Dale Brown - Puppet Master

“Are you a cop?” asked Borya.

“No. I’m not a cop.”

“Why are you here?”

“I know what you did. I’m interested,” added Chelsea.

“In what?”

“In how you do it. You’re good with computers. I’ll bet you’re great in math, too. And also bored in school.”

“Maybe.”

Borya sensed — knew — that the woman was just pretending to be nice so she could get what she wanted. Still, the attention was flattering.

“If you show me how you did it, I’ll show you some cool stuff,” offered Chelsea. “Computers, robots, and other cool stuff.”

“Yeah, right — like you’re going to offer me candy next,” snapped Borya. “You’re going to break the door.”

“I work for a pretty interesting company,” she said. “We need more smart people to work there. Women especially.”

“You’re hurting me.”

Borya faked tears. It was a lousy try, but it worked. The woman let go of the door.

“See ya,” said Borya, slipping in the key and unlocking the door. She expected Chelsea would try to stop her, but she didn’t. Borya squeezed past her and fled into the house.

Chelsea stood on the back porch for a moment, considering what to do. She sensed that she had aroused the girl’s curiosity but at the same time had somehow made a misstep, either coming on too strong or not being enticing enough.

I should have mentioned money. That’s probably what motivated her in the first place.

Money? Here? Unlikely.

Should have been clearer about not being a cop.

Threatened to turn her in if she didn’t come with me.

That’s kidnapping.

She stood on the porch for a few moments, until she was convinced that Borya wasn’t coming back out. Then she went down to her bike. But she wasn’t going home — she walked around to the front and went up on the stoop. She rang the bell. When there was no answer, she sat down on the steps.

One of the teachers had told her a little bit about Borya when she was waiting. Most of it she could have guessed: smart girl, somewhat rebellious, good at math.

The fact that she had lost her mother when she was young and that her father hadn’t remarried — that was unexpected. If not for that, the girl would have been very similar to her.

Maybe. Had Chelsea been that rebellious?

You were a handful, she heard her father say.

She laughed.

Maybe I was.

Borya locked the door and raced upstairs, checking to make sure she hadn’t missed her father’s call.

No calls.

She ran to her room and woke her computer from sleep mode. She checked Facebook and her e-mail, then looked quickly at her father’s account — if school or the police were trying to contact him, she wanted to know.

A lot of spam, nothing official.

She’d just backed out of the account when the phone rang. She grabbed it without looking at the caller ID, then belatedly realized it might be the police. She held it to her ear, listening.

“Borya, what are you doing?” demanded her father. “Talk.”

“I’m about to do my homework,” she said. “I just got home.”

“How much homework do you have?”

“Not much,” she answered without thinking. The truth was, she had done it all in school already, at least the homework that she cared to do. But an ambiguous answer gave her room to maneuver.

“I’m on my way home. Do we need milk?”

“Um… let me check.”

As she trotted down the stairs, she noticed the woman sitting on the steps at the front of the house.

That’s no good. How do I get rid of her?

“Yeah, I guess, um, we do need milk,” Chelsea told her father after picking up the downstairs phone.

“Anything else?”

“Wait…” Chelsea walked to the refrigerator and opened it. It was well stocked — and in fact there was a nearly full gallon of milk right in the front. “No, nothing. Snacks, maybe.”

“You don’t need any more potato chips. They’ll give you zits. I’ll be home in a bit.”

He hung up. Chelsea put the phone down and went back to the refrigerator for the milk. She drained the jug into the sink, leaving only a finger’s worth at the bottom, then ran the water to remove any trace.

The woman was still there. This was not going to do. Her father was already past the ATM situation. A question or two from this Chelsea, and she was back in trouble, big time.

The phone upstairs began playing a message that it was off the hook. Borya trotted up and turned it off, then traded her uniform skirt and blouse for jeans and a sweatshirt.

Still there. What happens when Dad comes home?

Borya had to get rid of her somehow. She stood at the top of the steps, hoping for an answer.

Nothing occurred to her.

There was something near the door. She slipped down quietly and picked up a business card.

Smart Metal

AI, Bots, et al

Chelsea Goodman

Chief AI engineer

Not a cop. OK. What was Smart Metal?

AI and Bots… artificial intelligence and robots?

Huh?

Borya put the card on the table, then paced back and forth, trying to decide what to do.

The doorbell rang. She turned. It was Chelsea.

Open it or not?

She undid the latch and yanked the door open.

“What do you want?” Borya demanded.

“I want you to come with me and see my lab. I want to give you a tour.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing.”

“You’ll leave me alone?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going in a car.”

“I don’t have a car.”

Borya peered out to the street. The woman was alone. “You’ll let me go home when we’re done?”

“Absolutely.”

“I have to be home because my dad will have a shit fit.”

“Of course.”

“You’re not lying. You’re not the cops?”

“I’m not the cops. I know what you did.” Chelsea’s voice became a little less sweet. “I’m interested in it. But I’m not turning you in. I would love to know how you did it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s fine. Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait. I need to tell my father where I’m going,” said Borya, who was already thinking of an excuse — the library or a friend’s, nothing related to this woman.

“I’ll wait out here.”

Jenkins slowed the car as he approached Tolevi’s house. There was someone out front with a bike, waiting by the driveway, back to him.

A girl, but not Borya.

There was Borya, coming up the driveway with her own bicycle. She hopped on. The other girl started riding as well.

Is that Chelsea Goodman?

Jenkins got a good side view as he passed. It was Chelsea. What the hell was she doing with Borya?

He turned at the next corner, then accelerated away. He had to think about this.

Chelsea took a step back, watching Borya as she stared in awe at the tiny flying machine. She had told the airborne bot to fly into the 3-D maze and retrieve a tulip; the UAV was now wending its way around a string of Plexiglas baffles, buzzing up and down as it looked for its target. It passed a decoy lily, then a bunch of daisies, and finally hovered above the tulip. It circled twice, measuring the stem, then dove down and plucked the flower near its base. Moments later it hovered above Borya’s hand, waiting for her to take its prize.