Con Code Read online

  Gordon claps in front of himself, with one hand in a fist. I don’t know what it means. “Here’s the thing.” He pauses, does the clap again. “The codes located around Ace were all eliminated from the game shortly before he was. None of them made it to the final level.”

  “But you said you thought he’d be the one to upload…”

  “Before he disappeared from the files,” Gordon says.

  “I have the files,” I say drawing the drive out of my pocket even though Mav told me to keep it hidden.

  “Put that away.” Gordon pushes my hand back at me. “Don’t let Spaulding see you with that.” He checks over his shoulder where Spaulding directs security on our next move.

  My electric rhythm skips a pulse. I held this out in front of security cameras that Spaulding swore he was watching.

  “I have no idea what you downloaded, but if you’d have told me you thought you had Ace… I’d know you’re mistaken.” Gordon drops his volume despite the fact Spaulding still postures outside. “Ace Pierson went dark. It’s the same thing that happens to all donors when they’re out of the game.”

  Another object slams the side of the van. Nothing on fire, thank goodness.

  “I told Mav that his brother is on this file. That’s why he’s coming to Ecuador with us. To extract his brother.” I scrunch my forehead without having to think about scrunching my forehead. My insides feel searching and confused. Maybe I’m more human than I first thought. I’m definitely flawed in ability to understand things—a legit human trait. “Do you agreed that we might be able to extract Ace.”

  “I don’t not agree,” Gordon double-negates, with one eye on Spaulding who seems to be wrapping up his appeasement with security. “We need Mav Pierson—and all his family money behind us—if we’re going to get our program up and running again.” Spaulding ducks to come inside the van, then ducks back out in response to another shouted question. Spaulding straightens his tie and crouches like he’s going to enter the van again, cutting Gordon’s revelations short, but he doesn’t need to finish his thought. I’m learning how to put together the parts the humans don’t say. It’s hard, but I can do it more and more. It’s almost like predictive text for human behavior. “Hey, Spaulding. We’re going to miss our flight”

  Spaulding has on a grin that looks more manufactured than AI, incongruent to the genuine satisfaction in his eyes. Spaulding likes attention. It doesn’t seem to matter that the attention he’s getting at the moment is mostly death threats and large blunt objects thrown at close range.

  His behavior doesn’t bother me. Even though it’s insanity, he’s a shield to hide behind.

  I spend the rest of our drive and most of our flight trying to predict how I can apply Spaulding’s attention shield to more situations.

  When Spaulding excuses himself to use the lavatory, I lean over to Gordon, who swipes and taps on his tablet without pausing for breath. “I want the donor codes for anyone in proximity to Ace before his game ended.”

  Gordon doesn’t stop his tapping. “Like right before?”

  “No.” Maybe that’ll help. “I don’t know.”

  Gordon stops tapping and looks down the aisle toward the lavatory. Where we’re located in the front section of seating on a small plane with the remaining four members of our party at the back section, the bathroom isn’t far away. Luckily the engine is so loud, there is no chance Spaulding could hear me from inside the bathroom.

  Gordon returns his gaze on me, perturbed as though I’m his pestering ward. “I need better parameters than that, Jennie. You have to realize I’m putting a lot on the line for you here.”

  “Three levels prior,” I say. “Up to the time he disappears.”

  The lavatory door opens. “What’d I miss?” Spaulding asks, then chuckles to himself as he fastens his belt back into place. Gordon laughs along, but his eyes remain alert and searching, as if he’s nervous. I don’t get the joke.

  I do get nervous.

  Every transition from one mode of transportation to the next is the same charade. Everyone packs tightly together, the support of all those bodies around me disguises my difficulty walking with a smooth gait of motion. Mob-like crowds with loud posters featuring angry-red slashes over the top of a computer with a smiley face on the screen, pre-gather at all our change locations, like our itinerary’s been broadcast continent-wide. One poster has printed in bold lettering, “Die AI.”

  Cameras angle to snap images of anyone with a white coat on. Screens in lounges include news coverage of speculations regarding who might be hosted inside the mysterious AI from Mexico City. One channel has text scrolling along the bottom of the screen: Secretive travel hasn’t prevented open opposition to the failing donor programs throughout the nation.

  “Failing?” I ask. Gordon turns me toward a different screen, one with a story less like a personal attack and more like a Pierson-specific attack.

  Since Mav is with our group, there is heavy coverage about Ace. Including photos and video from his life before the war and after. Ace was a slight man. Joints like bones wanting to break free of his reddened skin. He has a sharp chin and jaw like I know him, but the rest of Ace is an alien to me. How can this human be the source of the individual I knew? Or have I biased myself based on his brother’s good looks he chose to resemble in the game? Reporters zoom in on Ben and Gordon, wondering if perhaps Ace is adjusting to a new physical challenge after mastering the game of his own creation.

  “They think you’re the upload?” I ask Gordon.

  “Probably better for you, if they think that,” Gordon says. He keeps his head down for long periods and adds a lilt to his walk as if he’s adjusting to a new set of knees. There’s a lot about Gordon resembling the stringy person the television claims was Ace Pierson. I can see how media could assume Gordon was the new and improved version of human Ace. Gordon doesn’t seem to disappreciate the comparison.

  Imitation lessons continue with Abby, Ben, and Gordon working around the arbitrary measurements of time used commonly throughout the world. Ecuador is one standard hour ahead of Mexico City, where we departed from. The Americas have shrunk from what history I can find. Divisions still exist, they’re only differently named. It’s all Inter and Outer instead of North and South, and East and West of historical record. The world is a band of resources. Those with easy access have easy power. Simple.

  I study as we travel. Even when the plane begins to descend on our last leg, I search the landscape for information. I’m not sure if I’m mapping an escape route or simply curious how the circular grid system they seem to have in place works. There’s a massive circle of factories surrounding a huge area of tightly packed buildings. The outer ring is gray from smoke and factory waste. The closer to the center of the city the plane goes, the whiter the structures. Everything appears to have been built with white stone and grayed from exposure over time.

  Except for one dark star at the center of Quito. We fly over, but it’s nothing more than a black diamond on a hill with a shining bronze stone as sentinel when we pass from the air.

  Once we land, the details of the city demonstrate wealth and the current power hold on the world. It’s impressive all the way to the details. Lettering is etched or embossed. Nothing is left untouched by depth and shadow. Even the sanitation crew, who seem to work around the clock inside the city, wear white.

  Ecuador had once been considered a poor country. Looking at it now, it’s impossible to imagine. The buildings are intricate in their detail work and expansive in their size. The wide roads stretching over hills and through town are clean, with designs paved into the stones that make up the pavement. Vehicles that drive past us aren’t manned but propelled by computer navigation. I could do that job but have no interest. Seeing a non-thinking machine carry out the task with no benefit to itself makes me ill.

  Tall cement fences with metal spikes along the top edges keep unwanted intruders from residences we aren’t able to view. I can’t imagine anything
more elaborate than what I can see, yet the fences indicate more wealth and opulence still.

  We wind our way through the city toward the center of Quito. The roadways thin and the structures shrink as we approach a central hill. At the peak of the hill is a gleaming black-glass tower. As we drive higher, the glass seems so tinted that it might as well be made of brick —the transparent material being an illusion, like a two-way mirror. Whatever takes place within the building, they don’t want curious onlookers having front row seats.

  I review what I know.

  There was a war. And those with more won. Mav Pierson has more than most I’ve seen, but he claims to be a loser. His brother supposedly fought for the Intercontinents but ended up a traitor, or betrayed. That’s a fine line. Dispersement of goods does not show itself to be dependent on facts, logic, or merit.

  A larger-than-life-sized statue of the deformed version of Ace stands like a fallen angel at the front entrance to the black shining structure. The statue includes missing limbs and facial scars where regular clothing can’t hide the damage done from the bomb that eventually ended Ace’s life. A looming mangle of scrawniness complete with an off-balanceness threatens to topple anyone who dares pass too closely.

  Entering the building continues the effect of falling. It’s all clear glass on the inside. Even the flooring seems translucent, but it’s mirrors. An information desk stands an inconvenient distance from the entrance. The wide birth of an entry feels more like being swallowed than greeted. Chairs line the outer wall, far from information. I let Spaulding and Miller proceed to the desk while I follow Gordon, Abby, and Ben to the chairs. I’m better at short distances, less likely to draw attention to my flaws if I’m not moving. Besides, I can dial up my audio receptors, if I want.

  “Did you hear anything I’ve said, Jennie?” Abby sets her binder of international social norms in the seat cushion beside her. “Aren’t you listening at all?”

  “I am.” I really am. I’m only not paying attention. My auditory receptive mechanics are functioning well, and I even have the option to record sounds that I hope to review again later. In cases like this, where some other matter occupies my processing demands, I can record and come back later, while all the people sleep. Except I wasn’t recording Abby. I have no intention of coming back to greetings and posturing.

  “Let her rest.” Mav defends me. I turn toward his voice only to find myself staring into Gordon’s pocket protector. No ink splotches, so the thing must work. Miller could use such a gadget. He has a shirt covered in pen scratch and ink bleeds.

  “She doesn’t rest,” Gordon pipes in. “How soon until they agree to meet with us?”

  Though no one turns their head nor looks toward Spaulding or Miller for their response, the room stills to a low hum as if we’re all afraid sudden movement might startle a confession away and we’ll never learn the answer to how long we have to stay in our holding pen.

  I stand from my place near Abby and cross the large lobby. There are tightly woven rugs covering the orange tile flooring with a perimeter of cushioned chairs and little interior potted trees growing what looks like Roma tomatoes from their branches. The room has a citrus sting in the air along with heaviness from the humidity. How this environment is ideal for mechanical lives baffles me. It’s all rust and corrosion in this glass-sheathed structure.

  The building is placed at the top of a large hill, where a massive statue of an angel once stood before the war. When it fell, this building replaced it. Almost religiously, proponents of artificial life flocked to the surrounding city since. At least that’s the top story from three years ago in the Quito Times.

  “Are the real bodies hooked up to wires and tubes somewhere?” I wonder aloud.

  “You don’t even remember orientation when you were admitted?” Ben harshly whispers to me, not bothering to hide his contempt at my memory failings here inside the safety of a foreign building with unfamiliar crowds outside. Crowds are constant.

  Gordon does the typical Gordon thing and provides information above and beyond what I’m asking because he knows something, and he likes it when the rest of us know he knows something, I assume. “Brainwaves are patterned over the course of six weeks. If the program doesn’t take, the donor is disconnected from the system. If they’re still alert and functioning, they’re sent home to be with their families until the natural end. If it does take, well… you know.”

  “What if a donor just dies on the table and isn’t in the game?” I ask.

  “Happens all the time,” Gordon says without hesitation or any sign of concern for how I might interpret his nonchalance with donors and their volunteer lives. “They’re ‘terminal’ patients. It goes with the territory that some are going to tank before the procedure is complete.”

  “What if it’s halfway?” This discussion can lead me down a line of a million slightly varying questions, but each individually weighted.

  “No code registered in the system is a straight up fail,” Gordon says, triggering something inside me, itching to rip and claw a code into Gordon’s arm myself if he ever says ‘no code is a fail’ again.

  I stand and maneuver across the room to where Mav sits. I use my best imitation walking and only cause mild irritation from Abby at my jerkiness. “Do you know anyone named Jilly?” I ask.

  Mav has his arms folded. He hasn’t shifted his squared-off stance, an indication that he isn’t welcoming me into his personal space. Not today. “No.” There is no softness to his answer, like an ‘I’m sorry, I wish I could help you connect the dots and fill in your holes.’ It’s a closed door to conversation sort of answer. I can’t tell if it’s this place, with his post-war-traitorous brother memorialized in his face, or cowing to his family’s competition in the technological achievement arena that erases any personality he might have. Mav is like a statue himself—brooding and cold, and set and unmoving in his judgment.

  I’ve searched the donor database for a ‘Jilly’ and found no matches. I thought I’d at least try the familial angle before totally giving up on trying to figure out what Ace meant when he called me that once. He’d said I looked like her. Or maybe it was just that I reminded him of someone with that name… It’s not lost in my memory, as to why I can’t decipher the moment and the name. My understandings of human intention and expression don’t seem to line up the majority of the time. They’re exhausting that way. Every phrase has to be evaluated from individual perspectives, experience, and style.

  There is no way I’m ever going to master the ability to understand human communication unless I can assimilate every human motivation and life experience. I doubt Abby and Ben have such a file in their cases, though they do have a lot of thick nonsense they keep trying to shove down my data drives.

  “Let’s keep going,” Abby calls from across the room.

  “I can just plug into a physical therapy program and download every strategy to relearn walking there is,” I say, struggling back to Abby in my smoothest human stride.

  “Plugging into a computer isn’t the same type of learning.” Gordon again. Always Gordon when it’s a ‘Did you know?’ type moment. If I only mastered sarcastic eye-rolling, I’d be doing it right now.

  Then, of course, Ben jumps in with his favorite topic of ‘let me emphasize the ways I feel you’re not being authentically human enough.’ “It’s not human to assimilate behavior by downloading it. It’s human to learn by doing, copying. Visual and auditory gathering of information, then put into practice.”

  “Yes. Exactly,” Gordon says.

  “No one cares,” Mav’s voice carries from the other side of the large room we’ve been waiting in. “It’s not human to still be alive after you’re dead, so why not give it up already?”

  At that, a forced cough and exaggerated clearing of a throat announces company in the room. How long someone has been standing in the shadowed opening of double doors a good distance from us is unclear. What is clear, Mav’s last words prompted the company to make th
emselves be noticed.

  A man of slight stature and stout build, with dark hair and deep-set eyes, emerges from the doorway. “Buenos.” He speaks in clipped rhythm, a local speech pattern that doesn’t seem to reflect the language so much as a dialectical standard for this region. “I hope you enjoyed your trip.” His English is well structured with correct tense and syntax for English speakers. Though his Spanish accent makes it difficult to decipher.

  “We traveled well, thank you.” Spaulding moves like a chess piece guarding his king. He stands in front, prominently drawing the focus of the room to himself. I don’t like the guy, but I appreciate him at this moment. “Your city has prospered since I visited last.”

  “Oh, when were you here?” Our foreign host feigns pleasantry with a smile that doesn’t reach the corners of his eyes.

  “Before the war broke out. We had discussed having a lab in this region. With the low labor, medical, and material costs, I’d thought it was a prime location to develop.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “We couldn’t come to an agreement,” Spaulding speaks these words like we’re already in some failed negotiation.

  I’m still learning how to read human behavior and find the posturing taking place confusing. Spaulding isn’t gaining any favor with our host if I’m reading lips pressed thin correctly.

  “We’re here to compare notes,” Miller interrupts. He doesn’t move himself to the front of the group as Spaulding has. The foreign man has to bend and lean around those of us frozen where we were caught by this man like some game of gossip freeze-tag.

  “We don’t have a need to compare,” the man says after making note of Miller. “If you’re here for our lecture series, you’re early. It starts in six months.”