THE SWIFTPAD EXTINCTION
CHAPTER 9
ALISON
EXPERIENCES C2B (Computer to Brain) Transfer
Buy book here OR Get the Ebook here
HER PLANE
LANDED AT DALLAS-FORT WORTH IN A RAINSTORM, bouncing horribly during
the descent, and even worse on landing. Alison put
herself in a trance, waiting for her row’s turn to leave, grabbed
her bag and headed out the breezeway and onto the tram. It had been
over a month since she had left Northwest Portland in Telly’s
helicopter and traveled to Salt Lake City, meeting the political
wonks. The one thing she had liked
about the nerdy ARRGHs (American Republican Righteous Going to
Heaven) in Salt Lake City– even though most of them were awkward and
repressed men who had not yet psychologically left their mothers –
at least they were able to listen to a woman’s point of view. That,
she figured, was a function of their sexual closetedness.
The Salt Lake
City ARRGHs also took the virus seriously, even though at the time
there had only been a couple of cases in North America. Of course
this was all theoretical then, but now it was getting
serious. She just didn’t want to get sick.
Having spent a
great deal of time with Senator Cadez, she was convinced that his
consciousness was rotting out, even while he was putting up
repeatedly strong shows of cogency when speaking or meeting with
other politicos. He still wielded a powerful intellect, but it
quickly ran out of gas, and soon after would melt into delusion and
paranoia. For brief moments, though, he could put on pyrotechnic
displays of analysis that dazzled everyone who listened.
Alison had
managed to repulse his sexual advances. On the night before she flew
to Dallas, at her hotel room door, Cadez had made an awkward play to
get Alison into bed, a pathetic suggestion that they
“consummate.” She easily parried it, saying she wasn’t “ready,”
to let him off the hook. He pulled back into his shell and
disappeared. She never thought of him as creepy, but something else, something
much worse. She thought that someone or something was speaking
through him, that there was no “there” there.
He had gotten
worse in the month since leaving Portland. Without any visible
embarrassment, almost robotically, he told her that her rejection
would not affect their “professional” relationship.
And what was
that relationship? Cadez had told her that he had come to trust her
political judgment, which she found funny. She was playing a role
that was a parody of a serious rightwing apparatchik, but he saw no
satire at all. Even early on, she talked about politics to Cadez as
if she were the comic fall-gal in a political farce. She found it
hard to believe anyone could not see through it. How could he take
her over-the-top rants against “leftists’’ seriously? She
certainly didn’t. But Cadez did.
And so, with a
small staff of well-groomed, sartorially resplendent young men as his
team (most of whom projected an ambiguous sexual orientation), Cadez
set off on a trip around the country,
“campaigning,” which meant controlled situations: no interviews;
short, tightly scripted speeches; a wave; and goodbye.
Not caring in
the least whether their awkward moment at her hotel room door had any
bearing on her status on his team or not, she happily accepted being
dispatched to the Social Media Internet
Research Konsortium (SMIRK) north of Dallas, in Plano, as its Special
Projects coordinator and liaison with the Cadez campaign. But what
was of particular interest – well more than just
interest – was that Spence was there.
Alison and
Spence had been colleagues at Reigny Deigh and – she thought –
had been on the verge of something when the Insurgency in Portland
broke out. They had kept it on ice for two years,
partially successfully keeping their mutual feelings to themselves.
So Alison was not completely surprised when she saw Spence waiting
outside the gate to pick her up. He waved to her as she
approached him. He wasn’t wearing a mask. The virus had first shown
up in North America in, of all places, Texas. She knew it was only
going to spread. They awkwardly shook hands and they made
their way to the baggage claim area. Spence was dressed like he did
in Portland: a t-shirt, green Dockers work pants, running shoes, and
baseball cap, this time though, a Texas Rangers hat. He
had lost weight, and had his hair cut pretty short.
And he had new
glasses. No more dark horn-rimmed frames, but thin, gold-tinted
wire-frames. For Alison, this was the most disturbing change she saw,
and she wasn’t sure why. As they waited and
watched the baggage carousel, he suddenly gave her a hug, and she
hugged him back. She said, “There’s my bag!” They broke off and
he picked up her suitcase.
They chatted
about the flight, and Spence asked her about their co-workers at
Reigny Deigh, but avoided the unspoken herd of elephants lurking
behind every word. Shrugged when asked if he worried
about the virus. Alison let him drive the conversation, staying
neutral but friendly. She had expected Spence would express in some
way a feeling that he was a virtual prisoner. Shouldn’t he think
that she had come to free him? That was what she wanted to believe,
but Spence gave no hint of the quiet desperation she expected from
him.
As Spence drove
her from the airport, Alison realized this was the first time they
had been together alone since their flirty, half-drunken afternoon in
the East Portland pub – only a little more than a month ago. If he
hadn’t left so hurriedly, and returned to his wife, she thought,
who knows where it all might have led?
Then – two
days later, when the guards took the hood off his head before putting
him on the plane for Texas, Spence had looked at her as if she had
sold him out. That look had hurt. He had been
kidnapped and forced to work for the enemy. She fully realized that
she had the same problem.
Get the Ebook here
“You look so
strange wearing that hospital mask,” Spence said. “We don’t do
it down here. Still isolated, it won’t spread down here. But I have
to say – you look sexy. Mysterious.”
“I don’t
care what anybody thinks. I don’t want to get sick. I am wearing
it.”
“Suit
yourself.” He thought he had given her a compliment, but apparently
not. He glanced quickly over at her, trying to find something to talk
about. “You’re worried about it?”
“It’s a
pandemic. Jesus, yes!”
Spence dropped
it. He started rambling on about the changes just released in
SP-Script program – mainly new functions that let you modify some
of the media hooks into Gupta’s C2B interface. She barely
heard him, because she was thinking about what Telly had said before
she left. She had asked Telly how he was getting Spence to work on
the C2B SwiftPad interface after what happened to him
in Portland. Like she was looking for hints on how to keep him under
control.
Telly had said,
check out Helmut Gröttrup.
Alison did a
quick S-Plog search and discovered that Gröttrup had worked with
Wernher von Braun on the German V-2 rockets that killed thousands of
Londoners during the closing days of World
War II. While von Braun led most of his staff into the Western Zone
to surrender to the Americans (after which he would lead the US
rocketry development that eventually sent astronauts to
the moon), Gröttrup, a secret leftist, stayed in the Eastern Zone,
where the Russians held sway. At first he continued to work for his
captors in Germany, but was eventually forced (with the remaining
German rocket experts) to travel to Moscow to work on the Russian
rockets. He was paid more than any Russian, his wife had a chauffeur,
they lived in a mansion formerly occupied by a senior government
minister, and they had freedom of movement, in Moscow anyway.
So it sounded
as if Telly was telling her that they were bribing Spence with money
and status. And, she wondered whether, perhaps like Gröttrup, he
secretly agreed with the aims of his captors? And wasn’t
that what they were doing to her? Or was she just bait in a bigger
game?
Spence had an
Audi sedan, not brand new, maybe a year or two old. She didn’t know
cars, but getting in, she began to know Spence a little better.
Banana peels and apple cores were overflowing out of the plastic
garbage bag, littering the floor of the front seat.
“You settled
in pretty well,” she said.
“Well, I feel
better. I got a message from Maggie. I guess she is hanging out with
the SwiftPad gang at Kip Rehain’s place.”
“Really?”
Alison had heard that the SwiftPad braintrust had left Portland,
moved down to Benton County to the Rehain Compound, but didn’t know
what had happened to Maggie.
“You know how
someone sounds when they are breaking up with you? Kind of distant,
but yet trying too hard not to hurt your feelings, to cheer you up?”
“Umm,” said
Alison. Actually, she didn’t really know. She had always been the
one who did the breaking up, and she had never sugar-coated it. Just
ripped the Band-Aid off. Why leave any hope where there was
none, she thought. No one had ever dumped her, but she still
understood what he was saying.
“Anyway,
Maggie and I – our marriage – was on the ropes for a long time.
Our daughter is still in Boston and is OK, although I’m sure she is
out in the street demonstrating for Rosie. I don’t know what to
think.”
“Me either,”
said Alison. She was not about to make any taxicab confessions (such
as revealing what Maggie did during the Insurgency) or political
statements.
“You know who
is also down there at that Rehain place with her? Nate Schuette!”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,”
said Spence. He looked over at her and saw she seemed to understand
what that meant. He really didn’t want to get into the whole story
about how Maggie and Nate had lived together, and in fact, were
living together when he – Spence – met her. Or the fact that he
was Nate’s best friend – or that was how they both played it.
Alison had
heard part of the story from Gordy, who could be so bitchy and mean –
he had slept with Spence’s first wife, and made sure everybody at
Reigny Deigh knew that too. They were quiet for a while driving
across the flat plain north of Dallas toward Plano. She had never met
Nate Schuette, but from all she had heard, it was pretty clear he was
a typical Baby Boom hypocritical, self-involved jerk. A fucking great
writer, sure, but that had nothing to do with his character or
decency.
“I have to
admit, you look – I mean – your eyes, that is all I can see of
your face. I love them!”
“I just don’t
want to get sick” was all she said.
“Yeah, I hear
ya. Maybe I – anyway, sorry about the mess. Hey! Did you get a room
yet? You want to stay at my place?”
“Well, maybe
later. I already booked a room, and...”
“It is huge,
and right on a lake too. Well, not a real lake like in Minnesota or
the mountains in Oregon – it doesn’t have that much water right
now, but – it’s water! I was going to get a boat next week, but the
dockside is all just mud right now. Anyway – I know it’s a weird
ask, but you don’t want to stay in a hotel, do you?”
Alison didn’t
answer him. Spence looked over at her, and with her sunglasses and
mask she looked like she was doing a feminist remake of The Invisible
Man.
“OK, we’ll
talk about it later. Let’s go right over to the campus then. You
can meet the team. It is really pretty cool what we are doing.”
“That’s
what I heard. Yeah, let’s go.”
The actual
campus wasn’t as big as she had imagined. It certainly didn’t
look imposing, more like a mid-sized shopping center.
“About half
of the original Ross Perot EDS campus has been siphoned off as a
business park. In fact most of our admin offices are in the Legacy –
which is what they call it. You will have an office over
there. Very upscale. I work down in the mausoleum with the hardware.”
Alison looked at him, but didn’t ask him what he meant.
As they drove
in, she began to understand the mausoleum comment. It did look like a
half-filled cemetery surrounded by the reptile-den that was the
Legacy business park. In fact it was hard to figure
out which part was creepier, the sterile office buildings or the
white concrete extrusions that looked like headstones.
“Come on, I
will show you my office. Introduce you around.”
Spence parked
across from one of the white outcroppings of concrete that was set
back about 30 meters from the circular driveway. The rest was grass.
The white cement bunker was in the middle,
completely surrounded by a patch of bent, unnaturally green grass the
size of a soccer pitch. As they approached this odd little building
on the flagstone path, Spence said, “I’m not supposed to park
there, but so far nobody has given me any shit.”
“Speaking of,
what is that smell?”
“Oh, they
water this grass with recycled sewage. Water shortage.”
It was
oppressively hot, and the sickeningly sweet smell of the
half-processed toilet water made it worse. The bleached-white
concrete shed, with a single steel door, had an antenna jutting above
it twice as high as the edifice itself. Alison thought it had an
insect-like appearance.
“It looks
alien, doesn’t it?” Spence gave Alison a goofy smile. She nodded.
The door opened easier than expected, and they were immediately hit
with an air conditioning blast that must have been 40
degrees cooler than outside.
“You all work
here?” The outer space crypt looked like it was only big enough for
an entrance and a small conference room. Spence only smiled. It was a
portal into an underground complex. They entered
and stood at an imposing stone counter, and were separated from the
guards by a very heav y plate glass window, with a recessed slot on
the counter for sliding in ID papers and the
like.
“You can’t
park there, Mr. Stromborn.” The CCTV inside the cage was focused
right on Spence’s Audi.
“Give him
your driver’s license, Alison. I am only going to be a few minutes,
Victor.”
“That’s
what you said last time. If Mr. Turner comes by and sees your German
automobile, you know what he is going to say.”
Victor’s
short-sleeve blue-gray uniform shirt tightly covered his belly, which
bulged way out above his thick black leather belt, on which hung a
highly polished black holster cradling a .45 caliber Smith and Wesson
revolver.
“Victor, this
is Alison, she will have an office over at Legacy and will be here
for a few weeks. Please make sure you get her a badge made up with
all the authority. The paperwork should be in an email from
Mr. Haines.”
“Yep, I saw
it. Miss – Ack-Road, is that it?”
“Aykroyd –
like the guy who played Beldar on Coneheads.”
“What?”
Alison thought
this whole place might have been transported from Remulak.
“Aykroyd.”
“OK, Ms.
Ack-roy-ed.” Victor nodded, slowly, as he carefully copied out her
name on a roster sheet and then stamped a paper badge. “OK. Here is
a temp-oh-rare-ee badge – I will have your perm-a-net badge
ready when you leave today. I have your pic-ture on file. I can see
it is you. Be sure,” he looked at her meaningfully, “to pick up
your badge – when you leave today.” Victor intently looked up at her
to make sure she understood. “Now. Do you want a clip or a
lan-yard?”
Alison looked
quizzically at Victor, but got nothing back.
“He wants to
know if you want to attach your badge to your clothes or hang it
around your neck.”
Alison looked at
Spence and nodded. “A lan-yard,” she said, pitching her answer to
Victor’s tone and accent.
Victor shook
his head slowly the way Joe Friday used to when talking to an LA
hippie. “You will have a number of meetings and seminars to attend
as well, Ms. Ack-Royed. They will be conducted by our
Human Resources department. You must make sure you schedule them
promptly or your card will stop working.”
“When?”
“You will
have to check the schedule.”
“No. When
will the badge stop working?”
Victor looked
at Alison for a couple of beats without reaction.
“Mr.
Stromborn, please show her where the parking garage is – and where
in the parking garage she can park. If in fact, she will be driving
herself here.” Victor had a sneer in his Texas twang, somehow implying
his disapproval of Spence, or Alison, or both of them.
“I was going
to ride a bike,” she said cheerfully. “Do you have a place to
latch it up?”
Victor just
stared at her.
“She’s
kidding, Victor. Come on, Alison.”
They took the
elevator down. It opened up and in front of another security station,
another guard, not as inquisitive as Victor, just did a badge check
and a sign-in, and they turned left and walked down a long row of
server racks. The pizza box–sized computers were putting out a
humming heat that seemed counter-punctual to the dull, low-volume
roar of the cool air blowing on them from every direction. A young
server tech with a ponytail and red Real-Prez hat eyed Alison as they
squeezed by.
“When are we
getting those systems installed, Roy?”
Roy looked up
at Spence. “Um, probably tomorrow. I think.”
“Do you have
them?”
“Yeah, yes,
we –”
“I need them
up today. I want to start the SP-Script patch install before I leave
tonight.”
“Yeah. OK,
I’ll make sure it’s done.” Alison could see fear and anger
competing for attention on Roy’s face.
“Thanks,”
said Spence.
“I kind of
admire Roy,” said Spence as they passed through an intersection of
hallways. “He wears his Real-Prez hat, even though he knows Telly
switched teams and is pushing Cadez.
He’s a decent
tech, and knows it wouldn’t take much for me to get him canned. I
enjoy fucking with him.”
Alison smiled,
but something about how Spence was responding to all this worried
her. He didn’t seem the same guy he was at RDM, (Reigny Deigh
Media) she thought.
Through another
door, then into another section, this one fluorescently lit to the
point of enforced squinting. Mostly staffed with clean-cut young
techs including quite a few young women, all stuffed into
double-occupant cubicles.
“Spence!”
From across the office, the call shot right at them, only one word,
but wrapped in a Texas accent as thick as a 72-ounce steak. A
dark-haired, voluptuous woman, clearly in charge, flashed a smile, while
summoning them both with her finger.
“Maybelle,
this is Alison.” Spence’s attitude switched to serious on a dime.
“We worked together in Portland.” Maybelle was a bigboned white
woman in her forties and, as with almost everyone else in the underground cavern, was not wearing a virus mask.
“Another one
of them West Coast radicals, huh? Welcome, Alison, as you heard I am
Maybelle, and this is my department. We are building all of the
supporting structures, the garland of flowers to wrap
around the product we will be dropping in 27 days, if not sooner. Do
I have that right, Spence?”
“Yes. Ma’am!”
“I understand
you are here to help, Alison. You’re not from the government, are
you?” Maybelle gave Alison a mock serious look, then waved it all
away with a laugh. “That got Ronald Reagan a big
laugh once. Come on, I’ll meet ya the real brains of this bowl of
chili.”
*********
A dark-skinned,
slight, older man was seated at a conference table large enough for
about ten people all around. Of obvious south Asian origin, he was
wearing a red, white, and blue face mask and was looking
at a yellow pad filled with Devanagari script. In front of him were
three electroencephalographic “helmets” with embedded EEG
hygroscopic sponge electrodes, and a flat copper band that was
apparently meant to anchor the headset around the skull.
“Hey, Gopee,”
said Spence as he sat down. “Are you sure we are ready to present
the staff progress report?”
“Spence,”
Gopesh said. “Yes, but perhaps – it might be more illuminating to
present – a demo?” He smiled and waggled his head. “Maybelle
has wanted to know what we have accomplished, yes? Ms.
Aykroyd, what do you think? It is very exciting that you have joined
us.”
“Alright,
let’s not get too touchy-feely now,” said Maybelle. “A demo
instead of a status report, huh? Well why not?”
“Your supreme
patience up to now has been so appreciated by our team, Maybelle.”
Gopesh smiled and wobbled his head, again doing the “achha.”
“Since Ms. Aykroyd is joining us, I thought this would get
her up to speed much more quickly than a dry report, with facts,
figures, and projections, don’t you think?”
“Laying it on
thick today, aren’t we?”
Gopesh smiled,
and looked embarrassed. “Oh, no Maybelle,
not at all!”
Gopesh Gupta is
trying to say something, Alison thought, but what? How much does he
know about me?
“OK,”
continued Maybelle. “I like your style, Gopee! Let’s fire the
sucker up!”
Gopesh then
pulled a MacBook out of a brief-bag on the floor, plugged in a cable,
and started it. He fit the mesh-like helmets on Maybelle and Alison’s
heads, adjusted the electrodes carefully, and calibrated
each of the recessed, adjustable, touch-activated LED controllers.
Spence fitted his helmet on himself, but Gopesh checked it. Then
Gopesh placed his on his own head, and had Spence help him adjust it.
Each helmet was connected with a cat-5 jack from the back, and then
snaked into a five-slot Cisco switch, which had multiple connections
into a three-foot-high, two-footsquare black, monitor-less and
keyboard-less mid-sized computer.
“The wireless
function works, but the signal is much stronger when hard-wired,”
said Spence. “When we fine-tune it, we’ll go wireless,
eventually.”
“If not
sooner – right, boys?”
Alison watched
Spence nod and “yes ma’am” her. She noticed the MacBook was
consoled in with a Linux Bash shell.
“Excuse me, I
need to ensure the connections are all properly responding.” Gopesh
sat back away from the table and for almost five minutes was intently
typing on his laptop, which he pulled up on his lap.
No one spoke.
“OK, this
first demo expresses how Americans, as a people, can overcome
anything, and that we need to unite behind a strong leader, who will
bring us out of our current troubles. There will be images that
go with this – patriotic images of heroes, family, comradeship –
all martial, masculine, uplifting, positive. It is perhaps crude, and
of course the political team will need to redesign some of it. This
is a mockup of a fictional TV awards show, with a C2B broadcast
simultaneously tracking in, which matches the message. As you are
transmitted the mental imagery, please notice how the impact is
enhanced by the emotions projected into your head. Again, focus on
the technique, not the message. This is only a
demo of capabilities.”
Gopesh turned
off the lights with a handheld controller, and it became pitch-dark. “Are you all
ready? Relax, take a deep breath. Here we go.”
Images began to flood Alison's head – waving wheat, mountains, the
ocean, and a fresh, outdoor smell, with a hint of horse shit? There
was no sound – but what I am hearing, thought Alison. It was almost
a low, deep humming. How is he doing this?
A click, almost
a grinding...
Alison, this Gopesh. genie loose. Tech flawed dirty seizures psychotic
episodes braindumps I fix, do it all. Just you
video0audio0brain00telio Cadez braindumps hopeless toxic
schizophrenia sick
Reading Question mark Question mark
tap left
pinkie once on table
Alison
tapped her pinkie on the table once, as though she were impatient.
Reading
reading
Brain dump
data big space small C2B broadcast simple short data small Gopesh
slowing down, inserting sabotage Must not allow them C2B technology
stalling
Trust
Stromborn not not
Trust you
question mark question mark
Understand
question mark tap left forefinger
Alison tapped
only you
again She
tapped good
Echoes in
Spence Maybelle of Lysergic alkaloid like intoxication elevated
endorphins uplift time-released match telio
all feeling
no content
you get
content slow project Spence speeding.
Stop Cadez No
Natural Fungus stop Cadez
Delete
SwiftPad everywhere Natural Fungus Cadez trouble agents sent stop
integration C2B Natural Fungus Cadez control mania.
Delete
SwiftPad
lose Spence
No Script C2B SwiftPad
Portland
control C2BTube transport C2B flawed SP-Script
SwiftPad
Future bad
People
Desperate normal auto C2B lies normal hero
Sheeps graze
wolf feasts.
Suddenly, a
feeling of immense relief rushed over Alison, the scenes of nature
returned, then receded, and she began to regain control of her
thoughts. She looked and Gopesh was narrating the re-entry, in his
modest sing-song voice, soothingly addressing his remarks to
Maybelle.
Maybelle and
Spence acted stoned and dreamy, with a sense of amazement.
“That was
really – something!” Maybelle started to remove her headset, then
stopped, as if the effort was overwhelming. “I felt a surge of
patriotism!”
“We will
intersperse short Seed-a-Bee blips that, while slow and clunky to
access even with the newest, most expensive C2B boxes, still should
be quite impressive.”
“Have we
overcome the problem of some receivers getting headaches?”
Gopesh shook
his head, perhaps in the negative; it wasn’t clear.
Maybelle put
her hand on her head, and looked groggy.
“Are you OK?”
Spence got up and looked hard at Gopesh.
“Gopee, did
you soften the D channel like we talked about?”
“Yes, I did,
Spence, it was a very good idea, very good.”
“I am all
right,” said Maybelle. “I just, ohhh. Maybe we still need to work
on it some more. But – I received it. Yes. It was amazing. Clear as
a bell, at least, at first. IT took over my mind! ” She took a deep
breath and smiled. “I’m OK. Continue.”
“We are also
experiencing some difficulties with S-Plogging,” said Spence. “I’ll
take a look at that and see if we can de-couple that channel.”
“We’ll need
to figure out how to combine them somehow,” said Gopesh. “SwiftPad
Central in Oregon is blocking most C2B uploads, claiming it is a
health and safety issue. So we need to provide proof that is fixed
quickly. We are working on that.”
“That is your
issue, Spence,” said Maybelle. “This is not ready. I understand
it is – Spence, are you feeling sick?”
“No. Well, a
little.”
“Alison?”
“I am – it
is like a mild hangover. I feel – carefree but not in a real good
way.” She looked at Gopesh, who would not make eye contact with
her.
“Yeah –
hear that, Gopesh? We need to fix that!”
“I am so
sorry, we will work to fix this.”
“Still, I
have to say I am impressed!” Maybelle stood up and regained her
composure. “Don’t get down, it ain’t all bad! I blame the
jamming! In spite of the jamming coming from the SwiftPad shits in Oregon.
Our revenue will remain strong, as long as we keep it light and
fluffy. Public political statements should remain muted until we can
properly control them, and direct them with precision.”
“And we need
more computing power, much more,” said Spence.
“Whatever you
need, just order it, I’ll sign for it.”
“Roy has
promised that another bay of pizza boxes will be mounted and online
by this afternoon,” said Spence.
Gopesh nodded.
He looked just an extra second longer than necessary at Alison.
“Sounds like
we are making progress,” said Maybelle.” Don’t worry about the
SwiftPad links. We have irons in the fire.” She smiled, but waved
away any questions as the other three looked at her.
“We should
have a 15-second ‘American pride’ broadcast ready to test with a
sample audience by the end of the week,” said Spence.
“Well, you
know what they say about work estimates,” said Gopesh.
“Double
it, and multiply by a fudge factor. But we will do our best.”
“What is the
fudge factor?”
“Much less
than the over-promise penalty,” said Gopesh. “But I think we can
have the overwhelming emotion ready to deliver at the end of your
candidate’s convention speech.”
“Candidate?
You mean Senator Cadez? It will be specific to him, won’t it?”
Gopesh smiled
and let his head wobble with what Maybelle took to mean yes.