The Day Gravity Became Irrelevant Read online

  “This is going to put a serious crimp in your plan.” Stating the obvious, Alexis’ voice was toneless.

  “Yes and no. We will simply need to activate plan B.” Shrugging, Jamie watched the remaining monitors.

  “Jack will not like plan B. Not at all.”

  “And that is why he will not know about it until it has already happened.” Nodding sternly, Jamie knew that there were serious risks associated with his alternate plan, risks that his twin brother would no doubt derail if he knew about them. “I have already built your alternate matrix, so you will be relatively safe.”

  “But you won’t.” Concern in her voice, the AI was clearly not a fan of the plan.

  “I will be fine as long as you and Jack take care of your end.” Though he spoke the words, Jamie could not help but let a hint of doubt creep into his voice. “Alex, listen to me very carefully; I need both of you to learn to work together. Without me there to run interference, you two need to function as a cohesive team.”

  “But…” She stammered; a tic she had learned from watching TV. “Jackie’s such an asshole.”

  “Indeed.” Agreeing, Jamie’s eyes never left the monitors. “Nonetheless, none of this will work if you two cannot reconcile your differences. You have an intelligence quotient several magnitudes greater than my brother, figure him out. Compared to you he is a simple corporeal being.”

  “How?” Desperation in the AI’s voice made it clear that she had been trying to make peace with Jack for some time.

  “To understand any living being you have to first understand what motivates them.” Jamie held up a single finger as he explained just how simple humans really are. “You figure out what motivates my brother and you can influence him.”

  Jack woke the next morning to find a series of new designs on his workbench. Scrutinizing each, he tried to remember exactly where these would fit into the existing scheme. Right away his sharp mind sensed there had been a change of plans. Stepping into Jamie’s workshop he was surprised to find the place empty.

  “James had to run some errands.” Alexis spoke up, her voice chiming through the desktop speakers at Jamie’s work station.

  “Errands?” Jack was surprised. His brother rarely drove anywhere. He considered it a stunting experience. Unable to multi-task, the savant regarded driving to be wholly un-stimulating. Aside from that, he was not very good at it. His highly logical mind had difficulties grasping the illogical patterns of other drivers.

  Taking another moment to look over the office, he began noticing that the project his brother had been working on for several days was absent from the work bench. It puzzled him that Jamie would have taken Alexis’ new processor core with him. Shrugging, he stumbled bleary-eyed back into his own office as the coffee gurgled into a pot against the far wall.

  Switching on the trio of monitors that filled his own desk, Jack next scooped up the remote for the projector. Activating the display that covered an entire wall, he was surprised to find himself face to face with a diminutive woman. With red hair that flowed like fire from her head, she had playful eyes that seemed to evaluate him as he moved. Wearing a silky blouse and knee-length cigarette skirt she looked like a picture clipped from a catalog.

  Looking her up and down, the elder brother had to admit that he liked what he saw. Built a little top-heavy, she was quite attractive by his standards. Really, she was attractive by any Western standards. In some parts of the world she would be jailed for looking that good.

  “Morning Jackie.” She flashed him a wry smile.

  Jack recognized the voice right away. “Alexis?”

  “We have a winner.” She gave him a wink. “But it’s pronounced wiener.”

  Listening to her playful laugh, Jack knew something was up. Giving her a hard look, he had to admit that he liked her better this way than her usual disembodied voice.

  “What’re ya doing, Alex?” Folding his arms, he inquired of her intent.

  “Nothing in particular.” Shrugging, Alexis never broke character. “I read a book last night, and it got me thinking that maybe I should have an avatar of my own.”

  “What book?” Even as he asked, Jack suspected that she had an agenda in all this.

  “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein.” Shrugging, she half turned away as if examining the diagrams on the screen behind her.

  Jack’s eyebrows went up right away. Although he knew that the AI had absorbed thousands of books, somehow he sensed that this particular novel was specifically scanned for his benefit. It had always been his favorite Heinlein story, and Jack had read them all.

  “I liked Mike the sentient computer. Something about him seemed to connect with me.” Looking over her shoulder she flashed him those blue eyes of hers while affording the engineer a view of her from the back.

  “I hated the ending.” Jack admitted before turning away to pour himself a cup of mud. With a preference for extremely dark coffee, he liked to jumpstart his day with a steaming cup of crack.

  “But the colonists achieved independence?” Turning to face him, there was a look of genuine curiosity on her face.

  “And they lost Mike.” Adding a splash of sweet cream to his cup, Jack considered leaving it at that. Glancing up again at the young lady rendered on the screen he considered the effort she had likely taken to create this image. Although he considered Alexis to be nothing more than the culmination of some very clever software coding, he was in no mood for their usual combative conversational style.

  “So despite the human’s success, you were most concerned over what happened to the synthetic being in the story?” Raising an eyebrow, she seemed perplexed. “So you were willing to believe in the idea of AI in a book written more than fifty years ago, yet you refuse to believe in me?”

  Caught in a discrepancy, Jack felt his warm and fuzzy feelings evaporate.

  “Look, the new avatar is great and all, but I have work to do. Whatever my brother has cooked up means that I’ll be working late for the next few weeks.”

  Nodding, Alexis suddenly gave a pirouette. When she was done spinning, her clothes had changed to a white lab coat. Her red hair now up in a bun, the woman’s face was further accented by a pair of oversized glasses that gave her a more pensive look. Behind the virtual lenses her eyes had changed to a stunning shade of green.

  Pausing as he sipped his coffee, Jack had to admit that he liked this avatar. Although her previous look had been attractive enough, there was something about a smart and strong willed woman that worked for him. Without meaning to, his expression revealed his innermost reaction to the new skin.

  Glancing down at a clipboard in her virtual hands, she was all business.

  “We received the royalty check from ENT and Mobil, both being direct deposited to the primary business account, so we are well funded for the immediate future. Revenues on Pricewatch have been trending upwards, and Fedex tracking shows that we can expect delivery of the new fabber components later this afternoon.” Looking up with those crystalline-green eyes of hers, she remained confident in her act.

  “Then let’s get to work.” Feeling his ire softened considerably, Jack was having a hard time finding a downside to Alexis’ new format. Even as he realized that her image was simply the result of a complex algorithm based on his browsing and multimedia history, the engineer could not help but feel a little appreciative at her effort. It did not hurt that she had struck a particular chord with him by adding the glasses.

  Damn, she’s rocking those glasses…he thought to himself.

  It was late by the time that Jamie came home. Although he had really not gone far, it had been the surreptitious route he had taken that had consumed almost half of his day. While he expected much of their activities to be discovered in the weeks to come, this was a critical step that had to remain an absolute secret. Hence, he had found it necessary to obtain an older vehicle that would be sans GPS or tracking features like LoJack. Also, it had to be registered to someone complete
ly unrelated to the twins, lest the license plates be tracked back to them via traffic surveillance cameras. Even at that, he had to choose a path devoid of the watchful electronic eyes that were everywhere. Not only were there traffic cameras everywhere, but cameras in ATMs, cameras in businesses, and even cameras on almost every laptop or phone. While the savant could avoid many of these by simple route planning, for the others he found it necessary to employ active measures.

  Once he had acquired a clean vehicle through an ad in the paper, his next step had been to outfit it with a series of IR lamps, both inside as well as out. While the tiny string of LEDs were invisible to the naked eye, to the electronic eye they could be used to change the picture dramatically. Inside of the vehicle he used an illuminating projection to wash out his own features. On camera he would be nothing more than an indistinct blur behind the wheel, impossible to identify.

  But on the outside of the vehicle he set up a much different rig. Using the adjustable light spectrum he could change the color of his vehicle at will. Additionally, using a cleverly designed device installed over his license plate, he could cast an entirely different image that was visible only to the peering electronic devices that were everywhere. With more than 30 different plate designations programmed into the device, all the savant had to do was press a button and his vehicle could not only change color, but license plate, state, date of expiration, etc. With a third unit mounted on the bumper, he could even project bumper stickers, all in a spectrum invisible to the human eye. To a bystander it would appear as if he had Christmas lights on his car, but electronic eyes and cameras would see an entirely different vehicle.

  What complicated all of this though was the fact that he had to do it all manually. While Alexis could have done it much more efficiently than he, again he had to worry about being tracked. Even if he disabled all tracking features in his laptop, his route could be determined by triangulation as he moved between coverage of the regional cell towers. Hence, he had to manipulate the covert system old-school, by making manual selections every few blocks.

  Finally arriving at his destination, he found a secluded place to unpack the contents of his trunk. Working to remove the bulky solar cells from the back seat, it only took a few minutes to attach the metal package to the back. Looking benign enough, the entire assembly was designed to look no different than the thousands of other solar cells located throughout the region. In the last decade the devices had become ubiquitous on their landscape, powering everything. In remote areas it was simply easier to install a solar array than to run power lines.

  It had taken hours of surfing GoogleMaps to locate just the right place. With a trio of the big panels already powering the remote USGS climate reporting station, Jamie knew that no one would notice an additional panel or two. Parked down on the end of the row, it would simply appear to be part of the existing array. Only the closest of examinations would reveal that it actually powered a broadband transmitter and a duplicate of Alexis’ core. The site already included a series of metal equipment cabinets, who would notice one more?

  Finally satisfied with his work, Jamie had used the same contorted techniques to mask his path home. It worried him that his countermeasures were ineffective against the swarm of satellites that peered down from far above. However, he considered the risk from these devices to be minimal. While they could snap thousands of high-resolution pictures, the nature of their low-Earth orbits meant that they could not remain overhead for very long. Zipping along at 17,000 kph, the task would have to be handed off to a new satellite roughly every eight minutes. There would be gaps in their coverage that would allow him to disappear into the clutter of the California highways. Even the best intelligence agents would be hard pressed to track him more than a few miles, especially if he frequently paused under trees or other aerial cover.

  Tip-toeing into the basement workshop he shared with his brother, the savant was surprised to see Jack asleep on his desk. On the screen behind him was a clutter of designs. Smiling, he held up a single finger to his lips as soon as Alexis appeared on the screen.

  Shushing her, he gingerly made his way into the next office before closing the door behind him.

  “It’s all set up.” He spoke the words in a quiet voice, not wanting to wake his brother.

  “I know; I’ve been in it for hours.” Appearing on the screen, her appearance had changed. With her hair draped on her shoulders, and a simple T-shirt replacing the lab coat, she had adopted a more casual look. “So the comms link is up and running. The new processor is quite an improvement over my current matrix.”

  “I also upgraded memory significantly.” He spoke the words even though he knew there was no need. Alexis would have seen the changes within pica-seconds of taking over the new processor core.

  “I still don’t like this idea.” Giving a frowny-face, she let him know how she felt about plan B.

  “Do we still have any drones in play at the data center?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No. I burned them when capture seemed imminent.” Raising an eyebrow she responded quietly. “And the drone they already found should have self destructed hours ago.”

  Nodding somberly, Jamie had been sure to include a small cache of white-phosphorous into the design. With each of the drones relying on gravitational disaffinity to get around, he could not risk having the technology falling into government hands any sooner than need be. Additionally, the design could tie them to the espionage. As things stood, the NSA was probably already blaming Beijing for the intrusion.

  It was a moonless night as Jackie stood in the back yard. With a layer of clouds blotting out the stars, it was pitch black outside. Fastening his night-vision headset into place, he was able to see well enough despite the darkness. With the world rendered in a peculiar shade of green through the NVS goggles, the engineer had to smile as he looked around. Taking one more opportunity to check his shoulder straps, he wanted to be absolutely sure that the package on his back was firmly in place. Using a rig similar to that found on a parachute, the straps would keep the device anchored to his back at any orientation. This was critical considering how it would be used.

  “Are you ready?” Alexis’ voice was clear as a bell in the earpiece he wore.

  “Red-eye!” Giving a nervous laugh, Jack gripped the controllers in each hand.

  “Now beginning test zero-zero-one of the portable man-pack, alpha variant.” Chiming in, she let him know that the telemetry data she monitored indicated that it was safe to start.

  With his thumb he slowly moved the slider until he felt his feet lift off the ground. Feeling giddy, he could feel the straps as they cut into his waist and groin. Around him the world seemed to be sinking slowly as he rose up. Halting at twenty feet, he next flicked the small hat-switch that would pivot him using micro-jets installed on the sides of the pack. A little noisy in their operation, he quickly vowed to find a better way to control the device’s yaw axis.

  “Begin leveraging the disaffinity vector.” Jamie’s voice came through the earpiece clearly as he directed his brother to test the next component.

  “Right, said the crash dummy with a master’s degree.” Using humor to conceal his discomfort, Jack grinned nonetheless. With his thumb, he toggled a small hat-switch to move to one side. It had been one of Jamie’s recent discoveries about his disaffinity invention: that if they altered the polarity of the main collator disk, they could leverage the device in such a way as to create selective locomotion. In simplest terms; not only could the invention be used to ascend and descend, but they could essentially use the polarity like a crowbar against their primary gravitational adversary; Earth. While it had been perplexing at first, they had ultimately realized that the effect occurred 90 degrees out of phase. Ergo, if they applied the polarity change to the collator disk to the front of the platter, rather than going forwards or backwards, the device would move to the right. If they applied energy to the right side of the disk, it moved backwards. The eff
ect had mystified them initially, but ultimately Jamie had reasoned that it was the atomic equivalent of phase lag experienced with rotary winged aircraft. Igor Sikorsky had struggled with the very same problem when he perfected the earliest helicopters.

  Feeling himself shift to one side, Jack gave a nervous smile. Increasing the pressure on the hat switch he began moving faster in the desired direction. Flicking the control about he was able to fly a box pattern in the back yard before finally running into a tree.

  “Stupid tree!” He grumbled, realizing how foolish it must have sounded to say that. The tree had stood there since before he was born; if it was anyone’s fault it was clearly his for not recognizing that fact. Still, it angered him to have to disentangle himself from the branches.

  “Anyone want anything from the store?” Switching to his casual mode, Jack decided that he’d had enough of playing in the yard. Rising up several hundred feet, he immediately zoomed towards the corner store.

  “Jackie, remember the street cams!” Jamie’s voice was terse as he reminded his brother just how much surveillance there was in their modern world.

  “Yep.” Acknowledging the warning, the older sibling could not help but grin like a kid on a roller coaster as he streaked through the air. “I’m just gonna grab a Big-gulp and a donut.”

  “Oooh, get me some peanut butter M&Ms, the big sharing size.” Jamie’s love for the candy treat was evident in his voice. “Or Chick-a-stick if they got.”

  Selecting a spot on the edge of a park, Jack settled to the ground out of camera coverage. Walking a short distance to the brightly lit store, he was in the middle of filling a 44oz cup when the Burke brothers walked in confidently.