Twenty-four Days Page 10

  "Hey, Trish. We still going out?" Paloma stumbled to her bedroom as Trish mumbled something. Paloma kicked off her shoes, flipped on the TV and collapsed onto her queen-sized bed, the first piece of furniture she bought after graduation. Four years of Naval Academy bunks made sleeping in comfort critical.

  A wide-eyed blonde correspondent breathily reported that, in response to the August 30th North Korean satellite launch, the Navy would deploy a Surface Action Group capable of destroying the missile/satellite should the need arise. Chacone hoped it would include Bunker Hill. She’d never been to Japan

  Trish stuck her head in. "When you ready?"

  "Give me ten minutes."

  Paloma wished things were different with Trish. The women had nothing in common and were thrown together when their San Diego orders left both needing a roommate. Where Paloma loved the pride of military service and the opportunity to do something meaningful with her life, Trish wanted to finish her five years and leave.

  Paloma closed her eyes. Her bed felt soft, inviting. The TV droned.

  She shook herself awake, a sitcom blaring. 9pm!

  "Trish!" No reply. Paloma threw on dark skinny jeans, a sequined blouse, black Manolo heels, checked her phone for a text from Trish—nothing—and flew out the door.

  Ten minutes later, she dove into the overflow crowd at Hennessey's, Trish’s favorite watering hole. She waved to a few shipmates as she bumped her way up to the bar and left a voicemail for Trish.

  "Excuse me. Are you alone?"

  Paloma jerked. A male, her age, cute with tousled blue-black hair, an olive complexion, narrow shoulders covered by a long-sleeved striped pullover. Too skinny.

  "No." She turned away.

  He nodded as though she said yes. "I am not either. I await a friend from work. He assured me we would meet here. Maybe he is here, but how would I find him?" The man kept his eyes on Paloma, but he was frightened.

  "Yeah? What's his name?"

  The man opened his mouth, shut it, and giggled. "I lied. I wanted to meet you. My name is Ankour. I am new to San Diego."

  His voice sounded desperate. Paloma relented. "I’m Paloma Chacone," and she extended her hand.

  His eyes widened and he froze, but recovered. His handshake felt delicate, hesitant. Did his culture not shake hands?

  Before she reached a decision, Mohammed asked, "What do you do in this big city, Paloma Chacone?"

  “Hey, Paloma—smile!” and a camera clicked.

  “Jane—what are you doing?”

  “I’m posting these on Facebook. We’ll show those civvies Navy women know how to have fun!” and Jane disappeared into the crowd, punching buttons on her phone.

  Here we go. If dating an officer in the Navy threatened Ankour, he'd never stick around when she shared her opinions.

  "I'm an officer on Bunker Hill," and she waited to see what he did next.

  His eyes lit up and a smile creased his face. “Wow. A woman in uniform,” and spent the next two hours peppering her with questions. Paloma found herself sharing her background, her dreams and ideals, how lonely life was away from friends and family and unable to date anyone at work. He confessed to a love of cruisers, despite having attended the Air Force Academy.

  When Hennessey’s threw them out, they talked on the sidewalk for another thirty minutes. She christened him ‘Anchor’ and basked in the warm glow of a new relationship.

  Later, as she drifted off to sleep, something floated through her brain. He requested the crew list, but as ex-military, he knew that was classified. Something was off about Anchor. Before she decided what, her brain blinked out and she fell asleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Day Five, Friday evening, August 11th

  Mohammed, Little Italy, San Diego

  Mohammed had no doubt Paloma Chacone was Allah’s tool. He went to the bar to assist Shalimar, but she hadn’t shown. When he saw Paloma, he decided to do what he had done so effectively with the Princeton female.

  Paloma, though, was nothing like the other. He was captivated by the pale curve of her slender neck and the drape of her long hair over her shoulders. He struggled to concentrate until, Allah be praised, the whore’s advice again worked.

  That evening, he cleansed himself as he must after interacting with the infidel. First, he washed his hands thrice. Next, he washed his face, rinsed his mouth and cleaned his nose with water three times. Then he washed his right arm up to the elbow three times and his left arm in the same manner.

  Mohammed sniffed and still stank of the female. He scrubbed his head, washed his right foot up to the ankle three times, and washed his left foot the same way. This time when he tested the air, he couldn’t find her.

  He called Al-alah for his daily check-in. Nasr greeted him with, “You have a tail."

  Mohammed’s eyes popped open. "No! That is impossible! I am very careful—"

  “It is the boy you were asked to keep an eye on. Fix this," and Nasr disconnected.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Day Six, Saturday, August 12th, morning

  Kali's Columbia University office

  Six a.m. and already eighty degrees. Would this heat ever break? Kali wiped an arm across her forehead, decloaked Otto, plopped into her chair, and took a moment to pout.

  Sean had canceled. He said he had a big test. How many times had she said the same thing when the toddler Sean wanted to play? A lump grew in her throat and her eyes burned.

  “Hello, Kali. You are sick today?”

  Kali swiped a tear from her face. “No, I’m fine, Otto. How was your evening?" she asked as she pulled her hair into a severe ponytail.

  "Excellent. I met someone," and Kali listened for ninety seconds to an accounting of his escapades in the virtual world of Second Life

  "We have only three hours until the competition. Let’s get started.”

  "Your President Franklin Roosevelt said, Competition is useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation... begins where competition leaves off. We should call it Man and Machine rather than Man vs. Machine so we accomplish more?"

  Kali hooked a cable into the drive holding Otto’s operating system and connected it to the three-foot tall robot that would be his new body. It had a bulbous head with audio and visual in their equivalent human positions. Its round trunk doubled as a monitor. Sturdy roller feet provided mobility. She even added arms Otto could move to enhance the conversation.

  "It's a human thing. We love pitting our skills against others. It makes us stronger, points out weaknesses, pushes us to find our limits. And, we consider it fun."

  He said nothing for a moment, and then, "Why does Frank Kellogg say competition is not only a terrible burden upon people, but one of the greatest menaces to world peace?"

  Ah, the challenge of arguing with a brain hooked into the internet. "Think of it this way: History proves competition enables human survival. Today, you and Eitan will help each other. I’m starting the transfer now, Otto, no talking until I finish.”

  After what seemed like hours, the android pinged. Kali typed in a series of commands and within moments, the big round lidless eyes lit up as electricity charged through their circuits. The globe atop a squatty neck turned toward Kali and latched onto her face with a beguiling innocence. Kali put her hands on Otto's android shoulders and smiled.

  "How are you, Otto?"

  A violent spasm rolled through Otto’s new fiberglass body. His roller feet jerked, his jointed tubular arms flailed and eyes whirled in their machine-smoothed sockets. Kali hopped back to avoid one of his stubby arms.

  "What... what... I’m afraid not well." His voice roared through the room. Kali dropped the volume as numbers scrolled down his chest-mounted monitor like a cry for help.

  "Why did my arm flap, Kali?" Otto’s head jerked sideways. She had programmed the bot to turn toward noise as people do, but Otto didn’t know that. "Who else is here, Kali? Oh, this is far different than what I imagined."

  "That's your voi
ce, Otto," Kali said as she hammered in a series of commands. "I’m transferring it to your mouth,” and she touched the circular speaker located under his olfactory sensors. “Do you understand?"

  "Of course, Kali. I have a robust intellect," Otto replied as his round eye cams tried to find that spot on his face. "But I am unable to see it."

  She dug her cosmetic mirror out of her purse and held it up. "See? Like mine."

  Otto powered forward and slammed into it. "I see, but I do not understand what is happening."

  Kali weighed responses and settled on, "We call it change, Otto. It bothers me, too."

  "So I'm becoming human?"

  Kali wanted to laugh, but stopped herself. "Yes, Otto. You're becoming human." She glanced at the clock. Damn. "Time to go!"

  Otto spun around in a full circle in an attempt to face the door. "This turning is harder than it looks when you do it, Kali." Finally, he aimed somewhat at the exit, rolled forward, picked up speed and slammed into the wall.

  "Otto! Are you alright?"

  Otto churbled and wheeled backward. "Oh, perfectly. I wanted to see what it means to not be able to walk through walls. Will we go out there?" And Otto fluttered an arm at the hall.

  "Follow me, intrepid adventurer. I will show you the mysteries of the hallway," and Kali took the knob that served as his hand and guided him forward.

  Otto chattered about the various shades of color in the hall's eggshell-white paint, the phone calls he heard through thin walls, and the conversations that filtered from rooms too far away for the human ear. When they arrived in Eitan’s lab, the room pulsed with cerebral energy as the attendees debated whether man or machine was the better problem solver. Eitan had made an effort to clean up, moving books from chairs to the floor and trash onto shelves. Kali took a quick survey of the crowd and found no Zeke. Her heart sank. First, he canceled last night. Now, he stood her up on this most important event. What was going on?

  Otto pointed his hand-knob at a three-foot tall '0'. "Humans need to be told the time?"

  “It’s a countdown counter, and yes, people have no internal caesium clock tied to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.”

  Otto considered this. “Dr. Eitan Sun seems to.”

  Kali laughed. “Eitan is the rare individual with an autonomic sense of time, accurate to within a minute.”

  She pointed to screens on either side of the clock labeled Dr. Sun and Otto. “The monitors display what you and Eitan are doing."

  "Kali!" She turned at the sound of Eitan’s voice and saw a man dressed in dark pants, a white button-down jersey and wing tips, thin hair neatly combed over a round dome.

  “What happened? Run out of t-shirts and cargo pants?”

  Eitan ignored her, focusing instead on Otto. "Hello, my mobile friend. Do I see fear in your eyes?"

  "No, Dr. Sun. That's the electrical charge to power my camcorders."

  "Shrug. So it is. Are you ready?"

  "I am always ready, Dr. Sun. It is a human trait to require a warm-up."

  Eitan turned to Kali, head tilted, fingers stabbing at invisible keys on his arm. His bright, inquisitive eyes were shadowed with worry. “Where’s Sean?”

  “He canceled.”

  “OK. I need to talk to you.”

  She bit back a smile. “I know what’s upsetting you and I understand why you lied to me last night.”

  Eitan shifted uncomfortably. “Well, yes, but I need to explain.” A gentleman approached the pair, a wide grin across his rosy face. Eitan turned to him and back to Kali. “But first, this is my mentor from Cal Tech. He … is… visiting New York. Do you mind if he introduces you?”

  Kali turned to the squatty, bespeckled man with the intelligent eyes and retro bow tie.

  “Hello, Ms. Delamagente. I dabble in artificial intelligence. I’m eager to meet Otto. I promise I’ll do you justice.”

  Kali smiled and nodded, not sure what to make of this, but she trusted Eitan. The stranger addressed the audience.

  “Hello, AI enthusiasts. My name is Dr. Theodore Kaslow.” Kali stumbled backward, almost falling into a chair.

  “The Dr. Kaslow?” World-renowned in the field of AIs, on track to create the first mechanical brain. What about her interested him?

  Dr. Kaslow steadied her and offered a warm smile. A murmur spread through the crowd.

  “Today I introduce the woman who made this event possible. You know her as a struggling grad student, ABD for, what, Ms. Delamagente, four years?” He paused to allow her a stiff nod and then continued. “But Ms. Delamagente is no ordinary grad student. She has been shortlisted for a Nobel Laureate, the only non-PhD ever published in the Journal of Scientific Research, and the only pre-Doctor Fellow accepted by Berkeley Geochronology Lab to do research. She requires only three hours of sleep a night and is admired by a man I hold in highest esteem, Dr. Eitan Sun.

  The crowd applauded as Kali blushed.

  “This brilliant woman created an artificial intelligence that defies belief. Dozens of alphabet agency experts tried to replicate Otto’s programming to no avail. Further detail is classified but suffice to say, her work is ground-breaking.”

  He motioned Kali forward to raucous applause as Eitan retreated to his station.

  "Thank you all for your attendance. I’ve never had an introduction quite like that.” She scanned one last hopeless time for Rowe and started. “May I introduce our contestants? Otto, a Mobile Artificial Intelligence." The audience clapped and Otto churbled a greeting. "…and Dr. Eitan Sun, an extraordinary mind to all who have the pleasure of knowing him." This time, the applause was deafening, bolstered by hoots of support.

  "Today we answer the question of our time: Who is the better problem solver, Man or Machine? Much is made of a machine's speed at gathering and sorting data, but can a collection of wires, algorithms, and scripts solve a common quandary man sees every day: finding solutions for situations we’ve never faced. That includes stone tools, the wheel, farming, and theoretic concepts like Black Holes and anti-matter. Each required visionary thinking. Can a machine do that?"

  She smiled at both contestants. Otto was slamming his mechanical hand against a table top, chortling after each impact. Eitan’s intense blue eyes stared unabashedly at Kali, mouth open, dribbles of something brown spotting his shirt.

  "I considered using an unsolved mathematical problem such as the Collatz Conjecture, but it might have no solution, so I chose instead the ubiquitous Travelling Salesman Problem where a salesman must come up with the most efficient route between clients in a list of cities. Formulated in 1930, it still has no general method of solution. The current leading number of cities is 7,515,789,959. I will provide Dr. Sun and Otto with the latitude and longitude for a random selection of one thousand from the list. I will add more if necessary. They will have three hours and thirty-one minutes to arrange travel to as many cities as possible. Whoever gets the furthest in the shortest distance, wins.

  Kali nodded to Otto, then Eitan. Neither required a countdown. "Contestants, begin."

  Eitan’s keyboard burst to life and Otto rolled in circles, seemingly in search of a comfortable position. After eleven seconds, he froze, eyes down, silent except for a low hum.

  People grouped around the monitors as the contestants arranged routes, changed their minds, and added stops, the travel web growing by the minute. Cheers and groans marked a favored contestant’s movement in the standings. People snacked on prune juice, cola, peanuts, cashews, sausages and granola bars and chatted quietly among themselves.

  Kali brought up both entries in side-by-side windows on her iPad and spent her the time verifying contestant choices until the alarm buzzed.

  “Time’s up. Dr. Sun won by two hundred seventeen cities.”

  The crowd went wild, Otto spun in circles, and the lone Columbia University reporter rushed to post his story.

  Kali sidled over to Otto, "What happened? You were on par with Eitan for the first three hours. Did you get
stuck?"

  "Oh, no. Kali. Why would I get stuck? I considered our discussion about competition. When I saw time running out, I stopped to await the collaborative part where most is accomplished. I presumed we would reach that before the clock ran out. Did I do something wrong?"

  “No, Otto. You did perfectly. Contests are most exciting when unpredictable.” She patted him and approached Eitan. "Otto failed to comprehend the concept of competition—the need to beat you."

  Eitan cocked his head, a slight smile on his lips. "Intriguing. How do you teach human qualities like competition, collaboration, or even humanity?"

  Dr. Kaslow smiled. “I’m sorry I must leave, Ms. Delamagente. This was captivating.”

  “Please, call me Kali.

  “If you call me Teddy. I had hoped to meet your son about whom Eitan says wonderful things. Keep me up to date on Otto. Please.”

  Kali started to walk out with Teddy when a strident voice stopped her.

  "Kalian! A moment, please." The Dean toddled over, hair ruffled, face pink with heat. "Otto lost. How does this work for your thesis?” He said nothing about Otto’s bot body.

  “It certainly ruined my book deal.”

  Eitan tugged her arm. “Kali.” She was grateful for the distraction. “Please find me when you’re done. I still need to talk to you.” His voice was strained.

  Kali wondered what upset the first man America called when in trouble. Before she could placate the Dean, he turned on his heel, cell to his ear, and left.

  "Hello, babe."

  Her heart leaped. "Zeke!" There he stood, like so many times before, in a Navy pullover, gray sweatpants, sandals that should have been trashed months ago. He took her breath away. When he wrapped his arms around her, she smelled his maleness, felt the beat of his heart, his breath warm on her cheek.

  And then she saw the sat phone on his belt, the one Zeke had thrown into a desk drawer as proof he and Bobby were done.