The Media Candidate (7 page)

Jenner was a software engineer in the Dorsal Fin
Program in the GX Operations Department of COPE. She worked on the
Dorsal Fin team for several years and was the most respected and
reclusive software geek there. She had developed control software
and firmware for various stages of robotic demonstration and
prototype components. The Dorsal Fin program manager was grateful
to her for solving a couple of knotty control problems that had
threatened the very existence of the program.

At a routine Monday morning technical review in
2045, Jenner commented, “I just can’t make any progress using those
jerks in Engineering, and I don’t have time to do the feedback-loop
optimization myself. I’ve got all I can do keeping three
programmers and an analyst busy. We’re falling behind in the
hardware, and we just aren’t going to get there using Engineering
support like we’re supposed to.”

“Jesus, Jenner!” her boss said, shaking his
head. “You know how the Engineering AD gets on my boss’s ass every
time he finds out we’re going around Engineering for support. And
you know Jerry believes in the gravitational theory of
management—and so do I!”

“Yeah, I know. Shit roles downhill.”

“Right! And you’re in the valley.”

“Okay,” Jenner said, “Bottom line is I’ve got to
use Engineering because you don’t want to piss off your boss. But
if I don’t get somebody good and dedicated, you’re going to see a
lot more schedule flags.”

“Look. Three times I’ve gotten you dedicated
help from Engineering.”

“Yeah, the first guy was dedicated to
retirement. The most work I got out of him was a nice design for
his cabin up at Tahoe. Then there was that broad that really liked
me. She dedicated a poem to me. And then there was that Mormon
creep that kept talking to me about endowments. I think he was
dedicating a new synagogue or something. I’ve had enough COPE
dedication.”

Her boss sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I
talked to Jerry on Friday because I figured you might hit me with
this. Here’s the deal, and don’t yell at me until I finish. E-4 has
this hotshot controls guy. He’s been working on some sandbox stuff
that hasn’t been going anywhere, you know, Jimmy’s group? But this
guy, Sherwood, is really a top nerd, and we can have him.”

“Oh, right! And the only problem is he carries a
chain saw in a holster.”

“No, listen. He’s not that bad. Jimmy says he’s
a little weird. He’s got a couple of women over there that complain
about this guy being kind of creepy. The word is, Jimmy’s sleeping
with one of the gals, and she laid the law down about getting rid
of this guy, so Jimmy’s smart enough to know what that means. So we
can have him.”

“Since when is it against the law for an
engineer to be weird? Hell, we ought to all be in the bumper room.
So when can I interview this guy?”

Jenner’s boss grinned. “They’re moving his stuff
over here this morning. He’s going in Jacob’s old office, you know,
next to—”

“I know where it is! But don’t I get anything to
say about it? After all, he’s going to be working for me. Besides,
if Jimmy hired him, he probably can’t even zip his own fly. How we
ever let some retired colonel have a position of authority around
here I’ll never figure out.”

“But Jimmy didn’t hire him,” her boss said. “He
came in through the FBI window when we moved.”

“You mean we’re getting an FBI retread? I don’t
like this!”

The other task managers had been silent
throughout this exchange. The mechanical engineer then spoke up.
“We’ve been after you for a month for the bandwidth requirements of
each leg joint, and you don’t even have time for that. That affects
stiffness, damping coefficient, moment, everything. I think you
need this guy, and you ought to just go ahead and do it, and worry
about his bad personal habits later.”

Thus, Sherwood had become a member of the Dorsal
Fin team. All he knew about Dorsal Fin was that it was developing
the world’s most advanced robots for COPE and that they had
something to do with spying and espionage.

Working for Jenner was a new kind of experience.
Here, at last, was a human who thought like the machines she
attempted to master. She integrated herself into the very controls
she cultivated. It was as if her ancestors had pulled themselves
up, not from the sea, but from a cauldron of integrated circuits,
memory chips, and transimpedence amplifiers. Sherwood was awed by a
human being for the first time in his life.

Sherwood lived up to everything Jenner’s boss
had said about him. He felt more intimacy with machines than he
could with mere humans. They were superior to humans, but inferior
to him, of course. His intuitive notion of how a robot acts was a
perfect complement to Jenner’s sensitivity to its thought
process.

The Dorsal Fin staff had soon discovered his
other side, too. He was at least as weird as they’d been led to
believe, living some existence to which they were excluded. His
arrogance broadcast from him like a drop of gasoline blankets a
water puddle, yet stays separate from the water.

He and Jenner worked together on many robot,
control-system problems. He had addressed elements of these
problems in school and in the Engineering sandbox; but now these
problems awaited real, not academic, solutions. It ignited a
passion in him like his treachery in high school. He looked at it
as one of the great spy-technology sagas of history.

An early problem was to analyze the electronic
feedback from the exoskeletal sensors of a robot leg so that it
would apply exactly the right amount of current to each internal
actuator to affect the desired mechanical response. This evolved
into optimizing the shape each leg made and its rotational inertia
while walking to maximize its strength and accuracy and minimize
its power consumption. All the while he envisioned the robot’s
ultimate function, or at least his fantasy of it.

After finally receiving the required security
clearances, tickets as they called them, Sherwood had been “read
in” to the Dorsal Fin program; that is, he was given access to
whatever classified information he needed. With these tickets, he
learned much more about COPE applications such as reconnaissance,
intimidation, and burglary. But he knew there was more. He and
Jenner were principal members of the small team that took the most
advanced robots from contractors in Silicon Valley and developed
the first fully independent COPE espionage spider. They had worked
together for several years refining these operational soulless
agents without being certain exactly what the objective of the
robot was.

* * *

One day, the AD for Special Projects, the Asp as
he was known informally, called Sherwood and Jenner into his
office. The office was a many-walled setting comforted by windows
on two sides. The view was bucolic with grass, trees, and flowers
gracing some unseen summit. Potted plants abounded within, each
seeking a freedom it could sense only through glass. The decor was
upbeat with oils and watercolors.

The Asp was silvered by a subtle wave ascending
from his forehead. He spoke articulately, but not pedantically. His
successful career had placed him in a position of extreme
importance, in fact, one of higher authority in some respects, than
his boss, the Director of COPE, and even her boss, the Secretary of
the Electorate. He was just shy of tall and dressed classic, but
comfortable. A dimple in his chin competed with formal ebony
eyes.

He remained standing after seeing his guests
seated, then walked to the window behind his desk where he stood
with his hands behind his back. Shortly, he turned to face them.
“As you can see, I’m sidestepping the chain of command, but I need
this flexibility to cut through the bureaucracy when national
interests dictate. I’ve been tasked by a high authority to
discretely solve a problem that could affect the hard-won order of
our society.” The brightness of the window behind him washed out
his features, creating an almost ghost-like figure. Jenner squinted
and turned her head slightly to adjust to the scene. Sherwood
watched squarely, eyes wide open, allowing his pupils to adjust for
him.

“I try to keep track of the efforts of my staff,
especially in such critical areas as Dorsal Fin. Frankly, I’ve been
more than a little dazzled by the work you two have done. I think
you’re a team—and a damned impressive one. I’ve called you two here
to invoke your help for the final step in the robot development—to
put teeth into the program, so to speak. What we need to do now
can’t be done by contractors because of its sensitive nature, and
the two of you together, I believe, can make it happen.”

His left hand reached for and found, with no
visual help, the cord of the blinds above him. With a smooth pull,
the blinds descended silently behind him, eliminating the
background glare and returning the natural contrast to his anatomy.
He walked away from the window toward the two, past them, circled
around behind, and then back in front of them again where he pulled
another chair like theirs to a position between them and the walnut
overhang of his desk. Without a word, he sat back, being careful
that he not visually favor either of his guests. The darkened
window panel now lay squarely behind him, and his features leapt
forward in the intimacy of his new setting. Jenner changed her
position, first crossing her legs at their ankles, then at their
thighs. A quick glance toward Sherwood revealed a granite figure,
breathing shallowly, focused.

“What I want done is not a job for wimps, nor
for anyone who can’t completely forget what they’ve been doing all
day when they go home. It’s a tough and extremely sensitive job,
and it must completely absorb you, and you must agree up front that
you’ll keep the strictest confidence about every phase of it. I
feel the security surrounding this program exceeds the highest
level thus far created by COPE. That’s why I need to extract this
special promise from you. Also remember that your decision won’t go
beyond this room if you choose not to participate. You may have
some time to think about it, but if you know the answer now, I’d
appreciate it.”

Jenner glanced over at Sherwood who maintained
intense eye contact with the Asp. Before the Asp’s words had fallen
from his lips, Sherwood responded, “Yes sir, I can handle those
conditions.”

Jenner followed with an, “I can too, sir.”

“I appreciate your support,” the Asp continued.
“I knew I could rely on you, and you won’t be sorry. This is a
tremendous opportunity for you to grow within COPE. We remember all
deeds, both good and bad—even though we may not record it in your
personnel file.”

The Asp stood up and motioned them toward a
small conference room adjacent to his spacious office. “Let’s
continue our conversation in here where we can be more
comfortable.”

This is it,
Sherwood thought as he walked
in front of Jenner.
This is the room where he briefs his secret
agents before their missions.
His mind ran wild with a flood of
famous spies from his past. Images of Jade Fist and The Sniffer
surged within him.
At last,
he thought.
At last
.

The interior room was adequately proportioned
and suitably illuminated with indirect artificial lighting. Naked
walls faded into vaporous shadows. The chairs were alluringly
comfortable, inviting exhaustive discussion, soliciting detail.
They lowered the artificial boundaries usually installed between
human hierarchies. The oval table lacked chairs at its two ends.
This place is made for doing business
, Sherwood thought,
and measuring secrets.

The Asp closed the door behind them without
fanfare. A discrete but clear flashing red light above the door
reading UNSECURE changed to a steady, green SECURE and was slowly
exiled to oblivion as the discussion began.

The Asp sat down next to Jenner and across from
Sherwood. He seemed to be occupied by another task, relegating
secrets to the back burner for a moment as he withdrew a filigreed
pipe from a carved cherry pipestand containing three pipes. Six
eyes watched a match erupt into flames, then watched the fire being
sucked into the bowl of the pipe.

Sherwood allowed his eyes to follow that first
cloud of smoke as it rose and obscured the Asp for a moment. He
studied the smoke, then studied the man who’d created it. His eyes
then snapped back to the pipe rack where he noticed an empty recess
carved into the wood at its top. He measured that recess in an
instant. It was just large enough for a lighter.

Leaning back to the squeak and crunch of
leather, the Asp began. “We need to redirect the mission of our
spiders. Until now, we’ve used them for reconnaissance, and they’ve
performed admirably. They have generally done what any average
agent could do in very covert situations. On many occasions, we’ve
teamed a spider with one of our autonomous T-11 cars to carry out
surveillance and minor espionage functions without arousing
suspicion and alarm that a spider alone would certainly do. The
spiders seem to evoke a fear among people. But, as you know, the
octoped, low profile configuration is the most stable and
efficient. In any event, we have limited our spiders to rather
routine missions.”

Sherwood’s instinct for inscrutability
suppressed his excitement. Jenner leaned forward with an audible
swallow.

“Now, however,” the Asp continued, “I want to
capitalize on its strengths—stealth, intimidation, and the agility
of a cat burglar. I want to expand its role so it can perform
missions that only our most experienced agents can perform. This
means you’ll have to study every aspect of its proposed missions in
preparation for the upgrade. You see, what I want our spiders to be
able to do is to attack a human target and be equipped to inject a
lethal dose of a nerve agent, GX-37. They must be upgraded with the
required hardware and controls, and their reliability and
identification accuracy must be enhanced.”