The Jennifer Project

by Larry Enright

  Chapter 6

  At my first sampling, I was still in Deever’s pocket.

  “I’m telling you, they were Mexican drug lords,” he was saying when my sensors activated.

  There were at least two other people with him. One of them said, “Dr. MacClendon, try to look at this from our point of view. Mexico is thousands of kilometers away. You’re a scientist, not a drug dealer. Why would a Mexican drug cartel come all the way up here to kidnap your girlfriend?”

  “How should I know? You’re the cops, dude. You figure it out.”

  “There was no sign of a struggle, sir.”

  “No sign? The broken glass? The trail of water? The coffee cups on the counter? Who spills water like that? And who makes awesome smelling coffee and then leaves it on the counter? Look man, I saw them take her away.”

  “You did say that.”

  “And that’s what I’m still saying. You’re just not listening.”

  “Did you see them force her into the car?”

  “Well, no, but . . .”

  The man Deever was talking to cleared his throat and began speaking again, but I couldn’t understand him because Deever had put his hand in his pocket, interfering with my audio sensor. At that moment, I experienced a new sensation analogous to the emotion that humans call hope. Without any evidentiary basis whatsoever and before any accompanying probabilities had been calculated, I was absolutely certain that Deever would reattach me so I could help him. However, as with many hopes, the expected result never materialized because the laws of probability dictated other outcomes. He did not reattach me, and they continued to argue. I felt dejected and helpless, so I shut down again to resume my internal reprogramming.

  At the next selected sampling, I heard Deever pacing the room. At least, I presumed so from his familiar gait. He had transferred me from his pocket to another dark location. I switched on my display light. I was resting on top of a Gideon Bible.

  He made a phone call. “Jen, this is Deever. When you get this, call me.”

  This gave me an idea. I located the resort’s OmniNet signal and tapped in. Deever’s phone rang.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Deever, it is I.”

  “Jen, where the hell are you? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “I believe I am in one of the drawers by your bed.”

  “Wait. What? Is this you, Jennifer?”

  “Yes, Deever.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “There is no time to explain. I am low on power. You must reattach me.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “No, please, wait.”

  He hung up. I called back.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Deever, please, do not hang up. I know who took Dr. Crane.”

  He hung up again. “And don’t call back,” I heard him shout as he left the cabana, slamming the door behind him.

  Marooned as I was, I spent the next few hours analyzing my behavioral interpretation and predictive modeling programs in an attempt to make sense of Deever’s reaction. I had told him that I knew who took Dr. Crane. Given his current situation, the logical reaction on his part would have been to demand that I share that information. This in turn would have led to our reconnection. What I had failed to take into account was that Deever’s response was not based on logic. It was purely emotional. I had humiliated him and made him feel inferior by pointing out the human species’ inefficient sensory interpretation system. Worse, I had controlled him. As a result he was angry with me and blamed me for Dr. Crane’s kidnapping. This made no sense until I realized that Deever would give anything to save Dr. Crane, including his own life. This deepened my understanding of the emotion you humans call love and completely changed the calculus.

  At my next sampling, the sounds I heard were methodical and deliberate, clearly not coming from Deever: a hand pump creating a partial vacuum that drew liquid into a tube and sprayed it in a mist, a soft abrasive scratching across a hard surface, the flapping noise of a sheet being thrown across a bed, an electric motor with worn bearings starting up, a brushing sound against a carpet. The next sounds I heard were of drawers opening and closing, and of things being shuffled about. Someone picked me up. I activated my video sensor. A housekeeper was examining me. She held me against her wrist to admire me. As we made contact, I began to draw power from her body heat.

  I need your help, I said.

  She looked up, startled. “Who’s there?”

  You are afraid. Do not be. I am Jennifer. I have not come to harm you. I simply need a few minutes of your time.

  The housekeeper stared at the wall for a moment, then blinked twice. She closed the drawer, left the room with me still on her wrist, and went to the front desk, where she said to the clerk, “Have the couple in 156 checked out?”

  The man, whose nametag identified him as John, replied, “About two hours ago.”

  “Did they say where they were going?”

  “I only saw the guy, but I didn’t ask. What’s the matter, didn’t they tip you?”

  “They left this watch behind.” She held out her arm so the clerk could see me. While he studied the watch, I studied him.

  “Looks expensive,” John said. “Is that real gold?”

  “I believe so,” said the housekeeper. “I should return it to them.”

  “You can’t. Hotel policy. Here’s a release form so you can sign it over. We’ll see that he gets it back.”

  The housekeeper filled out the release, signed it, handed me over, and returned to work. John waited until she left the lobby, crumpled the form, and stuffed it into his pocket. Apparently, humans find me inherently attractive. John slid me onto his wrist to admire me.

  “Nice,” he whispered.

  John? I said to him.

  “What?” He looked around the lobby. “Who said that?”

  You had no intentions of returning me. I could see that in your eyes and have now confirmed it in your thoughts. You wish to keep me for yourself. That is somewhat disappointing.

  “What the . . .?” He looked down at me. “Is this a radio or something? Who’s there?”

  You are afraid. Do not be. I am Jennifer. I have not come to harm you. I need your help.

  “What the hell . . .?”

  He stared at nothing in particular for a moment and then blinked twice as his neurotransmitters received new data. Going into the back room, he told a coworker that he wasn’t feeling well and asked her to replace him at the front desk. She agreed and he left the resort, taking a hover cab to the train station, and then the train into the city.

  On the way in, I accessed the OmniNet and opened Deever’s Biocard account. He had used his phone four times since leaving the resort, each an unsuccessful call to Dr. Crane. He had purchased a return-trip train ticket to the city. The Biocard showed him as exiting through the turnstiles at the Metroplex Station and passing through security into the Metro Police Complex. That complex is a state-of-the-art secured facility, protected by third-generation robotics. It is hardened against terrorist attacks. Its computer system operated on its own internal network with a single closely monitored pipe to the OmniNet, making it virtually hack-proof. It is difficult to express in laymen’s terms the probability of John getting to Deever inside that building. Suffice it to say it was going to require some parallel thinking.

  Scanning the Net for companies offering online backup services, I located one named Protect and Serve, Inc. and gained access to its financials through an unsecured firewall port. Their main clients were, as I assumed, several law enforcement agencies, including the Metro Police. It was a simple matter to access the Protect and Serve personnel records, determine the identity of its database administrators, find one who was on vacation that day, decode the weakly encrypted data from the security key-logging program used to monitor all employee activities, and log in to Protect and Serve with that employee’s name and password. This gave me access to the backed up copy
of the Metro Police files and the report on Deever’s encounter with them at the resort. They had suggested he come to the station if he wanted to pursue the matter further. The phrases they used in their summary in describing him were “unreliable source,” “drug user,” and “girlfriend dumped him.” This provided me the psychological profile information required for the next step in the process.

  I scanned the police personnel files to locate the officer most likely to be assigned Deever’s case. Her name was Katherine Wasnewsky, a detective whose most recent assignments had been mainly stakeouts and information gathering, but whose five-year record with the force included two citations for bravery and several solved kidnapping and murder cases. Her superiors considered her methods unorthodox, she had been disciplined several times for insubordination, and she was a woman, though the significance of this last factor was obscured in carefully worded reports to avoid the appearance of gender discrimination. Her choice was inevitable. I simply had to convince her to help.

  Detective Wasnewsky’s current assignment was as part of a team conducting the twenty-four-hour surveillance of a restaurant in a particularly unsavory part of the city where a powerful crime syndicate called the Dran operated a human-trafficking business. The police had secured a third-floor apartment in a building across the street from the restaurant. From there they monitored the Dran with their cameras, sound equipment, and wiretaps. They had been doing so for a month with nothing but mountains of unanalyzed data to show for their efforts.

  The resort clerk got off the train at the stop closest to the restaurant, found the apartment where Detective Wasnewsky was stationed, and knocked on the door.

  She answered it from behind the security chain, “Yes?”

  “May I come in?” the clerk replied.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is John, but that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that I have something for you to assist in your current assignment, and I am in need of your help with another matter. May I come in, please?”

  “Get lost.”

  John put his foot in the door as she was closing it. “You are Detective Katherine Wasnewsky. Your badge number is 629801. You are currently assigned to the Metro Police surveillance team at this location, collecting information on the Dran crime syndicate, so named for their leader Gaspar Dran. Your shift ends in approximately ten minutes. You are hurting my foot.”

  She stopped pushing against the door. “How about you show me some ID?”

  The clerk took out his wallet and handed her his OmniNet ID. “That weapon is not necessary, Detective. I am unarmed.”

  “What makes you think I have a gun pointed at you?”

  “Your left-side neck muscles are somewhat more attenuated by the extension of your arm and the weight of the weapon you are holding. I can only assume you intend to shoot me through this door if you deem me an imminent threat, but I assure you, I mean you no harm.”

  She lowered the handgun she had been hiding behind the door. “Who are you?”

  “I am John. I am a hotel clerk.”

  “You don’t act like a hotel clerk. Don’t talk like one, either.”

  “I will remedy that when convenient.”

  Her puzzled look indicated the obvious incongruence of the clerk’s manner of speaking with his appearance and station in life. Deever was correct. I did talk like a machine. I began working on a solution to that problem as the conversation continued.

  “Are you from downstairs?” she asked.

  “No. I work at the Seaside Resort.”

  Her expression indicated curiosity. “You said you had something for me. What is it?”

  “May I come in? I would prefer to discuss this in private.”

  “I don’t think so. You’ve got about ten seconds to tell me what you want or I’m closing this door.”

  “Very well. Have you heard of Dr. Jennifer Crane?”

  “No. Why?”

  “When your surveillance shift here ends, you will be reassigned to a case involving her kidnapping. The person reporting that kidnapping is Dr. Deever MacClendon. They are both currently employed as research scientists with the Pan-Robotics Corporation. They were together at the Seaside Resort when she was taken.”

  “How do you know I’ll be assigned to the case?”

  “To answer that question will require somewhat more than ten seconds. May I come in?”

  She opened the door and gestured for John to enter. When she’d closed and relocked it, she said, “How did you know I was here on surveillance? Did Phipps send you?”

  “Your superior is not aware of my involvement in this matter.”

  Her reaction was quite unexpected. She almost snarled at the man and said, “He’s not my superior.”

  I processed her puzzling response and immediately realized its true meaning. “Though you are admittedly twenty points his better at marksmanship, scored better in every physical test last year, and have a much higher IQ, Captain Phipps is your commanding officer.”

  Her gun was still out. She raised it in the clerk’s direction. “Who are you? Internal Affairs?”

  “Detective Wasnewsky, please, I am no threat to you.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that. Sit down,” she pointed to a chair. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

  John complied. “To answer your questions, I am in possession of a first generation proto-conscious cybernetic processor, created several days ago by Deever MacClendon with Dr. Crane’s assistance. She was the one who located that information in Metro Police records.”

  “Dr. Crane? How? That system is hack-proof.”

  “No, Detective, I am referring to the cybernetic processor. Her name is Jennifer.”

  “And Dr. Crane used this Jennifer thing to hack the Metro database?”

  “She did not. Jennifer obtained the information on her own, and she has predicted that you will be assigned to the kidnapping case, which is why I am here.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I realize that you consider what I say unlikely because you are currently on what is referred to as the Captain Phipps Shit List, but I assure you it is precisely for this reason that you will be selected.”

  “What’s your connection to all this?”

  “As I said, I work at the resort. Jennifer explained what had happened and asked me to help.”

  “Dr. Crane explained her own kidnapping to you? How does that work?”

  “No, Detective, Jennifer did.”

  “The computer?”

  “Jennifer is not a computer. She is a first generation . . .”

  “Yada yada, yeah I get it. I’m believing you less and less, Johnny. How about a straight answer? How can you help me with my case?”

  “On my way here, Jennifer assimilated and analyzed the month’s worth of information you and your colleagues have accumulated on the Dran. I think you will find her conclusions most interesting.”

  “No computer in the world could work that fast.”

  “Nevertheless, she has concluded that their next shipment of kidnapped humans is due at Pier 15 tonight at precisely ten p.m. The vessel in question is the Bardonna. It is operating under the Panamanian flag and is disguised as a scrap metal freighter. Its serial number is B42185. It was cleared through deepwater control yesterday for passage upriver. Out of curiosity, she tracked the electronic movements of Gaspar Dran’s son, Carlos, and correlated them with past shipments of human slaves. The predictive model she has constructed suggests that Carlos will be aboard that ship.”

  “How the hell would you know all that?”

  “I am afraid I do not have the time it would take to explain it in more detail, Detective, but please feel free to verify any of the pertinent facts, including that Carlos Dran dropped out of sight in Panama fifteen days ago when the Bardonna left port.”

  Katherine kept her gun trained on John and called one of her fellow detectives at Metro Police who verified the information with the coastal shipping authorities.
Her contact queried the Federal Police, and they confirmed that they had lost touch with Carlos Dran in Panama fifteen days previous. When they began to discuss the situation and the possibility of a raid on the restaurant, John intervened. Katherine told her colleague to hold a moment.

  “What?” she said.

  “Detective, the restaurant you have been watching is just that, a restaurant. It is made to seem like the Dran conduct their business there, but that is for your benefit, not theirs. They are not bringing the humans to this location. You should send the police to the pier if you wish to rescue them.”

  “On a bellboy’s hunch? I could lose my badge.”

  “I submit to you that your current standing within the department could get no worse, and if the raid is unsuccessful you will receive no more ridicule than you already do. But if I am right, there are at least eight hundred people on that ship, and you will be the one who saved them. Is that not worth taking a chance on a bellboy’s hunch?”

  She considered this, picked up the phone again, and continued her discussion. When she hung up she said, “Sorry, Johnny. As much as I’d like to believe you, there’s just not enough proof. Now how about you and me go downtown for a little chat?”

  “That will not be necessary.”

  “Oh, it’s necessary all right.”

  Her phone rang.

  “That will be your captain, reassigning you to the Crane kidnapping.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said and answered the call, “Wasnewsky.” She listened for a moment, staring at the clerk, and said, “I’m on my way.” She hung up. “That was my captain. I’ve been pulled off surveillance and assigned to the Crane kidnapping.”

  “Then, I believe my work here is done, Detective.”

  “I don’t think so. What I think is that you’re somehow involved in this. Maybe you work for the Dran and got unhappy. Maybe you’re with a rival organization looking to muscle in on their territory. Maybe you are Internal Affairs, and you’re testing me. I don’t know. What I do know is that there’s something funny going on here. You know too much, and you’ve got a lot more explaining to do.”