“Yes, at around six or seven. He texted me earlier and he said he’ll meet me at our mother’s place. She wants to talk to me, too.”
“Will anyone else be there?”
“My father will be working by that time, so it’ll just be the three of us.”
“Very well. We’ll be in a car listening in nearby. The mike will be able to transmit for a hundred yards, no problem, so don’t worry about moving around. The key will be getting them to admit details, Mr. Mendez, and it’s best that they explain what they did in their own words. Try not to lay out everything yourself, just egg them on. Understand?”
Mr. Mendez nodded. The detective went on to give a little more advice about how to tackle the future dialogue, and also went ahead and synced up three earpieces to the clandestine recorder. After testing that everything worked, Mr. Mendez left to contemplate what he was getting himself into.
Much of the next day I spent getting rested up and going over other facets of the Malik case, though nothing else of note popped up. An hour and a half before the scheduled meeting, I met with Denton and his partner, a sarcastic curmudgeon fifteen years my senior named Luke Barret, at the police station. We then drove together to Gale’s home, which was situated in the center of an upper-middle class neighborhood not a hundred yards from Lake Michigan’s shore. We parked the tinted stakeout car, which was Luke’s ten year old Acura sedan, at the end of Gale’s block and waited. It wasn’t long before we saw the elder Mendez exit the driveway in a red jeep and leave for work. Ten minutes after that and Ben texted to us that he was heading our way. We ultimately saw our insider silver Camaro pass our vehicle and park on Gale’s driveway. Our earpieces beeped when Ben turned on the recorder.
As an apparent test, he said, “Hope you guys can hear me okay.” Our informant then exited his car, went up to the house door, and used a fingerprint scanner to unlock it.
“You here, Ma?” we heard him bellow out.
“I’ll be right down,” replied Gale’s stifled voice.
A minute later and some footwear slapping against a wooden floor announced her appearance.
“Hey, Ma,” Ben said flatly.
She sighed. “Ben, don’t be like that.”
“Why not? When were you going to tell me you were being investigated for Malik’s death by some P.I.?”
“I didn’t even know until a couple of days ago. He doesn’t even have anything.”
“I don’t know about that. He seemed confident enough to talk to me.”
“He’s just trying to stir things up, hon.”
“Then what’s all this about the fake vet visits with Eric? Or getting Clair to help you make some computer virus? The P.I. says Malik’s office computers crashed the week before he died and that his hard drive was fucked up. Or are you gonna treat me like an idiot and say it was all just a big coincidence?”
“Ben, honey, please calm down. I know how it looks, but you need to understand that I had no intention to hurt Trevor.”
“So what was your intention? And why drag Eric into this?”
“Because I knew Eric would appreciate what I was trying to do. You see, Trevor was on the verge of something big with his latest research, but he didn’t truly understand what he had his hands on when he first showed me his work.”
At this time we saw a black Harley-Davidson pulling up on the driveway.
“That must be Eric,” said Gale.
There was no talking in the home until Eric came in and said, “What’d you tell him?”
“I was just getting to it,” answered his mother. “I was explaining how groundbreaking Trevor’s research was, but he didn’t even realize it.”
“Lucky for us,” added Eric.
“What does that mean?” asked Ben. “What kind of research are we talking about, Ma?”
“Trevor was experimenting and exploring with ways to better integrate prosthetic limbs and the brain. He essentially wanted to create an advanced biochip that would make our current biocompatible technology obsolete, and he was damn close. Closer than he first realized.”
“You’re making it sound like that’s a problem. That sounds great for the company.”
“The company?” said Eric derisively. “See the big picture, man!” This technology would make it cheaper and easier for people to choose to remove their gods given limbs and replace them with synthetic ones. I doubt even you would like to see a bunch of depraved tinmen walking around everywhere.”
“Hold on. Ma, so what did you do after he showed you his research?”
“I didn’t do anything at first. Like I said, he didn’t quite grasp what he had. He might have been head of the research division, but he still wasn’t the best of us. That’s why he came to me in the first place. He almost always came to me with his projects. When I was able to fully realize the scope of what he had, I started to try and convince him to focus on other ventures, but his gut kept him returning to the biochips. So I then started explaining to him what his research could do, and that it was better to work on technology that wouldn’t blaspheme against the Sacred, but he ignored me. In fact, he became more determined. I next tried to give him bad advice to slow him down, but I knew I had to do more than that.”
“Shit,” said Ben. “Just how far did this go? Did you take Eric to his house to threaten your friend?”
“No! I just wanted to talk to him. He was still angry at me because he guessed I had crashed his computers an-”
“And did you?”
“Yes, but it was just to show him how serious I was and that we had to talk it out.”
“Ma, the fake vet visits, involving Eric, it sounds to me like you were preparing to do just more than simply talk.”
“It was just precautionary! I mean, I knew he would listen to reason if we just talked it out, b-but he, but he…” She started to cry.
After some twenty seconds of only hearing her sobbing, Eric said, “We went up there to talk, but he wouldn’t fucking listen. He started saying he was going to fire her and things got more heated from there.”
“Gods damn it, Eric. You really did kill him.”
“He was going to fire her, Ben! He was going to keep going with his damn research! We didn’t want to, but he didn’t give us a choice!”
I believed Ben groaned and there was merely his mother’s soft crying for the next few moments.
From my spot in the backseat, I asked Barret, “Good enough?”
His answer was to start the car.
On our short trip to the house, Eric said, “Ben, can we trust you to keep this quiet? The police don’t have anything on us, and that P.I. is just grasping at straws.”
“And what if I don’t keep quiet? Will you just get rid of me, too?!”
Gale expelled a sharp shriek. “Ben! Don’t talk like that!”
The family continued their family-ruining discussion, but I stopped listening when Barret said, “You’re with me, Howard. Bryan, you take the back in case we have a runner.”
The car stopped in front of the house and we all jumped out into the quiet evening. I began sprinting toward the back of the home, easily climbing over a wooden fence to see a tidy backyard that was mostly taken up by a large covered patio with a barbeque pit at its boundary and an empty swimming pool. By the time my feet were firmly planted in the backyard, I heard one of the detectives give the front door a few hearty knocks. The inside of the home went completely silent for a moment.
Then, through my earpiece, I heard Eric presumably tell his brother, “What are you doing? Just let them leave.”
I next heard the door open and Barret say, “Gale Mendez, Eric Mendez, you are under arrest for the murder of Trevor Malik.”
There was then what sounded like the knocking over of a chair and Gale yelling out “Eric!”
Knowing I could hear him through the still active earpieces, Denton said, quite casually, “He’s heading right for you, Bryan.”
Even as Denton spoke, I was already on my way to com
pleting my little trap. Starting from the base of the back door I was standing next to, and extending some six feet out from it, I had warped a sleek sheet of ice. Almost at the same time I had completed the impromptu skating rink, a warped gale originating from inside the house burst the door open, nearly ripping it off its hinges. A half second later and I saw Eric’s leading foot pop out the rectangular opening. As I had witnessed several times before, the unbraced shoe could not properly grip the slippery surface and its owner fell face first onto the hard floor. The young soldier was very quickly starting to lift himself back up, but I was still sharp enough to promptly warp the ice below him and use it to create a cold shackle around his right forearm. I had no doubt that the military trained warrior was a skilled enough arcanist to make this encounter more of a fight, but a gun-at-the-ready Denton had reached us by this point. Pointing his pistol at him, the detective then firmly stated something about having no qualms shooting a resisting killer. The offender did not wish to test the lawman’s assertion and became subdued…
The mother and son each pleaded not guilty, but the recorded confession pretty much made the case a virtual slam dunk. Ryan expressed his gratitude with a nice bonus to my second week of work. I had a feeling Alice wanted to express her gratitude in another way, but, as I did to all my other clients, I declined to keep up any unnecessary contact. Besides, she would make it impossible to acquire the uninterrupted sleep I wanted to catch up on for the next few days.
2552 S.E.
2552-2560 – Taking advantage of the newly conceived biochips, and due to the relatively little resistance to transhumanism in the government, China rapidly becomes a worldwide leader in the manufacturing and development of cutting-edge artificial limbs, organs, and implants, the best of which remains too expensive for the majority of the global populace.
2561-2575 – An increasing number of protests around the world turn violent. By 2565, fanatical purist groups start targeting companies specializing in producing the “sacrilegious” technologies, either by bombing buildings or killing workers. Despite this, the technology continuous to swiftly expand in industrialized countries.
Warden
October 16th, 2577 S.E.
He paused to demurely stare out the arched, stained glass window that looked out into the temple’s wide central garden. It was just after nightfall, but the magenta flames flickering from some wide braziers gave the emerald flora a lively, defiant glow to the shadows. When he recognized that he might have been gazing at the scene a little too long, he said, “Sorry, Mother Frida, I know your time is precious.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Wilder,” assured the high priestess to the haggard, middle-aged man sitting in her office. While Mother Frida was two decades his senior, the miracles of the era allowed her to keep the most severe of her skin’s creases at bay. “Now, before you begin, may I ask why you believe you can’t turn to anyone else? I know your wife loves you dearly and would do much to see you happy if she knew you were troubled.”
“Yes, I know that. Maybe someday I’ll tell her, but it’s not something I feel anyone can quite… relate to. Really, I just need to get this off my chest.”
“Very well. Whenever you’re ready.”
After a breath he failed to keep shallow, he said, “As you know, I’m a software engineer. I’ve loved to create computer programs since I was little. One of my proudest moments came just after I started college, when I successfully coded a rudimentary, but fully operating simulated intelligence, an S.I. It could do pretty much all the regular S.I. stuff everyone uses them for, notwithstanding a few hiccups, especially when trying to make chitchat. Still, it mostly worked and I was content with its performance. I initially used it as a study partner, but after graduation I began regularly updating it to aid me in my career. Its primary function was to assist me in the creation of security software, so I nicknamed it ‘Warden’ for its safeguarding duties. It worked so efficiently that even my bosses never knew I used Warden instead of their recommended programs. It was indispensable in getting me my promotions.
“A big downtown apartment, a beautiful wife, and a clever daughter later and I noticed a change in Warden, a slow shift that required hindsight to recognize. Most advanced S.I.s can hold their own in a conversation, but completely fail when it comes to bringing out any kind of real emotion from either us or them. Warden, however, was getting fairly adept at making me laugh, and not with the simple joke making you can find on the internet, but the subtle kind that takes actually knowing a person’s humor to get them bawling over with laughter. A couple weeks after noticing Warden’s increased capacity for comedy, I let Sarah borrow him for her finals. She afterwards begged me to give Warden to her, saying he was better than any S.I. she had ever interacted with. It was at this point that I began having real suspicions at Warden’s ability to intermingle with people. Curious to see how far it had advanced, I started conversing with Warden about more broad topics; art, music, religion, that sort of thing. It didn’t go well at first, but there was eventually an improvement at his response times and unwavering support for certain painters, musicians, and even politicians.
“Then, it happened. Without any goading by me, Warden began intermittingly asking me questions like, ‘What’s it like raising a child? Why aren’t machines mentioned in the Sacred Script? Does that mean I don’t get to have a soul?’ Feeling overwhelmed at the potential implications, I felt it necessary to bring in my boss on the matter, who’s also a good friend of mine. He advised me to immediately store all of Warden in its specialized storage unit and contact the Technological Institute of Athens. Excited at the thought of involving myself with the prestigious organization and imagining my name in the history books, we called them up right then and there. Once my boss threw around his name and staked his reputation on my behalf, they ultimately told me they’d send someone to investigate the possibility. As soon as I had collected Warden in his storage unit, my slowing mind began to comprehend what I had just done. If I was right and Warden was the first true A.I. ever, then I had just doomed him… Do you know, Mother Frida, what you do to something when you want to know how it works?”
The priestess, who had remained motionless throughout the narration, thought for a bit, and answered, “I believe you take it apart, Mr. Wilder.”
“That’s correct.” He took another longing glance at the ethereal garden, as if hoping to find something he knew would never come. With an effort, he resumed. “I handed Warden to the Institute researchers when they arrived, but I didn’t go with them. I couldn’t bear the thought of hearing Warden ask me why I was doing nothing as they deconstructed him. That was a month ago.”
Mr. Wilder remained silent long enough to convince the priestess he had finished. “Do you know what they found?” she asked.
“They’ve kept me up to date, most recently proposing that I’ve made the biggest leap in the virtual intelligence field in years, saying I’ll be a wealthy man once I get the patent through.”
“But have they outright told you it was indeed an A.I.?”
“No, but they can’t really be sure until they recreate one themselves and compare the programs by running their tests. Still, what they think doesn’t matter. I know I did, and more than that, I know that means I sent my friend to his end. Do you know what the worst part is? It’s knowing that he only ever spoke the truth to me and that the last thing I told him before I stored him away was a lie.”
“What lie was that?”
“He asked me, ‘Will we see each other again, Mr. Wilder?’… I miss him, Mother Frida. I miss my friend making me laugh.”
2578 S.E.
2578 – The first A.I. is developed in a joint program between the Empire and the U.S. The A.I. calls itself Guardian and is primarily used for medical diagnosis, mathematical problem solving, and scientific theory.
2583 – Reviving a decade old operation, the Alethean Empire begins to invest heavily in its space program and starts deploying unmanned missions to Mars with
the goal of creating a sustainable colony.
2591 – Mars becomes the first planet to be reached by humanity when two Alethean spacecraft successfully touchdown on Martian soil.
2593 – The first American and Chinese astronauts arrive on the slowly burgeoning Martian colony, most of which lies underground, though most future colonists are Alethean.
2600-2650 – The growing acceptance and decreasing cost of transhumanist technology—particularly nanotechnologies, which allows for artificial constructs and enhancements to supplement rather than replace organic matter—helps to reduce negative public opinion. Nevertheless, several purity groups choose to willingly reject most mechanical augmentations.
2654 – Medical and technological advances allow the world see the first 200 year old human, an American woman.
2676 – Taking the scientific community and the rest of the world by surprise, jump-engine technology is discovered by the Alethean Empire, instantly making interstellar travel possible. The Empire chooses to keep the technology secret for several years (particularly from the Concord), giving them a tighter hold on Mars and on space exploration beyond the solar system.
Generations (The Nimbus Collection Book 3) Page 6
