SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“That’s what I call him,” Mundine said. “He’s very helpful to me.”

“Why were you arguing with my Pa?” Febby asked. “Why did he hurt you?”

Mundine inhaled and exhaled. “These are all very good questions, Febby. But whatever disagreements I might have with your father, I hope they won’t affect our friendship.”

“Okay,” Febby said. “What are you doing in Depok? Did you come to visit my Pa?”

“Not precisely,” Mundine said. “I work for a company called Bantipor Commercial, and we build many different kinds of electronics. Like computers. Do you know anything about computers, Febby?”

“A little,” Febby said. “We’re learning about them in school. My brother has one at home, but he only uses it for shooters. He plays online with his friends.”

“Thank heaven for video games,” Mundine said. “Febby. Your brother’s computer, do you know what kind it is?”

“Okay, I think I got it,” Febby said. “Yes! What do you think, Laddie?”

LAD waited for the pendant lights to finish the cycle Febby had encoded. Unlike Mundine, who wanted fast replies, LAD found that if he responded too quickly, Febby would get upset, because she felt LAD hadn’t taken enough time to consider what she was saying.

“It’s very colorful,” LAD said after 800 milliseconds.

“It’s a secret code,” Febby said. “In base three counting. Red is zero, green is one, and blue is two. Can you tell what it says?”

LAD knew exactly what it said, because LAD could see the actual lines of computer code that Febby was transmitting from Jaya’s previous-generation gaming PC into LAD’s necklace over a Bluetooth 2.0 link. There was more computing power in Mundine’s left big toe—literally, since he kept a copy of his health care records in an NFC node implanted there—but the big metal box on Jaya’s desk had a wired Internet connection, which LAD needed to call in a recovery team for Mundine.

“If I interpret the colors as numeric values in base three,” LAD said, “and then translate those into letters of the alphabet, I believe the message is Febby and Laddie are super friends .”

It had taken Febby less than an hour to write this test module. LAD noted that she worked more efficiently than many of the engineers who performed periodic maintenance services on LAD and Mundine’s other bodytechs.

“You got it!” Febby clapped her hands. “Okay, the programming link works. Now we need to set up the—what did you call it?”

“A wired-to-wireless network bridge,” LAD said, “so I can connect to the Internet.”

“Right.” Febby started typing again. “You know, I could just look things up for you. Would that be faster?”

LAD had considered asking her to make an emergency call, but LAD couldn’t trust that local police would take a child’s complaint seriously. LAD also didn’t want Febby’s father to catch her trying to help Mundine. LAD estimated that Mundine’s best chance of a safe rescue lay with his employer, Bantipor Commercial, which would dispatch a professional search team as soon as they knew Mundine’s precise location. And only LAD could upload a properly encrypted emergency message to Bantipor’s secure servers.

“I have a lot of different things to look up,” LAD said to Febby. “I wouldn’t want to waste your time.”

“It’s not a waste,” Febby said. “This is fun! I can’t wait until Hani gets back next week. She’s going to freak out when she sees you!”

“Hani is your friend?” LAD asked. Requesting data from Febby was an interesting experience. She always returned more than the expected information.

“Yeah,” Febby said. “We sit together in computer lab. She showed me how to—”

A clanging noise came from downstairs, followed by loud male and female voices. Febby sighed, got up, and closed the door to the bedroom.

“What was that transport proto-something you said I should look at?” Febby asked.

“Transport protocol,” LAD said. “Look for TCP/IP libraries. They may also be labeled ‘Transmission Control Protocol’ or ‘Internet Protocol.’”

“Okay, I found them,” Febby said. “Wow, there’s a lot of stuff here.” She was silent for 1,100 milliseconds, then made a flapping sound with her lips. “Are you sure there’s not an easier way to do your Internet searches?”

“I’m afraid not,” LAD said. “I actually need to send a message to Mr. Mundine’s company in a very specific way.”

“You can’t just do it through their web site?” Febby asked. LAD heard typing and mouse clicks. “Here they are. Bantipor Commercial. There’s a contact form right…here! I can just send the message for you.”

This procedure was not documented anywhere in LAD’s behavior or system guidelines, but the logic appeared valid. LAD forked several new processes to calculate the most effective and concise human-readable message to send. “That’s a great idea, Febby. Is there an option to direct the message to Bantipor Commercial’s security services?”

“Let me check the menu,” Febby said. Then, 5,500 milliseconds later: “No, I don’t see anything that says ‘security’. How about ‘support and troubleshooting’?”

“That’s not quite right.” LAD was at a loss until the new behavior guidelines from last night kicked in. “Can I get your opinion, Febby? I’ll tell you what I’m trying to do, and you tell me what you think is the best way to do it.”

“Like a test? Sure. I’m good at tests.”

“Cool,” LAD said. The voice command UI had started prioritizing that word based on recent user interactions. “I need to tell Bantipor Commercial’s security services that Mr. Mundine is here in Depok. Normally I would upload the message directly to their servers myself, but I can’t do that without an Internet connection.”

“Security,” Febby said thoughtfully. “Do they monitor this web site, too? Like for strange activity? I remember last year the BritAma Arena had trouble with hackers, and the police caught them because their software bot was making too many unusual requests to the ticketing site.”

LAD couldn’t research those details online, but Mundine’s bodyNet also had standard protections against denial-of-service attacks. If the same client made too many similar requests within a specified time period, that client was flagged for investigation. “Yes. That is very likely. And the server will automatically record your IP address, which can be geolocated to this neighborhood. This is a very good idea, Febby.”

“I’ll write a script to send the same message over and over,” Febby said, starting to type again. “How long should I let it run?”

“As long as you can,” LAD said.

“Okay. I’ll make the message… Dear Bantipor security, Mr. Mundine is in Depok. From, Laddie .”

LAD’s behavior guidelines could not find an appropriate response to these circumstances, so they degraded gracefully to the default. “Thank you, Febby.”

“Here it goes.”

Someone pushed open the door and walked into the room. LAD had been so busy evaluating Febby’s proposals, the incoming audio analysis had been buffered, and the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs had not been processed.

“What are you doing?” Jaya shouted at Febby. “That’s my computer!”

“I’m just borrowing it,” Febby said. “I’m almost done.”

“Don’t touch my stuff, you’ll mess it up!”

LAD detected vibrations, as if Febby’s body were being shaken. There was more shouting, and Febby fell and hit the floor. Someone else banged on the computer keyboard.

“What is all this garbage?” Jaya said. “You better not have lost my saved games!”