Chapter 13

The alarm which Emily had to set this time awoke us at sunrise Monday morning. She’d received the message Sunday to meet at the parking lot where Amy’s car had been, wearing our sweaters and winter coats and just bringing our laptops and of course our phones. I added my box of money, not trusting whoever washed and packed our clothes and sent it to the mountain lair not to pilfer it, even if it was Pat or another android. Would an android steal? The Asimov law of AIs not harming humans might include that, but who’s to say they had been restricted by those laws? Maybe Pat was actually a battlebot. We’d already met a fembot.

We found the black Bentley SUV parked at the same spot Amy had parked. The hatch at the back opened automatically and we placed our bags atop other carry-on sized bags and walked on either side, opening the doors to the back seats and entering the luxurious, leather clad interior. I sat behind Martha, the old man’s wife, the man himself at the driver’s seat, and marveled at the legroom figuring luxury definitely had its perks.

We exchanged greetings before Jock reversed out of his parking space and drove to the exit, flashing a badge at a sensor and having the gate lift out of the way.

“You have questions,” he said while driving on the city street.

“When’s the invasion?” I asked, which set them off in a fit of laughter, belly laughs, guffaws, the whole nine yards. And when they calmed and Martha trilled, “You owe me Old Man,” the whole thing started again.

“Uhm,” I started.

“Sorry, Joe,” Jock snickered, wiping his eyes. “It’s absurd, betting, since we share everything.”

“Sex,” said Emily.

Quieter laughter followed.

“You going to be Martha’s slave?” Emily suggested.

“Something like that,” Martha giggled.

“Exactly like that,” Jock countered. “And Martha’s got the better imagination.”

“How kinky are you?” Emily asked.

“None of your concern, young lady,” Martha scolded lightly.

“Why do you think there’ll be an invasion?” Jock asked.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” I explained. “Grabbing up an array of geniuses covering every imaginable need for generational space travel, and diverse, creating the widest possible gene pool, and hopefully with some sort of genius gene passed on.”

“Not a specific gene,” Jock informed us. “But more an array or pattern or structure of genes which aid in broadening the scope of gray matter.”

“To make use of much more than the ten percent we supposedly normally use.”

“Exactly. Go on.”

“It’s obviously limited, hence the selectivity, which means the time is limited to make our escape. It would be nice to get everyone out, or at least the most possible, but I’m thinking you’re bringing the most you can while preserving ... I guess the highlights of human civilization. Like a life boat at maximum load escaping a sinking ship, that is, Planet Earth.”

“And?”

“The secrecy, which is actually at two levels, the broadest by several magnitudes is letting as few people as possible know about the project; and the ones who do know, including the crew, think of it as the generational space flight that would explore the universe or whatever universe can be reached, a chance for a few lucky or maybe unlucky humans to fly beyond the solar system and maybe reach other solar systems and possibly meet other alien species. But that begs the question about why pluck people from their lives and stash them here? Why keep something so ... wonderful, something imagined for so long in so many tales, something so many of us have dreamed of but thought could never be achieved from being public knowledge? Maybe because of security certain specifics need to be kept secret, like the lair and the atoll where I presume we will launch, but secretly stealing people away and not admitting they’ve been recruited for this space project? All I can think of beyond the truth is the risk, that you wouldn’t be blamed if everything blows up because no one except a very few would know.

“The much smaller level of secrecy, the truth, is that the information you gained from that alien communication which provided much of the technology to build this ship also approximated the time of immanent invasion from a rather terrifying species. That secret you keep to yourselves, because panic would destroy everything.”

“You understand how incredibly long it takes in space to get from point a to point b,” Jock argued.

“Without the impossibility according to Einsteinian physics of faster than light travel, or finding those mythic worm holes or somehow being able to warp space/time, yes of course.”

“And how would these supposed alien invaders get here?”

“A heck of a lot of patience, but if there is a space traveling species, I guess like we will be but a much more massive scale, who somehow troll for sentient beings over centuries and feed off them, or like the Borg assimilate them, then I imagine eventually they could reach earth. With all the waves we send out into space, it’s not like we’re hiding.”

“What you think is my secret is a lot more complicated,” Jock said.

“And you’re going to tell me?” I asked.

“If you’re asking if we’re secure, yes we are. I know you’re aware of us listening and I suppose you expect an apology. There are reasons for it, some having to do with security...”

“Making sure we don’t tell,” Emily offered defensively.

“You’d be surprised to learn that’s a truly minor concern. For one, everyone slips, but you’re smart enough to keep things essentially secret. The point is not embellishing until something outlandish starts becoming less so.”

“Knowing you’re listening definitely prevents that,” Emily agreed. “But I see your point.”

“Other reasons have to do with, to be a bit cold about it, data collection.”

“For your algorithms,” I guessed.

“Yes, exactly. Even before we gave you that debugging machine which you correctly deduced, and we made it pretty obvious, does provide direct listening, we have been looking in on you two for some time.”

“I know you took some things from my program,” I said.

“We did, yes, but what we didn’t take were your students. Emily is the first, and truth be told, your eventual relationship had been mapped out.”

“Any disappearance of others might be traced back to me.”

“Exactly. An exception might have been made if someone filled a niche absent before, but no one did, which was all for the better. Well you did, Emily, but that was expected.”

“You’re calling her Emily,” I noticed.

“Illustrating the complete sealing of the car from any listening. The chassis is the only thing that remains from the factory, and that and the windows have been coated by a proprietary polymer which prevents sound and any electromagnetic leakage except for light. If you check you smartphones, you can see what I mean.”

Emily got to hers first. “No signal whatsoever,” she discovered.

“The motor is completely mechanical, with no plug ins to read its status. Electrical is self-generating like your father’s or grandfather’s car would be, without the radio of course. The only thing that’s a digital computer is the player which has a USB plug in and takes CDs. The designer joked that we should stay 100% analog and use a cassette and 8 track tape player, but like your phone, there’s no leakage both in or out.”

“What about air intake and exhaust?” I asked.

“The air is highly screened and the screens are self-cleaning. The exhaust has a highly sophisticated muffling system which also has the capability of recycling waste. Proprietary of course, but patented and extremely expensive and the sophistication of electric powered motors has made sales limited to say the least. But we’re essentially sealed off from the motor, with more screening filters for air circulation. You’ll notice there’s virtually no engine noise.”

“I thought it was an extra quiet purr these British luxury cars are famous for, but you’re right. How do you monitor the engine if it starts sounding off?”

“That’s a matter of feel from the steering wheel, like the pull of flat tire but subtler.”

“And other monitors?”

“Both the speedometer and odometer are mechanical essentially reading the same information. And I guess there’s another closed system computer which monitors gas use that the mechanical information provides and includes a device measuring tilt for climbing or descending hills for more or less use of gas. It’s approximate but close enough for me to know to stop for fuel.”

“So we’re safe to talk secrets,” I concluded.

“Right,” Jock laughed.

“My husband does like his gadgets,” Martha smirked.

“It’s more complicated than an invasion,” Jock started, “which you’re right would be inevitable if we did nothing about it.”

“Are you saying a lone space ship will defeat a predatory alien invasion?”

“No. Not alone.”

“The communication you received, others received it too?”

“Yes. Over a hundred light years, and those others receiving it some have a quarter in distance. Some might be closer.”

“How...”

“The beacon works like a hub or maybe like a disco mirror bouncing others’ communication out. The technology for us to do so is unfortunately beyond our ability, mostly because of scale. We do use part of the technology for what might be called stealth using a more aggressive term, but more accurately and defensively would be Rowlands’s cloak of invisibility.”

“Cloaking in Star Trek,” I said.

“Exactly, but without the drama of having to turn it off in order to have firing capability.”

“So the ship is cloaked,” I said.

“Along with everywhere our project might be seen. The beings who communicated to us have managed to hide from the predators because of it. Their planet might have been destroyed, basically terraformed to make it livable for the predators after the predators absorbed their technology...”

“Including the cloaking and the beacon?”

“Kept a secret like we have done, essentially hermetically sealed from the enemy.”

“And the enemy hasn’t figured out the communication?”

“The beings use a nearby star, almost a twin but with its own planetary system in which life forms would not be sustainable. Along with their separation from their home star keeping the enemy from stumbling onto them, it seems the enemy’s ability to perceive light is negligible if it exists at all. They make up for it with an acute sense of waves, sonic and higher waves perhaps up to light waves, but at that level their perception becomes much less acute. Hearing and touch have been combined as has tasting and smell in which they are also highly perceptive.”

“They use sonar like bats?”

“When things are in motion perhaps, otherwise they can sense the radiant energy from celestial bodies, or their ships can, which are modelled on their own bodies and perceptive abilities.”

“The music of the spheres,” I chuckled.

“Perhaps too poetic for those monsters,” Jock muttered.

“The enemy needs to be known and even appreciated if not loved,” Emily argued.

“And they must have been captured and studied,” I said.

“Smaller ships and their occupants have been studied but as briefly as possible before being destroyed.”

“You fear they may have some sort of hive mind?” I asked.

“That or they can send out an alarm to be rescued. I believe that to be more likely. Even dead they may have a way of sending out waves not perceptible to the beings capturing them. Despite the time constraint the creatures and their ships have been thoroughly scanned, and, to a lesser extent, the creatures have been studied behaviorally. Recordings have been found of their communications and their operations and those have been studied in vaults much like this car, kept from radiating any potential signal.”

“And the creatures themselves couldn’t be placed in such a place?” Emily asked.

“So far the size of the container transferring the data and preventing radiance limits what can be extracted. And even tissue samples have been prevented by the bodily fluid of the creature being extremely toxic and corrosive.”

“And why not enclose the entire ship in a cloak?” I asked.

“Too dangerous. It would give them a glance of the technology. As it was it had to be done with great care and only twice with plenty of time between so as not to become suspicious, a scout ship and one at the tail end of an invading force. It was easy to locate the motor and the ships were pierced in its vicinity and a probe observed for a while before the place where the ship had been penetrated exploded and the enemy was violently sucked out of the hole. Only then would the ship be boarded and the information extracted as quickly as possible before the boarding team left and the ship exploded.”

“The enemy none the wiser.”

“Hopefully, and as far as our allies can tell, seemingly.”

“And these allies?” I continued. “Are they vetted?”

“A single enemy vets them, and the need to work together to defeat the enemy. It requires an alliance and hopefully the alliance continues.”

“Hopefully being the operative word, considering the intelligence of intelligent species would also include arrogance, especially considering we’d be the backwoods hicks compared to those sophisticated enough to have had space travel capabilities for, I imagine, quite a lot longer than us.”

“Which is why I sought the smartest of us to give new and brilliant perspective to the problems we’d face, especially both you as a polymath and Emily as a brilliant strategist.”

“You have cryogenic capabilities?” I realized.

“Of course. It’s necessary for generational space travel.”

“Great,” Emily muttered. “I get to be a human icicle.”

“I presume it’s been tested?” I asked.

“The system is flawless,” Jock proclaimed.

“Humans?” Emily asked.

“A couple volunteered after rats and pigs had been through the process. We made sure their ability to create offspring remained.”

Emily snorted a laugh. “This is like a horny nerd boy’s dream, having space travel all about sex!”

“I suppose it is,” Jock laughed as well.

After two hours on a highway, Jock exited onto a well tarred windy two lane road with a ragged sign proclaiming quietly, “To Spencerville.”

“It used to be a village hideout like the Hole in the Wall,” Jock explained, “Then an attempt at tourists failed, historical researchers the final hold outs before I basically bought a ghost town.”

“I envisioned a repurposed mine,” I told him.

“Me too, but this ended up being better. Mines tend to be narrow tunnels ending when the material appears to be exhausted, and when it’s not, strip mining becomes the next iteration.

At the end of the road we entered Spencerville, a group of dilapidated old wooden houses in a tiny valley, a larger restored ranch house and barn at the back corner which we passed and headed towards what looked like a classic entrance to a late nineteenth century mine. I held onto my seat when the car drove right into it, immediately realizing the entrance had been an illusion. Beyond it, looking back, I saw what looked like a drape frozen in place combined with something like a one-way mirror. I could see the ghost town we just traversed only slightly distorted. The frozen drape material covered a huge area and we parked in an impressively large space the ceiling of which was several yards high and both it and the walls had the familiar grayish black material with a subtle glow which helped light things. Within the space sat several large rectangular boxes with robots passing in and out carrying various things, and I realized they were creating the houses we’d worked on the previous week. A couple semis had robots removing their cargo, one of which, the door container door slammed shut, drove away in the opposite direction in which we entered.

“We are making use of a strip mine on the other side of the mountain about a mile or so away,” Jock explained. “Or more the spur they use to ship the ore into Denver.”

“Denver being a major hub for the railroad,” I nodded.

“Exactly.”

“And your use of the mine’s spur?”

“A combination of money and government secrecy keeps them mum.”

“Makes sense,” I responded.

“Shall I show you to your quarters?” Jock asked.

“Yes please,” said Emily.

“I’ll fix up some lunch,” said Martha.

“We’ll meet you in the dining hall,” Jock smiled at his wife.

She headed one way and we the other where a fairly large door opened to a spacious industrial looking elevator car. “It senses us?” I asked.

“Yes,” Jock said simply while we entered the car. I noticed no buttons, not even an emergency one.

“Nanites?” Emily asked as we moved slowly upward.

“Facial recognition. We use nanite technology sparingly, mostly having to do with the body handling the initial trip into space, which, correlational, can help with seasickness as well.”

The elevator stopped and we walked through the opening which closed behind us and into a hallway with many doors fairly wide apart and other hallways transecting the hallway on both sides. A sign pointed in opposite directions: 0-250 and 251-500. “This is the residence floor,” Jock explained. “The size of the mountain headquarters made for plenty of room on the one floor.”

“0?” Emily asked.

“My family residence,” Jock gestured towards a door across the way to our right. Unlike the doors across the hall from it of which there were four, his was the only one between halls. “This way,” he walked to the right to the lower numbered rooms. After turning left a couple hallways down and then right a couple hallways later we stopped midway through at 131 on the right. He turned the knob. “This will be your home here,” he said.

I kept from laughing as did Emily since it looked identical to the condo in Denver minus the large window and with a king size bed which actually made it larger since the two desks had the same amount of room behind them.

“Locks?” Emily asked, plopping her bag at her chosen desk.

“It will unlock for you and a few others including myself.”

“And?” I asked.

“Pat, who will be bringing your stuff from the condo soon, and our three security.”

“Androids?” I asked.

“One of them. The head of security is a second generation project woman.”

“Taught by her father?” Emily asked.

“Both her parents are experts in robotics, her mother specifically with the nanites we discussed. Her father did assist her designing the hardware and software of her assistants though. Her mentor was the head of security here, but she surpassed him both in her abilities with armed and unarmed combat and security logistics.”

“Does she spar?” Emily asked.

“You mean train others, because sparring with her would most likely be frustrating, but yes she does.”

“Is she mated?” I asked for no apparent reason.

“Not traditionally.”

“A woman?” Emily asked.

“Yes, precocious like you, her expertise in robotics. She and her partner do like sharing men.”

“Good to know,” I laughed.

“More competition,” Emily muttered, but somehow within a laugh.

“I could introduce you to Sven and Igor,” Jock suggested. “They like sharing a woman from time to time.”

“Uhm, no thanks,” Emily responded. “As you certainly know, Joe and I have enjoyed another woman in our bed, but not a guy.”

“Of course,” Jock responded with what I thought some ambiguousness, somewhere between disappointment and challenge. “Shall we have lunch?”

“Yes please,” said Emily.

We headed to another part of the array of hallways and doors to another similar elevator. The door slid open and we entered. “Dining hall,” said Jock and we descended what seemed to be one floor, the door opposite the door we entered opening onto a large dining area with four long tables and a large round table in the corner. The room had the see-through material with the view of another mountainside.

Since it was lunchtime several people occupied the space with a full range of ages from late forties/early fifties of the first generation to a small, boisterous group of preteens at the end of one of the tables. I saw immediately where Emily wanted to head, with both a chess board with large carved pieces, the blonde wood, maybe oak, depicting Spanish court while in what looked like teak depicting a Moorish group, and a go board with the usual plain smooth white and black stones set up at the second table opposite from the kids.

“I’ll go check on what Martha has prepared,” said Jock, heading to a swinging door and walking through it.

“Go ahead,” I chuckled to Emily. Long before we became lovers, which had only been a few weeks, I learned not to attempt to play Emily at such games of skills, backgammon or cribbage, with some aspects of luck involved, suited us better, though she tended to win a lot more than lose in those too. While she hopped over and sat at a chair at the end of the table, I spotted Tex waving at me. It looked like his sandwich and Amira’s had hardly been eaten. I sat beside him with Amira on his other side.

“Names William by the way,” Tex told me. “Used to be Willy, but I felt like I was a kid when my folks called me that.”

“I’m actually Joe with a different last name,” I returned.

“I’m still Amira,” Amira smiled. “Since my family ostracized me, there was no point in changing it.”

“Amanda’s Emily, and we’re actually not married,” I told them, “though we’re fine being thought of that way. The Brain Trust didn’t bother to get us rings,” I added, showing the thick gold ring on my left ring finger, “so we got our own and had a little ceremony, at least the honeymoon part of it,” I chuckled.

“I’m Marty,” the woman across the table from me said, and when I looked at her, tall, slim, late forties, elegantly attractive, I recognized her.

“Martine Belin?” I asked. “As Mark Twain once said, it seems rumors of your death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Dr. Belin had been a significant theorist and therapist in the development of the interdisciplinary school of cognitive science until she supposedly disappeared and been presumed dead eight years before when her Piper Cadet plummeted into the ocean somewhere off the coast of Cape Cod along with her daughter in her early teens. Wreckage had supposedly been found, but no bodies.

“Ah well,” Marty sighed. “My insufferable prude of a husband ending up favoring late prepubescent and early pubescent girls and in particular one in which he helped in conceiving. The choice was either to kill the asshole or escape his predation, and Jock allowed me to choose the latter.”

“Your daughter’s here?” I asked.

“Fred’s involved in robotics, and in fact we often work together since I mostly endeavor to insure androids act as human as possible. Although I have worked with Tex and Amira and others with their transition. It seems you may be taking over some of that work.”

I nodded. “Jock wishes me to interview everyone in the program I suppose to discover any emotional needs that might be met with further counseling.”

Bringing me her most seductive gaze, she murmured, “Perhaps I could be your first?”

I chuckled. “Too late. But I would very much like to talk with you. Truth is I quite admire your work and I have attended two of your lectures when you visited my schools. In fact, though you probably don’t remember me since there were a few other students, but I actually chatted with you at a post-lecture party.”

“You’d think I’d remember such a tall, handsome man.”

“Well, that was ten years ago and I was barely nineteen.”

“Precocious like the others here,” she nodded. “Maybe I do remember. Something about art as a clue to cognitive distress.”

“Yes. You were always a key influence to my studies and in fact encouraged me in the diverse course I chose. Not directly, though our brief discussion did nudge me a bit, but your books and your lectures. And, to be candid, I enjoyed looking at you, your pictures at the back of your books and especially when there in the flesh. I thought you were the hottest lecturer I ever saw, although cool at the same time.”

“Ah well,” she sighed again, “I was so careful in those days with my libido, a disguise really which probably made me seem even colder. The ivory tower is such a small town sort of place wherein gossip and backbiting thrive. I remember you because I wanted you, Joe. I wanted to invite you back to my room to continue our little discussion and go on to ... other things.”

“I’m sure I would have been nervous,” I speculated, “meeting a hero can be a scary thing because you don’t want to embarrass yourself and it almost seems inevitable that you would, especially at such an intimate level, but at the same time I have a feeling I’d get over it and would have thoroughly enjoyed giving you the rapture you so obviously resisted.”

“Like a dam breaking,” she laughed. “I was such a slut when I came here and came ... here,” she looked down. “So how would it have been, this nineteen year old with a woman he lusted after?”

“I’d been trained by then by an older woman not much younger than you were. Once I got over my nerves...”

“A blow job?”

“That would help, although I’d probably end up stopping you before completion because it would probably take a bit too long.”

“The nerves.”

“Yes. I’d let you play if you wanted, continue to hold me, while I went exploring your entire body, finding every place which excites you, even places you never knew you had. Eventually I’d have you draped over me so you could return to blowing me while I brought forth your first orgasm, one that I’d kept you from until you begged for it. Then, after you finally suck me dry, we’d continue until I was hard again and you hovered at the edge again, and I’d turn us over and push inside you and make love to you, kissing you, sharing my spend, and letting you have your own explosion around my cock before continuing again, slowly but ever faster, my lips moving to your nipples, shared by my fingers, the other set working your clit. Eventually, as things sped up, I’d moisten a finger and rim your anus, testing you to see if you want another orifice penetrated.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Then I’d be inside you, fucking you in three different places, my tongue penetrating your mouth, my finger, and maybe another one, inside your anus, and my cock sawing fast and high, my glans scraping across your g spot until you reach a place of pleasure you’ve never been, your body so inundated with it you can barely stand it, nearly claiming your consciousness, but not quite. You feel all of it engulf you in a rush of pure bliss, and it continues, sustains, until I release my hot seed into your depths and somehow, feeling the visceral proof of the pleasure you provided me, pushes you even farther and you barely hold your consciousness by a thread, a thread of pure ecstasy.”

“Fuck,” she murmured, “I guess I missed out.”

We laughed, as did Tex and Amira, both ladies suspiciously breathless.

About then Jock placed a plate in front of me, a fresh bagel with paper thin sliced pastrami, coleslaw and potato salad on the side. “I see you’ve met,” he smiled before bringing the other plate to Emily.

“You still want to talk?” Marty asked me.

“I could bring the plate,” I offered.

“No. Eat,” she smiled and grabbed a fork from her mostly empty salad plate and stabbed a square of potato.

I shoved the coleslaw into the sandwich and began eating the delicious deli food. Martha had even dropped off a can of Cel-Ray soda. They really did know me.

“So you must have had to stay here?” I asked Marty to cue her.

She laughed. “I dress up in drag with a straggly beard and a fright wig, the classic absent-minded professor. I’m Marty then too. The Brain Trust even provided me an identity. I’ll wander around Denver like that shopping in little bookstores or music shops mostly on my own, but sometimes one of the cute young geniuses will accompany me, girls I mean, and ... do you know Candy?”

“The fembot?” I smirked.

She laughed again. “That’s the one. I love walking around with her and all her sexiness freaking out people wondering why the hell she’d be with me. But I actually help program her, you know?”

“To be a slut?”

This time she snorted her laugh, “That too, but she’s much more a chameleon than that.”

I nodded, having my mouth full.

“Jock has me train the androids to perform the infinitesimal nuances of acting human. Show them really, since being AIs they need as much data as possible. When they’re born so to speak I’ll input files showing them humans interacting in social situations. But it’s more important for them to observe those interactions in real time. For a while it will be just us here setting up situations, but as soon as we’re comfortable with them, the best thing for them is to be out there in the world making the right choices to fit in or not to as is the case with Candy. But you know Pat because he led the house building class.”