Chapter 4

My upper class ticket was booked, JFK to Amsterdam, first Monday in November. I’d not flown Virgin Atlantic before, but they offered a non stop flight the day I wanted to leave. I had pulled my luggage out of the storage closet, and was getting it ready. I had a week, but the bags had been musty. I experimented using my power to dispose of everything but the luggage, and that fixed the musty smell.

My control had been improving, such that I had created hand and foot prints on a couple of my steel plates, before completely transforming them. Charlie had delivered several more packages of steel plates, and each day I cycled through them morning and evening absorbing more power. My degree of control was so fine that I could atomize the steel right out of an aluminum pan, into another one, without damaging either.

The physical changes also were astounding. I moved with an ease and freedom that exceeded all memories. My strength made lifting hundreds of pounds of steel in one outstretched hand a trifling effort, as I routinely poured it from one container to another. My hair was thicker, and my skin tougher. I could slash at my arm with a knife and it wouldn’t cut. Only the wrinkles and sagging skin remained as my exterior camouflage of age.

My ability to detect the health of others improved to where I could identify health problems from just a few feet away. I also began to be able to broadcast healing energy from that distance. It wasn’t enough for miraculous cures, but it was enough to engender a sense of happy well being. Everywhere I went, I left happy, energetic people behind.

It was Tuesday that I got a text from Thomas asking if I wanted to see his new beowulf cluster now that it was all hooked up to the new power supply. After lunch I knocked on the door at his apartment, after running up two flights of stairs because no one was watching. And because I could.

“Mr Barkley, come in please.” invited Ms Diaz.

“Thank you.” I said entering the apartment.

“Mr Barkley, thank you so much! It’s running so great, you have to come see it!” Thomas greeted excitedly.

“Lead the way.” I offered.

“Would you like a drink Mr Barkley?”

“No thank you, Ms Diaz.” I replied, as I followed the puppy like exuberance of Thomas down a short hallway.

The bedroom door had several signs, including ‘mad science do not enter’ and the obligatory ‘Thomas’s room’. I noticed the bedroom across the hall had similar but girly signs from Thomas’s sister.

Entering the room I was taken aback. It had obviously been cleaned in expectation of my arrival, even the bed was neatly made with presumably fresh sheets. The window that overlooked the back yard was open, and a cool breeze battled with the heat from twenty mid tower computers standing on a steel shelving unit six feet high. A laptop sat on a desk, next to the twin bed, but a 32 inch tv hung over the bed.

“My cluster is there. I have 16 nodes, plus the control system, and the Xbox interface. The other 2 computers are just spares for now.” Thomas explained, gesturing, “the Xbox controllers and video output are wired into that computer, and the controllers plug into it. The AI uses that machine to monitor my inputs when I play in teaching mode, and to control the Xbox when she plays herself.” He said, pointing at a beanbag chair where a single controller lay.

He gestured up at the screen, “Right now she’s in learning mode. She’s playing Forza Racing.”

I was impressed. The on screen car, recognizable as a Ferrari, was driving at what seemed to be top speed as it made its way up some mountainside highway. Barely slowing as it made hairpin turns, never quite making contact with guardrails.

“Can she race you?”

“Oh yeah, we can do a two player battle. She’s good, much better than I am. I’ve been having her race others online. She’s not at the top of the rankings yet, but she will get there.”

“I’m genuinely impressed, Thomas. So what have you named her?” I asked, gesturing at the cluster.

“I wanted to call her Monica, because she really sucked in the beginning, but mom didn’t think that was funny. Now I just call her Bee, short for Beowulf.”

I smiled at his joke. “What other games can she play?”

“She has trouble with story driven games, because she doesn’t understand the story enough to make sense of changing challenges and gameplay. She can copy my play, and much faster than I do, but can’t quite figure the why of it.

“She’s great at first person shooters, though recognizing not to fire at non combatants was a tough learning challenge. Before the recent upgrade there were just four machines in the cluster. Now that I’ve got 16 she’s starting to get the hang of Stardew Valley.”

“What kind of game is that?”

“It’s a farming game. You do other stuff too, but now she has the processing power to figure out the rewards system. She’s doing pretty good figuring out how to maximize profits. I had to add an ocr package so she could read the numbers on the screen to see what things cost, how much she had, and what the profit was.”

He gestured at the laptop, “That’s my coding machine. I use it to edit and write code, and increase her abilities. I’ve been working on it for several years. The original version just recorded my game play, and replayed it at higher speed. The idea I had was to break speed records using my recorded play, it just grew from there.” he shrugged, in that I’m not bragging, it’s just the way it is manner.

I couldn’t hold the smile from my face. “Thomas, you’re obviously very smart. I’ve never seen anything like this, or heard of anything like this before either. Figure out which college you want most, and I’ll see what I can do to help with scholarships. Genius like this needs support!”

“I have acceptance letters for Carnegie Mellon and MIT. Both are top schools for AI. Mom wants me to go to Columbia because it’s so much closer.”

“What about your dad?”

“I don’t know, we don’t see him now that he doesn’t live here anymore.” he said, seeming happy with that.

“Well let me know what you decide. I’ll be reachable by text while I’m in Europe next week. Excellent job on all this, keep up the good work.” I said reaching out my hand.

He shook it firmly, and I passed healing energy into him without his notice. He didn’t have large problems, now that I could sense more, it was just the finely distributed damage of drunken beatings since early childhood. Mr Diaz, wherever he was, was not welcome here anymore. As landlord, Ms Diaz had kindly informed me of the restraining order. Now I understood why.