The Barton Street Gym

by Zoey Ivers

  "If for no other reason than I need to earn more bonuses, with Christmas coming up." Alice positioned the chopsticks and carefully grabbed a slice of crispy coated orange thing. Yam? "I wonder how much you have to practice, to use these things without thinking?"

  "Years." Her father looked around. "I must say I like this open air dining idea."

  Mom nodded. "The new management company---why didn't anyone mention the building was in foreclosure when we bought in? Well, anyway, the new management company is opening the inside to the outside of three of the four levels that have setbacks. I wonder what they're doing with the other level." She dipped her own crunchy thing and took a bite.

  Alice tried to look innocent. "I heard that that was the mechanical floor. I guess it has a lot of the heating and air conditioning equipment, and water pumps for the upper floors and the fire sprinkler reservoir and the machinery for the first bank of elevators on it. Too bad." She'd researched it in mad haste, when the contract showed up in her e-mail.

  The ninety-nine year lease of the "special access space" had arrived while she and her mom were out for a quick snack. Barton Street doesn't realize that I'm too young to legally sign contracts like that. But since I'm not going to tell anyone I have a secret base on floor forty, it hardly matters.

  The huge balcony will be really, really cool. The bios will love it. And so will I.

  But I wonder what Barton Street was talking about, that he hoped it would help Joe and me increase our status with the Gym Pack? He, it, has some odd ideas about humans, and sometimes I think that's a good thing.

  Joe and I really need to get together with Barton Street and figure out how to keep him safe from humans, and vice versa.

  Mother swallowed. "I, God forgive me, encouraged some gossip from those women down the hallway. Lacy, Thana and Delilah. They said the original owners of the Gym went on a tour after the Grand Opening, six months ago, and were never seen again. They were quite silly about it, and I'm going to have to look into the matter."

  Went through a d-door the wrong way and got eaten by T-Rex? Or did Barton Street fumigate them? Maybe I won't ask.

  Alice eyed her parents, and changed the subject. "Father? Was there much damage from the fire?"

  "Nothing but a few smoke stains, outside the actual computer core in a single cubby. Unfortunately they've added so much auxiliary equipment and expanded the processor farm that they had the choice of splitting it up into multiple cubbies or buying an oversized cubby. They couldn't justify the expense of a big cubby, so they have four cubbies with the d-doors wide open all the time, big laser data transfer arrays on both sides of all four doors."

  "Wow, so they couldn't really isolate the fire?"

  "It was more sparks and smoke than fire. Really, in retrospect it wasn't nearly as bad as they'd thought." Her father shrugged. "For all the way our boss is carrying on. All the cubby offices are fine. And I closed my office door when I left, so it didn't even get much smoke." He shrugged. "A lot of us will be working from home for a few days." He eyed Alice. "So I can escort you to and from school."

  "Don't roll your eyes, young lady." Her mother frowned. "That man is probably still out there."

  Alice smiled wryly. Beats them not caring.

  ***

  So it was three days before they could cross back over.

  Joe had supplied himself with a new spear. Tommy had a proper sword, and was trying hard to not limp. Unfortunately the rehab center had no equipment Tommy's size.

  Joe looked over at Tommy and shook his head. All the stupid clichés fit. Lily was dewy eyed, Tommy was looking fatuously pleased.

  "Why did you help me?" Barton Street was talking to Alice.

  "Well, you're our Gym."

  "I fail to see the logic of that statement."

  "I suppose it's loyalty, patriotism on a small scale. Or school spirit spilling over. Anyway, we certainly don't want a T-Rex in charge of the world, or all of the dimensions. Or even just our homes."

  "You are still contradictory."

  "It's emotions, and then logic. In a pure biological like me, emotion is almost always faster, and often stronger than logic."

  Behind Barton, Lily and Tommy were feeding each other vine leaves and giggling. Joe wondered if beings from one dimension eating stuff from another dimension complicated the shift. Or possibly the size change. Or possibly their behavior, which certainly wasn't supposed to include romance. Something else to study.

  Bambi snorted. "Makes me glad I have a chip."

  "Many vermin do things that are harmful to me."

  Alice bit her lip. "You know, Barton Street, the easiest way to cohabitate with vermin is if the vermin don't know you exist. They won't attack nothing, if that is all their limited senses can detect. If you restricted all your associated and assimilated parts to interfacing with the vermin exactly as if they were not assimilated or associated by any AIs at all, I think that bothersome interference would stop."

  The AI raised his eyebrows. "What an interesting theory. They will believe that they control the little computers, and not see that they are now all one computer. Easily enough done."

  Joe nodded. "The next problem will come when the superstrand opticable to Chicago opens. I wonder what the situation there is? Are there several AIs fighting for dominance, or a single one like you, with a whole city's worth of computational power behind it? Or something completely different. It would be nice to think of a place where all the AIs got along peacefully."

  Barton Street nodded. "Perhaps the aggression here was only one mode of interaction. I shall have to be open to the possibility of other relationships, while taking care to protect myself. I will schedule it, after I finish assimilating the computers the T-Rex owned."

  "Are there any more independent AIs here in the city?" Alice asked.

  Barton shook his head. "The T-Rex assimilated the last three weeks ago. Only the Stag and I were left, and we interrupted the T-Rex's final assault on the Stag. Perhaps the Chicago computers will be different."

  The tan stone ruins went on for dozens of kilometers, now, much more than before. To one side they were icy. Others had castles and more towers, and the central area was split into four quarters. Rusting metal panels were sloughing off the walls, showing worn, tannish sandstone beneath. In one quarter, a major wall had fallen against the next, and several walls sported burned areas.

  To the south, a ramp led upward. So tall it faded into the mists above.

  Barton Street was standing at the base of it, looking up.

  "I am just monitoring the bridge for now; it is currently incomplete, growing. I have software in place to block it quickly, if an attack comes. But it is the nature of bridges to connect, to carry information. I may have to fight again, to survive."

  The humans and bios joined him.

  "We will all help you. We will fight for you."

  About the Author

  Hey, I'm a Texas gal. Okay, I wasn't actually born here, but mah Daaddy was born in Amarillo, and mah Great Granddaddy was one a them Real Old Oilmen.

  Of course the rest of the family was wastrels; musicians and poets and such and moved to California.

  I'm doing my best to be a typical member of my family.

  I'm just not saying which side.

  Other titles by the Author

  The Barton Street Gym

  Chicago

  The Twin Cities (planned publication date September 2013)

  Excerpt from Chicago

  Chicago swallowed the last Artificial Intelligence whole. Pitiful thing, weak.

  But tasty. The feuding lesser AIs had been nice little snacks, as he moved in and took over Cleveland. A couple had put up vigorous fights, but in the end they simply hadn't had the computational power to win. It had been even easier than taking Detroit.

  The victorious AI started assimilating the new equipment, a rather routine process that in no way stopped it from considering the future.

  Chicago brought up a militar
y program, for a tactical check, and then surveyed the growth rate of the superstrand opticable network. The unpredictable growth of the superstrand opticable had reached the Milwaukee metro area first and to the east, it was getting close to Buffalo. If it rolled over Milwaukee, and then moved east to take Buffalo, it could reverse in plenty of time to take the Minneapolis-St. Paul metroplex.

  If the network continued to grow at its current rate.

  Within six months, it could double its CPU, and then have nearly a year clear to work through the Great Lakes before this rather unsettlingly fast growth rate would open up the bandwidth to the East Coast. What little leaked through the current connections from that direction was alarming. Probes from a large assimilation of computers. A regional force that would attack as soon as it had the ability.

  And there was always the Midwest. A pack of inconsequential cities, loosely linked with cables just barely adequate to carry a true AI. Only a single AI down there, and damnably hard to catch, playing hide-and-seek-and-crash-your-connection all through a network it knew intimately. A second---and final---round was overdue. Pity the superstrand wasn't growing that direction. It would have to devote some attention to Indianapolis, either before or after it completed its conquest of the Great Lakes region.

  Hopefully, before it faced the East Coast Regional AI, it would own so many cities, so much computational power that it would be invincible.

  But right now it turned its attention to the new growth, and sent a probe worm. No access yet to the east. But the Milwaukee end was rooting into the local network. So, Chicago would roll over the relatively small city, assimilate it, and move on, more powerful than ever.

  ***

  "Ah! There you are! The train must have been right on time!"

  Joe forced himself to smile. Visiting this Grandmother was even worse than the other one. And this year she'd moved into a cubby in a Gym, so he and Tommy couldn't even just hang out in the back yard. Maybe downstairs would be far enough...

  The old woman was wearing her years well, the hair was a pale blonde, rather than gray, the wrinkles were minimal for her sixty-eight years, the clothes well made, the jewelry expensive. As always. Joe stifled a sigh. Analyzing the woman didn't make her a better grandmother. Thank goodness she stayed in Chicago. If she'd moved to Milwaukee, I'd have to deal with her all the time.

  "Phillip, you look so thin! You need to eat better." She hugged Joe's dad, then stepped back and eyed Joe. "Well, you haven't grown, to speak of, since I last saw you. Weedy, and you look just like your mother. Good riddance to her.

  "But lets not stand out here in the hallway, come in! Come in. I have a surprise for you."

  Joe peered around his dad and spotted the other woman. Shiny black hair, narrow waist emphasized by the narrow skirt and short jacket.

  "Natasha?" Dad sounded genuinely surprised. "Haven't seen you in years. How's Bill? I thought you'd moved to Greensborough?"

  "We divorced. I'm back here in Chicago to sell my parents' old house while I job hunt. Greensborough... just didn't work for me." She pulled her gaze off Dad. "And this must be Joseph. Hi. I'm Natasha Watson."

  Joe offered a hand, derailing what looked like an attempt to hug. "Pleased to meet you. Call me Joe."

  Grandmother snorted. "Most common name imaginable. And he plays with dolls."

  Joe felt his face flushing. "Bio-models are not... "

  "Mum! Behave yourself." His dad frowned. "Why don't I take everyone out for dinner? We skipped lunch on the train."

  "No wonder you're so thin! You need someone to see that you eat right."

  Joe turned away and set his backpack carefully out of the way. So. Grandmother is throwing this "old friend" at Dad, hoping that this time he'll marry someone she can control. And newly divorced, out of work... This Natasha---sounds like a Russian spy---may be desperate enough to marry anyone with a solid job. Not what Dad needs.

  "Or we could order out." Dad's cheer sounded a bit forced.

  "There's an excellent Chinese take out down one level, why don't we all go, and pick out what we want?" Grandmother turned for the door.

  Joe caught his Dad's eye. "Want me to get your comp set up, Dad? You know what I like."

  "Thanks, Joe." He huffed out a sigh. "I'll talk to her. Again."

  Left alone, Joe sighed in relief. Tommy poked his head out of the backpack. "Well, nice to see your granny 'asn't mellowed with age."

  Joe glanced at the d-door.

  Tommy chuckled. "You know you're going to check out the other dimensions 'ere. Why wait?"