Chapter 14

“You a dirty fucker,” Norm told Jake, “do you know that?”

Jake grunted and then told the guy, “oh Jesus Christ Norm, I was in the army. They paid us to be dirty fuckers.”

“Oh, hey,” Norm waved his hand around in rightful indignation, “lets forget about nukes and bio weapons. Let’s make a computer virus that can turn a man’s home into a lethal trap. We can take the whole enemy country out and run up his power bill all at the same time.”

“You’re one to talk, Norm,” Jake shot back. “Look, I told you. We were never able to make it work. Houses have too many mechanical safety’s on them to prevent just this kind of thing. The whole project was scrapped and we never got out of the theoretical with it anyway.”

“Except,” Norm pointed to the antique computer screen, “somebody wound up with your virus, on a house, way out here. A house that happens to come with built in booby traps that your guys never could make work.”

“No,” Jake replied. “Don’t you get it. He’s doing psyop experiments. If you can’t use it to kill the enemy you might be able to disrupt him if you can scare him enough. That’s what this Bateman guy was looking for. That’s why all the psychological profiles here. He is building a database so he can refine the program for real world use.”

Norm pointed around with his gun, “yeah Jake, only right now this place is looking pretty real to me.” They herd Barbara screaming in anguish and terror once more. Norm pointed to the door, “speaking of which, are you sure that isn’t real?”

“Not with one hundred percent certainty,” Jake replied. He went on, “I already told you. All this computer has to do is have enough samples of a voice and it can reproduce it pretty convincingly. It doesn’t even have to be a whole lot words. It just needs the right size sample of vowels and, well, whatever all that other shit is. I never was much into grammar.”

“The point is,” Norm followed but was cut off.

Jake told him, “the point is that it’s trying to bait us. What we need to know is…” Jake slapped himself on the forehead before he started looking for a certain file on the computer.

Norm continued his original thought, “what I was saying was, how can we tell the difference if it can do it so perfectly?”
“That’s easy,” Jake told the man as he concentrated more on the computer in front of him, “sounds are easy for a machine to make. Copying the person is a whole other ball game.”

“That AI horse shit, you know,” Jake asked as he pulled up a search box, “Artificial Intelligence? The big fat secret that the computer companies don’t tell anybody is that it isn’t real. They found out over a century ago that no matter how much memory you have, no matter how much computing power, our hardware has some very definitive limits. We just can’t build a machine out of plastic and wires that can even compete with an organic brain. Some physics crap… I don’t know.”

Jake clapped his hands, “there it is, Barbara’s file. Let’s find out why he picked her.”
A small video window popped up and Roger Bateman was sitting at the very desk that Jake now occupied. The guy spoke with a hint of remorse, “the limited data produced by the other test subjects has lead me to the conclusion that my sample is inadequate for the task at hand. Fortunately my Arc Light research has, shall I say, presented me with another opportunity that, if successful, will allow me to continue my research.”

Norm squinted, “what the hell is Arc Light?”

“Shut up,” Jake told the man as the date changed on the video.
Roger went on, “I must admit that I have some very deep reservations about my new subject. I have been advised by certain, interested parties, that if I do not do as they suggest, then my research will be instantly terminated.” Roger took a heavy sigh and told the camera, “I wish I had never brought it up.”

The next clip rolled over and Roger was all business like, “despite any misgivings, preliminary steps have now begun, although, our usual method of acquiring test samples will not work in this case. Based on the psychological data from her Talon file, we have devised a method by which, I believe, will deliver the sample and…”

Jake hit the pause button, “Notice how she’s gone from being Barbara, too subject, and now she’s just a sample.”
Norm had a completely different question in mind, “what the hell is a Talon file?”

Jake shrugged it off and hit the play button. Most of what followed sounded pretty technical and quite often, boring. Then, with a date of about three weeks ago, Roger stated, “I have protested the action but, been overruled yet again. It was never in my plan that someone should attempt to purchase the property that the sample lives and works. I was told that this was a needed step in putting more pressure on the sample. I, personally, do not believe this is wise. They’re simply too impatient and might possibly provoke an action that is contrary to our goal.”

“Purchase?” It took Norm all of two seconds to figure out what that meant, “somebody’s trying to buy the station? Who would want that piece of worthless crap? Hell, it’s half under water and the other half floods when you get just a sprinkle.”
“I can tell you who,” Jake replied, “somebody not interested in what could be there. More like they’re interested in what shouldn’t be there, namely, us.”

“Jake,” Norm tried to explain it like he would too one of Darcy’s students, in third grade, “I know you got all these delusions of grandeur, the be all you can be stuff but, we ain’t that big of a threat to nobody.”

“Apparently that’s changed,” Jake told him in a dead serious tone. Then Jake’s eye wandered back to the computer and noticed the static in the video window. Jake pointed and asked, “why didn’t it stop? Video recordings stop, they don’t play static.”

The answer came when Roger’s face popped back in the window. He was no longer calm and collected like before. He no longer sounded cold, distant, or business like. Jake knew it was bad news when the first words out of the guys mouth were, “Barbara. I’ve set this computer to unlock as soon as the voice server contacts you. I’ll just have to trust that you’re smart enough to find the machine and turn it on in the first place. You have to get out of here. You have to get to the…”

The lights in the room began flashing on and off, at least on the video screen. A barrage of high volume music began playing so loud that most of Roger’s words were drowned out. Jake listened intently and he caught things like, “it called them,” and “I think I’ve found some leverage.” Roger also put something in a desk drawer but, Jake could not see what it was. The rest of it was a garbled mess, except, for the very last words that Roger shouted at the top of his lungs, “I LOVED YOU!” The video cut off.

“Did you see the date on that,” Jake asked.

“Two weeks ago,” Norm replied. Then he had to ask, “what the hell was that all about?”
Now Jake knew exactly what was wrong with that body out in the round room. It had been there way too long. Jake looked back at the video monitor with the hole in it. Now that he had heard a sample of the real Roger he realized the one on the screen was just plain wrong.

Jake rubbed his chin and mumbled to himself, “mamma said there were gonna be days like this one!”

“God damn it Jake,” Norm growled.

“Norm,” Jake replied, “I was wrong. We aren’t dealing Norman Bates here. It’s more like Hal 9000.”

Norm had no idea what he was talking about but, then again, what was new?