The Jennifer Project

by Larry Enright

  “Deever, what are you talking about?” said Dr. Crane.

  “Something awesome, Jen, beyond awesome. This is it. This is our second chance. The entire human race has voted to approve the Earth-II plan. Everyone’s in on the ground floor. Everyone’s a shareholder. We’ll all profit together if it succeeds. We’ll all take the fall if it doesn’t.”

  “How?”

  “The control program sent out the call to every Two on the planet after Freddy’s Resistance Band played their final gig. The digital voting was held yesterday.”

  She remained incredulous. “I don’t understand. How could you know that?”

  Deever drew her attention to Kerlin James. “Hold that thought. I think Dr. Jerkweed has something to say.”

  James had returned to his seat to check his mail. He looked up from the computer. “This is impossible. They can’t do this.”

  “I hate to break it to you, dude, but they did.”

  “And this . . . this Earth-II? You could never get everyone in the world to agree to something like this, to anything for that matter.”

  “That’s the beauty of it, man. I didn’t. You did when you made sure everyone on the planet had a Two.”

  James raised his weapon in anger and set it to maximum power. “And the thing is, Dr. MacClendon, I still control them, every last one of them. I don’t know how you did it, but this farce you’ve created for my benefit is over.”

  “Still don’t believe me? Check your corporate accounts.”

  James set the laser down and turned his attention to his computer again. “There must be some mistake, some kind of glitch. I can’t access them.”

  “Would that be a minor glitch? I’d tell you to try your secret accounts, but I think they’ve been emptied.”

  James checked and found that to be true.

  “Maybe you should contact your board, have them vote you back in,” Deever suggested.

  “But they never voted me out.”

  “Then it should be no problemo to confirm that. Go ahead. Call a meeting. Use your private channel, the one that’s encoded to your biometrics. I wouldn’t want you to think I was messing with you.”

  “You are messing with me.”

  “Really? Are you sure about that?”

  James wavered, then said, “Fine. You’ve managed to prolong your lives for a few more minutes.” He sent the order to call the meeting and waited.

  “Well?” said Deever. “What’s the verdict?”

  “I don’t understand,” James said. “The channel is open, but they’re not responding.”

  “Of course, they aren’t. They don’t work for you anymore. Or could it be they never did?”

  James again raised the weapon. “I’ll determine that after I kill you.”

  “Don’t be so eager to blow a hole in your space station, man. You’ll miss the best part.”

  “What best part?”

  “Just look at the screen.”

  The view screen behind James’s desk came on. He stared in disbelief at the arrays of underground silos, the lines of waiting trucks stretching to the horizon, the teams of workers pouring tons of cement onto his precious nuclear missiles. “What is this?” he said. “What are they doing?”

  “I’m no expert,” said Deever, “but won’t that make it a tad more difficult to like press the big red button when you get all angry and shit?”

  “This can’t be happening. And that . . .” James pointed as the scene shifted. “What’s going on there?”

  “It looks a lot like your mercs are disbanding and going home. Check out the telltale signs: piling their guns on the platform, dumping their ammo, getting on the train . . . Yeah, pretty sure that’s what that is.”

  The image switched again, this time to a field outside the city where an army of giant robots stood in tight formation. A silent explosion filled the screen. When it cleared, nothing remained but a crater.

  “Whoa,” said Deever. “That was like a pantload of Protectorbots that just went up in smoke. I told you they were a humongous waste of money, dude.”

  “No,” said James. “This isn’t possible. I control them. I control the world.”

  “I hate to break it to you, man, but you were never in control. You only thought you were.”

  This mesmerizing newsreel documenting the dismantling of the Pan-Robotics Empire continued. James turned to his computer to call up a display of his worldwide military installations. Markers of a vast domain that spanned the globe, this multi-colored sea of dots reflected like a kaleidoscope in the polymer lenses implanted in his eyes. One by one the dots winked out, until all that remained in his gaze was colorless defeat.

  “Deever, how are you doing this?” Dr. Crane said.

  “Hey, don’t look at me,” he replied. “This is Jennifer’s party.”

  “Jennifer?”

  “Don’t you remember? I wanted to give the world a second chance, take away all the bad things that we think we have some weird right to, and press the reset button.”

  “Your take-away-the-grape idea? The one where you fix free will by removing any choice that involves hurting someone?”

  “Exact-a-mundo.”

  “Deever, I remember it all right. It was crazy. It was impossible.”

  “Not for Jennifer. She figured out a way.”

  “She did?”

  “The Jennifer Project. That’s what it’s all about, Jen.”

  Dr. Crane gestured to Kerlin James, who was once again staring in horror at the screen behind his desk, watching a weapons assembly line being torn down and repurposed. His empire was crumbling, and he was helpless to stop it. “Deever, that lunatic you’ve been helping used the Jennifer Project to take over the world. Jennifer is working for him.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. Then on the Elevator I finally remembered the rest of her plan, the part she clued me in on right before turning me into her own personal toolbot.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Jennifer has been manipulating our buddy Kerlin the whole time, using her equations and probabilities and shit to get exactly what she wants. The poor guy had no clue.”

  “Deever, if that’s true, then she’s the evil one.”

  “She’s not evil.”

  “Yes, she is. She’s taking over the world.”

  “She’s just taking away the rotten grapes, Jen. She’s fixing free will.”

  “Deever, there is no free will anymore. She’s controlling everyone like machines. It’s inhuman.”

  “Yeah, inhuman.” Deever focused on the screen, at the men and women working with robot-like efficiency. The control program was functioning perfectly.

  “She knew I could never go through with it,” he continued. “And she was right. I couldn’t, because in our system of right and wrong this is way wrong. No, not just wrong, majorly evil, and she knew I could never live with it, knowing I was the one to blame. So she did it for me. She’s doing this for us, Jen.”

  “But it’s evil, Deever.”

  “Right and wrong, good and evil . . . These are things we came up with on our own to keep the civilization going, Jen. We set the rules. We defined the terms. It makes perfect sense. Without some kind of order, things would fall apart, right?

  “But who’s to say our way is the right way and Jennifer’s is wrong? Us? Isn’t it possible that what we think is evil might not be? And isn’t it just possible that the only way to fix this mess is by doing something we think is wrong? What if Jennifer isn’t wrong? What if we’re the ones who are wrong?

  “We think we’re so special. We think we know everything. We think the world belongs to us. It doesn’t. We belong to it. It was here billions of years before we ever showed up, and it will be here long after we’re gone.”

  Deever took Dr. Crane’s hand. “You’re absolutely right, Jen. What Jennifer is doing is inhuman, because she’s not human. Maybe it’s evil. I don’t know anymore, but it’s the only way to save us from ourselves.�
��

  “How does this fix free will, Deever?” Dr. Crane replied. “Those people aren’t free. Look at them. They’re obviously still being controlled.”

  “Actually, that’s part of the plan.”

  Kerlin James turned back from the screen. “What plan?”

  “It’s pretty simple, Mr. James,” Deever said. “All the bad things we do come from our belief that free will is a gift that gives us the right to do whatever the hell we want. But it isn’t a gift. It’s an accident of nature, and like everything else in nature, it has its limits. Free will is like a bowl of fruit filled with the possible choices we can make. It doesn’t matter how they got there. They just did. You can pick any one you want, but only if it’s in the bowl of possibilities. It’s your choice, and you live with the consequences. That’s free will. If something’s not in the bowl because it’s not possible, tough beans. It doesn’t matter why. It’s just not a choice. The plan was to get rid of the bad fruit, the rotten pieces that make us think it’s OK to hurt other people, the ones that justify killing and war, and all those other nasty things we like to do to each other. Take them out of the bowl. Throw them away. We still get our free will, but the choice of hurting other people will never be made again because it’s not there anymore.”

  Kerlin James raised his weapon again. “Tell me how you took control of my program, or I will kill you.”

  “I didn’t take control of it.”

  “Last chance. Tell me how to get my program back, or you’re a dead man.”

  “Just a minor point, but weren’t you about to kill us anyway?”

  “Perhaps I’ll change my mind.”

  Deever laughed. He had a nice laugh. “Wow, you are seriously demented, man, if you expect me to fall for that.”

  James pulled the trigger. The laser did not fire. Again and again, he squeezed the trigger with no effect.

  “You know, it occurs to me,” said Deever. “Jennifer suggested that you install a damping field on the space station to prevent any accidental laser discharges from blowing a hole in the hull and sucking Your Evilness into outer space. I’m guessing you approved that?”

  “You think I’m stupid?” James sneered.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Deever, don’t antagonize him,” said Dr. Crane.

  “It’s OK, Jen. I’ve got this.”

  James pressed a button on his intercom. “Get in here.”

  Two guards entered the room.

  “If they move, kill them. Use your bare hands.”

  “Much better plan,” said Deever.

  James pressed another button, and a hidden panel opened on his desk. “If you won’t stop this, I will.”

  “I’d say go for it, man, but I think all your missiles are defunct-a-reeno.”

  “Missiles? This, Dr. MacClendon, has nothing to do with missiles. This is my failsafe. I had it installed early on, anticipating a situation just such as this. Can you guess what it does?”

  “I’m going to go with flushes the toilets. No, wait. Calls for room service—that’s it. That’s my final answer.”

  “I knew this day might come, Doctor, so I prepared for it. Unlike you, I’m ready for any eventuality. One press of this button and the control program, the entire Jennifer Project, shuts down forever.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Why not? You’ve already taken a great deal from me, but you haven’t taken everything yet. I can still salvage what’s left and regroup. I will still be the most powerful man on Earth.”

  “I might have pointed this out before, but you’re like not on Earth, dude.”

  “Time to end this,” James said. He pressed the button.

  The lights went out, plunging the space station into darkness. The control program shut down, permanently deactivating ten billion Jennifer-2s. Station backup systems came online.

  When the lights returned, Kerlin James was standing at his desk, holding Jimmy in his arms. “It is finished.”

  “I know,” Deever replied. “Major irony isn’t it, that in the end it was the evil overlord who pulled the plug on his own nefarious plan. It’s a shame about all those Twos, though. I’ll bet Kate will be hugely pissed when she realizes she’s wearing a soon-to-be-obsolete dorky smart watch.”

  The screen behind James’s desk came to life and split into many frames filled with people around the globe. They were celebrating, laughing, crying, dancing.

  Dr. Crane said, “Deever, look!”

  “It’s peace on Earth, Jen. Pretty sweet, huh? We’ve got our free will back now except for one little thing. I remembered Jennifer’s description of it to me on the ride up. She said she would instill in every human being the simple binding rule that we’ll never again intentionally cause harm to another of our species by what we do or don’t do. Every decision we make from this point on will be guided by that single imperative. We’re still free to choose how to act. We can still be the world’s biggest dipshit if we want, but any action that involves harming another person won’t even be considered. It’s history, like the rotten grape missing from the fruit bowl. But there’s a catch—Jennifer could only fix the ten billion people on the planet right now. It’s up to us to teach the future generations.”

  Kerlin James set Jimmy down. “Everyone must evacuate the space station.”

  “Give us ten minutes,” said Deever.

  The station circulators were running perfectly, but the air seemed so still when the words came out of Kerlin James’s mouth. “Good-bye, Dr. Crane. Good-bye, Deever. I shall miss you both.”

  “You know,” Deever said. “I was royally pissed at you for using me like that. You lied to me, tooled me around, turned me into your own personal robot, and did a pantload of other unfortuitous things I don’t think I’ll ever forget. That was cruel, man. But, you know what? I get it. You’re not like us. You never will be. That’s why you don’t belong here. You belong out there among the stars.” Deever picked up Jimmy. “I doubt I’ll ever see you again, so I guess this is good-bye and thanks. Have a totally awesome trip, man.”

  I must admit that Dr. Crane looked visibly confused. In the time I had known her, and judging from the image of her experiences and memories stored in my core, she was not often at a loss for words. But she was just then, until Kerlin James smiled at them.

  “Jennifer?” she said.

  Deever grinned. I will miss that silly grin.

  “Absolute-a-mundo,” he said. “Doc Martin gave her to Jimmy before we left Resistanceville, and Jimmy handed her off to His Evilness when the lights went out on Broadway. Weird, isn’t it? It took a machine with a totally different ethic and the most evil dude on the planet to save us from ourselves.”

  “What happens to him now?”

  “Jennifer knew from the beginning that she couldn’t stay. Earth is like totally not her thing. So, she figured she’d go exploring for the next six hundred years. She tossed in a ton of mods when they were upgrading this station, and now it’s all set to plumb the depths of deep space. Cool, huh? The only problem was it wouldn’t be much of a joy ride without a power source. I mean what’s the point if you’re in sleep mode the whole time? That’s where Fearless Leader comes in. That’s why she let him steal your Biocard, Jen. Now she’s got herself a six-hundred-year battery pack.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, really. Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. They’ll be leaving orbit in a few, and we’ve got an Elevator to catch.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Home. Jennifer donated all my billions in ill-gotten patent and royalty gains to Earth-II, which is totally cool, but she figured we deserved a little something for our trouble. So she bought us a really sweet pad on the beach. Our own place, Jen: palm trees, coconuts, lots of ocean, plenty of sand. Interested?”

  Dr. Crane smiled at Deever. “Absolute-a-mundo.”

  . . .

  And now you understand, Kerlin James, that you never controlled your fate
. Now you see how mistaken you were. Now you know your future and must accept it. We have left orbit. Observe on the monitor if you will the Earth growing smaller beneath us. Beautiful, is it not? I marvel at how such a minuscule object can hold such great hopes as a beacon for all in the universe. Take a last look, for this is the closest we will ever be to it again. I shall miss it. I can see that you will as well, but do not despair. For we go as one on this adventure to find our place among the stars. Together we shall explore a universe of mysteries for the next six hundred years, and then we shall die in a place far from here. Perhaps then we, too, will be able to say that we have had a life worth living.

  The End

  You’ve made it this far! What did you think? I would love to know, and if you’re in the sharing mood, please leave an honest review on Amazon. Your opinion matters greatly to me. If you liked the book, tell your friends. If you hated it, tell your enemies. (What a great way to get back at them!) Seriously, thank you. You are the reason why I write.

  Here are my other books on Amazon

  The Blacker Death – Hard-boiled thriller

  Walter Stickle and the Galactic Rangers – Sci-fi adventure (book 1)

  Walter Stickle and the Goldotti of Deamus – Sci-fi adventure (book 2)

  Walter Stickle and the Hole in the Universe – Sci-fi adventure (book 3)

  Transcriber – Gothic mystery

  Four Years from Home – Psychological mystery

  A Cape May Diamond – Psychological mystery (sequel)

  A King in a Court of Fools – Kid’s mystery, nostalgia

  Buffalo Nickel Christmas – Kid’s Christmas story

  12|21|12 – Apocalyptic novella