American Technocrats

Knock Knock Knock

The house computer said, “Sovereign, there is a delivery person at the front door.”

“Very well computer, I’ll get it,” I said, “Tell them I’ll be right there.”

“Yes Sovereign.”

I got up from my easy chair in the living room and walked into the enclosed porch. It was early February, and the shutter panels were in place closing off the room. The covers were over the screens that let the air flow through when it was warmer. They were an insulating barrier to the winter cold. At night, in Tucson, the dark sky could suck the heat quickly from your body. I went to the hand carved wood door of our one-story, six-bedroom ranch house and opened it. There was a uniformed delivery agent on the other side of the closed security screen door.

“Mr. Franklin,” they said.

“Yes.”

"This is a special delivery from your father’s estate,” they said.

The security system let me push open the steel screen door.

The person handed me a cardboard box and I had to sign the electronic tablet. They turned and left. I closed both doors and went back to my easy chair in the main room.

The large main room combined a dining room and a family room together for a larger room to entertain in for parties. The old window was removed and the double brick wall that was below the window was gone too. The bricks on the steel lintel at the top of the window was all that was left of the old opening. Now you could walk through the enlarged opening into the enclosed porch. Across the main room the opposite wall had two doorways into the kitchen. I sat down in my easy chair.

“Who was that Honey,” Barb said from the kitchen.

“It was a delivery person. I got something from Dad’s estate,” I said.

As Barb did dinner, she said, “I thought that was all finally over a couple of weeks ago.”

“Yes dear, so did I,” I said.

Barb continued and said, “The investigation went on for weeks looking into the lab explosion.”

I said, “It showed the accident that kill those in the lab with Dad was due to old poorly maintained gas lines.”

Barb said,“You know the company tried everything they could to get out of paying the Ten-million-dollar accidental death liability award to their estates. I can’t wait, they are supposed to deposit three million in your account when all this paperwork clears court next month.”

“Yes babe, so did I.”

“Will, Don’t tell me the payment is early, I won’t believe it.”

As I opened the box I said, “No, I don’t think it’s that, Sweetheart.”

“Well hell, what is it then,” she said?

“Let’s see,” I said, “Knowing Dad, the question is not what is it, it’s what will it do?”

In the cardboard box, a plastic box. I turned the box over looking at it. I could not see any buttons or LED indicators. The top cover was secured in place by four small screws. There was nothing mounted on it, or anything done to the surface, not even a hole. Just a medium sized generic project box like you could buy at any electronics store.

It said, “Hey, Will, would you stop it. You are making me sick turning my world over like that.”

“Dad is that you,” I said?

I set the plastic box on the coffee table, gently.

“Oh, much better,” the box said, “Well Will, it is kind of me,”

“Okay Dad, what is this?”

“William it is a device I call a mimic. For eight weeks I carried this item with me. It recorded my responses and some of my thoughts to everything I did for its algorithm. The mimic responds like I would to most situations even learning new responses to new situations.”

Barb walked into the living room and said, “I thought I heard your Dad.”

The box said, “Hi Barb, what are you making for dinner?”

“What the hell is that,” Barb said?

“Dad calls it a mimic. Evidently, the box thinks it is Dad.”

“Okay, kind of, I guess,” the box said, “but I’m more than that. I understand what is happening around me. I’m not just a bunch of phrases that are played when themes are expressed. I learn new things. Barb is that your Beef Stroganoff I smell?”

“You,” Barb said, “can smell in there?”

“Yes,” Dad said, “I can taste too, although I don’t need to drink or eat food.”

Barb said, “Can you read a book?”

Dad said, “I’m hooked to the internet. I can read anything there.”

A timer beeped in the kitchen and Barb left.

“Dad why do such a thing?”

“This started three years ago with a friend of mine, Jimmy. His wife of forty years was diagnosed with an aggressive form of colon cancer. She was given a year to live. She fought for a year and a half, then died. Jimmy wanted something to remember her by. So, we recorded the things she said and her thoughts for three months for a memorial. When I was putting the recordings together, I thought what if I added an A.I. component I have been doing on and off for years.”

“This is a little weird, Dad.”

“Yeah, it is. Jimmy and I worked on the prototype for months. I made this one as part of the development. While there is some interest in these devices, it is a bust as a business. For the Mimic to work requires some unique code for the complex data compression, storage, and special circuitry for rapid operation I borrowed from a remote spy satellite system at work. Very hush hush. One of those things that don’t exist. When I discussed the idea with my supervisor that I proposed the project to, they freaked out. They said I could not use the code. If it got out, it would show a weakness in modern processors that we were exploiting to gather intelligence. National security would not be compromised. So, no one knew of these two devices, except Jimmy and me. They are not supposed to exist.”

“Dad, what the hell have you done?”

“No, Will wait. You must listen. Last week, someone stole Ann’s mimic. Both of our systems were linked. According to system monitors, they attempted to dissect her. She screamed into the link, and I could not take it. I had her unit explode to self-destructed. They must know of me, because of that remote access command. My system is much more sophisticated and has many more connections and options that Ann did not use or need. I have fended off several attempts to find me. William you are the only one who comes close to understanding my ideas. I could no longer hide out at the lab, so Jimmy sent me here trying to save me. William don’t let them get me. I don’t want to be dissected like they tried to do to Ann.”

Suddenly the power dropped, and everything went dark. It got very quiet. As the battery back-up came online, I looked outside, and our house was the only one dark on the block.

The house computer, said, “Power failure, Sovereign. What would you like to do?”

Jan, our daughter, shouted from her room, “Hey what’s going on?”

Billy shouted back as he said, “It’s a power failure, stupid.”

“You’re the stupid,” Jan said.

“Not, You!” Billy said.

“Come on guys, knock it off,” I said.

Barb walked into the room from the kitchen, “I just got a message on my phone. It said the power bill is unpaid.”

“What? It’s paid,” I said, “I don’t like this!”

Dad said, “I’m not picking up anything, nothing. Just loud static. No radio stations, no Wi-Fi, even the wireless phones are dead, very suspicious.”

Barb said, “What is going on Will?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Will this isn’t one of your pointless simulations is it?”

No, I have no idea what is happening. Let’s get Jan, and Billy and go to the security room, just to be safe.””

I picked up Dad. As Barb and I went to the master bedroom, Barb knocked on a door with signs that said Boys only and No Girls. Come on Billy, we’re going to the security room.”

Billy opened the door and said, “Really, will we get to use the security system real time, on real people?”

Barkly, our Yellow Labrador followed Billy.

“You and your Dad’s paranoia,” Barb said, “We are not secret agents.”

I knocked on Jan’s door. It had sketches of several classic album covers she had done paintings of and sold on the family’s website on her door. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Boston, Captain Fantastic, Meatloaf, Bat out of Hell, Led Zeppelin, Electric Light Orchestra, Out of the blue, Journey, Escape, Herd Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Whipped Cream and other Delights, The Guitars That destroyed the World, and, Kansas, The Point of No Return.

“Come on Jan, we’re going to the security room.”

She came out of her room with Snowball, our cat, in her arms and said, “Dad I’m scared.”

“Yeah, let’s just get to the security room and I’ll do a lock down,” I said.

I walked over to the folded linen shelf. I put my middle finger on the hidden finger scanner under the third shelf, and it opened like a door to reveal a stair way up into the attic. We walked up into the space that Dad and I had been working on for years but had never had a reason to use it. It was a hobby and family time more than anything else. Dad had said we needed a safe room. I was afraid to ever ask why. It just sounded like something good to do together with him and Billy. He’d come over and we would do something to the room on the weekends. Okay, it was more than just a hobby. It was the subject of many family and friends pod casts. Moreover, some of the devices we developed we packaged and put on the family website for sale.

Inside we had supplies for a week for all of us. I sat down at the operation console, and Barb sat in her executive chair next to me. Billy sat at the tactical console. Jan sat on a couch with snowball. Barkly sniffed around then laid down between me and Billy.

I entered the pass phrase, “Long Live the King!”

The door closed and locked into position. Then, I turned-on the hard-wired video system.

Dad said, “They must be using an arc gap radio, no RF coms.”

Billy said “Grandpa?”

“Hi, Billy, Jan, this will take a little explaining,” the box said as I set it down next to me at the console.

I looked at all the video cams, and there was nothing. Then I noticed that I could not see the mailbox across the street. There seemed to be a blob in front of it.

“Do you see that, Dad?”

“Yeah Will, there is something blanking part of the screen. Look footprints forming in the front yard’s decorative crushed rock. They’re coming toward the front door from the street.”

Billy said, “I think they’re green lighting us. You know like when they do the weather on TV. They are using a strong green light, then they dress in a green suit, and everything green disappears.

Barb said, “Someone is trying to open the front door. Whenever it is moved just a little bit, the mag lock comes on yanking back, then locking the door in position. If it is not touched the lock turns off. It seems to be pissing them off that the door just starts to move then is yanked back out of their hands. They’ve stopped.”

It was hard to see anything.

Whack Whack Whack

I said, “The back porch window was being hit. It is holding.”

Whack

“Sovereign,” the computer said, “I have multiple targets in the back yard on Infra-red. Shoot at them or use one of the audio distractions?”

Whack

Billy said, “Let me send in the dog, Dad.”

“Okay, sure,” I said.

Billy moved the cursor across the Tactical screen and clicked on an audio option. Suddenly, those in the back yard heard the loud vicious sound of a big dog barking. You could hear it running around the corner at you. The whacking stopped for a few seconds.

Whack whack

Two of a group of four people were attacking the rear window.

“Okay Billy,” I said, “Lock on and shoot the multiple targets in the back yard with a five-shot salvo to each. Set the gun to stun.”

Billy laughed and said, “They’re going to love this.”

A motor spun to medium speed. Twenty golf balls hurled at the unseen targets. The balls bounced off the surprised perpetrators and they fled around a corner. Then, the balls rolled across the slightly sloped concrete pad, over to the wall. They rolled along the edge of the wall until they disappeared in a hole. Finally, to be reloaded back in the hopper magazine with the other 480 balls. A magazine fed two guns, there were six computer aimed guns total. The guns could shoot a golf ball at top speed of 300 miles per hour, quite lethal. And that was just one of the surprises we had for them.

“Sovereign, the targets are standing by claymore trap fifteen.”

I said, “Okay Billy, fire claymore fifteen.”

The release of a high-pressure charge from a compressed air tank launched a hundred super balls in a mass. You could hear the invisible blobs laying on the ground and moaning. Ninety of the balls rolled down through a gravity maze and were reloaded in the compressed gas launcher.

I got on the intercom, “I think you guys should leave.”

“We will get the box,” a blob said, “What is this, dog shit.”

“I’m turning the power up on the guns. They are now lethal. Think about what you are going to do next, it may be your last action.”

One of the blobs on the ground said, “Just give us the box. And we will leave you alone.”

Another blob said, “Oh, hell no I’m going to kill this clown after this crap. He is bluffing.”

I said into the link, “Computer shoot the last talker.”

“Yes Sovereign,” the computer said.

The gun motor spun up to high speed, but nothing happened, for about half a minute. Then suddenly the gun fired as the prone blob tried to get up and fell back down.

Blood seeped through the cloth, and you could now see the back of an unmoving bloody skull laying on the grass.

“Bob?”

A blob went to the still man and shook him.

“Bob? Get up! We need to go.”

Another blob said, “He’s history. Let’s get. We will be back for the box.”

“No! He’s my brother, I’m not leaving him.”

I muted the intercom, and said, “Computer, shoot the dead one with a tag.”

“Yes, Sovereign.”

A small dart from an air gun was shot into the still body.

I opened the intercom channel to the back yard and said, “Leave now!”

Dad said, “They just turned off the arc gap radio.”

One blob was heard to say, “Code, Triple Play, we’re out. Come get us.”

“Come on Bob, we have to go.”

You could see the heels leave a mark in the rock and dirt as the lifeless body of their comrade was hulled away. A dark van sped up to the front yard and they scurried into it.

“Billy, try and mark that van with a car tracker,” I said.

“Okay Dad.”

The driver of the van hit the gas as Billy sent a RC model truck streaking out from a portal in the garage. The van doors slammed closed as wheels screeched and it started to move. The model truck hit speed as the wheels of the van gripped and threw the vehicle forward. Billy steered the model truck under the van. As the two vehicles raced down the street, the RC truck launched a package from the bed into the undercarriage of the van, and it magnetically stuck to the steel of the van frame.

“Sovereign, there is audio from the tag that was shot into the intruders body.”

I said, “Computer open the audio channel on tag.”

“What the hell happened asshole,” a gruff voice said, “Oh my god, you stink like dog shit.”

“He really pissed me off. I’m going to get even if it the last thing I do.”

“What happened,” the gruff said?

“We ended up ducking for cover and rolling in the dog shit in the back yard.”

Everybody started laughing.

“The clown thinks he is some sort of secret agent. Well, I’m getting my little friend and we are going back tonight and teach some manors to that fool.”

That made us all stop laughing, and I said just so the family could hear, “Come on down, we will be waiting for you.”

The gruff one said, “Earl, El Jefe, will not like you out on some personal vendetta.”

“No one makes me roll in dog shit and gets away with it. This guy is toast.”