Counting Up To Infinity Read online

  “But it’s only a computer program.”

  “No, don’t think of it being just a computer program. No more than I’m just a bunch of cells. Think of her as your staff. She’s actually a bank of computers dedicated to all of us. Any one of them is equivalent of a staff of hundreds or thousands. Oh, before I forget. Do you see that cell phone? Keep it activated. It will allow you to speak to and communicate with anyone, including Drusilla or C H. To call someone, just say his or her name. You can call anyone, including Virginia. If there is only one name, like Virginia or me, then it will connect instantly. By the way, David says that you can call him 24/7. He REALLY means that. Me, I get grumpy if you call after 8 PM.” She smiled. “Seriously, you can call him at anytime, even 4 AM.”

  Rod looked at the phone and then at Phyllis. “You don’t have a phone on your ear, and neither does David.”

  Rod heard a low ring coming out of the ear pod. He put it onto his ear and heard Phyllis’ voice, “Oh I carry my phone in me.” He noticed her lips move, but not her voice, except from his phone. “Some of us had the phone implanted under our skin.” Phyllis went on, “The cigar shaped thing is actually a special computer interface. With it, you can be near any computer in this building or actually near any computer with a Wi-Fi connection and the computer will be linked to you, and Drusilla, of course. You can use it to talk to Dru at any time. The glasses are actually a modification of a computer monitor that will allow you to see the computer screen at all times. It was what allowed Don to recognize you this morning. The computer should be on you at all times, the same with the phone. You’d be surprised how helpful it can be. Anything from picking the fastest road through Atlanta at 9:23 AM, to how to make the best omelet. Oh, just so you know. We know you are a very conscientious person. You make your own hours here. If you need or want to talk to Virginia or Malcolm at any time, do it. You don’t have to prove yourself.”

  “OK, what about staff? A budget?”

  Phyllis adopted a Mexican accent, “Staff, we don’t need no stinking staff.” She went on, “Seriously, if you want to hire a person you know, do it. If you want to ask Drusilla to hire a particular type of person, like a lawyer, she can come up with a list of names. Budget? If you need something, just ask Drusilla, she’ll send it out by the time you finish saying to whom it will go to.”

  “Is everything so loose? So informal? How do you know I’m not robbing you? Or that I’m buying something you already have?”

  “Robbing us? You’re paid a very comfortable salary, free home, great medical. Would you risk it? However, Drusilla would know if you’re doing something that isn’t needed. Of course, you can ask David at any time why she’s balking. If he agrees with you, the check will go out.”

  “Are there any limits on how big a staff I can get?”

  “Tell you what. Why don’t you hold off hiring for two days, until you get to know Drusilla. By the way, click on her face with your mouse or say Drusilla Options. You’ll see various options. I chose Drusilla’s appearance, but you can select any race, age, gender, or physical characteristics. Some, BOYS”, Phyllis smirked and said that sarcastically to no one in particular, “like to have a sexy assistant, you can control that here.” Phyllis pointed to a slider that said ‘Sexiness’. “However, Virginia might not appreciate that, even IF Drusilla is a virtual person. Play with it. You will anyway. I set up Drusilla so her brilliance is 55. The higher you set her brilliance, the longer she takes in thinking about various problems. A brilliance of 55 is like having a person with an IQ of 210. I find it’s a great compromise between doing an incredibly competent job and getting it done quickly. However, some problems need more thinking then others, like when we were working on gravity reflection. The record was 6.3 days.”

  “What was that for?”

  “Oh, a personal sustainable force field.”

  “You gotta be shi … pulling my leg.”

  Phyllis smiled, “Nope. However, you might want to be on the committee to discuss whether that project is publicized. And especially if it gets shared with the military. However, that committee reached a preliminary conclusion. They decided that it should stay quiet and not be shared with any military. However, no decision is ever final, and you, having been in ROTC and the Army Core of Engineers, might have a different perspective. The rest of the committee members never had any military experience and are a bunch of lily-white pansy hippy types from the 60s.”

  “How do you know I was in ROTC? I don’t have that on my resume.”

  “There are many records that are available to the world’s richest company. I hope you aren’t offended. I mean, when you asked how much money David had available, that was his total worth, from all our banks, accounts and assets. We tend to be very open here.”

  ***

  The rest of Roderick’s day was spent with Phyllis, who taught him about many of Drusilla’s options, and its extensive library. Rod learned about its ability to teach, to organize material, to schedule, to guide presentations, to answer extremely complex problems, to synthesize information and provide summaries, and a host of other things.

  At five PM Phyllis stood up as a mail cart rolled up to Roderick’s office. The mail cart contained two rectangular boxes of business cards. Phyllis stretched, “I think I’ve had it. It’s been a long day. Oh, one other thing, we had some business cards made up. We weren’t sure which style you’d like more. Your choice or you could use either depending on the situation. Good night.” With that, Phyllis left his office.

  Roderick looked at the first box of business cards. He examined a card, it had his name, C H Enterprises, the address, phone number, and FAX. The title was ‘Junior Assistant to David Klein’. The second was identical except the title was ‘Chief Engineer for New Projects, Special Assistant to C. Haines’. Roderick sat for five minutes before putting the second box away and putting cards from the first box into his wallet. Most of those five minutes were spent thinking about how many advances he heard of all centered around C H Enterprises, the resurrection of his son with abilities unlike mere normal men, the force field, flying men, the computer advances, and his open surprise and disbelief when he first heard that Drusilla was not a real human. Perhaps it was a major understatement that C H Enterprises was unlike other companies.

  ***

  Virginia had moved into the new house, within walking distance of Rod’s office in 6 days. Martin Klein had called to give her the name of a local mover that might be of assistance. When Virginia called the movers, she was very pleasantly surprised to hear that they were making another delivery to the Atlanta area and if she were ready, they could pack her up immediately for moving. They were about to take a loss as another client changed their mind about moving the night before. She felt extremely lucky, as she did not want to be far from her husband.

  Roderick walked in at 6:30, and he looked tired. “What’s wrong, hon?”

  Rod sat down at the bar stool by the kitchen island. “Oh, nothing is wrong. It’s just been a long day. The legal people approved the release forms. Production is underway for the flight suits and helmets.”

  “Oh, is it the same suits we used last week?”

  “Yes and no. They look identical except for their colors, but have a maximum flight speed of 30 miles per hour and can fly between 10 and 100 feet in the air over most of the park. The security people will have suits as fast as ours, except they also can’t go over 100 feet but can land anywhere within the park perimeters. I’m feeling almost overwhelmed by all the details. I know every inch of the park. We have to choose between three food vendors. I just finished with the lawyers today. We just wrote up the contract with the people handling the suit rentals. We’re building a retail building and public bathrooms. And tomorrow I need to review a credit and criminal history of all the security people.”

  “Love, that’s way too much for one man. No wonder you’re
so tired. Didn’t you say that you don’t have anyone on your staff? That’s just inhuman.”

  “Didn’t I tell you about Drusilla?”

  “Nooooo. Should I get jealous?”

  “Ginny, you’re the only woman for me.”

  “And Drusilla, is she pretty?”

  Roderick inwardly smiled, but did not say anything.

  Virginia broke the silence, “Don’t you be avoiding my question, Roderick Coombs.”

  “You’re going to feel silly Ginny. Would you like to speak to her?”

  “Now, at 6:30? She’s still there at work?”

  Roderick went to his old laptop computer and turned it on. He then said, “Drusilla.” A black woman’s face appeared. Virginia was standing behind his shoulder, she whispered, “Is this Drusilla?”

  Roderick nodded. Virginia spoke, “Drusilla, this is Mrs. Coombs. What’s you doing working so late? My Roderick is home already. You should be too.”

  “Oh, I expect to be completed in about two hours. I’m crosschecking the employment history of the security people and the suit rental firms and writing a report. I don’t expect any snags.”

  Rod had a mischievous smirk on his face. “Drusilla, what are our next major steps?”

  “Well, primary is the programming the parameters of the flight suits for visitors, based on age, parental approvals, experience, and location in the park.”

  Roderick continued, “Can you make some suggestions on the parameters, rate of acceleration, amount of rolls, yaw, et cetera that would be allowed per age group or should we base it on height or weight and prior flight-suit experience. Also initiate programming for the computer. Debug and validate it. Can you get that done before I come in tomorrow morning? Oh, what else is on our plate?”

  “The food vendors just sent in their menus.”

  “Check them for potential food allergies, against major dietary restrictions, both common allergies and religious, and other things that might be a problem with flight-borne visitors. Oh, do a literature search on foods known to cause nausea, especially at amusement parks. Make sure that the machine vendor can sell relevant necessities, like mosquito repellant and sunscreen. I’d like to hold off on the shop right now, but get a set of blueprints and site location for a small flight shop. Line up some vendors and get quotes. Also locate aviation, avian, and superman books and toys which would be appropriate.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not for right now.”

  “Sure thing, Boss. See you tomorrow.”

  Roderick closed the computer lid.

  Virginia was in shock, “That was an evil thing you just did Roderick L. Coombs. An evil thing. That poor woman will be up until all hours. She seemed so nice too. Why did you do that? Just because I was jealous, you had to prove you’re a badass man?”

  Roderick’s grin was even wider.

  “Roderick Coombs. Stop your evil grin this minute.” Virginia’s hand was on her hips as she scowled at him.

  Roderick turned the computer back on. Rod said, “Drusilla, my love, my wife knows. Make yourself pretty, and sexy, say 50% but do it slowly.”

  The image of Drusilla changed from a dowdy woman to a younger and prettier woman. Her brown non-descript clothes slowly transformed, morphed, into a chic sweater showing off her ample cleavage. She was still wearing glasses, but they amplified her looks. Her hair glowed as it lengthened.

  “You know Drusilla, I’m tired of being around black women, make yourself an Oriental.”

  Drusilla slowly changed into an attractive young Oriental wearing glasses.

  “You know what Drusilla, I think I’ll keep you like you were, go back to your original looks. See you tomorrow.”

  Drusilla morphed back into the dowdy 40 year old she had been previously. Rod turned the computer off. Rod turned to face his wife, “It’s a computer program Ginny. A brilliant computer program, like that paper clip in Microsoft’s Word program, only smart, real smart. I just made her look like that, so I wouldn’t be distracted for any woman but you.”

  “A program?”

  Roderick nodded. “I make the decisions and guide her, and she does all the work. She’s like having an assistant who has a Harvard MBA, law degree, and plumbers license in the state of Michigan. She never gets tired and works like a staff of a hundred. My main problem is keeping up with her.”

  Virginia was still confused, “Don’t you mean ‘it’?”

  “Does she seem like an ‘it’ to you? She didn’t show it, but she can be sassy when I do something dumb.”

  Virginia looked at Roderick. “I see what you meant when you said that David or his father might be Charlie Haines. Drusilla fooled me. If you hadn’t asked her to turn into that Asian, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. ‘Junior Assistant to David Klein’ I’m not sure if I should be proud or not.”

  “I’m not sure if he’s smarter than Charlie Haines, I know he’s an ultra-genius. Junior Assistant is being very kind to me. A goldfish is to me, as I am to him. He’s that much smarter.”

  “Then how come he needs you to do things. Why did he hire you?”

  “Ginny, you misunderstand. I’m doing the best work in my life. I finally have the tools to do what I need to do, without making stupid boners. Can you imagine being able to set up the first airpark in the world in ten days? It’s gonna spring out of nothing and be operational in three months. It will take us that long to have the buildings ready. I’ll still be working on it until then, but I’ll probably start the second, third and fourth project next week. This is going to be big, really big. It will be a place for a young mother to bring her infant to get some sun as well as a place for teenage boys to get wild with paint ball guns, but safely. It will have a low speed area that the elderly and the cognitively disadvantaged could use. One of my ideas, is to franchise it out to botanical gardens. All we would need is to strengthen their security. They already have the land. I was thinking that it could be a low speed airpark.

  “I’m challenged, I come home every day knowing that I accomplished something. Could David have done it? Sure, but he asked me to.”

  Virginia said, “But you said it was that little boy Joshua who assigned you the project.”

  “Ginny, I’m not sure what the story is with Josh. He’s only seven, but at times, he talks like a forty year old. How’s Mal doing today?”

  “Real good. I took him to the physical therapist today. He said Mal is making surprising progress. I still can’t believe it’s him.”

  ***

  By the tenth day, Rod had finalized his plans on a former farmland as the site for his first airpark. Rod selected a small town 45 minutes from Detroit Michigan. There was already undergrowth, a few trees, pond, and pastures. The town threw in 140 acres under the condition that it remain conservation land – undeveloped, with only emergency vehicles allowed. It had been unusable wetlands prior to that. Rod agreed. They were able to claim the right to be called the first airpark.

  ***

  Two days later Roderick was sitting in his office when Martin spoke over the phone/computer interface, “Rod, I just wanted to remind you that Doctor Brown is coming over in five minutes. I was wondering if you could speak with him with the Ryans? It’s going to be in the Organic Technology Wing. He was just let into the complex and headed there.”

  “Sure thing.”

  ***

  Doctor Brown was admitted to the Organic Technology Wing and he was escorted up by Roderick, into a large physical examination room. There were seven seats in the room. The seats were circularly placed, except for one that was by a desk. Janet, Sidney, and Martin were already seated. Joshua was at the desk, scribbling with four crayons on a page filled with lines and circles.

  Martin rose and shook Brown’s hand. “I’m glad you were able to come here. I see you brought your medical bag, like I asked.”

  Dr. Brown went over to Roderick and put
a hand on his shoulder. “Again, I’m very sorry about your double loss. Have they ever found the body?”

  Roderick looked at Martin, “You never told him?”

  Dr. Brown did not hear the interchange going on with Roderick’s phone. Roderick blinked a few times and coughed uncomfortably. He then said, “Dr. Brown, please sit down. Please.”

  Dr. Brown sat.

  Roderick rolled his eyes. Saying to himself, ‘This is the strangest place I’ve ever seen.’ Roderick then looked at Brown, “I’m now working for them, but at times they forget what people don’t know. Dr. Brown,” Roderick paused, “Malcolm is alive.”

  Dr. Brown looked very uncomfortable. He said slowly and comfortingly, “Rod, Malcolm died. His body was stolen. I’m not sure where it is, but I can testify that he died.”

  Roderick grimaced. “The reason his body is not in his grave is that he’s alive and doing much, much better than ever before. He’s in the next room.”

  Brown looked at Martin, who was shaking his head yes, as were the two other adults.

  “That can’t be. His heart stopped. At the morgue, he was dead. There was no brain activity.” He looked angrily at the Ryans, “What are you doing to this poor man’s mind!”

  Rod repeated, “He’s here, in the next room.”

  Janet opened a side door and Malcolm slowly walked in. Dr. Brown started to rise and sat down again.

  “This can’t be. It appears a little like Malcolm, but…”

  Malcolm approached Dr. Brown and held out his hand. In his quiet voice Malcolm said, “Hello, Dr. Brown.”

  Roderick quickly said, “Careful with your grip, son.”

  Malcolm shook Brown’s hand.

  Dr. Brown said, “His facial structure looks similar to Malcolm, although he’s standing and walking. I notice that he’s not wearing glasses, like the real Malcolm.” There was a long pause and Dr. Brown looked at Martin, Janet and Sidney. They each nodded. Dr. Brown spoke, “Malcolm, when I injected you with the virus, we talked about a few things. Can you remember anything about that?”

  Malcolm thought for a second then said in a soft voice, “You compared me to Lindberg and Columbus and said that I was going to make history.”

  Brown looked again at Malcolm, but closer. “He’s standing and walking. That can’t be. His neurons were shot.”