Puppet Master

by Dale Brown

  She looked up. Chelsea was pedaling alongside.

  “Nice bike,” she said again. “You change gears a little too much. You can pedal a little longer before shifting for better speed.”

  Borya put her head down and pedaled furiously. Her legs were starting to tire, and as she felt the burn growing in the top of her thighs, she realized she would never be able to outrun the woman, who was still alongside her.

  You’re an old suck. You should be tired!

  Borya dropped to her usual pace. She thought of leading the woman across the city but decided she’d have a hard time losing her. Besides, her father had given her strict orders to check in with him from the house phone when she got home.

  She narrowed her eyes as she rode the last block and a half to the house, practicing the glare she would greet the woman’s inevitable questions with. She felt as if she was putting on a costume, becoming someone else—a superhero tough girl, impervious to attack.

  Pedaling around to the back, Borya hopped off the bike as she glided toward the back porch. She picked up the bike in one motion and carried it up the steps without stopping. The front wheel was still spinning when she began wrapping the chain through the frame to secure it.

  “You’re still here?” she said nonchalantly, as if noticing for the first time that Chelsea was parked at the base of the steps.

  “You never answered my question,” said Chelsea. “What do you know about ATMs?”

  “They give you money.”

  Borya turned to go inside, deciding it would be easiest simply to avoid talking to the woman. But Chelsea was quick, and prepared: she hopped off her bike and was at the door in a flash, pushing it closed as Borya reached her hand in with the key.

  “Are you a cop?” asked Borya.

  “No. I’m not a cop.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I know what you did. I’m interested,” added Chelsea.

  “In what?”

  “In how you do it. You’re good with computers. I’ll bet you’re great in math, too. And also bored in school.”

  “Maybe.”

  Borya sensed—knew—that the woman was just pretending to be nice so she could get what she wanted. Still, the attention was flattering.

  “If you show me how you did it, I’ll show you some cool stuff,” offered Chelsea. “Computers, robots, and other cool stuff.”

  “Yeah, right—like you’re going to offer me candy next,” snapped Borya. “You’re going to break the door.”

  “I work for a pretty interesting company,” she said. “We need more smart people to work there. Women especially.”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  Borya faked tears. It was a lousy try, but it worked. The woman let go of the door.

  “See ya,” said Borya, slipping in the key and unlocking the door. She expected Chelsea would try to stop her, but she didn’t. Borya squeezed past her and fled into the house.

  Chelsea stood on the back porch for a moment, considering what to do. She sensed that she had aroused the girl’s curiosity but at the same time had somehow made a misstep, either coming on too strong or not being enticing enough.

  I should have mentioned money. That’s probably what motivated her in the first place.

  Money? Here? Unlikely.

  Should have been clearer about not being a cop.

  Threatened to turn her in if she didn’t come with me.

  That’s kidnapping.

  She stood on the porch for a few moments, until she was convinced that Borya wasn’t coming back out. Then she went down to her bike. But she wasn’t going home—she walked around to the front and went up on the stoop. She rang the bell. When there was no answer, she sat down on the steps.

  One of the teachers had told her a little bit about Borya when she was waiting. Most of it she could have guessed: smart girl, somewhat rebellious, good at math.

  The fact that she had lost her mother when she was young and that her father hadn’t remarried—that was unexpected. If not for that, the girl would have been very similar to her.

  Maybe. Had Chelsea been that rebellious?

  You were a handful, she heard her father say.

  She laughed.

  Maybe I was.

  Borya locked the door and raced upstairs, checking to make sure she hadn’t missed her father’s call.

  No calls.

  She ran to her room and woke her computer from sleep mode. She checked Facebook and her e-mail, then looked quickly at her father’s account—if school or the police were trying to contact him, she wanted to know.

  A lot of spam, nothing official.

  She’d just backed out of the account when the phone rang. She grabbed it without looking at the caller ID, then belatedly realized it might be the police. She held it to her ear, listening.

  “Borya, what are you doing?” demanded her father. “Talk.”

  “I’m about to do my homework,” she said. “I just got home.”

  “How much homework do you have?”

  “Not much,” she answered without thinking. The truth was, she had done it all in school already, at least the homework that she cared to do. But an ambiguous answer gave her room to maneuver.

  “I’m on my way home. Do we need milk?”

  “Um . . . let me check.”

  As she trotted down the stairs, she noticed the woman sitting on the steps at the front of the house.

  That’s no good. How do I get rid of her?

  “Yeah, I guess, um, we do need milk,” Chelsea told her father after picking up the downstairs phone.

  “Anything else?”

  “Wait . . .” Chelsea walked to the refrigerator and opened it. It was well stocked—and in fact there was a nearly full gallon of milk right in the front. “No, nothing. Snacks, maybe.”

  “You don’t need any more potato chips. They’ll give you zits. I’ll be home in a bit.”

  He hung up. Chelsea put the phone down and went back to the refrigerator for the milk. She drained the jug into the sink, leaving only a finger’s worth at the bottom, then ran the water to remove any trace.

  The woman was still there. This was not going to do. Her father was already past the ATM situation. A question or two from this Chelsea, and she was back in trouble, big time.

  The phone upstairs began playing a message that it was off the hook. Borya trotted up and turned it off, then traded her uniform skirt and blouse for jeans and a sweatshirt.

  Still there. What happens when Dad comes home?

  Borya had to get rid of her somehow. She stood at the top of the steps, hoping for an answer.

  Nothing occurred to her.

  There was something near the door. She slipped down quietly and picked up a business card.

  Smart Metal

  AI, Bots, et al

  Chelsea Goodman

  Chief AI engineer

  Not a cop. OK. What was Smart Metal?

  AI and Bots . . . artificial intelligence and robots?

  Huh?

  Borya put the card on the table, then paced back and forth, trying to decide what to do.

  The doorbell rang. She turned. It was Chelsea.

  Open it or not?

  She undid the latch and yanked the door open.

  “What do you want?” Borya demanded.

  “I want you to come with me and see my lab. I want to give you a tour.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then nothing.”

  “You’ll leave me alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not going in a car.”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  Borya peered out to the street. The woman was alone. “You’ll let me go home when we’re done?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I have to be home because my dad will have a shit fit.”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re not lying. You’re not the cops?”

  “I’m not the cops. I know what you did.” Chelsea’s vo
ice became a little less sweet. “I’m interested in it. But I’m not turning you in. I would love to know how you did it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That’s fine. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Wait. I need to tell my father where I’m going,” said Borya, who was already thinking of an excuse—the library or a friend’s, nothing related to this woman.

  “I’ll wait out here.”

  47

  Boston—a few moments later

  Jenkins slowed the car as he approached Tolevi’s house. There was someone out front with a bike, waiting by the driveway, back to him.

  A girl, but not Borya.

  There was Borya, coming up the driveway with her own bicycle. She hopped on. The other girl started riding as well.

  Is that Chelsea Goodman?

  Jenkins got a good side view as he passed. It was Chelsea. What the hell was she doing with Borya?

  He turned at the next corner, then accelerated away. He had to think about this.

  48

  Boston—twenty minutes later

  Chelsea took a step back, watching Borya as she stared in awe at the tiny flying machine. She had told the airborne bot to fly into the 3-D maze and retrieve a tulip; the UAV was now wending its way around a string of Plexiglas baffles, buzzing up and down as it looked for its target. It passed a decoy lily, then a bunch of daisies, and finally hovered above the tulip. It circled twice, measuring the stem, then dove down and plucked the flower near its base. Moments later it hovered above Borya’s hand, waiting for her to take its prize.

  “It’s for you,” prompted Chelsea.

  “Wow.”

  “Bot B, go home and close down,” commanded Chelsea. The small aircraft climbed a few feet, then zipped across the lab to the bench where its “nest,” or launching pad, was kept. It plopped down on the pad and promptly shut itself off.

  “Is this some sort of trick?” asked Borya.

  Chelsea laughed. “No, but sometimes it does seem like magic. Come here. I’ll show you the coding.”

  She walked over to a sixty-inch computer screen powered by a workstation at the side of the room. Chelsea tapped the command key and had it display one of the subroutines the on-board computer used to pick out the flower by comparing it to its on-board records.

  As impressive as the demonstration was to the uninitiated, the bot had actually done nothing that wasn’t being demonstrated in the MIT robotics lab three or four years before. The truly innovative thing was its size and autonomy. The processors used a carbon nanotube architecture (licensed from IBM for experimental purposes only) that made the small aircraft’s brain as powerful as a 1990s-era mainframe. The nanotubes replaced silicon, allowing the transistors on the chip—essentially the on-off switches that made everything work—to be about a twentieth the size of the smallest possible in silicon, roughly 7 nanometers. They were thinner than strands of DNA.

  Borya gaped at the coding. It was a proprietary language, presented here without notes and explanations.

  “It’s not C++,” said the girl. “But this sets up an array, right?” She pointed to the screen.

  “Very good,” said Chelsea. She tapped the keyboard. The screen began scrolling quickly. “I just want you to see how long this is.”

  “Wow,” said Borya as the characters rolled off the screen.

  “This is just one subroutine. There were five thousand six hundred and thirty-two involved in that test we just ran.”

  “Really?”

  “When we started, there were almost twice that many. We had to find a way to tighten it up. We’re still working on that.”

  “How long did it take you to write this?”

  Chelsea laughed. “I’d love to take credit for writing the whole thing,” she said, “but I had a lot of help.”

  “How many people?”

  “I can’t tell you that.” It was, in fact, proprietary information, as were the tools they had used to help construct it. “But I can say that it wasn’t just people. Automated tools are very important. They’re like computer writing assistants.”

  “I’ve heard of that,” said Borya.

  “Smart Metal is a pretty cool place, huh?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Hungry? We can get something to eat. There’s a café upstairs.”

  “I should go home,” said Borya. “My dad will be wondering where I am.”

  “No soda?” Chelsea asked. “We have Coke, root beer—”

  “Do you have potato chips?”

  “We do. Come on.”

  Borya followed her to the elevator. The doors in the hallway were to other labs, where different scientists and engineers were working. A few wore white clean-room-style suits, but most were dressed in jeans and casual shirts. There were computers and sensors and wires everywhere. When they’d come in, Chelsea had walked Borya through a display area of artificial limbs. It was like a museum exhibit, starting with peg legs and moving up to a sleek arm and hand with thin metal tubes and wires, which, Chelsea told Borya, connected to a person’s nervous system.

  She wanted one. Not that she would trade her actual arm for it, though.

  “Who’s this?” asked a short, white-haired man as they stepped off the elevator on the top floor.

  “Mr. Massina, this a friend of mine. Borya.” Chelsea put her hand on Borya’s back and pushed her gently toward Massina. “She’s a high school student. She’s very good at math.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  Borya stuck out her hand. Massina shook it. He had a firm handshake, though not quite as crushing as her father’s.

  “Keep studying,” he said as he let go. Then he stepped around her and entered the elevator, frowning until the doors closed.

  “He’s a bit of a sourpuss,” said Borya.

  “He owns the company,” said Chelsea. “A lot of the things you’re looking at, he invented.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. He’s pretty much a genius.”

  Chelsea got the girl some chips and a soda, then led her out to the terrace. It was a beautiful early spring day, nearly eighty degrees; the large windows at the side were open, letting in the gentle breeze.

  Borya had clearly been impressed, but that was all. Chelsea had imagined that the visit would open her up. She’d ask a few questions and find out everything there was to know about the ATM scam—like, had her father put her up to it? Was she involved? Had she even done the coding, possibly with the help of some scripts off the Internet? Just how precocious was this girl?

  But Borya hadn’t opened up. And sitting down at the table overlooking the harbor and skyline, Chelsea felt as if she was back in middle school, trying to make friends with one of the cool girls.

  That had never gone well.

  “Have you thought about college?” asked Chelsea. As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them; they were something a parent would say.

  “No.”

  “College is a good thing.”

  God, I’m hopeless.

  “Uh-huh.” Borya ripped open the bag of chips with her teeth and began eating.

  Don’t ask her about a boyfriend. Or anything else about school.

  What, then?

  “So—what did you do with the ATM card?” There was nothing else to talk about, Chelsea decided. She might as well just cut to the quick.

  “The ATM card?”

  “The other night. One of my drones, a Hum, saw you at the machine.”

  Borya shrugged.

  “I know you have a way of stealing money from the accounts. I’m not going to turn you in. I just want to see how you do it. It’s pretty clever.” Chelsea’s mind flailed, trying to come up with some strategy that would work. “Did you write it in C++?”

  “You have to use coding that the bank systems understand,” said Borya.

  “And how’d you learn that?”

  “The machine at the bank uses one language, then it gets translated.
You don’t know that?”

  “I don’t know anything,” fudged Chelsea. “I don’t work on those systems. Did you have to revise the program every time you hit a different bank?”

  “I have to go.” Borya jumped to her feet.

  “It’s at the intermediary,” said Chelsea, finally realizing that she had been mistaken about how the thefts were arranged. The code in the bank account that was queried went there, which then issued other commands. Otherwise it’d be too cumbersome.

  “I have to go. My father is going to be looking for me.”

  “Sure,” said Chelsea as nonchalantly as she could. “Come on. I’ll get you a ride.”

  “I have my bike.”

  “Sure you don’t want a ride?”

  “No.”

  “When do you want to come back?” Chelsea asked as they waited for the elevator.

  “Come back?”

  “You haven’t seen half of the awesome stuff we have. There’s plenty more.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Borya said nothing until they got to the lobby. Chelsea walked her to the security desk, where they retrieved her phone.

  “You’re not coming with me, are you?” asked Borya. She seemed worried.

  “I have to work.”

  “OK.”

  “Here,” said Chelsea, holding up her phone. “Here’s my number. Text me when you want to come back.”

  Reluctantly, Borya pressed the key combination to allow the phones to exchange information.

  “Anytime,” said Chelsea at the door to the lobby.

  She watched Borya spring to her bike, chained at the rack in the vestibule. She mounted it and rode it through the door, clearly impatient to be gone.

  “That was our thief?” Massina stared at Chelsea from behind his desk.

  “Apparently. I’m not sure whether her father put her up to it or not.”

  “Hmmmph,” said Massina. Finding out a teenaged girl was responsible for a string of thefts that had the FBI twisted in knots—that wasn’t exactly what he’d thought they would find.

  On the other hand, if a kid could do this, then the field was wide open for improvements.