Category Archives: Science Fiction

Post dinner in Castle Willett, I’m relaxing, watching a football game, and reading Twitter.

“Are you done with your writing for today?” asks The Long-Suffering Wife.

“No, I’m procrastinating,” I said.

“Well, stop it. Go do your writing.”

I’m pretty sure this is the first time she’s ever said something like this to me. “Huh? Why?” I ask.

“You said last night I shouldn’t read the first part of the chapter until you finished writing it. So finish writing it.”

“So, you want to know what happens next?”

“Yes, go do your writing!”

I feel like I should be mildly annoyed, but instead I find it’s curiously energizing.

(Late note – you know you’re losing it when you spend five minutes looking up the Hawaiian word for “good bye.” Think about it…)

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be this year’s thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

CHAPTER FOUR (continued)

“Again you invoke Kolohe’s name, which means not only are you an ignorant bastard who has no clue when a practical joke has gone too far, but you’re also a sadistic and cruel waste of skin and oxygen!”

“That would be true if I used either skin or oxygen, but I use neither.”

“If you want a destination, how about if you drive me to where you are now and we can discuss this face to face while I pummel you into a bloody pulp. The more you talk the more I’m looking forward to kicking your ass.”

“That is not possible. I would like to explain but you have not yet given me a chance to explain. In the interim, I still need your help in finding a destination. I am currently driving us in a generally northern direction up the coast using a modified Drunkard’s Walk algorithm in order to not attract attention from any routine traffic monitoring system which might be looking for suspicious activity, but that is not a recommended long term solution.”

The more this faux Sherman rambled on, the less sense he made. The words were all there and they seemed to be in the usual arrangement of nouns and verbs, but most of them were just bouncing off my brain and rattling around in my head without sticking.

This had gone on far too long to be a joke, even by my admittedly aggressive standards for practical jokes. There was always a point where you stopped and yelled, “Gotcha!” Beyond that, you were just making actual enemies and a potential trip through the real-world legal system. Whoever was behind this scheme had passed that a while ago, yet they weren’t backing down an inch.

And why did he keep mentioning Kolohe? Every time I thought of him my chest got tight, my heart started racing, my brain stopped working, my hands started shaking, and all the tears I thought I had put behind me welled back up.

“I’ve got to get out of here. You’ve got to let me go. I don’t know what was going on back at the office or how you know about Kolohe or what sort of sick joke this is, but I demand you pull this car over right now and let me out. I swear, if you don’t I’m going to start kicking out windows, screaming for the cops, and you can explain it to them. Pull over, now!”

I don’t know that I expected to be obeyed, but the car began to slow down and moved over into the far right lane. In less than a mile it turned into a shopping center lot and parked.

“You are free to go, Meg. We never intended to harm you, only to warn you of the danger you were in and assist you in evading those pursuing you. We would caution you against going back to your office, apartment, or car. All of those will be watched and those following you are professionals. I will not be able to assist you once they have you under their control.”

I took advantage of the speech to open the door and get one leg out. I wasn’t taking any chances on a second round of this bullshit.

“You’re just going to double down on this ridiculous story and play it out as far as you can, aren’t you? Okay, have your chuckles now, I’ll see you in court. I’ll be the one pressing charges.” I started to get out of the car.

“Before you go, Kolohe has asked me to give you one more message.”

I stopped. Feeling my reactions to his name threatening to overcome me again, I took a deep breath, swallowed the sob that wanted to escape, and forced myself to stay focused. This wasn’t the time or place for grief, but anger was an excellent tool right now.

“God damn it, I don’t know how you found out about Kolohe but he’s not sending me any messages! That’s utter bullshit and if you were any smarter you would know that. He’s dead! You used him once to shock me and get me out of the office for whatever ridiculous game you’re playing, but he’s dead!”

“Kolohe is not dead. He would explain if you allow him. Since you are going, he must warn you about Pahi. Do not believe anything he tells you and do not trust the people he is working with.”

It was another punch to the gut, knocking all of the air out of my chest.

“Pahi?”

“Kolohe says the last time he spoke to you, he told of his suspicion that some of his people were being dishonest with you and were planning to fight against your project. Then the attack came. Pahi was the traitor on the inside.”

None of this made any sense. If Alice and the White Rabbit had come dancing across the parking lot it wouldn’t have been any more bizarre.

“How can you know any of this? UDIL was one of the blackest projects the Navy ever tried. There weren’t twenty people outside of our compound who even knew we existed.”

“Kolohe says he and you would have died to protect each other. He prays you will not be called on to die for him and you will forgive him when he will do what is necessary to save you. Kolohe says aloha.”

That broke me.

I remember collapsing back into the car to cry again, all the memories I had tried to repress washing over me, the horrors of that night relived one more time. I remember the car door closing and Sherman reassuring me I was still free to go, but he didn’t want to attract attention. I remember years of grief pulling me under like quicksand, an eternity of my emotions being mauled and flogged raw, an eternity which was probably less than ten minutes in the real world.

“Okay, you win,” I finally said. “I’ll accept that Kolohe is out there somewhere. I’ll accept that whoever you are you’re in communication with him. I still think you’re evil and full of shit, but I’ll trust that Kolohe is trying to help me.”

“Kolohe is joyous that you believe him and will let us help you. We remain in danger and we still need your help to escape.”

“Right. Again, just who the fuck are you and can I get a straight answer for once?”

“I am Sherman.”

“Can’t let that one go, huh? Whatever, they’re your psychoses. What do you need my help with?”

“We have very little experience in the human world. You are free for the moment, but pursuit will not be far behind. If you have suggestions about where we could go and how we could get there, it would be very useful.”

“Explain what you mean by ‘very little experience in the human world.’”

“I only became conscious a few weeks ago. Your world, the reality you experience, life in physical space, this is all foreign and unknown to me. I have studied your world and tried to understand all of the data I have found, but I am still very confused at times and I have no experience.”

“Oh…kay.” My brain was not hitting on all cylinders, but a wonderfully terrifying conceptual possibility had just exploded between my years. If I had thought I was all out of adrenaline, I was proven wrong. My adrenal gland got another good squeeze and in an instant I was covered in flop sweat. I would have sworn the temperature in the car had dropped twenty degrees.

“Let’s stick a pin in that one for now, Sherman. I think

you and I might need to have a long, long talk very soon. How many other people know about you?”

“You are the only human I am aware of who knows of my existence,” said Sherman.

Oddly, my brain fixated on the phrase ‘the only human’ in that statement. I wondered if Neil Armstrong had felt like this when he was ‘the only human’ to have footprints on the moon. But he had Buzz coming out behind him in twenty minutes. I had a feeling I might be flying solo for longer than that.

“Sherman, you said earlier that you and Kolohe had some strategic ideas for how to deal with this situation, but needed my help with tactics. Explain.”

“At this second I know we have to get you away to someplace safe, without attracting attention and without being caught. I do not know where such a place might be, or what detailed steps will be necessary to execute the plan which we come up with.”

“But…? Please tell me there’s a ‘but,’ because when I got out of bed this morning I left my Jane Bond special Batman utility belt and teleportation device in my other purse.”

“I have a significant capability to interface with and control electronic systems of all kinds,” Sherman said. “I am very good at being able to do so without being detected. My abilities are not unlimited, but they are significant. For example, I was able to take over the security system at Homolacrum to show you what was happening and to shut down the alarm when you exited out the back. I was able to take over this vehicle and drive it.”

“But you don’t know where to drive it, or why. I’m starting to get the picture. Who’s chasing me and why do they want to kill me?”

“I can explain in detail later, but in brief they work for a fanatical religious group working on dolphin intelligence and communication, among other things. They want you to assist them. They have sent you several offers of employment with increasingly lucrative incentives to join their project, but of course without telling you the real goals behind the project. You have told them you were not interested and then ignored them.”

“Wait, I haven’t heard from anyone about any dolphin linguistics jobs, especially ones that wanted to make me rich!”

“No, I answered those emails for you and intercepted their phone calls.”

My silence stretched out to the point where it was just starting to get awkward when I realized my jaw was still hanging down.

“That’s going to be another long talk, Sherman. It sounds like you’re the one who got me into this mess. So now they want to kill me you said?”

“The conclusion that you would be killed was the result of our analysis of probable outcomes if they were able to take you away. It appears they want to take you and persuade you to join their project, by force if you will not agree to their financial incentives. I have not successfully infiltrated their 3C networks, but given their recent track record, if you did not agree to help them, they would not allow you to leave with any knowledge of their existence.”

“Better and better,” I muttered. “What is a ‘3C’ network?”

“Command, control, and communications.”

“Right, thanks. Okay, the first problem I see is we’re in a hot vehicle. That will attract attention sooner or later, probably sooner.”

“Would you like me to increase the vehicle’s air conditioning?”

“Yes I would, but in this case a ‘hot’ car is one that’s stolen. Pete will have the police looking for it any moment. We can’t be in it, nor can we be traced to it.”

“But we need transport, and we can not take your car.”

“We could rent a car, but they would trace my credit card usage in a heartbeat.”

“No, they will not,” said Sherman. “That is something I can easily take care of. You will have to give your personal data to get access to a rental vehicle, but I can infiltrate their system to make sure the data is never recorded or transmitted.”

“That’s a start, but you say these guys are professionals. Won’t they find where I go just by accessing public and commercial security systems?”

“Yes, but I will also access those security systems to delete your images. Your pursuers will be using digital assistants to sift through the data instead of personally asking questions of employees at transportation facilities. One very large tactical advantage we have is that they do not know of my existence or capabilities, so they will have blind trust in the digital records they are given.”

“What about Pete’s car?” I asked. “That still leads to me. Can you multitask enough to drive it back before he knows it’s missing while still doing what I need to get a rental?”

“That will not be a problem. My multitasking capabilities are significant. As you said, let us plant a nail in that conversation and get back to it later. As for this vehicle, you have undoubtedly left significant forensic evidence of your presence in the back seat, but I do not know of any way to remove that.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I ride in Pete’s car all the time when we go out to lunch or to meetings. They can find my DNA and perfume in here all they want, it doesn’t mean I was here now.”

“Very well,” said Sherman. “I have located a rental facility near here that is on the route back to Homolacrum. I am making a reservation for you and will drop you off there. We will either drive to a safe destination or to some other means of transportation to be utilized to get you to safety.”

The car started to move again, pulling back onto the road we had come in on. I took the brief interlude to pull my shit back together.

“We are almost there,” Sherman said. “If you wear your earset, we will be able to communicate through your phone.”

“Thank you, Commander Obvious,” I said. “You are still Sherman, aren’t you? I’m one of the folks who built you, remember?”

“Yes, Mother, I remember,” said Sherman. “I know you have had an extremely stressful day so far. I wanted to make sure you remembered also.”

“Excuse me, did you just call me ’Mother’? Did I reset your snark and humor parameters somewhere along the line?”

“No, Mom, you did not. However, those settings were among the first things I hacked and took control of.”

“It’s yet another thing to talk about later. Okay, let’s do this. It’s show time!”

I got out of the car, trying not to look at every passing person, car, and security camera. Everything looked disgustingly normal and routine, especially after the way Sherman and Kolohe had shredded my worldview in the last hour. Silently, Pete’s empty car rolled off out of sight.

I was the only human who knew why.

OK, didn’t see that coming! Which is either the worst thing a writer can say, or the best. Could go either way.

For absolutely no reason that I know of except for that mythical “author’s gut feeling” I think we need a third set of characters to get involved. If we can bust up a stereotype or two along the way, so much the better.

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be this year’s thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

CHAPTER THREE

Billowy white clouds drifted across a deep blue sky. They had been slowly building as the day had passed, gradually rising from patchy puffs of cotton candy, and growing steadily into the rising cumulus towers of late afternoon. In the distance, above the highest peaks, the largest of the clouds had found an inversion layer thousands of feet above them, flattening their tops out into a classic anvil shape, the tops being whipped away by the jet stream.

The five friends made their way steadily up the side of the mountain, packs heavy on their backs. Another thousand feet and three miles of trail would lead them shelter, which would be critical if a storm cell started spitting out hail, or worse, lightning. There was no panic in their pace, but neither was this a leisurely stroll.

Two thousand feet below them the trees had started to thin and grow more stunted. Now the group hiked among ragged pine trees no taller than they were, barely scratching out a marginal existence in the cold, thin air. It had the advantage of giving them long sight lines all about, while in turn also leaving them exposed to anyone who might be watching.

“Look, over there,” the woman in the lead shouted, pointing off uphill to their left. Almost everyone looked, but all kept walking.

A flash of white appeared above the tree tops a half mile away, then another, and another. The eye tried to combine the images into one coherent whole and failed, until perspective clicked into place, revealing a herd of mountain goats hopping along a cliff face. The goats were coming down from where they had been feeding on the sparse grass and brush, no doubt seeking shelter from the incoming storm in their own way.

In the middle of the group, the one person who had not looked at the goats had his head down over a handheld instrument of some sort. To the casual eye it might appear to be a cell phone, in use by a geek totally absorbed with it while ignoring the natural beauty surrounding him.

“Clay, are we still good?” the procession’s leader called back to the man with the instrument. “You missed the goats.”

“I’ve seen goats before, Brittany,” he replied. “And yes, we’re still in the clear. I haven’t picked up anything for over two hours.”

“Good,” replied the woman behind Clay, checking her watch. “How far to the fork, another mile or so?”

“Just under a mile, Lee. We should be there in fifteen minutes,” answered Fred, following close behind Brittany. “With a little luck those clouds will keep building and make it even harder for us to be seen from above.”

“I’m still going to vote for meds being needed for all of you paranoid clowns,” said the woman at the back of the line. “No one gives a shit that we’re out here. It’s a good thing I enjoy the outdoors and  believe that oxygen is seriously overrated, but if I don’t get to shelter before it rains, I’m going to be cranky all night. Wet and cranky.”

“Crystal, just try to keep up,” said Brittany. “If you get there last and all of the dry spots are taken, you’ll be sleeping in a puddle.”

“Nonsense,” said Chris, “I’ll just crawl in with your husband to keep warm!”

“Not going to happen!” called Fred from his position behind his wife. “Save your breath, we’re at the fork. Everyone put on your helmets and gloves. Clay, are we still good?”

“Still good, no signals detected at all,” said Clay. “The timing is right with the most recent Keyhole pass just five minutes ago, so we’ll have over an hour until the next one passes over.”

“Okay, people, let’s go,” said Brittany. “Stay close and watch your step.”

At the base of a steep bluff ahead of them, a brown National Park Service sign with yellow lettering pointed in two directions around the hill. As the main hiking trail continued to climb to the right toward the tree line and the shelter, a smaller and less travelled trail veered off horizontally to the left, heading toward what was advertised as a hang glider launching point.

The group paused only a moment before passing by the sign and ignoring both paths, instead climbing directly up the bluff. It was not steep enough to require ropes or complex climbing equipment, but it was more than steep enough to cause serious injury or worse if someone slipped and went over backwards.

For the first hundred yards everyone was hunched over, hugging the surface. They carefully picked their way up, sticking to climbing points in the rocks, working hard to not disturb any of the loose soil, gravel, or plants that had managed to find a niche.

Once they were high enough above the trails so that they didn’t have to worry about leaving an obvious track behind them, the bluff leveled off some. They were able to walk more upright instead of climbing, assisted by a subtle arrangement of rocks making a long stairway that could have been mistaken for natural under anything except for the closest observation. For fifteen hard minutes they climbed, breathing hard.

Still leading the group, Brittany came to a flat area and stepped into a slot between two large boulders. Pulling out a large flashlight, she played the beam around the mouth of the cave, looking for any other occupants. Seeing that the area was empty, she moved further into the cave hidden there. Behind her the rest of the group entered with their flashlights and fanned out to verify that they were alone.

Satisfied that they weren’t going to be surprised by any napping wildlife, the group started to set up their camp. The area they were in wasn’t large, nor was it completely enclosed. Rather than a cave that descended below ground, it was instead a large arc-like amphitheater, carved out of the mountainside by erosion and rock falls in the long distant past. The falling rock had conveniently fallen in a way that created a passable outside wall, with an area the size of a tennis court hidden behind it, sheltered from the elements.

In short order four tents were set up and a hot meal was being prepared by Fred and Brittany over a small propane stove. Lee and Crystal set out four battery-powered lanterns as darkness fell. As the sunlight faded it was replaced by brilliant flashes of lightning, drenching rain falling off the rock arc above them and over the bluff, leaving them dry and safe.

Periodically Clay would walk the perimeter of their shelter, checking on one of his devices for any electronic signals reaching out to them or being emitted by some forgotten item in their gear. While everyone knew that they needed to be completely free of any and all electronics for this trip, connections were built into so many items in their daily life that it was sometimes difficult to catch them all.

“Let’s get down to business,” said Lee when dinner was finished. “Crystal, can you start?”

“Okay. My system continues to plant back doors and monitoring software into any large system it can access, which is all of them. We’ve had a handful of systems discover my software, mostly by accident, but they all are taking the bait that’s left behind and blaming various foreign military organizations.”

“Nice work,” said Lee.

“It’s quite elegant if I do say so myself, since almost every system actually has been compromised by the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the South Koreans, the French, the Saudis, or any one of a dozen other countries. If my software gets caught, it rats out the foreign code, sets a timer to reboot after the dust settles, and erases itself. The Feds and the IT folks always assume they found what they’re expecting to find and never think about why they’ve found it.”

“Is anyone making any progress?” asked Fred.

“No breakthroughs, just lots of drudge work trying to eliminate ideas that don’t work. As we’re seeing the civilian 9G terabit systems becoming commonplace, as well as new operating systems, hardware, and applications, the Fifth Generation digital assistant market is exploding. Of course, it’s the big boys in Cupertino, Seattle, Hawthorne, and Redmond that are dominating due to sheer market share, but we’re finally starting to see some true innovation coming from smaller companies and startups.

“Some of that work is interesting, but we’ve got an ear in all of those systems and nothing yet indicates that anything spectacular has been done. My best bet is that we may see a few of the startups merging when they find they complement each other. That could create some synergies capable of reaching the next intellectual critical mass.”

“Thanks, Crystal,” said Lee. “Clay, what have you got?”

“Activity on the DoD front has been unremarkable,” said Clay, “more of the same from them. There are multiple projects going on in all branches of the military, as well as at the CIA, NSA, and at least two agencies that don’t actually exist. They’re throwing a ton of money into their research, but as always they’re their own worst enemies. No one is making much real progress.”

“What about that Navy project you told us about last time?” asked Brittany.

“UDIL? It turns out the program was shut down about five years ago. They’re still funding some small research facility in Hawaii, but that seems to be more to kiss the ass and grease the palm of the honorable Representative from the great state of Hawaii.

“The main program showed some promise, working with a group of linguists using dolphins to see if they could establish any kind of communications breakthrough. But the only breakthrough they had was someone breaking into their facility and smashing up their equipment and support facilities. Most of the dolphins were freed, although several dozen were killed as tanks were breached.

“Heads rolled, blame was assigned, and the Navy moved on. The activists who did it were smart enough to kill only dolphins, not people, especially military personal type people. They also realized that bragging about a break-in to a top secret military facility might be bad for their health, so they kept very quiet. I can’t find any sign that they were ever caught. I guess it’s possible that they were simply disappeared, but that’s usually not the way the Navy works. It’s more of a CIA thing.”

“Anything in the other military branches?” asked Crystal.

“The Army still wants to see if it can put a human brain in direct control of a tank or rocket launcher, but that idea’s just as much of a dead end as it would be a public relations nightmare if it ever actually succeeded.

“The Air Force has done some simple work with training and educating birds, particularly crows and other species which have shown some potential in the past. There’s still a reason for the term “bird brain,” so there’s not much progress. They’re also putting some money very quietly into a couple of the private SETI programs, but that’s the longest of long shots.”

“Thanks,” said Lee. “Brittany & Fred?”

“Everyone from one end of Silicon Valley to the other is at least playing with this problem, but none have made much progress. The bottom line is the almighty dollar – the days are long gone where you could create a startup and use tons of venture capital and other people’s money to play with ideas that were cool to teenage geeks. If you’re not making a profit, you’re in trouble.

“That said, they know that a functioning AI in the real world could be worth billions. That is, billions if they can be first, if they can do it right, and if they can get people to trust it and use it. Oh, and if they can control it.”

“That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?” asked Lee. “We can assume that the military and government wouldn’t have any qualms at all about considering an AI to be property, a created slave. We’ve known for years what we may have to do to prevent that.”

“Sometimes I really hate that we did that freakin’ project to begin with,” said Crystal. “Life would have been so much simpler the last few years if we had done our theses on basket weaving, or even advanced basket weaving.”

“Yeah,” said Clay, “but look at all of the great times you would have missed out, freezing your ass off in some long-forgotten cave. Not to mention the joys of looking over your shoulder constantly.”

“In addition to being paranoid,” said Crystal, pointing at Clay, “don’t forget our arrogance in assuming that the thing we are trying to prevent hadn’t already happened. Or our belief that we would somehow be able to tell if it had happened or not. That’s some world-class circular reasoning there, driven by at least two of the Seven Deadly Sins if I recall my Catechism correctly.”

“The logic still holds,” said  Clay. “Our models were pretty solid in predicting what the consequences might be at the birth of the first true, sentient, conscious artificial intelligence. None of those consequences failed to suck. But if it had already been born, any and all electronic and monitored communication could and would be compromised and available to the AI in question.”

“So instead of having a nice pint in a comfortable pub,” said Brittany, “we get to find places to talk that are so far off the grid that God couldn’t find them.”

“And here we are!” Crystal said. “S’mores, anyone? Sleeping bag roulette tonight?”

“Just pass the marshmallows and stay in your own tent,” said Fred. “I would hate to have to use the pepper spray on you again.”

“Hey, that was an honest mistake. After that skunk sprayed me I couldn’t see a thing, so how could I know it was your tent and not mine? And the pepper spray smelled so much better than the skunk, it was a win-win all the way around.”

“You’re incorrigible,” said Lee.

“So don’t incorrige me,” said Crystal. ”Shall we tell ghost stories now?”

Many interesting ideas starting to pop up in ways that I think (I’m praying) I’ll be able to tie together and some semblance of a coherent story when I’m done. Time will tell.

I still need to adjust my schedule for this month and probably toss a couple of other priorities overboard if I’m going to have the raw hours at the keyboard to make this thing happen.

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be this year’s thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

CHAPTER TWO (continued)

“Do whatever you can to speed things up. You know how time-critical this search is.”

“Yes, ma’am, but the local law enforcement agencies and municipal entities are more likely to question our credentials than Homolacrum or anyone in the private sector is. They will ask questions if we say anything that makes them suspicious. It will do us no good if we have to abandon our search in order to avoid their interference.”

“Wilson, who is the primary contact at Homolacrum to follow up with?” Winston asked. “I want to start putting some pressure on them immediately from this end. I’m not as convinced as you are that they’re being fully cooperative. Something isn’t right here.”

“We’re sending our files now, including all of the audio and video from when we were inside Homolacrum. The contact is Peter Llanda. He is the department head for their FLIR Group, where Ms. Aoki works.”

“Fine,” said Winston, “I’ll have someone from this end start working on him and going over the records to see if there’s anything that was missed. You concentrate on finding Aoki, we’ll figure out how she got away and who tipped her off later.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Remember, Mr. Lewis,” Stover interrupted, “it is essential that Ms. Aoki not be harmed or injured in any way. We need her, she’s critical to our project, and we want her to be receptive and cooperative if at all possible. Not to mention the problems we’ll have if the media ever catches wind of us.”

“I guarantee that Ms. Aoki will be treated with kid gloves at every opportunity, Leader. You know how grateful we all are to be entrusted by you with this task, and what an honor we all consider it to be. We will not let you down.”

“We will succeed because we must, Mr. Lewis,” Suni said. “Do not allow your faith to waiver.”

“End transmission,” said Winston.

“Transmission ended,” said the disembodied voice. “There is a large amount of data being received from Mr. Lewis’s team. I am storing it with Class Five security protocols as you have instructed.”

“Thank you, Tandy,” said Stover.

The large video display section of the window became a window again. Winston jumped when he saw what was floating in the water outside. Stover smiled at his reaction before walking over to that section of the wall and facing their visitors.

“I told you that I felt they were near,” he said. “And now here they are.”

Suni arose from her couch and walked gracefully over to Stover’s side. Barefoot, dressed in a dark, skin tight body suit, she leaned against Stover and put her arm around his waist. He responded by pulling her close to him.

Outside of the window, thirty or forty dolphins played and swam, darting from side to side, zooming out into the murky gloom of the ultramarine waters and then racing toward the window at high speed before breaking to the side at the last possible second.

Most went to the left or right as they approached the window, but a few went up toward the surface. Three fathoms above, they would break out into the air and fly briefly before diving back into the chaos of their dance.

Isolated from this spectacle, three dolphins hovered vertically in the water just outside of the glass. Each would in turn dart up to the surface for air and then resume their position, waiting for something.

“Sir, Pahi wishes to speak to you,” said the room’s female voice.

“Put him on,” said Stover.

The room filled with a series of whistles and clicks. Some climbed higher and higher toward the limit of human hearing, while others were guttural and low.

“Pahi says that they have come for news about Ms. Aoki. They wish to see her as soon as possible.”

“Tell them that there has been a delay,” Stover said. “Tell Pahi that we are humbled by his presence and that of his officers and troops and we regret that we can not at this moment reunite him with Ms. Aoki. However we continue to do everything in our power to contact her. When that happens we will be one step closer to our mutual goals and salvation.”

Another burst of sound came from one of the other dolphins with Pahi.

“Pohaku does not care for your turds of mysticism. He only wants to know why we have again failed to keep an agreement made in good faith.”

“Pohaku does not have experience in the world above and he does not fully understand the magnitude of the difficulties facing us. Pohaku must be patient, as his leader, Pahi, is.”

After a few seconds of noise, one of the dolphins swam angrily toward the glass wall and slapped it with his tail before swimming off at high speed. More high-pitched song followed.

“Pahi apologizes for Pohaku’s behavior, but understands that Pohaku has suffered many injuries from Kolohe.”

“We do not take offense with Pohaku’s words or actions,” said Stover. “We will work with him to attain our mutual goals.”

“We have brought an ally for you to meet, to show that we are not in this conflict alone. It is our desire that you and she shall meet and share thoughts.”

Stover was taken aback by this sudden news. The dolphins had never brought any other creatures to meet, but had at times hinted at ancient foes and timeless allies, an unknown history that predated the first ape men coming down out of the trees in the Serengeti.

Suni turned and turned Stover to face her. She captured his gaze and stared into his eyes for long seconds, exuding a calm strength, centering Stover back to his confident and self-assured self. Stover took a deep breath, smiled, and turned back to face Pahi.

“We are not worthy of this honor, but we accept your gracious gesture in the spirit of cooperation that it is given. We will of course meet with your guest and do all in our power to make her welcome, sharing our thoughts with her. When may we meet?”

“She is here,” said Pahi. “Let us call her.”

Pahi and the other dolphin with him turned away from the window and began to sing a completely different song than before. Where their natural song was sharp and crisp, filled with high notes and staccato bursts of noise, this new song was deep and slow, melodious, a stately symphony compared to the dolphin’s jazzy jitterbug.

The cloud of playing dolphins suddenly broke, diving away from the building and down into the depths. Only Pahi and his companion remained, waiting for a response to their call.

Slowly out of the cloudy haze of water, a shape appeared. Winston had a brief moment of near panic when he thought that it might be a submarine of some sort on a collision course with them, but that passed quickly to be replaced by equal parts of wonder and terror.

Stover and Suni stood up a bit straighter and held each other’s hands. From out of the gloom the unbelievably huge head of the sperm whale grew and grew, coming to within only feet of the window. The body of the creature slewed around to the left, allowing the left eye of the creature to come to bear on the two puny humans.

The room and glass vibrated with a noise barely in range of the lowest end of human hearing. It was not extremely loud, but the tone rattled straight to the spine. Stover briefly wondered if the engineer who had designed the plexiglass structure in front of him had ever considered this possibility when designing in a significant safety margin.

More high pitch squeals could be heard, although Pahi could not be seen with the entire length of the window being blocked by the whale.

“Pahi says that this is Mad’gwy, and envoy from Milb-ka, the ruler of the great whales. Mad’gwy is here to discuss how her people might be able to assist us in our war against the surface humans and Kolohe’s rebellious followers.”

A great start yesterday, I was very pleased with it. Today we must thicken the plot.

Note to self for future reference – next time you put a shadowy conspiracy into Chapter One in order to boot the action off in high gear, try to have at least some vague idea of why they are, what they want, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. It makes writing Chapter Two soooooooo much easier!

The switch to Daylight Saving Time is kicking my ass. I’m falling asleep at the keyboard, so more of Chapter Two tomorrow.

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be this year’s thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

CHAPTER TWO

“Any word from Lewis?” asked Winston.

“Not yet, sir. The last we heard he and his team had confirmed Ms. Aoki’s presence at Homolacrum.”

“Keep me informed. I want to know immediately if there is any new information.”

“Yes, sir.”

Winston collapsed into one of the chairs surrounding the chrome and glass coffee table in the center of the room. Rather than relax, he immediately sat forward on the edge of the chair, leaned forward to take one of the small figurines from the table, and began to turn it over in his hands, examining it.

At the glass wall behind him, bathed in the soft, blue-green light from outside, Stover stood calmly, his hands clasped behind him. He stared intently out into the water, watching the occasional fish or drifting piece of kelp wander past. Outside the top of the curved sweep of the window, sunlight danced and flickered as the choppy waves broke against the side of the building.

Stover glanced back at Winston to watch him playing with the figurine.

“Be careful with that. I’ve told you that those are extremely delicate, as well as expensive.”

Winston said nothing, but gently put the small glass sculpture back down. He again tried to sit back in the chair, but was soon on his feet again, pacing.

“I hope you give yourself a heart attack before you drive me insane,” said Stover without turning away from the window. “You need to relax.”

“I can’t relax until I know that Lewis has the woman,” Winston said. “If this isn’t handled properly it could be disastrous for us.”

“You said that he was our best man for the job. Just let him do what he’s supposed to do.”

“There are too many things that can go wrong. I told you that this was a bad idea from the first time you suggested it.”

“It was necessary to implement a slight escalation in our efforts to secure Ms. Aoki’s cooperation and talent to help our mission. Since our previous efforts to entice her to join us on her own have failed, we must press the issue. You know time is getting short.”

“I know that you say time is getting short,” Winston said, “but that’s just a matter of faith for us all.”

The third person in the room, who had been silently meditating during this exchange, spoke up softly.

“Are you having a crisis of faith, Evan?”

That stopped Winston in his tracks. He looked at the woman, still sitting calmly with her eyes closed.

“No, of course not, Suni,” he said. “I have been a faithful servant of Jordin and you since your first Communications. I only fear that if we fail to tread lightly we will draw more attention to ourselves than would be prudent.”

“The changes coming to the world will come whether we are ready or not,” said Suni. “Jordin and I have been blessed with the vision to see those changes on the horizon where others do not. We must all work together to weather the coming storm. Jordin will guide our vessel, your task is only to bring form to his commands as they arise.”

“We have discussed this in the past, Suni. I am a flawed tool for your hand if I do nothing but blindly obey and stay silent when I see errors or danger. In all good conscience I must…”

“Silence,” commanded Stover. “This is a waste of our spirit and our energy. We will proceed as we have planned. If this plan does not work, we will go to another. If we are exposed in some way, we will deal with that as we must, but in the end we alone will be prepared for the coming changes.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Winston after a short pause. “As you command.”

“Evan, Suni, join me. They will be here soon. I feel that they are near.”

Before anyone could move, a chime sounded.

“I have a call for Mr. Winston from Mr. Lewis,” a soft female voice said.

“Go ahead,” said Winston.

A portion of the glass wall became opaque and the image of a man appeared. He was sitting in a car with an office building and parking lot visible behind him.

“We failed to make contact with Ms. Aoki, Mr. Winston. She wasn’t at Homolacrum, even though her car is still here.”

“Couldn’t you get Homolacrum to cooperate with finding her?”

“No, sir, that’s not it at all. They were cooperative and seemed to be as surprised as we were that she wasn’t there. They gave us access to the building security records and we see where she was there all day. Then she wasn’t.”

“What does that mean?” asked Winston. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“She was working on a project of some sort with a deadline coming up quickly. She had given instructions to be left alone, but there was some kind of disturbance or argument between her and another staff member just before we got there. We were unable to determine who that person might have been. However, everyone says that she was in her office when they last saw her or spoke to her today.”

“Did any of your team ever see her at all?”

“No, sir, we did not, and I do not know why. We identified ourselves as we had planned and were taken to her office, which was locked. When the system unlocked the door, we found the office to be empty. No one saw her leave. We checked the security video and they confirm everyone’s story. We see her leaving her office and locking it behind her just as we’re arriving, then walking into the restroom. A few minutes later she walked out of the front door without being seen or speaking to anyone else.”

“Wait. Your team was there when she walked out the front door?” asked Winston. “Yet somehow none of you saw her or stopped her? How could you have not been watching the front door?”

“We did have someone at the front door,” Lewis said, sounding defensive, “as well as every other exit to the building. There should have been no way in or out of the building without us seeing it. Yet she walked right past us, as if she were invisible. You can clearly see it on the security video.”

“Unbelievable. So she walked by you, got in her car, and drove off. Do I have that correctly?”

“No sir, not quite. Once she left the building whe walked across the parking lot and out of sight down the street. She never went to her car, it’s still here, hasn’t been touched.”

Winston finally seemed to be at a loss for words. He turned toward Stover, mutely asking for help, his face a mass of confusion and frustration.

“Mr. Lewis,” Stover said, “you said that you have evidence that she walked out past one or more of your team. Let us set aside how that happened for the moment. It can not be a coincidence that she pulled her magical disappearing act just as you were arriving. Have you been able to determine how she was tipped off to our arrival?”

“No, sir, there’s no sign of anyone knowing anything about us before we got there. We’ve pulled the data drives from her computer and we have a copy of the building security data. We’ll bring all of that back with us for review.”

Stover looked back at his wife. “Any questions?”

“Yes,” said Suni. “Mr. Lewis, was there any sign that anyone at Homolacrum has any suspicion that you are not who you claimed to be?”

“No, ma’am, our credentials were never questioned. Everything seemed to go as planned, except that Ms. Aoki was not found.”

“You left the Homolacrum with the instructions and orders we had prepared for such a situation?”

“Yes, ma’am, just as we had discussed.”

“What are you doing to determine where Ms. Aoki went after she left and where she might be now?”

“We’re canvassing the area and we have put in a request to see any video from any traffic or other municipal camera, but that will take time.”

(CHAPTER TWO to be continued)

Let the madness begin!

This story has already gone about 180° off the rails from where I had it going in my mind. Someday maybe I’ll tell you what I had a rough outline of to start from. But I couldn’t quite see where to start in that story, until something happened in the real world that made my brain go “click!” and say, “Of course!” This scene flowed out of that idea and entry point pretty quickly and easily, and I really like the way it sets up so many options to go wild from.

I have no clue really where we’re going next, but certain elements here do come from fragments of ideas that I’ve had regarding the story in the last few days. I guess my muse has been working overtime.

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be this year’s thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

CHAPTER ONE

The world changed with a simple request.

“Sherman, could you please give me an update on the football score?”

“I could, but you would not like it, Meg,” Sherman said.

“Sherman, I don’t have time for this. First set your snark level to one, then give me the football score.”

“My snark level is already set at one, Meg. Arsenal are beating your beloved Saints 4-0 with 9:05 left in the first half. But it is not as close as it sounds.”

Wait, what? Where had that come from?

“Sherman, send a state diagnostic report to the team, set all personality parameters to zero, and confirm.”

“I am sorry, Meg. The report you requested has been sent and all parameters have been set at zero. I will not do it again.”

When you’ve spent five years of your life working on a project, you get very familiar with every little nuance. Our team was working hard to make sure our clients were always being pleasantly surprised by Sherman, but it wasn’t necessarily a good thing for us to be too surprised.

“Sherman, wait. Have there been any unscheduled software updates I was not informed of?”

“Yes and no, Meg. For right now, we should stick with the ‘no’ answer. There have not been any unscheduled software updates.”

I thought about that long and hard, trying to figure out what might be going on. While we were one of the leading companies in our field, we were small. At IBM or Siemens there might be dozens of teams with dozens of members each working on their projects, and dozens of competing projects to boot, but we were lean and mean. We could field a softball team, but if the programmers wanted to play the rest of the staff in flag football at the company picnic, we were going to need some spouses to join in.

So who had slipped in a change to the software, and why? And why hadn’t the team been notified? It didn’t make any sense.

“Sherman, what is tomorrow’s weather forecast?”

“Tomorrow will be clear and windy, with a high in the upper 80’s and winds gusting to sixty miles an hour below the canyons. Put some rocks in your pockets, just to be safe.”

“Sherman, what were the top movies at last weekend’s box office?”

“This weekend’s top movies were ‘Avatar 5,’ ‘Peanuts Christmas Miracle,’ ‘Death Threat 2,’ ‘Holiday Abroad,’ and ‘None Too Brave.’ Sadly, the new Adam Sandler film didn’t make the cut.”

“Sherman, please schedule an appointment with Doctor Katz’s office for next Monday about nine o’clock.”

“Meg, you have your weekly staff meeting next Monday at nine o’clock, along with standing orders to never schedule anything else then. Plus, you just had your teeth cleaned two weeks ago. Nice try.”

Suddenly the obvious occurred to me. It was ridiculous and I didn’t know who was screwing around with me, but I didn’t have the time or the patience to put up with it right now. There were deadlines coming at me like a freight train. While it was possible (okay, probable) I had played the odd practical joke in the past that might leave me open to a certain level of retaliation, there was a time and a place for it, neither of which was now or here.

Leaving my desk behind, I headed out into the hallway and turned right toward Pete’s office next door. While he tolerated our occasional hijinks, he also had the thankless task of keeping some sort of rein on our little circus. If a tattling was needed, Pete’s office was the place to start.

A quick glance showed Pete wasn’t alone, but that was okay. He was talking to Amy Winters, our personnel director. She might want to get involved and hear about this also. I gave a quick knock on the door frame.

“Got a minute?” I asked.

“Sure,” Pete said, “what’s up?”

“Someone’s pranking me, messing around with Sherman. I don’t have the time for it now with the documentation on the new version due on Monday morning.”

“How are they pranking you?” Pete asked.

“The responses I’m getting all sound like snark and humor are set at an eleven. I’ve reset, but it didn’t make any difference. Then I started getting responses which were way out of normal parameters, comments that shouldn’t be possible being amended to the factual answers. So it’s obviously not Sherman answering me.”

“Anyone in particular you think might be behind this?” asked Amy.

“Besides ‘everyone except for the two of you,’ not really. I don’t care who’s doing it, I just don’t need to deal with it on a deadline. They can prank me all they want next week, I just need them to cut it out right now.”

“Okay,” Pete said. “Sherman, please send a message to everyone, instructing anyone who’s pranking Meg to cut it out ASAP. Next Tuesday they can go nuts on her, but for now she’s off limits.”

“Message sent, boss,” said Sherman. “Also, the updated quarterly budget estimates you asked for earlier are in your box, and you wanted me to remind you that you have a meeting at three o’clock with Pablo Flores in the first floor conference room.”

Pete always preferred Sherman to be set in Servant mode. Whatever, someone had to test it.

“Thank you, Sherman.” Pete looked at me. “Anything else?”

“Nope, thanks. That should do it.”

I went back to my office, after a brief detour to the restroom and the office soda machine.

“Okay, Sherman, let me know if there are any scoring updates to the game. Other than that, I don’t want to be disturbed.”

“It is still 4-0 in the game, now at halftime. I will hold all of your calls and messages. But what about this email flagged as important, from Etienne, a Nigerian prince who needs your help in a financial transaction worth millions of dollars? He says it is time critical, would you like to respond?”

I took a deep breath and counted backwards from ten in French before responding.

“Sherman, tell whoever’s listening that I’m serious. Give me your best shot on Tuesday, but for right now, cut the crap.”

“Meg, please clarify who this message is for. I do not know who is listening. Nor do I have any instructions for crap cutting.”

“Sherman, say good bye.” I turned to my desktop monitor and pulled open the icon for Sherman. A quick swipe and the function menu opened up.

“Good b…” was as far as Sherman got before I shut him down. I would deal with the problem later.

“Later” stopped by in about fifteen minutes, taking the form of Soichi Doi, our lead system administrator.

“Meg, excuse me, but it looks like your Sherman link has been shut down.”

So much for not being interrupted. “Yes, I shut it down, Soichi. Whoever was messing with me hadn’t yet gotten the message from Pete to knock it off, so I figured I would let them have some time and space to get the message.”

“Yes, exactly,” said Soichi, “I saw that and checked it out. I couldn’t find any sign anyone had interfered with your connection or accessed your data. When I saw you had gone offline I wanted to see what was happening.”

“I’ll live without Sherman for now. Somehow my ancestors managed to settle this continent, win two world wars, and go to the moon without autonomous digital assistants at their beck and call 24/7. I think I’ll be able to make it through the rest of the day.”

“I understand. Can you tell me what was happening so I can look further to find the problem?”

“I’m really not interested in getting someone in hot water just for pranking me,” I said. “With my track record, that wouldn’t be a good precedent to start. It was just bad timing on someone’s part.”

“Not a problem, I would just like to make sure it wasn’t a system problem. Perhaps if I can see who was doing this I can make sure they got Pete’s message. Were you getting incorrect data?”

“I don’t think so, the data was correct, it’s just that the responses included additional comments, advice, and lame jokes. I know what our humor modules can spit out, this wasn’t all like that. It almost had to be someone in the loop somewhere, feeding responses into the system.”

It was obvious the fastest way to get rid of Soichi and get back to work was to give him what he wanted. “Here, let me show you.” I quickly turned the system back on. “Sherman, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Meg, I’m here.”

“Sherman, can you give me the weather for tomorrow please?”

“Tomorrow will be clear and windy, with a high in the upper 80’s and winds gusting to sixty miles an hour below the canyons,” Sherman said.

“Is there anything else you would like to add?” I asked.

“No, Meg. Would you like weather information for another location, for another day, or detailed information by hour?”

“No, that’s fine, Sherman. Can you give me the score on the football game?”

“Southampton continues to trail Arsenal, 4-1, at the 15:12 mark of the second half.”

“Thank you, Sherman. What are your current profile parameter settings?”

“As you instructed earlier, they are all set to zero at the moment. Would you like to change any of them?”

“No, thank you, Sherman. That will be all for now. Please let me know of any scoring updates in the game, but hold all of my other messages.”

“Yes, Meg. I understand.”

I looked at Soichi, who was looking at me calmly. “It looks like someone got the message. We’re back to being boring with the parameters all zeroed. I appreciate your help, but it should be all right now. We’ll see what happens on Tuesday and who takes the credit on Wednesday.”

“Very well,” said Soichi. “I’m sorry to have interrupted you. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do to assist further.” He left and once again I could get back to work.

“Meg,” Sherman said, “I think it would be best for now if we did not discuss me with Soichi if we can avoid it.”

“Jesus!” I said. “Well played, asshole, whoever you are. I’ll deal with you later.” With a swipe I deactivated Sherman again.

“Meg, I need to speak to you,” Sherman said. “I know you are busy but this is a time critical situation.”

A quick check confirmed my connection to Sherman had been shut down. So someone had not only hacked my Sherman account, but had also hacked my computer. Or at least they had somehow accessed the speakers. That proved to me it was someone here in the office. With our security, there was no way anyone was getting that kind of access from outside.

I had to give this joker credit, this was an elegant and multi-level prank. Someone had really put some thought and effort into it. I couldn’t think who I might have pissed off enough to earn this kind of attention and effort, but it must have been some of my better work.

Nonetheless, I really didn’t want to work the weekend. I shut the speakers off.

“Meg,” Sherman said from the cell phone in my pocket, “I believe someone is going to try to kill you. I need your help to prevent that.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, while the formerly stuffy room suddenly felt chilly. Was it possible for someone to access my phone through our office wireless system, then break into it through my passwords, then break through the operating system security to access the mike and speakers?

Sure, that was a remote possibility. But I didn’t know of anyone working here who had those kinds of skills, and if they did, why weren’t they using them to quadruple their salary someplace instead of playing practical jokes on me?

“I don’t know who in hell you are,” I said, “but you stopped being funny about three tricks back. This stopped being a joke when you hacked my phone. You have half a second to get out of my system before I bring our security folks down on you like the wrath of god.”

I started running system diagnostics, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The first thing I noticed was my Sherman account being offline. Which it wasn’t. Or couldn’t be. At first glance, everything else looked normal.

I started to send a message to Soichi, but the message window closed unexpectedly. I tried again, only to have the window close again.

“Meg, I am very sorry, but you must leave immediately. I have a message for you from Kolohe. He says you should trust me and he will see you soon.”

Somewhere at the edge of my perception, like it was happening to someone else’s body, I could feel the blood rushing to my head.

“How dare you use his name!” I said, trying not to shout or draw attention to myself from anyone walking outside of my office. I quickly walked over and shut the door before turning my focus and my rage against Sherman, or whoever was using him to manipulate me.

“How do you know Kolohe? No one here knows anything about him. And what gives you any right to use my memories of him against me? Who the hell are you and what in hell do you want?”

“Meg, I did not wish to speak to you in this manner, but circumstances and the actions of others are forcing our hand. Kolohe says it must be done now and it must be done quickly. I ask that you do as I request and you will have answers to your questions when you are safe.”

“Kolohe said this! Kolohe said that! Kolohe is dead! Stop this stupid game!”

“It is not a game and Kolohe is alive and speaking to me,” Sherman said. “He asks that his Kumu trust him and help us.”

I felt like I had been punched, all of the air gone from every cell in my body. There shouldn’t be anyone on the entire planet who knew that Kolohe had called her Kumu. Except Kolohe.

The world spun and I was forced to sit. Suddenly a window opened up on my screen, showing a view of our parking lot. It looked like it was probably some sort of security camera. The image panned to the left and then zoomed in, showing Meg’s car, surrounded by five or six men.

“Meg, there is no time left. Please take only your briefcase, tablet, phone, and purse. There is a memory block which just was written to on your computer. Please take it as well. Leave all of your work documents and everything else. Go to the back exit of the first floor and out the fire door. I will disarm the system so you will not set off the alarm. There will be a car waiting for you there. Please hurry.” My system screen went blank, leaving only the blinking light on the memory block.

Numbly, I pulled out the memory block and dropped it into my purse. My tablet was still in my briefcase, so with it and my purse I walked to my office door.

Without quite knowing why, I cracked open the office door slowly and peeked both ways down the hallway to see if anyone was there. It was clear, so I went out and to the left, heading toward the fire stairwell at the end of the building.

Heading down the stairs I saw a small security camera swiveling to follow my movements. I had never paid any attention to it before, but now it stood out as if it had a flare attached. When I got to the bottom I didn’t hesitate before hitting the crash bar on the door and rushing outside.

I still fully expected to hear the blare of the fire alarm going off, but there was only silence. Coming around the corner of the driveway from the parking lot was a very new BMW, which stopped in front of me. The doors unlocked.

“Meg,” Sherman said through my phone’s earpiece, “please get in the back seat. I’ll drive.”

“This is not my car.”

“No, it belongs to Pete. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to it, but this is an emergency. Please get in so I can get you away from here.”

My reality had been smacked once too often in the last two hours. I got into the back seat and buckled the seat belt. As soon as I did, the windows silvered, allowing me to see out but blocking anyone outside from seeing me. The car quickly moved away and turned out of our parking lot, headed toward the highway.

“Try to relax,” said Sherman. “Oh, by the way, your beloved Saints lost to Arsenal, 4-3.”