Con Code Read online

  “We’re here to compare notes,” Miller says again.

  The Ecuadorian man nods once. He steps around Spaulding, who watches Miller with unfavorably narrow eyes and adjusts the strap on his smartwatch repeatedly.

  “You think it’s not obvious?” The man weaves his way between Gordon and Abby. He circles Mav, maneuvering with the smoothness of a ballet dancer before he stops in front of me.

  I stare at this strange man, with his shortness and thick hair. All the humans I’ve known in person are of a similar build, with a stretch about their limbs, where this man has more of a squished limb appearance. I wonder if the AI from their labs appears the same as him, or like the people I’ve known. What will be the same between us? What will be different?

  “You need better joints,” he says to me.

  “I have no control over this,” I say defending my appearance. How dare he judge me? I woke up this way.

  “I know, I know.” He waves a hand to Spaulding. “Allocation of resources, right? Is that why you’re here? We have better supplies? You want to pretty up your accomplishment before trying to pass this.” He turns to me, and even though he is shorter than I am, he looks down at me, “For celebration?” He turns his head as though looking at me causes him to hear claws dragged upon the tile flooring. “All I can say is, have fun on your return trip.” He points to the doors we arrived through. “We’ll even pay your shuttle service to return to the airport.”

  ‘No.” Mav speaks but doesn’t move, not imposing his presence. He must assume words are enough. Even I’m not foolish enough to think words alone will work with the foreign man before us. He wants numbers and elegance. We come with scraps. “We don’t want your things.”

  But we do. We want access to their machines and the opportunity to load my data to their system. I want access, at least, to their program.

  “Mr. Pierson is correct,” Miller emphasizes Mav’s name receiving the desired reaction he was hoping for. The man steps away from me. He walks to the counter and checks a screen with so much typing that I’m not sure what will happen next.

  Spaulding shakes his head in a vigorous ‘no’ toward Miller, his jowls still wiggle once he stops. If Spaulding shows restraint, it’s got to be a bad move. Will we be removed by armed security? Spaulding turns his back and starts inputting data on a device. My guess is he’s calling to arrange return flights as soon as possible.

  Miller ignores Spaulding and continues to speak. “We’re not interested in your things.” He points to me. “We’ve had some complications with our files.” He waits for the man to stop typing. I get the impression that though he was hoping the mention of Mav Pierson had an impression, the response isn’t exactly what he was hoping for.

  “Mr. Pierson?” the man looks up from his screen. “Your appearance is different.”

  As in Mav looks different than he expects? It’s out of character type different? Can it be that the man is unfamiliar with Mav? He thinks this is Ace? Different can mean so many things, it’s exhausting deciphering human meanings.

  “You should have informed me you were coming. I’d have had rooms prepared.” Whatever the man checked with on the screen, it’s in our favor. So long as no one blows this. “My name is Geovanni. I go by Geo.”

  “Nice to meet you, Geo,” Spaulding says in an attempt to change the focus of the room again. His tone is neither gracious nor welcoming. I’d guess Spaulding does not believe it has been nice to meet Geo. I’d have to agree with Spaulding. I’d also like to know what the screen said that changed Geo’s mind about helping us. One look at the Ace statue outside would lead me to believe that Geo is fully aware Mav and Ace aren’t the same person.

  “I would like to see your AI.” No one speaks. As though my question isn’t phrased intelligently. Everyone stares at me as though I’ve misspoken. I try again. “I would like to meet your donor.”

  “Yes. Bueno, que si.” Geo lets his English efforts fall away. No more need to put on a show for us. He motions us through the shadowed double doors.

  I don’t follow first. I need to know what I said wrong. The best person to ask is Miller. Or Mav.

  Spaulding is first to follow Geo, trailed by Gordon and Ben in step with Abby at their heels. Miller drags his feet following Abby, but Mav holds back. I need a sound cushion since my whisper isn’t perfected as yet. “Mav.”

  “Jennie?” There is a smile playing at the edges of his mouth as if he finds me amusing.

  “What did I do to cause everyone to look at me like that?”

  “I don’t know.” I can tell he’s lying.

  “Tell me. I need to make more requests, and if I do it wrong, I’m less likely to reach my objective.”

  The smile fades as his eyes squinch up a bit in question.

  “I’ve done it again, haven’t I?”

  “Try to sound less…mechanical.” Mav lifts a hand, indicating I should move in the direction of the group. Our conversation over.

  “I need access to the donor files,” I say. “How do I request that less mechanically?”

  Mav folds his arms as he moves ahead of me, then with a quick look over his shoulder to where I still stand in hopes of an answer he says, “Don’t ask.”

  I stumble. My off-balance joints can’t keep up with him “But I need—”

  He stops, with his back to me. “Don’t. Ask.” Mav continues walking, observing some oil paintings, of how Ecuador used to look, hung on the wall. Dirt roads, clay buildings, orange tile roofs. It’s beautiful in its simplicity. I wish I could have seen it that way. “I didn’t say don’t look for the files.”

  “And that’s less mechanical?”

  “It’s definitely human.” Mav turns a corner.

  When I follow the rest of the group is gathered in the room we’ve entered. I close my mouth, swallowing whatever curiosity I have about humans and honesty. The room holds a large glass table. Unlike the exterior of the building, the glass of the table is completely transparent.

  “Hay protocols here at the facilidad,” Geo says standing at the head of the table. “Por favor take a seat.” He motions everyone to chairs, also transparent, though I doubt they’re made of actual glass. They move too lightly and easily to be a delicate material. I’m half terrified my heavy body will crush the object under my weight. I remain standing in order to observe how everyone else fares in the seats.

  Everyone sits except Mav, who stands at the back as if he has the need to relieve himself. Or perhaps he too is worried about how his impressive frame will impact the transparent seating. Geo looks at us as though we’re holding up the rest of his presentation and he has it prepared and is under a time restriction.

  “Please sit, por favor,” Geo says.

  “I’m not sure.” I lift a chair. It’s air to my touch, but my fingers don’t crack the material.

  “You can’t harm the chairs,” Geo says. “Sientase.”

  I sit down at the command.

  Mav takes his seat next to Gordon, which is next to mine.

  “Bueno.” Geo motions a hand and an additional person, whom I hadn’t before noticed, dims the lights from a remote. “Estrict confidentiality or you go home now.”

  I nod. At my side, Gordon nods as well. I hear Spaulding voice his agreement along with the two techs remaining and Miller. Mav gives no indication as far as I can decipher.

  Geo taps the table one time and a projection appears on the glass wall behind him.

  Gordon leans close enough to me that I can hear a rasp in his throat. Maybe he’s caught an illness in our travels. “Jennie” His voice a soft whisper. The intensity is so much that my mechanical heart races at the mention of my name, not in a romantic sense, but more of a danger is coming. “I found something.” Brace for it.

  “Especific files for each and every donor…” Geo continues talking about whatever is taking place on the screen. Something about record keeping, good business practice, methods for data transfer. “Corruption in the files is expected
, we have safeguards in place for this.” His accent gets thicker the longer I hear him speak, instead of less prominent.

  Gordon doesn’t tell me anything more. I wait.

  “…trace any programs introduced from outside sources…”

  Gordon is watching the screen. He’s supposed to tell me what he found. A person can’t say ‘I’ve found something’ and then not say what it is they found, can they?

  “…errant program codes and bugs in the system. We ran into problems because a reboot would mean a loss of donor codes, no one knows how many might be lost or corrupted from a hard crash of the system. So we could not.”

  “Gordon?” My attempt at a whisper draws Mav’s attention. My vision has adjusted to the dark already. It’s easy to see the majority of our group are completely engrossed in this presentation. It sounds exactly like what we already know. It’s impossible to control for digital loss and hackers.

  “…but we lost power and our backup systems failed.”

  Wait, what?

  I listen to Geo too. “All our files went down,” he says, meaning the system crashed. “When we rebooted the program, we had all the donors back, even the ones previously eliminated.”

  Reactions vary around the room. Spaulding swivels in his chair. Mav’s brows move closer together, not in rage or anger, but confusion. Questions form in shapes at his mouth, but he changes the way he holds himself without letting his wonder fall out on the clear table. Miller looks like he’s been sentenced in a court for some crimes against humanity. The techs stare at the screen like it possesses the magical solution to all things. Maybe it does.

  “We let it continue to run. We didn’t ask what had changed or why our power failed. Why our backup systems failed.”

  “Was the power loss grid-wide?” Ben asks.

  Geo winks at Ben in a non-playful manner. It still would have been odd, had he been playful in winking, but without any hint of humor behind his eyes, it’s almost a threat. “No. Solo nuestros.”

  “Odd, don’t you think?” Mav says.

  “Si. Si, lo es.” Geo nods. His focus remains on Mav for a long stretch of seconds before moving forward with his presentation. “But nothing seemed amiss. It’s like the game debugged itself, hit a restart or something.”

  Gordon leans in with his silent whisper once more, while the rest of the room buzzes and speculates about the power sources and the game fixing itself in Ecuador, where it clearly remained a problem in Mexico City. “One of Ace’s proximity codes.”

  I search my databanks for conversations with Gordon, to make sure I’m following the term proximity codes correctly. I know we haven’t used that term before, but I also know the meaning of proximity and can guess he means the codes that remained near Ace for extended times.

  “A security guard that worked here.” Gordon stops talking but has the posture of someone who still has more to say. I look around to determine what’s caused his stopping. Mav has his head bent forward, looking down at the clear table in a listening posture. Listening to us no doubt. Geo has stopped talking too. When I move my head to spy if he’s watching, he shifts his weight to his back foot. A retreat in his lean.

  I run through the ragtag group of people I know inside the game. A security guard? Anyone could be a security guard. No help at all, Gordon. There’s no way to determine if that information can apply to my group or just some random player who happened to work the Ecuador center prior to becoming a donor and leveling similar tracks as us.

  That makes two players in the Mexico City donor program who had previously worked or been involved with the facility here in Ecuador. From the look on Geo’s face, I can assume he heard Gordon’s information and is concerned with either the fact we’re investigating his staff or the fact we’re aware of his staff being Mexico donors.

  Geo doesn’t look away when I meet his eyes. Not like the rest of them, who seem caught in something embarrassing when I look too long, and they look back. I know staring isn’t a Northern accepted custom. Geo seems uninformed about the ‘look away’ social norm. I can’t decide if that’s his culture or a challenge. Maybe I should try staring at more of the locals to get a feel for what’s normal.

  After our briefing about what’s off limits, which is everything except the glass conference room, we’re given personal quarters with mirrored walls, to give the appearance of transparency, while still providing an odd sense of privacy within the grand professional space. Each room has two beds. Spaulding is the only one of us given his own accommodations. The rest of the Mexico City donor party has to share, two to a room. Being the only other female-identifying member of our group, I bunk with Abby.

  “Why do I have to bunk with Jennie?” Abby complains to Miller. I’m certain she’s aware I can hear her. “It’s not like she sleeps. Why does she need a room?”

  “We need Jennie to behave like the rest of us. Room and bed included,” Spaulding says.

  “Great. I get to wake up to her standing over me, not breathing air like she’s dead, and eyes wide open, not blinking?”

  Miller’s palms twitch a barely visible apology gesture.

  “You’re paying for my therapy after this,” Abby says. Lifting her bag, she storms past me into our shared room and claims one of the beds by throwing her bags on it. She flops herself on the second bed, leaving no space for me to pretend at humanness.

  There’s no reason, as far as I can determine, not to play into her concern. I enter the room, slowly close the door, without making visual contact with Abby, then turn my head by small degrees until I face her without adjusting my shoulders, torso, or hips. It’s not a natural human movement and I know it will freak her out. I wait for her to make eye contact with me and hold her gaze as long as she dares. The second she pulls away, I return to a natural posture, with my back facing Abby, and smile.

  Well-padded seats adorn the only corners left available for furnishings. I sit across from the television. There are three power ports in the room, which Abby quickly claims with all her charging cords and computer plugs. This room is better soundproofed than the lobby. Even if there were protesters, which there aren’t, I wouldn’t hear anything through the high-tech materials used to construct this building.

  No noise to drown out the hum of my working parts. I don’t like to listen to the fan cooling my internal workings, or the buzz of mechanics beneath my skin. I focus instead on the click and tap from Abby’s typing. She hits backspace more than any other key. I can tell by the silence of her other fingers when the ‘tap, tap, tap’ chews up her mistakes.

  Abby uses three devices at the same time. The water dispenser in our room gets the rest of her attention. She fills a paper cup with water almost as much as she changes screens on her devices. Clicking and clacking, scrolling, posting, filtering, possibly researching for hours before she lays down from fatigue. Blue light from all her open gadgets washes over her in the darkness. I stand and walk around the beds with the least sound I can manage, not sure how light of a sleeper Abby is, but certain my unsteady gate could vibrate anyone to alertness. The open screens include a college assignment, social media, and some search running without results yet. Forty-seven percent finished. It’s been running a while. Must be an encompassing search.

  A knock at the door startles me and I lose balance but save myself before falling on top of Abby and her electronics. I stand with my arms spread over her, willing myself not to topple. If I had breath, I’d be holding it.

  Before daring to move toward the door, I lean back, waiting for any movement from Abby. When I’m finally convinced she’s out cold, I figure the knocker must be gone. It crosses my mind that I might have imagined I heard a knock at the door, but I’m not sure my imagination works that way. Everything feels so terribly literal and juvenile that I wonder if my personality was left in the game along with everyone else.

  I listen at the closed wood panel before opening the door a crack. Outside stands a tall, slender, and perfectly poised man. His skin is
flawless and youthful to match his clear brown eyes and thick strips of chocolate-shavings hair. I have no idea who he is, but he’s the taffy-pull opposite of Geo aside from dark coloring.

  “He-hello?”

  “Mexico City, right?” he asks. His voice is low, but not gravely. He has a smooth Spanish accent that kisses the words in the places that Geo seems to trip on them. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure if you’re English or Spanish. I assume English since your country is all Anglo after the war, you know.”

  Even his softly condescending ‘you know’ makes me weak in the knees because I do. I totally know. At least when he says it. “Yeah. English. Thanks.”

  “You want to?” he nods to the hall, inviting me out of the room.

  The way he leaves his sentences unfinished, as though he assumes I have some idea how it might end, ignites my curiosity to the point of a nodding in ignorant agreement. I do want to. I don’t much care what, any to will do. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know.” He steps back, not away from me, but more of an extended invitation to join him in the hall. “Hours of the day aren’t really my concern.”

  I’ve already guessed he’s an Intelligence Donor Winner, or I should say ‘the Ecuador ID Winner’.

  “I’m Juan.”

  Maybe I don’t hear him right. I step into the door frame opening. “One? Like the first donor?”

  “No. Juan. Like Juan.”

  I still hear ‘one.’ “Like the number?”

  “Not uno.” Juan motions me farther into the hall away from the mirrored walls providing privacy for guest rooms where all the people are sleeping in this crazy see-through building. Night blue stars manage to filter through the dark glass in a way daylight doesn’t penetrate. Maybe it’s special glass.

  I let the door softly latch closed at my back and cringe internally at the thought that the sound might wake Abby.

  “I put something in the water,” Juan says, noticing my mechanical reaction to my mental concern. “They will all sleep through the night.”