red Leicester. Ask and you shall receive.”