That had to be the craziest thing to ever happen to me. I really hoped that wasn't what my mind was going to start doing under stressful situations. If it was, I planned on moving to a place where all I had to do was meditate all day.
Not wanting to sound crazy, I followed along behind Hank and kept my mouth shut. I'd have to ask Nate later if he'd noticed anything weird around the same time. Hank ended up directing me to a large room filled with computers and their parts. I could see a few heads staring at monitors throughout the room.
One of the heads looked up and said, "Hey, who's the hottie?" The voice belonged to a guy who looked about sixteen, with a baby face, short brown hair and maybe green eyes. It was a little difficult to tell from where I stood.
"Can it, Louie," Hank said. "Everyone, I'd like you to meet our newest addition, Peggy. Peggy this is Louie." I shook his hand and we continued to the next station.
I was introduced to Jake and his wife Kim. Jake looked like the average boy next door all grown up. He had short, light brown hair and blue eyes. Kim looked to be my height with long dark brown hair and brown eyes. She had very interesting skin coloring and I couldn't help but ask what her ancestry was. After telling me she was asked the question all the time, she filled me in that her mother was from Haiti and her father hailed from Spain.
We moved on to meet Josh, who was sporting some thin wire-framed glasses and what looked like a mop on his head. The boy had some meat on his bones and appeared to be the group's comedian. After reading my shirt, he made a few of his own suggestions of jokes that would be good on a shirt. Some of which were funny, the others were just a tad dorky.
Last, I was introduced to Eric. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd just come from a skateboarding competition or something similar. He had a blue mohawk and somewhat eerie looking grey eyes. I could also see colorful tattoos lining his neck.
"Nice tattoos, what are they of?" I asked.
He moved his neck around so I could see it better. It was the inner workings of a machine. Colorful gears and wires wrapped around his neck, not exactly what I expected to find on someone's neck in the middle of Montana.
"That's totally awesome. I got my first tattoo a few months ago and have been thinking about getting something else," I said. "I don't know that my skin can soak up that much ink, but I figure small pieces will eventually get me to a giant work of art."
"Really? What ya got?" Eric asked. I lifted up my shirt a little on the side to expose my knife based butterfly. "That's pretty cool. You look like a Sweet Polly, so I was expecting some cutesy tattoo. The knife is a little unexpected."
"Well, I like to keep people guessing," I said, smiling at him.
I thought I was doing well hiding my shyness and trying to blend in. On the inside, I was pretty sure I was churning up enough acid to make my organs look like Swiss cheese. Looking around, I saw there was no one else in the room. Hank said there were six people other than him and Katie had mentioned an Ettie, but I didn't see anyone else.
"You looking for Ettie?" Hank asked. When I looked at him a little surprised, he laughed and said, "Katie told me she warned you. Ettie tends to spend time by herself working on a project she doesn't want to share with the rest of us. Josh jokes that she's making herself a boyfriend who can stand to be around her longer than five seconds."
Hearing his name, Josh wheeled his chair over and joined the conversation. "Yeah, Ettie doesn't get along well with others. If you're lucky, she won't emerge from her cauldron for a couple weeks."
"Does she really hide out for that long?" I asked.
"Nah. The longest we've been without her gracing us with her presence is two days. Chances are she'll be digging her way out of her crypt soon."
Evidently Josh didn't think highly of Ettie. I couldn't tell if there was a personal reason behind it or if Ettie was a witch. Either possibility seemed likely.
"Let's get you situated in a workspace and we can show you some of the different things we're currently working on," Hank said as he led me over to an open terminal.
Looking at the desk, I saw I had three monitors and I couldn't wait to see what kind of power the actual computer had. I imagined my coworkers were given the best of the best. They were creating the technology of the future. In my mind that meant they needed the greatest technology of the present.
?I started the machine up and poked around to see what I had to work with. It didn't take me long to realize I was going to have a lot of fun. I ran a quick check of the network to see what kind of security walls I'd hit when the time came to start looking around.
At first glance, everything looked to be in order and I didn't foresee any problems tunneling in. While I waited to get on with the fun, I needed to work my way around the people and see who the likely suspects were.
"So Peggy, what is it you did before joining us?" Louie asked, leaning over my desk.
"Well, I just graduated from Stanford, but I've been working with computers since I was ten. I've made a lot of programs and games for my own personal use over the years. One of my professors knew someone who knew someone and got me checked out.
"Evidently they liked what they saw and invited me to come work out here. I was extremely lucky that there was an opening for Sean. It would've been hard moving somewhere new and not knowing anyone." I'd practiced the backstory enough that I relayed it flawlessly.
"So you and this Sean, how serious is it?" Louie asked, giving me a wink.
The question should've been whether he was serious? In no universe would Louie and I ever be hooking up. Even if he wasn't underage, he looked it and there wasn't a time in my life I remembered thinking teenagers were attractive.
To try to steer him away from any romantic notions, I said, "It's pretty serious. I have a feeling a ring will be involved before too long." In reality the 'before too long' was more like maybe if we were the last two people on earth, but Louie needed to take a hint, I wasn't available.
"You never know, things and people can both change," he said as Hank approached.
"Why don't you come over here and we can show you what we've been up to lately." I wondered if he could read the relief in my eyes from having a chance to escape Louie.
"Sounds like a good idea. I'd love to get started on something. I'm not sure what you want me to do." We moved over to his station and I saw his setup was similar to mine.
"We work in teams. Jake, Kim, myself and you will be working on the programming. When we get done with a program we give it to Josh, Louie and Eric, who work on the interface. These days the interface can be anything. Phones, robots, Josh even has a talking flower pot he made as a joke.
"He wanted to see if talking to a plant really helped it grow, so he had us make him a quick program. He ended up giving it to his mom for her birthday. She made him remove the computer, though. She thought a flower pot talking back to her was too creepy."
I sided with the mom on that one. Although, the temptation was high to ask for one for my own mother. She needed someone to talk to and when it came to her, an inanimate object was best in my book.
"What are you working on now?" I asked.
Having time away from other people who were as geeky as I was had meant it'd been a while since I'd had a computer conversation with someone else who would understand what I said. Nate wasn't fluent in binary code.
"The goal is to always improve on what we've done last here in the lab and make our way to a computer that can function and do things just like a human would. A lot of people will try to focus in on one aspect of AI. We're trying to tie everything together and make a computer that could even go as far as cry when it's sad."
"That would be something. We just have to make sure they don't end up taking over the world like in all those science fiction movies," I said only partially joking.
I read enough on the subject to know travelling down the road was a slippery slope. Everyone wanted lifelike robots, but there was a point when you taught the machine too much and things star
ted getting out of hand.
"Come over here and I'll show you the latest robot body the guys have built." He led me to a table, where I saw a metal structure that resembled the human skeleton. "Here, let me turn it on. The program in this one is a couple generations old. We had some bugs in our latest two releases, so we've had to revert him back to the last stable installation."
He pressed a little button on the robot's neck. The next thing I knew, the robot was sitting up on the table. "Good afternoon, Dr. Jacobson," the robot said in a very human sounding voice. "Who is your friend?"
Whoever worked on the voice was good. It was even smoother than Tabby's and I'd thought she sounded more advanced than any of the computer generated voices I'd heard.
"Vinnie, I'd like to introduce you to Peggy. She's just starting out here, but I'm sure you'll get to know her very well," Hank responded.
"It is very nice to meet you, Peggy," Vinnie said, sticking out his hand.
Not knowing what else to do, I reached out my hand and shook with the robot. "It's really nice to meet you too."
"As you may have guessed, Vinnie here has our latest facial recognition software. Now that he's met you, he's started a file on you and soon will be able to tell you anything you want to know about yourself," Hank said proudly. I hoped Vinnie wasn't connected to any government database. My assignment was in jeopardy before I even settled in, which was pretty much on par for me.
"Wow, he's very impressive. You mentioned some bugs in your latest software, what's wrong with it?"
"Vinnie, why don't you go do some studying," he told the robot. Vinnie walked over to a chair and sat down. He pulled up a cable and plugged it into his wrist. "We like to keep him up-to-date on current events, so he'll be there for a couple of hours downloading new files from the Internet.
"As far as the bugs, we aren't exactly sure what's going on. That's one of the first things I'd like you to take a look at. I'm hoping a fresh set of eyes will be able to see something the rest of us are missing."
"I'd love to take a look. I've only ever really seen my own coding before, so it will be fun to see what you guys have been working on."
"Great, let's go back to your station and I'll show you how to access the files." He walked me back and quickly showed me where to go on the server. I started opening the different files and immediately became engrossed in their awesomeness. ??
I was so enthralled that I jumped when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I spun around, finding Eric standing there.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you, but I've been saying your name for a couple minutes," he said.
"It's no problem. I was just really into reading some code and zoned out a little." I looked at the clock and saw that two hours had passed.
"Well, it's noon and we all usually head up to the lunchroom together. We just wondered if you wanted to join us."
"Oh sure. I guess I'm a little hungry now that you mention food. Let me just close some of this down and I'll be right with you guys," I said as I shut some windows. The coding I'd read was really genius. It was past anything I could've thought to write on my own, but after seeing it, it all made perfect sense.
I stood up and joined the others. They led the way to the elevator and we rode it up in search of food. No one had said if the lunchroom was just a bunch of vending machines or if they actually had someone cooking and serving food. If there was a chef, I planned on meeting him or her and inspecting the kitchen before I ate anything. Even undercover, I wasn't eating a strange chef's food without a little inspection.
CHAPTER 7
Love is like a game of chess: one false move and you're mated