chapter 38
TEAM 3, YEAR: 2095
Time Remaining: 28 Days
Spencer tapped his foot anxiously while each director gave their report at the weekly directors’ meeting. In mere moments, he would be ambushing the man from whose brain the very project had come. Ian was highly respected not only in the office but in the scientific community as well, and Spencer had a sense he was going to learn firsthand what career suicide felt like. With every passing minute, crushing pressure cinched around his chest.
“Spencer,” called Ian from across the long, mahogany table. “How’s the testing going?”
Spencer cleared his throat. “I’ve run the Real Life Simulator and the testing scenarios you supplied and the results are positive.”
“Excellent! Good work, kid. You’re doing a bang-up job.” He smiled broadly around the room.
“But as I’ve mentioned to you, I have reservations about the validity of these results. I still firmly believe the scenarios being used for testing are not as comprehensive as they should be to prove beyond all doubt that the robots are safe.” Spencer was pleased to hear his voice sounded stronger and more authoritative than he felt.
Ian leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes in frustration. “Spencer, we’ve discussed this. The testing scenarios are perfectly…”
“Ian, I’m interested in the kid’s take on this. If he thinks there’s a problem with the way we test, I’d like to hear his thoughts on it,” said the director of Production Planning. “I think we can all agree this entire endeavour has been founded on trial and error. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out there were aspects of the project that need a second look.”
“Uh, thank you. Well,” Spencer cleared his throat, “my concern is that the tests aren’t aggressive enough. I think that we need to push these personalities past their breaking point to see what kind of pressure the robots will be able to tolerate and, when they do finally break, observe their reactions.”
“I think that makes good sense,” agreed Delaney.
“I don’t,” said another director. “I think that might be a little paranoid, don’t you, Spencer? None of these robots are going to be put in any real position of power or consequence.”
“We don’t really know that, do we? Especially in the long term. How do we know what people intend for them once the pilot project is over? Beyond that, we don’t know what situations they’re going to encounter the other sixteen hours a day when they’re not working.”
The doubting director rebutted. “People make decisions every day about their behaviour, and while it’s not necessarily always about engaging in criminal activity, taking bribes or what have you, they still choose to make the right decision. We don’t do psych evaluations on everyone in society.”
“Precisely!” shouted Ian. “This is exactly the point I made in previous discussions with Spencer. He seems to have a very hard time following orders. It’s bad enough he went behind my back and modified the original questionnaire the donors filled out.” Ian looked at Spencer. “Sometimes it seems like you’re working against us. Like you’re hoping this project will fail.”
“Oh Ian, shut it,” Delaney cut in. “That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Spencer has been kind enough to help us out when we were in a jam losing Jim, at a great personal cost to him. He works twelve to fourteen hours most days, and he’s probably more dedicated to his work here than anyone in this room. Don’t fault him for being thorough and paying attention to the details. Details I’d say you missed, from looking at these results.”
Delaney slid Spencer’s report forcefully across the table to Ian, opened to a page marked with big red circles. Ian slammed his hand down on the report, catching it before it slid off the table and onto his lap. “Look at that data. Personality number seventeen doesn’t show any capacity for anger. Are you kidding me? Are you telling me this person has never gotten mad, ever? Everyone’s got their breaking point. What happens when number seventeen finally loses it?” The room fell silent. Delaney’s opinion carried a lot of weight, and rarely did she voice it so vehemently. “Spencer, how long would it take you to test more accurately?”
“Just over two weeks to develop the new scenarios and program them into the RLS. In fact, I’ve already got some ideas for the modifications I think should be made. After that, probably another week to the testing and data processing time…”
“We don’t have that kind of time in the budget,” barked Ian. He looked around the table for supporters.
“I know it’s a bit of an inconvenience, but I think accurate and thorough testing will ensure the public’s safety, plus, it will be a selling point to the naysayers when the pilot project starts. I know I’ll come in on time,” said Spencer thinking, I have to or Operation TimeShift is a failure.
The noise level in the room rose exponentially as everyone voiced their opinions simultaneously. From what Spencer could make out, the biggest concern was that Spencer’s estimation of completion seemed too optimistic. They worried he would not get the modifications done in time for the launch. Ian put it to a vote and Spencer was outvoted, seven to four.
Time Remaining: 20 Days
Spencer knew that regardless of the results of the directors’ meeting, he would continue developing his own set of testing scenarios on the side; however, finding time to work on them proved difficult. Following the director’s meeting, Ian kept Spencer busy by assigning countless tasks in addition to his already heavy workload as passive aggressive punishment for sticking his nose where Ian felt it had no business. As a result, he was starting to fall dangerously behind schedule.
Spencer spent his days in his office doing the work that Ian expected him to do. The futility of it frustrated him knowing it was all going to be thrown away in the end. He maintained a compliant and agreeable front as Ian had taken to popping into his office to make sure Spencer stayed on task.
His evenings were a different story. Ian never set foot in the office after hours, so Spencer spent hour after hour, evening after evening of blissful, Ian-free time working on the new testing scenarios in the lab. After a week of working well past midnight, he had become used to the eerie feeling of the empty building and could recite the schedule for every maintenance robot by memory.
Kalen entered the Neural Programming lab and looked over Spencer’s shoulder. As usual, his attention was deeply engrossed in his CI screen and she watched as different documents and programs flashed across the screen. Words appeared faster than she could follow. She massaged his shoulders gently and he jumped, taken by surprise at her presence.
“What are you working on tonight, Spence?”
Words stopped appearing and Spencer leaned back in his chair. “Tonight, I am working on situational tests forty-one through forty-seven, if I’m lucky.” He turned in his chair, pulled her into his lap and spun again to face the screen. “I’m going to add a dash of danger, a pinch of blind rage and a dollop or two of blackmail.”
“Ooooh, sounds like a tasty plot,” she laughed. “I take it it’s going to be another late night?”
“Yeah.” Spencer nodded. “It’s going to be like this every night until the presentation to the board.”
She kissed the top of his head. “What can I do?”
“You’ve done so much already. I can’t ask you to do anything else.”
“You’re not imposing.” She slid off his lap at the sound of voices coming down the hall. “Plus, I’ve enlisted some help.”
At that moment, Erik and Lisa joined them in the lab. “Okay, none of that schmoopy, kissy-face stuff in here or I’ll leave right now,” said Erik, punching Spencer in the arm as he walked by.
“What are you guys doing here?” Spencer asked.
“We’re here to help,” said Lisa. “Don’t you remember? We volunteered to help you ages ago. Now that you’ve got some scenarios hammered out, we can start programming them into the Real Life Simulator while you finish up the re
st.”
Spencer was stunned. He did not know whether to kick them all out or hug them. “You can’t risk your jobs for me. If Ian finds out that I’m going against his orders again, he’s going to kick me to the curb. He’ll do the same to you if he finds out you’re involved.”
“Spencer, we see what you’re going through, and we all agreed that what Ian has proposed for testing is laughable. If I get fired for trying to make sure the public is protected, well, that’ll be just what I tell the media when I call them,” said Lisa.
“Seriously, Spence, we’ve all got your back,” said Erik.
Spencer beamed, lost for words.
A series of beeps alerted Kalen’s attention to the door as a pizza delivery robot floated into the room. “Perfect timing. The pizza is here.” Kalen paid the bot and set the pizza boxes on one of the empty workbenches.
“I’ll get some drinks from the cafeteria,” said Erik. He wore a sly grin as he walked toward the door. “I’ve reprogrammed the drink machine to give me free drinks whenever it sees my Visa key.”
Lisa rolled her eyes and followed Erik. “I’ll get some napkins.”
Spencer bear-hugged Kalen as she opened up the pizza boxes. He buried his face in her hair. “I love you so much. Thank you for this. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
Kalen patted him on the arm and propped open the last box. “I love you, too, Spence.”
Spencer took her by the hand, spun her into his arms and caressed her cheek as he fell into her warm gaze. He shuddered at how lucky he felt and pulled her into a passionate kiss.
The group ate and talked about Spencer’s plan. Spencer knew they had their work cut out for them, but with four brains instead of one, he would soon be in a much better position.
Erik pulled the cheese out of his uneaten pizza crust, popped it in his mouth and tossed the hollow strip of bread back into the box. “So Spence, explain to me how Ian doesn’t know that you’re doing this work behind his back? How is it possible that he doesn’t see all of this on the Nexus? He’s watching what you do like a hawk. These files are going to be huge. They’re going to be found by IT in an instant.”
Spencer looked at his co-workers with a sheepish grin. “I had a server put together.”
“A server, like from 2008? Like a physical computer? That’s so old school. My God, it’s so simple it’s ridiculous.” Erik laughed at the absurd simplicity. “But that raises way more questions than it answers. Question one: Where did you find one?”
“It’s amazing what you can find in antique stores if you know where to look.”
“Question two: How did you make something that old and junky powerful enough to run the Real Life Simulator and big enough to store the massive file sizes of the Personality Apps?”
Spencer laughed. “I know they don’t look it, and I’ll never tell them this, but my brothers are pretty damn smart. They retrofitted some silicone gel drives, added the biggest RAM farm I’ve ever seen and beefed up the power supply. A couple tweaks here and there made it able to communicate with CIs and that’s about it really.”
“Last question. Where is it? I gotta see this thing.”
Spencer smiled, proud of the twin’s ingenuity. “It’s in the trunk of my car.” Three sets of eyes stared at him, speechless. “It’s quite convenient really. It’s always near me, it vents out the bottom so I don’t have to worry about the machine overheating. It flies, so I don’t have to worry about splashing through puddles.”
Kalen failed to find this nearly as amusing as Erik and Lisa. “Spence, what happens if something happens to your car or someone finds out? I mean, there must be something here that detects it? If your CI can detect it, surely there is a device in this building that can see it.”
“The entire set up is a Level A1-A Ghost, so it’s undetectable to even the nerdiest of nerds and their toys. There are redundant drives within the server, so if one fails, I’ll still have a backup.”
Lisa laughed. “Spence, you could give any nerd a run for their money when it comes to nerdiness.”
“Hmm, Spence?” Kalen bit her lip. “How did the twins manage that level of security? We don’t even use that here. That’s international defence op stuff.”
Spencer laughed. “Please, have you met my brothers? This isn’t their first rodeo. Asher got suspended in high school for a week after hiding the school’s entire portion of the Nexus. They escorted him off the property before realizing they needed him to fix it, so they went a week without it. It was absolute chaos and he was a hero for years.”
“So what do you need us to do?” asked Lisa, as she folded up the pizza boxes and stuffed them into the garbage bot.
Although Spencer knew exactly what scenarios would cause the robots to fail, he chose a well-rounded buffet of situations that would test all aspects of the personalities. If he only wanted to prove he was right, he could choose as few as five scenarios for that. The key to salvaging the AEI Project lay in identifying and resolving all of the issues before the timeshift.
“I’ve got just over forty tests already written. Kalen, Lisa, you guys could start getting those programmed into the RLS, that would be amazing. Erik, Ian’s been on my back about some risk management stuff, if you can believe that.”
“Hey, no worries,” said Erik, powering up his CI. “But seriously, when Jim gets back, you tell him that I’m expecting a big fat bonus.”
Time Remaining: 19 Days
Unable to help relieve Spencer’s workload, the twins could only watch as Spencer burned out like a spent firework. To help, they did whatever they could to make his life easier. When they asked him what they could do for him, Spencer’s only reply was laundry. The twins’ solution had been to haul it all to the laundromat.
Logan strode into the Neural Programming lab at the end of the day to find Spencer and Kalen glued to their CIs. “Hey, Spence. How’s it going?” Getting no response, he punched his brother lovingly on the shoulder. He gave Kalen’s ponytail a quick tug as he walked past them and sat in an empty chair. “How’s it going, Ball ’n’ Chain?”
“Pretty good, Devil’s Spawn,” she shot back. Unable to keep a straight face, she smiled.
Spencer’s concentration remained unbroken. “Hey,” he mumbled.
“I just thought I’d pop by and let you know that Your Highness’ laundry will be picked up by thy lowly serfs and delivered to thine palace. Forthwith, it will be hung in thy royal closet before Your Greatness gets home for the evening.”
Spencer’s shoulders fell as his concentration broke and he laughed. He turned in his chair to face his brother and Kalen. “Thanks, Loge, I appreciate your help. How’s Delaney doing?”
Logan smiled at the mention of her name. “She’s good. In fact, she’s the other lowly serf of which I spoke.”
“Wow, taking your date to the laundromat. You really know how to show a girl a good time,” said Kalen. Spencer loved that she could hold her own with the twins.
“Well, if you consider picking up my brother’s laundry and stocking his dwelling with food, booze and clean clothes a hot date, then, yes.”
“Who are you kidding?” chuckled Spencer. “You and Asher are going to eat half of it anyways.”
Logan chuckled as he got up to leave. As he walked past Spencer, he patted his younger brother on the back. “You’re doing great, Grayson. Keep up the good work. See ya, peeps.”
Spencer looked at Kalen. “Well, I’ll be damned. I think that might have been a compliment.”
Logan juggled Spencer’s dry cleaning and several grocery bags as he dug through his pockets for his keys. A can of soup fell to the floor and the remaining items shifted around in the bag. A carton of eggs hung perilously over the edge of the bag.
Delaney laughed. “Sometimes you’re so hopeless.” She set down the bags she carried and relieved Logan of his.
“This is why I need you, Laney.” He slid his key in the lock and kissed her forehead. “I need someone to look after
me.” He took the bags of groceries from Delaney and set them down on the kitchen counter. He could hear her talking as she toured Spencer’s condo. Unable to find the bedroom on the main floor, she spotted the spiral staircase and carried the dry cleaning upstairs. Finding Spencer’s room, she laid the bags neatly on the bed and returned to the kitchen.
“Spencer’s got a fabulous place. It’s huge and so clean. You could take some notes here, Grayson.” Delaney opened the balcony door and stepped out. She took in the sunset as it bathed the city in rich, golden light. “Look at this view.” She pulled the long sleeves of her sweater over her hands and leaned on the railing. Her hair blew in the late summer breeze. Logan wrapped his arms around her, nuzzled his face into her shoulder and kissed the base of her neck. He felt her shiver. He pulled the collar of her shirt away to reveal more skin and kissed it.
“Logan! We’re in public.” She pulled his hand away and interlocked her fingers with his. “And we’re at your brother’s. Behave yourself.”
“You know it drives me wild when you tell me what to do.”
Delaney walked back into the living room and Logan, like a lovesick puppy, followed her inside. She closed the door and returned to the kitchen. “We’ve got a job to do here, or have you forgotten?”
Logan playfully grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back to him. He caught her elegantly, like a seasoned ballroom dancer and dipped her. “Baby, when I’m with you, I don’t even know what day it is, let alone what I’m doing.”
“Let me remind you then,” she laughed, trying but unable to conjure a serious tone. “You’re putting groceries away.”
Logan pulled Delaney upright again and she returned to the kitchen. She pulled the milk, cheese and yogurt out of the nearest bag and put them in the fridge. Logan rifled through the rest of the paper bags and found nothing that would go bad if left on the counter for an hour. He took a bag of apples out of her hand. She was about to protest his counterproductive behaviour, but he placed his finger on her lips. The look in his eyes needed no explanation. He swept her off her feet, carried her up the spiral stairs to the bedroom and tossed her gently onto Spencer’s bed. The bag of the dry cleaning crinkled in protest as she landed on it.
“Logan!” she giggled. “The dry cleaning!”
He bent over her and kissed her passionately. Delaney grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. She ran her hands across his chest, down his torso and undid his belt buckle.
Logan knelt beside her on the bed and feverishly fumbled with the buttons of his white shirt. He abandoned the buttons, pulled the shirt over his head and got stuck.
“You look like you’ve been beheaded,” Delaney laughed.
Trapped inside his poly-cotton prison, Logan managed to undo another button and ripped the shirt off. A button flew off and it ricocheted off the base of a lamp and came to a stop somewhere behind the dresser. Able to see again, he watched Delaney seductively undo her shirt.
“Oh my God,” he mouthed.
Delaney enjoyed teasing him and took her time. Seeing Logan half naked, or better yet, fully naked, had become one of her favourite pastimes.
With a grin, Logan pounced on top of her and the dry cleaning bag crinkled again as Delaney squealed with laughter.
“Logan, the dry cleaning!” She tried to lift herself off the clothes and pull them out from under her.
“Fuck the dry cleaning.” Logan scooped her up and tossed the bag of freshly cleaned clothes to the floor.
Logan and Delaney lay in Spencer’s bed staring at the ceiling.
“This is kind of creepy,” she said after a moment.
“What’s creepy?” he asked dreamily. He ran the tips of his fingers down her forearm.
“We’re in your brother’s bed.”
Logan’s eyes looked away from her arm and around the room. “Ewww. You’re right! ”
“And this is where him and Kalen…” Delaney laughed.
Logan sang loudly as he covered his ears and jumped off the bed like it was contaminated. “Laney, that’s sick. I’m going to put the groceries away.” He grabbed his pants lying half on the chair and half on the floor and hopped toward the door fighting to get his second leg in.
“I’ll hang up this poor, sad dry cleaning,” she shouted after him as she picked up the bags heaped on the floor.
Delaney took the bag of undies and socks and set it on top of the wooden dresser. She opened the top drawer, untied the bag of neatly folded socks and boxers then tied it again. She suspected Spencer would be more grateful if she left them for him to sort through. Logan could care less who rifled through his laundry, clean or dirty, but Spencer was more private than either of the twins and would probably be mortified if he knew she had sorted through his delicates. As she closed the drawer, something illuminated caught her eye and she opened the drawer again. The largest watch she had ever seen lay atop a pile of neatly folded socks. She felt guilty for looking but curiosity overtook her, and Delaney removed the watch to get a better look. That’s a gargantuan watch, she thought. Her eyes scanned the different time displays. It’s weird that there are so many different sets of times. He must use it for travelling. She set the watch back on the sock pile and slid the drawer shut.
After stripping the bed and remaking it with fresh sheets she found in the linen closet, she picked up the last bunch of dry cleaning and removed the protective bag. She inspected the garments and saw that some of the shirts had become slightly wrinkled, which she hoped would fall out after a little time in the closet. She slid the closet doors open, and was left speechless at the organization of Spencer’s closet. She stepped inside and looked around. Work clothes hung on one side and casual clothes on the other, organized by colour from lightest to darkest. On the back wall, ties, belts and bags hung above row after row of shoes. She hung the clean clothes in what she hoped were their respective locations.
After she had finished, she stood back to again admire the organizational genius of the closet when a backpack sitting on the floor caught her eye. It was the only item out of place. She picked it up and looked around the closet for its place. If I was Spencer, where would I put this? She looked at the backpack again and thought it looked familiar. She flipped it over in her hands and saw the number thirty-two embroidered in red at the bottom right corner of the pack. She thought back to the watch in the drawer. With the realization of what she was holding in her hand, her stomach sank like a stone tossed into an icy lake. She opened up the front flap of the pack knowing full well what she would find, and saw the control interface. Her eyes locked on the blinking red light on the corner of the control interface that indicated the pack was currently deployed. She saw the number five in the Dimension Number field. Her mind reeled. She heard Logan’s footsteps come toward the stairs. She zipped the pack up, tossed it hastily back in the closet and slid the frosted glass doors shut. Logan’s footsteps continued past the stairs and into the bathroom. She opened the dresser drawer again and picked up the watch. Current time: February 7, 2098? What the hell is this? she wondered.
Delaney fought the urge to run downstairs and confront Logan with what she had found. Still holding the watch in her shaking hands, she sat down on the bed. Her mind raced through scenario after scenario, desperate to come up with a logical hypothesis. Okay, Laney, there’s obviously a legitimate reason for this. People who use time travel do it for only a few reasons. Usually exploration or research. But Spencer clearly isn’t here for any of those reasons. There is nothing here in his home that indicates he would need to come back in time. At work, he’s just working on the project. Nothing is out of the ordinary with him. Dating Kalen is new, but I doubt he went back in time for a date. The only thing the guy does is work… She reviewed her logic again and again to see if she missed something. Maybe he’s on an operation of some kind? But he’s Research, not Defence. Only Defence people go on operations—unless a specific skill set was needed.
Her memory of Logan running into her in the
hallway and spilling her coffee on her dress popped into her mind. She remembered looking at him, thinking that he looked different somehow. Older. She remembered thinking at the rate he was aging he was going to look like he was fifty when he was forty. Logan must be helping him. And then Asher must be too. Who else? Kalen? Jim? Regardless of the who, the why still stumped her. And the answer lay with Spencer. She thought about how he had been killing himself lately over testing, how he had been so adamant about how not enough testing was being done. Testing, testing, testing is all he’s been able to talk about for months. Something must go wrong with the robots; something that only he could fix or could be fixed with more testing? The robots must malfunction in some way. That can be the only reason Spencer would specifically be sent on a Defence op; only he could assimilate into his own life and manipulate the project. This raised more questions than it brought answers, like, where were the present versions of the brothers? The laws that he and whoever else were breaking were numerous and very grave. She could not figure out what could have gone so wrong that this drastic of an operation would be warranted. She heard Logan walk back into the kitchen.
“How’s it going up there, Gorgeous?” yelled Logan.
“Good,” she called back, fighting to keep her voice level. “Some of these shirts are really wrinkled; I’m trying to fix them.” She heard him turn on the TV. A wave of nausea flooded over her at the sound of his voice. If this Logan has come back with Spencer, then this isn’t the Logan I know. I mean it is Logan, but it’s a different Logan. The absurdity of the situation sank in. Anger and sadness tore at her insides. She forced herself to remove her emotions and think about the situation logically. If he’s on an op as complicated and as illegal as this appears to be, it would have to be a matter of national security. She thought about how she would handle this if the roles were reversed. If she was in his position, she knew that she would never say anything to anyone, even a significant other. This rationalization cooled her anger and the void it left filled with hurt, betrayal and loss. Where was the present-day Logan? Had he been sent to the future? What happens when he comes back? Wherever he was, he probably had no clue they were dating, and chances were good he would never have the same feelings for her. Would she even want him to? Her mind felt like a spoon being bent telepathically.
She looked at the watch again and sighed heavily. Their relationship had an expiry date, and according to the numbers she saw counting down on the watch, it had less than three weeks left.