THE SWIFTPAD EXTINCTION
CHAPTER 9
ALISON EXPERIENCES C2B (Computer to Brain) Transfer
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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.
“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.
