Under My Heel

by Michael Anderle

  All of them heard Tom’s quick footsteps as he raced back toward the door, and then the punching of the security keys. The door flew open, and Tom stuck his hand out with a handheld device. He pulled it back to where he could easily read it and pushed a couple of buttons, “Well I’ll be...”

  Jeffrey walked over to his computer scientist friend, “What’s going on?”

  For a moment, Tom forgot that they had visitors and it wasn’t just the two of them. “Fuck if I know, but we have Wi-Fi signals in a room without any Wi-Fi devices. And the signals seem to be trying to get out.”

  Tom felt the jab in his ribs where Jeffrey had knuckled him. He remembered that the ultimate boss was standing right behind him and he had just said the F bomb.

  Both men slowly turned around waiting for her harsh criticism of his profaine language. As they stared at her, Bethany Anne looked from face to face in total confusion. “What? Do I have something from lunch still on my face?”

  A tiny snort issued from John. Bethany Anne looked over at him, “What?”

  “I think they’re worried about Tom’s curse word.” Bethany Anne turned back to the men, “is that it? Are you concerned that I will have a cow because you said ‘fuck’?”

  Both men just nodded their heads. Jeffrey mentioned, “Well, my wife isn’t happy whenever I just say ‘damn’ around the little kids.”

  Bethany Anne looked around the room, “Not including ADAM, I don’t see any young kids in here. So say whatever the fuck you want.

  Existential crisis over, Tom shrugged his shoulders and stared back at the device in his hands. “I don’t know how long this has been going on, since we weren’t expecting to have any wireless signals in this room. However, I would have to say that somehow we now have a wireless device. I suppose the computers might have had components on their motherboards for wireless communication that, at one time, weren’t activated. But they certainly are now. If we had not shielded this room so hard for the possibility of an EMP blast, I imagine there is enough wavelength to punch a hole through the concrete and a pretty good distance into the town.” Tom’s face went a little pale, “That would have gotten the Air Force’s attention for damn sure!”

  Bethany Anne, I am communicating with ADAM.

  What? Really? Through the Wi-Fi signal?

  Yes, it is requesting data, not realizing that I don’t have the same connectivity that it is expecting. It is trying all wavelengths, and all ACK commands that are available. I told you it would not be possible for a computer from this world to connect to mine without an interface.

  Save your ’I told you so’ for later, please. Do you feel it is safe to communicate with ADAM?

  I don’t see why not, however powerful the software might be, even with this much hardware, it is no match for one of our organic computers.

  Both men were still reviewing the handheld Wi-Fi signal device. Bethany Anne started walking down the rows between the servers, enjoying the lights bouncing back-and-forth in the semidarkness of the room.

  TOM, what is that buzzing I’m feeling in my head?

  The buzzing stopped.

  Sorry, I was testing an interface between, ADAM, myself, the computer and the Internet. I was reviewing the data requests and then having the computer confirm or deny. We were starting to create rule sets so that the requests can go faster.

  Are you telling me that you are now in charge of ADAM’S intellectual growth?

  Not in charge, so much as testing what we can do. Since my connection to the ship is through the etheric, we are not limited inside this chamber.

  Remember my concerns related to his awareness.

  Bethany Anne, artificial intelligence does not become a ‘him’. Artificial intelligence is a tag on a super-fast computer able to derive plausible and expected results in such a way that a human is faked into believing it has awareness.

  So are you suggesting that if we allow ADAM to start pulling in data, it will not become aware and then make a decision on whether or not humans should live?

  Tom was silent for a few moments, Bethany Anne continued walking around the computers.

  The two scientists were talking in hushed tones together, making comments how the Wi-Fi signal direction seemed to be moving around inside the room.

  I don’t believe that the computers in this room are capable of providing a sentient that would understand right from wrong. I suppose that if you provided it means to destroy all of humanity, and then told it to make sure that the world was a safe place, you could end up with humanity as the cockroach which must be destroyed.

  So, with no understanding of right or wrong it would just seek out the most logical solution and implement it?

  Yes, it would, and it would do it very quickly and very efficiently. Make the wrong request, and you could accidentally destroy the world while you went on a lunch break.

  Like that is not scary or anything.

  It has the potential of solving cancer in a matter of a few days if it had the right data. So with great opportunity comes…

  Great responsibility?

  No, the ability to create bigger and bigger problems, exponentially.

  So, you don’t believe that with only the computing power that the men have in this room, that they are going to attain this potential, this sentience?

  No. It looks like the logic has the potential to move into awareness. But it would be some time in the future and require a significantly larger number of machines.

  So if we grabbed all of these machines and took them to dad’s base, and added another five times as many machines. Would that get us pretty close?

  Tom was silent for a moment.

  Probably, we would certainly attain computer support beyond what most countries have at their disposal.

  Well, that is what I’m going for. We need something that can implement our efforts and be so smart as to not leave tracks when it’s doing it. From the perspective of opportunity to accomplish this requirement, do you believe they have succeeded?

  Yes. I believe that you would need more computer number crunching power. The data input would need to be monitored appropriately, but allow it to pull it much more quickly than what they’re doing here. Under those circumstances you should attain the capability you are seeking.

  So, they have succeeded in what I needed them to do. Now, we just need to get ADAM and them to come to Colorado with us.

  Remind me how you are going to do that again?

  I’m going to be the pimp for alien space ship technology.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  San Jose, Costa Rica.

  Giannini was walking down the third flight of stairs from her friend’s apartment above. She had moved, temporarily, in with a couple of friends and was sleeping on their couch. She was still a little shook up with the whole escapade a few weeks ago. Jumping off of buildings and flying through the city on a rope ladder wasn’t her idea of an exciting life. It was good in the books, but reality was too real.

  So far, she had not been approached. She hoped that meant she had given the slip to anyone searching for her.

  When she turned the corner and looked to where her car was, there was a gum smacking girl leaning against it. The girl had a laptop on the hood of her car and a backpack sitting on the ground beside her. Furious at the intrusion, she walked up to the girl and yelled at her in Spanish, “¡Qué grosero! ¿Te estadounidenses siempre actúas de esta manera en su propio país? Simplemente colocando equipos dondequiera que más le convenga?”

  Tabitha straightened from the car and turned the laptop towards Giannini. She then pointed to the screen, where she had opened Giannini’s online folder, with the files on Bethany Anne’s team highlighted.

  The blood drained from Giannini’s face. Giannini hated hiding, hated being cooped up on the couch. Finally, she had found someone she could yell at to vent the frustration she was feeling. So, she yelled at someone who was aware she knew about the teams. Her life sucked, sometimes.

&nbs
p; Giannini was angry, she crossed her arms and asked, “What do you want?”

  Tabitha smiled, “Oh? You can speak English just fine can’t you?”

  Giannini’s mouth tightened, “Since you have read my files, you see that I can write English just fine. It doesn’t take a genius to realize I can speak it, as well.”

  Tabitha shrugged, “Nor does it take a genius to research that the cloud service you’re using to ‘hide’ these notes uses abysmal encryption. Don’t stick something in the cloud you don’t want read by the government, or your friendly neighborhood hacker.”

  “I’ll consider myself chastised. What is it you want, who do you work for?”

  “A woman by the name of Bethany Anne.”

  Giannini’s eyes opened, “You work for her? Thank god! How do I get a hold of her? Can you tell me? My contact in the police won’t contact her for me. I’ve got to …” Giannini felt a presence beside her and she spun around, almost bumping into Tabitha who reached for her laptop to make sure it didn’t fall off of the hood. When Giannini found an intimidating man in her personal space, she backed up further squishing Tabitha between herself and her car.

  Giannini heard a squeak, and Tabitha’s muffled voice call from behind her. “Michael? Could you lay off the scary-as-fuck guy for a second? I’m in dire need of some personal space.”

  Giannini turned to stare behind her and then said, “Excuse me.” And stepped aside, grabbing Tabitha by the shoulders and pushing her between herself and Michael. She felt around inside of her purse with her left hand, coming up with a Taser and thumbed the charge to the its max setting.

  Michael smiled down at Tabitha, who rolled her eyes.

  Michael looked over at Giannini and said in a calm voice, “Giannini.”

  That was when she shot him.

  Key Biscayne, Fl - USA

  Lance had taken a nap after Bethany Anne had dropped him off. He got up, took a shower, and went searching for Patricia whom he found over in the main house, working in one of the small offices.

  He called out her name as he walked down the hall, “Patricia?”

  “In here, Lance. I am just updating the latest reports for the base project.”

  Lance walked into the small office which barely had enough room for a desk and two chairs and a fake potted plant. He sat down in one of the chairs across the desk from Patricia, “Excellent. What have we got on the base project?”

  Patricia eyed Lance, with her many years of experience around him she could recognize when he was in a different mood. “Did everything go okay in the meeting?”

  Lance look confused, “On the Polaris? Yes, yes it did. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason, everything okay with Bethany Anne?”

  “Yes. Everything’s okay with my daughter. Everything’s okay on the boats, and I understand that everything is okay with the base project?” This time there was a little bit of gruffness in his voice.

  Mollified that she had the ‘normal’ Lance with her, Patricia started in giving Lance an update on the project. The base project update took forty-five minutes. The next hour and a half was spent discussing the major companies that were, in review, for this quarter. It never ceased to amaze Lance how big the holdings, which Michael had deeded over to Bethany Anne, were. If there was a commercial venture which was not represented by at least two companies, in these holdings, Lance couldn’t think of what it would be. Furthermore, the sheer commercial throughput from all of these companies was more than the GDP of many countries.

  “See if we can pass those three company names over to Nathan. He should be able to take a look inside of their financials and find out if there is a reason to visit them, or not. Let him know that we are willing to go see them if it is necessary. I don’t want another Patriarch Research FUBAR this time.”

  Patricia asked, “What happened with Patriarch Research?”

  Lance answered, “The way I understand it, we might possibly have created the first artificially intelligent computer. That might have been good or might have resulted in a catastrophic uh-oh. Either way, Nathan will understand what I mean.” Lance leaned back in his chair.

  Patricia, recognizing his body language as ‘thinking about something’, went back to her books. She was busy making notes and jotting down tasks for the next few days. She didn’t feel Lance’s eyes as he returned his attention to her.

  Lance was just staring, both at her, and in her general direction. He was replaying, in his mind, his conversation with Bethany Anne as they had gone to Joe’s. He had been giving her comments some serious thought. At one time he might’ve said he was an old man, and didn’t have anything to offer someone as young as Patricia. With the current conditions he realized that he was going to live a lot longer. Was she the one that he would want?

  That was the question, wasn’t it? At his age, he should have enough wisdom to be able to make a good decision. He wasn’t all testosterone and stupidity anymore. What did he value in a relationship? Someone by his side, someone who would be able to carry on a conversation? All of that and more. ‘Tricia made him smile, he found himself wanting to see her smile, especially from things he did for her. No one could argue that she wasn’t a huge help to him. Ever since she came to Miami his stress levels were considerably less. In addition, he felt that his effectiveness had gone up by a factor of three at least.

  They made a good team. He allowed himself to look at her. Truly look at her as a woman. Oh, he had noticed her body before, he wasn’t dead. But this time, he looked at her without the blanket of the Army’s responsibilities and regulations laying on his shoulders.

  She made him laugh, her smile lit up the evening when they were out together. Before, she had been a comrade, another ‘guy’ in the group so to speak. Now, he had to decide whether or not… no, that wasn’t true. The biggest question would be, what would he feel if the doorbell rang and someone came here to take her out on a date?

  He looked down at his hands clasped in his lap, and lost himself in his memories. A couple of minutes later, he heard Patricia call his name a second time to get his attention. “Lance?”

  He looked up to see a worried expression on her face, “Are you all right? You’ve been acting funny all afternoon. Do I need to see if you have a temperature?”

  Lance said, “No, you wouldn’t find me with an elevated temperature.”

  “Another benefit of Bethany Anne’s rejuvenation potion?” She saw him nod his head.

  Lance smiled while looking into Patricia’s eyes, “Patricia, may I have the honor of taking you out on a date?”

  —

  Patricia was enjoying herself, the whole evening had been a wonderful time. For the first time in her experience ever, with being around Lance, he had treated her like a woman. Oh, he knew her as a female, sure. But she was always one of those girls that just got lumped into the guy’s group. This time, he was opening doors and pulling out chairs.

  He had been on his best behavior, treating her like a lady.

  He had taken her out for seafood, then they had decided on nightcaps at a bar overlooking the beach. It was beautiful. She was sitting at a tiny table for two. Two chairs with barely enough room on the table for two drinks and a small bowl of nuts or pretzels. But the view out of the window was fantastic.

  She smiled wistfully. She saw him over at the bar, getting their drinks. He now looked younger than she did, by a few years.

  She was dating a younger, older man.