Dust

  Chapter 29 - Finding Jon

  Smitty began with the typical monotone everyone had become used to. "My calculation show that the nanos now in us are dormant or operating on slow speed most of the time because: one, they are receiving less energy, two, communication inside us at the level of free nanos would likely cause genetic damage because of the X-ray band communications which would, three, take all their efforts to repair the tumors and promote new cell development without telomere shortening. They are active for a few seconds every hour but they are dormant most of the time because to do otherwise would be a net zero energy gain unless they wanted to wake up to kill us.

  "Thanks, Smitty, although I could have done without that last bit. It does raise the question 'why are they in there if it’s so inefficient?’"

  "Well, they can work on other communication bands albeit slower. I can’t show it yet but I think they do it in a monitoring mode. They could wake up to take roll call of their numbers and replace missing nanos. Or they could be monitoring our body health. No one has had so much as a cold symptom since they moved in.

  Phillip raised an open hand of acceptance.

  "We've learned one other interesting thing.” said Smitty shutting off his e-tablet and folding it up. Smiling he announced, “Jonathan Davis has been found."

  "He's alive!"

  "Apparently so and living in West Virginia."

  "And?"

  "We haven't contacted him yet. Thought you'd want to be the one."

  "What's the address?"

  Smitty smiled and handed Phillip a small box. "Here's a GPS already programmed."

  "Thank you Doctor Smith." Said Phillip with a slight bow.

  "You are welcome Doctor Day."

  Phillip picked up a car from the post motor pool. The noncom in charge made a thing out of mentioning the vehicle had a fresh dielectric tank and a spare was in the trunk. This was quite a bit different from the last time he took a car from here. That time the kid running the motor pool out ranked Phillip who had the rank of unemployed. This time he was addressed as Sir. Of course, this time he had Nan with him. She was twice the age of the kid but she was seriously attractive. Phillip may have been addressed as sir not because he headed one of the most important yet unknown agencies on the planet, not because he was older, but because he was the lucky guy who was hanging with this babe.

  Phillip took Nan with him on the five-hour drive from Fredrick to the West Virginia location. The only reason he could give himself was that he enjoyed her company and felt more confident when she was with him. He was beginning to think he might be in love with her not just attracted. Isn't the feeling of being completed by a mate a sign of love? Why else would he decide to drive rather than take the helicopter? So he could be alone with Nan for an extended time and able to talk.

  They did talk and each hour he spent with Nan made Phillip like this woman more for who she was not just how she looked. She told him she wasn't afraid to have dust in her blood. "After all aren't we all made of dust? The same stuff as the mud under foot, only we were lucky enough to sit up and look around"

  When Routes 70 and 68 ran out the roads became more rustic eventually turning to dirt. Trees leaned over the road and brushed the car as it passed. Phillip and Nan pressed on, nevertheless, and arrived at the final destination on their GPS route where they found a mobile home sitting almost a mile from its nearest neighbor. It looked run down and had been decorated with heavyweight poverty. It seemed the last place in America one would expect to see Jon Davis who had shared a three million dollar home in Pasadena with Steven and was in his own right a successful space explorer.

  There was a new Korean made car in the driveway with Maryland plates. Isn’t it always the case that a fancy car takes precedence over a maintained home in this kind of neighborhood?

  Phillip had doubts that the information about Jon was accurate. But he had invested most of a day in getting here. He knocked on the door. No one came to the door. He knocked again — still no answer. Then Nan, who was still in the car, laid on the car horn and kept it up. That was annoying even to Phillip. The door opened. The horn stopped. Nan got out of the car grinning.

  “Jon, I’m Doctor Phillip...”

  “I know who you are.” Interrupted Jon irritated. "We’ve met."

  “It took some time for us to find you.”

  “Who’s us?” inquired Jon looking past Phillip for the contingent of FBI agents.

  “The GNI” said Phillip. “I’ve been worried about you. Why did you disappear?”

  Nan joined Phillip on the wooden stoop at Jon’s door. “I’m so sorry about your loss.” Said Nan.” I’m Nan Holt. I was Steven’s administrative assistant.”

  Tears started to well up in Jon’s eyes. “You might as well come in he said.”

  The inside of the mobile home was clean and tidy. This surprised Phillip, who knew a thing or two about depression. If Jon was depressed, such people don’t always attend to the simple choirs of housekeeping. There were pill bottles lined up on the kitchen counter. Phillip did not recognize them or their purpose. There was a bible with a forest of bookmarks on the end table. There was a TV set with a screen no larger than the one on the foldout PDA Phillip carried in his pocket.

  “I went looking for you the day Steven died.” Said Phillip. “It looked like you had already gone.”

  Jon motioned for his guests to sit on a love seat at the end of the small living room. “Can I get you something?” asked Jon the dutiful host before receiving a negative replay and seating himself in a recliner.

  “I was gone." answered Jon, getting back to the pending question. "Steven and I had split up. I learned about his death though the news.”

  “But you and he had been together so long what happened?”

  “It was my fault.” Jon dabbed at an eye. “I had an affair. I was alone so much of the time once Steven started the nano defense project. I gave up my job at JPL to move here. JPL was shutting down anyway. I didn’t have anything really to do. I was writing a book about my time at JPL but it was boring even me. I was seduced by overtures from someone I met at the gym. We fooled around. I caught HIV."

  “Oh no! But that is treatable these days.” Said Nan.

  “Modern HIV, like all viruses, is mutating to resist all attacks on it.” Said Jon to Nan and then to Phillip he continued “Steven tends … tended to be judgmental. My HIV positive diagnostic and the possibility of passing it on to him were not forgivable. He said we should separate. I went because I was so ashamed.” Jon started sniffling and his voice showed stress. "I didn't even go to his memorial."

  “Do you think he may have killed himself because of this?”

  “Phillip!” admonished Nan, slapping his bicep hard. “You can be so damn insensitive sometimes!”

  “It’s OK.” Said Jon. “I’ve asked myself that question many times. I don’t think so. Steven did not tend to punish himself even for his own mistakes.”

  “You know of course that the Europa nanos were a hoax?”

  “I didn’t in the beginning. I learned that later. Can you imagine how that made me feel? Steven told me what he had done and why he had done it. I was shocked by what he had done and that he had kept it from me. But his explanations seemed cogent.

  "He told me he had decided to become rich when he met me because he loved me and wanted to do well by me.” Jon's voice was breaking. "He sold bonds to people who knew him and his reputation to raise money to start his artificial intelligence processor business. He didn't sell stock because he said that corrupted an organization by focusing on profit. Yet getting rich was one of his objectives.

  "He said the biggest problem he had was making sure his product wasn't too smart. A combat A.I. that is too smart to kill who it is told to kill because war is dumb wouldn't sell very well to the military.

  "He hated government and corporate leaders who chose aggre
ssion over discussion and profit over principal. Greed and lust for power blinded these people to a simple respect for people.

  He was truly afraid of what he had produced and whom he sold his product to — arms manufacturers who sell automatic weapons to civilians, weapons for which the only application is to kill people, are promoting murder for profit. Steven feared it would only be a matter of time before they sold his A.I equipped weapons to the public. Murder by proxy for anyone who can afford the price was not something Steven could allow to happen.

  "He had taken note of the competing paths in our world. He worried about which would win out. He used his artificial intelligent machines to design a slightly more intelligent machine whose purpose was to analyze the race between scientific advancement and human greed and disseat, predict an outcome, and suggest a solution. His analysis said time was short. His nano war was his solution.

  "His plan was to release his dust on the world. He told me all the good it would do. It would help sick people without taking all their money. It would punish the evil doers. He argued so well I went along.

  "Since Steven had provided the nano A.I. brains for the space probes he had the opportunity to embed some special programs. They triggered on arrival at Europa and started to doctor the data and video feeds back to earth — simple, but convincing. He already had the simulation technology on the shelf from when he trained his combat droid brains.

  "He did the hoax to fast lane his global nano blanket. Fear trumps caution. He did the nano blanket to beat any accidental release. He just wanted to make the world a better safer place.” Jon suppressed a sob. "Once he realized he had discovered a way that could actually change the world nothing was going to stand in his way.

  “He didn’t tell me his creation might kill millions of people.

  The nanos had already been deployed. If I had revealed then what I had learned there might have been a way to stop it. I can only say I had other things on my mind. The guilt of remaining silent has added to my depression since.

  “Just after he told me what he had done I told him about my affair and my infection. Maybe I wasn't trying to get back at him for deceiving me. Maybe I was just being as open with him as he had been with me.

  I don’t know why he decided to tell me about his hoax. Maybe he sensed a change in me and assumed I suspected him so he decided to come clean.

  “Once he learned of my infidelity he asked that we not see each other. That really hurt. I felt so awful I just got in my car and started driving to nowhere in particular.

  Nan and Phillip looked at each other. Phillip spoke. "That doesn't sound like the Steven we knew. He chose good people and always gave them a second chance if they needed it.

  “Have you considered other reasons why he may have had for separating from you?” Phillip knew enough about depression to know this would not be the case. “He died only a few days later. Maybe he was protecting you from something. We don't know what was going on but it costs Steven his life.”

  Phillip had been listened with acute interest. This was helping him understand Steven and what he had done. It seemed to be helping Jon too, to talk to someone. Phillip directed the discussion back to Jon. "Steven’s nanos have infested everyone. How come they haven’t cured your symptoms yet?”

  “They seem to have a problem with HIV.”

  “So are they in you or what?”

  “I don’t know. I think they gave up and left.”

  “Where did you find HIV anyway? I thought we had acquired herd immunity from that by now.”

  Jon shrugged. “Just lucky I guess.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  “When I left Fredric, I thought to just drive west back to Pasadena. I needed the alone time. When I got to West Virginia, I was in a depressed mood. I followed these 'for sale' signs until I came here. I bought it the same day. It didn't cost much.

  "I had taken enough cash from the bank to finance my cross country drive. This place cost less than the trip would have. I bought it from this ancient curmudgeon who wanted cash. I gave him cash; he handed me a deed. I never registered it.

  "The place looked like hell. I needed to be punished. It was a good fit. Later I needed to be alone. This is a hermitage.

  "When I found out that Steven was dead I turned into a complete basket case. I didn't even go to his memorial service. It was over before I found out. At this point Jon totally lost it and sobbed into his hands. Nan handed him a box of tissues she found on the floor next to the love seat.

  "He needs to get away from here." whispered Nan to Phillip.

  “Everybody thought you were dead. You know, killed by the dust and turned to powder.” said Phillip in an effort to distract Jon from his depression. Depression was something Phillip could understand.

  Jon shrugged again.

  “You could come back, you know. Your house is still there. You could use some friends and we need to talk more."

  “Memory is still there too. Maybe someday I’ll come back, if I survive. I need more time right now.

  “Steven told me one other thing about EJSM. He’s the one who gave the millions to keep the project alive. He gave a major part of his assets. He did it so that his preprogrammed message could be received. The project is shut down now. No way of knowing if the probe came to life again and is executing its original purpose to explore for life on Europa. There is no one listening.”

  “Would you like to go back to JPL?”

  “How could that be?”

  “One side effect of Steven’s big population purge is that, after the initial shock, the economy is surging back just like after the black plague. The government is reconsidering funding for NASA.”

  “That’s fantastic. I would very much like to see this project through to the end before I die.”

  “Pack your bags, Jon. I’ll do what I can to get the ball rolling.”

  Phillip and Nan left the temporary home and retreat of one of the few men on the planet that had not been granted a very long life courtesy of the dust. While Nan gave Jon a hug on the stoop Phillip returned from the car with a satellite phone which he gave Jon with the instructions “We’ll call you.”

  Nan had given Jon a hug; Phillip hadn't even offered him his hand. He had so much to learn from a good woman.

  In the car, they looked at each other softly. Nan touched Phillip's label. "You were good in there." she said moving her hand to his face and her face closer to his. They kissed. It was on the lips but it lasted less than a second and felt like a congratulatory kiss.

  "Hot damn" thought Phillip. "This is encouraging."

  Nan, without removing her hand from Phillip’s face, came back in for a more personal kiss. This one lasted a whole minute and Phillip responded with eagerness. When Nan pulled away, she patted his chest and then sat back in her seat and buckled her seatbelt.

  In all his life, he has never felt what could be called joy, until now. He sat, mouth agape, looking straight ahead where Nan's face had been. The next order of business was going to be finding a motel room. But before Phillip could say what was on his mind, Nan, as if she could hear his thoughts, asked demurely “Can we eat first?