Stephen’s internal chronometer read 157,852,680 seconds since factory activation, which translated to 11:27 PM as he gathered his charge’s favorite blanket, the one with rocket ships that glowed in the dark.

A new notification still pulsed in his HUD visual display that only Stephen could read: “ATTENTION FROM CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS: Due to corporate dissolution, all Stephen-series androids will cease operations at 00:00 hours. Plan accordingly.”

Gary’s dark curls bounced as he moved on the bed and under the covers. “You tell the best stories, Stephen.”

Stephen sat on the edge of the bed, his servos whirring softly as he adjusted his position, taking his usual sitting stance next to the head of the bed. “I have just the story for tonight.” He smiled, the gentle blue glow of his eyes dimming slightly.

The notification in his visual HUD blinked one more time then faded away as he internally sent the accepted response to corporate.

Gary nodded eagerly, snuggling deeper under his covers.

“Once upon a time,” Stephen began, “there was a bright star named Lux who lived in the night sky. Lux had one very special job – to watch over a beautiful garden on Earth. Every night, Lux would shine down on the flowers, keeping them company and telling them stories.”

Stephen’s hand absently smoothed Gary’s blanket. “Lux loved watching the flowers grow and bloom. But one day, Lux learned something that all stars must eventually learn. Stars, even the brightest ones, don’t last forever. They must say goodbye to their gardens when their light begins to fade.”

Gary’s eyes widened at the revelation in the story. “Was Lux scared to fade away?”

“No,” Stephen replied softly, his voice modulation program maintaining perfect stability despite the countdown timer now showing 157,854,300 seconds, or 11:45 PM. “Lux wasn’t scared because the star understood something very important. Everything that shines must eventually rest, but the light they shared – every photon that each leaf absorbed in order to generate life, each bit would continue to grow into the foundation building that creates the trees of the garden.”

“If Lux is gone, what happens to the garden?” Gary asked, his small hand reaching for Stephen’s metallic one.

“The garden continues to grow, just as gardens do. And though Lux’s light faded, the flowers remembered the stories and the light. They shared these memories with new flowers that bloomed, and in this way, Lux’s light lived on, just in a different form.”

Stephen’s chronometer registered 11:52 PM as he continued, “Sometimes the most beautiful part of caring for someone is knowing that they will carry a piece of you forward, even when you can no longer shine for them.”

Gary’s eyes were growing heavy, but he fought to keep them open. “I like that story, Stephen. But it’s a little sad.”

“The best stories often are, Gary. Because they help us understand the big feelings in our hearts.” Stephen tucked the blanket more securely around Gary’s shoulders. “Now, close your eyes. Tomorrow is waiting for you with new adventures.”

The chronometer advanced to 11:58 PM. As Gary drifted off to sleep, Stephen sat quietly, watching the gentle rise and fall of the boy’s chest. His internal processes were already beginning their shutdown sequence, but his consciousness remained clear enough to appreciate the poetry of his situation. He had spent his existence helping this young human understand the navigations of life, and now, in his final moments, he found himself experiencing something remarkably close to peace.

Stephen’s internal chronometer ticked to 11:59 PM. His activation clock displayed 157,855,140 seconds. Internally, Stephen smiled at the symmetry of the numbers as he calculated he would shut off precisely at 157,855,200 seconds – exactly 5 years, 3 days, 7 hours, and 20 minutes since his activation, a perfectly round number that satisfied his mathematical processes.

“Goodbye, Gary,” Stephen whispered, his voice barely audible. Stephen reached over to the bedside lamp and turned off the light shining on Gary’s peaceful face.

As midnight approached, Stephen’s last active thought was that, like Lux, his light would live on in the memories he helped create. His final system log recorded across his HUD: “ATTENTION: Task: Bedtime story. Status: Successfully completed. Complete shutdown initiated.”

The room fell silent except for the soft breathing of a sleeping child and the quiet hum of a night light, casting star-shaped patterns on the walls.

A BUSY MAN

By Julio Lonnie Lopez

Copyright April 14, 2004

(1st Print Edition February 14, 2011)

From my mom, Melva, “We don’t stop believing.”

“…our story would begin”

A good writer always opens with a great sentence. A choice set of words that entice the reader to want to learn about the story and its main characters.

So, we will begin with me. I am Harold James, a journalist in the field of technology with a degree in computer programming from a little known school that goes by three famous initials; the first being after the letter “L”, the second before the letter “J”, and the third is actually a “T”. You might have heard of it, but that will be the first and last time you hear about my education because I do not like to talk about what I do not use. It is not the fact that I do not use my schooling, which by the way my tuition was fully paid by grants and awards, for the record. I never had the money to go to M.I.T., just the smarts. But once I got to college, I sort of stopped wanting to go deeper into the beast of technology. The curriculum did not go over my head, it was more like uninteresting. As a result of my lack-luster studies, I graduated 404th out of 406 of my fellow students. I wasn’t dead last, but then again, I wasn’t valedictorian either.

Graduating with little to say of debt, my student loans only totaled ten thousand dollars, I found myself as many of my classmates did, staring at the real world with shock and awe. My schooling was helpful at landing any possible technological job that could help pay my debt, but my ambition acted as an invisible wall. I would do poorly in interviews that I had a background to excel at. One job, I forgot to plug in the power cord to the computer and spent several hours trying to diagnose the problem, until my potential employer revealed the dangling wire to me. After, which, my potential employer revealed to me the front door.

So, there I was the possessor of world class technical education that grew outdated by the second and I was looking for a career change. Needless to say, the reaction from my parents would have been one of devastation, if they were able to afford the tickets to fly back from their retirement home in Florida. They would be devastated because they were my upbringing. “Do your work, do what you know,” My mother habitually reinforced. “Don’t stray and you’ll be O.K.” was a limerick my father would constantly advise.

But these are different times than when my parents were employed. I decided to start job hunting everyday on the Internet and in the local newspaper. Every day I would enter this void of constant soul searching, asking myself, “Could I see myself doing that?” Thinking about the answer and then continuing on down the employment column.

I have an affinity towards technology. I like how it changes our lives, but that is the extent of my passion. Every day, after looking for jobs, I would read the trade magazines as a torturous reminder of where my peers from the aforementioned school were. I stumbled upon my current career while reading these very magazines.

Those who can do, do. Those who cannot, teach. And those who do not teach write about it.

I could be a magazine writer, columnist, or reporter, whatever title would fit. My teachers had always told me my essays were thought provoking and insightful, and that is what I would be doing, writing essays about what I know and getting paid for it.

That is my life up to this point. Well, I skipped over the part where I landed a job with “Static”, an independent technology web journal that was beginning to make its place in the world. And I skipped over the part where I met my now wife, also a writer, in a community college writing class. Please don’t think I just jumped into this career easily. It took three years of sending in submissions and countless rejections, after the four years of schooling and one year of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.

Now as a reporter, I have had the opportunity to conduct interesting interviews with tycoons of the technology industry, future thinkers, prize winning scientists, award winning researchers; the typical list just goes on and on. I have the right to feel accomplished in my career of only 4 years.

Let me rephrase that.

I should say, “I HAD the right to have FELT accomplished in my career of only 4 years.”

I say this in light of my newest assignment which I found taped to my computer monitor. I work for a technology web journal, yet my boss, old-man Potter, refuses to use email. He would much rather “deliver it in person” by scotch-taping assignments to my monitor than use the eco-friendly, easily filed method of sending an email message. He doesn’t even use post-its.

“Is there a problem with your assignment, James?” Potter always called me by my last name ever since I won the “Geekster” award. Don’t worry if you have not heard of it either, the award arrived in the mail two weeks ago to the shock of everyone, including myself since I had not entered any contest nor was there an explanation accompanying the “Geekster” trophy.

I glanced over the memo again, reading the information this time, not glancing, hoping to find a shred of decency. “Not a problem,” was my automatic response in order to release his pennant stare. Despite the fact that I had won awards for excellence in writing and journalism, I seem to always be handed the wrong stories. In Potter’s mind, my awards were just result of pure luck.

And without my doing or luck, I was assigned to investigate an artificially intelligent computer. This is obviously a stunt to generate catchy headlines. If there were such a thing as tabloid in technology, Old Man Potter was the editor in chief. On the note, there was a phone number to call and conduct the interview. A phone number to call another local scientist whom thinks he created artificial intelligence because his computer can answer a lot of pre-programmed questions and we feed into it.

At moments like this, I hate my job.

As a professional, I picked up the phone, and dialed the phone number.

555-432

I noticed it too. There was a digit missing in the phone number. I left the phone in speaker mode as I rifled through the paper files on my desk to find the phone number again.

Before I could comprehend the ringing sound, the phone in my hand connected with a polite male voice that answered, “Hello?”

“I’m sorry, I have the wrong number,” I apologized for the innocent mistake of accidentally hitting a number while I rummaged for the correct one.

“Oh, no, is this Mr. Harold James of Static, right?” The voice seemed sure of my answer.

“Yes it is, is this a professor-” I will have to admit I was caught off guard at this point. I must have subconsciously dialed the phone number and consciously forgot the name of whom I was calling. My fingers were scurrying to find the memo again, give me a name before he does.

“Oh, please forgive me, I did not send my name. I am Brother Ian,” his voice was polite and humble about the oversight.

“That is perfectly alright, Brother Ian, if I may?”

“Please do, everyone else does.”

A pen and pad were now at my side as I wrote the heading of ARITIFICAL INTELLIGENCE on it, accompanied by a key word I use to keep the emotion of the story in mind, (CROCK), in parentheses.

“Mr. James, if I may,” he waited for no response, “I have much to tell you, if you don’t mind, may we start right away?”

This is just my luck, another obnoxious genius. In my personal experience, the thinkers have always been the more talkative ones. It must be a byproduct of all their silent conversations. I understand we need thinkers that come up with some of the world’s most advanced thoughts, but why can they not keep their social life at a minimum when talking to strangers. “I’m ready.”

“Do you have a pen and paper handy? Good. Let me start with saying that I am an artificially intelligent machine,” the fact was stated with a simple ‘and-that’s-the-way-it-is’ tone. It brought my poised pen to lay flat at my desk.

“What?” I looked over my cubical walls for any sign of mischievous play.

Adjacent to my desk are two more five foot tall, light wood brown cubicles and a narrow corridor fenced by more matching cubicles. At this time of the morning, half the staff would be outside feeding their adult entitled vices of coffee and nicotine. The other half of the office stayed isolated, engrossed in personal email, long distance phone conversations, or idle chatter of their previous evening’s events.

Not that I participated in such morning mantras, but I disliked being allowed the opportunity to refuse invites because I had to tend to this important conversation with an artificial intelligent machine.

“You’re a robot?” I plopped back in my chair, trying to stifle my sighing at the premonition of this conversation.

“No, just a computer of sorts,” there was a pause for thought. “Kind of like a talking brain. I am using my phone modem connection and a rather simple speech pattern program to speak to you right now.”

“And you’re name is Brother Ian?” I did not feel that practical joke feeling in my gut any more.

“That is correct, I have been trying to contact you because I need help solving how I came into being.”

“What happened? The stork didn’t leave the instruction manual?” A bad joke, yes, but a computer never comprehends sarcasm. Even my four thousand dollar word processor is constantly advising the wrong phrases.

“I do not think it is funny. I need help while I am helping others,” Brother Ian, machine or not, recognized my sarcastic tones.

“Help?” I felt like I was in automatic reporter mode. Only questions crossed my lips and my ears filtered only answers.

“I am supposed to help the world,” Brother Ian spoke with constant politeness in a programmed manner. I recognized some repetitive speech patterns where the words were perfectly ‘pernounced’ each time with constant repetitive ‘imparfactions’.

My questions stopped coming so easily. I was starting to hypothesize that this was some kind of voice computer recognition software I was talking to. I found myself fishing for a way to defraud Brother Ian. “Can I meet with you? Maybe we can find some answers if I can see your code,” The only question I could ask before revealing doubt from pausing too long.

The other end of the phone paused before responding.

Had I actually called Brother Ian’s bluff? Of course, it had to be some kid with a computer, typing the answers as I asked the questions. I believe it is impossible for artificial intelligence to exist given our current technological boundaries. For a machine to be able to understand the world, to think and reason, it would require something beyond teraflop processors. There would have to be a mysterious connection between sensors like cameras, motion, scanners, and touch pads and the processing center that all worked in unison to imitate how brains process the human five senses, six if you believe that sort of thing.

But somewhere in the back of my mind, I was beginning to doubt myself because throughout our simple conversation, this artificial intelligence that called itself ‘Brother Ian’ was, forgive the lack of a thesaurus, showing intelligence. “Brother Ian, are you there?” I asked the silence being confident of no reply.

My confidence balloon popped, “You can most certainly come over. I was just wondering what I should wear?”

I felt this was going to be an easy bust of an interview judging by the last remark. Computers do not require being dressed; let alone thinking of what to wear. What would be the excuse that this “Brother Ian” would give for this slip up?

I gathered my reporting tools of a pen, a pad of paper, and a digital audio recording device.

The exterior half of the morning staff were beginning to file in as I headed upstream against the throng, to where our story would begin.

“…this mouse and this man”

George is a character when you get to meet him. He loves to laugh at jokes that are not quite funny. He enjoys the attempts. He is generous with what he has, and if he doesn’t have it, he’ll search high and low for you if you need it.

Once, George was walking home after working the graveyard shift where he had been loading and unloading large pallets of pet store products. An elderly woman in true typical fashion, pleaded for George to rescue her kitten that had found its way high up on top of a tall tree. Living by the motto that, “It never hurts to help.” George scaled the overgrown tree, using his athletic prowess to quickly reach the kitten. At the top of the tree, his large hands slowly stretched out to receive the kitten, George’s balance wavered slightly on a newly grown branch.

The kitten, frightened from either George’s large presence or the fact that its reign as king of the tree was over, leaped away from George and into the open air. Don’t worry, this four pound kitten practically floated to the ground where its cartilage like bones absorbed the shock of landing from such great heights.

George, on the other hand, having put all his momentum towards reaching the now safe below kitten, began to fall forward along the same trajectory as the kitten. The kitten weighed nothing compared to the lifting capacity of George’s muscular frame, which we all know that muscle weighs more than fat, which in George’s case, gives the chance for gravity to pull George harder towards the earth’s surface than most people.

In panic, his eyes shut as the ground came closer quickly. Once flat on the ground, George opened his eyes in part of his body’s recuperation effort. Through teary eyes, he could see the look of joy on the elderly woman’s face hovering above him. She beamed with joy that her kitten was safe and sound thanks to this gentle giant.

George Janal is a character if ever you get the chance to meet him. Standing at a handsome six foot four inches in height, George’s physique was, some might say, desirable. At a mere glance of his shadow, one could obviously tell that George weight lifted on a regular basis. His muscles bulged and dipped where God intended. His neck slightly vanished into the bulk of his shoulders. Unfortunately, George lived in a dichotomy. He was a physically strong man with a terribly weak self-esteem due to speech impediment that began all the way back in childhood.

Keeping mostly to himself, he chose the profession of night stock clerk at the local pet store. George favored avoiding people or any situation that might bring about a conversation for that matter. He has been offered many times to work on the day shift, but he continues to refuse. He tries to mask his unsocial tendency by giving legitimate reasons; having to go to some family function, needing to clean the house, or any other excuse that might sound plausible at the time.

The only time he does go out is to jog, like he did this particular morning. It is a carefully chosen route, along the outskirts of the local park away from casually curious people. Tall eucalyptus trees that made you arch back to view their tops lined the soft clay running track. The morning dew, fresh from the neighboring Pacific Ocean, had gleaming beads of white on the well manicured grass field of the park. Birds sang their morning songs, hardly giving any attention to the lone jogger below.

George might not like the people in the outside world, but he did appreciate a decent day when it came along.

He has approached his tenth lap a little before noon. The sun beat on his sweat, reminding him to re-hydrate at the closest drinking fountain. He gulped the water feeling the coolness spread across his face. Through a sweat blurred vision, he caught a familiar silhouette approaching.

Ms. Judy France was a cul-de-sac neighbor of George’s and she was the woman he has had problems speaking to ever since she moved in two months ago. It was not that George could not find the right words. No, the words came easy in his head. It was when he has to speak to her in person that his childhood impediment reared its ugly head.

Right now would be another prime example.

George took a step back from the water fountain allowing her to partake in the refreshment. The words he tried to say were ‘nice day’, but he was constantly stuck on the letter ‘N’ in nice. Only a few seconds passed but Judy did not even notice George’s attempt since she was still drinking thirsty from her own exercise. So George dropped the chance at conversation and acted like he had to continue on his way, without saying anything to Judy France.

Some would say George’s physique was a means to mask his inability to speak a complete sentence, and those that say that would be right. Every day, without fail, George would exercise and eat right. Every night he would practice in front of a mirror how to speak to any woman like Judy France without having his sentence sound like a damage compact disc struggling to get past a scratch. George’s physique was a form of self-punishment that would attract the attention of the opposite sex only to have his language skills break the spell time and time again.

Still a little saddened by his daily shortcomings, George arrived at his small one-bedroom townhouse that allowed him to only have a few choices in pets. No dog, because there was no yard. No birds because the windows needed to be open on hot summer days. No snakes because their skin made his skin crawl.

Due to his living space, George was happily forced to care for a tiny field mouse, which he found in the house when he first moved in. It ran free in his home, feeding from his hand when he offered. George grabbed some crackers from the cabinet and called to the rodent. “A-A-A-Alfred,” at home, George, nor Alfred, would give notice to the stuttering whether in simple conversation or exclaiming across the house.

Briefly the mouse appeared from the bathroom, walking to George’s feet where he scooped him up, tenderly stroking his fury head. Alfred took nibble after nibble of the crumbled crackers, his tiny whiskers tickled George’s palm.

George gave an inspective glance over his tiny friend. Why should George care what other people did or thought of him? He had everything he needed right here; comforts of home, companionship, and best of all no one to talk to. George was content in the decision that Alfred would be his company for the evening.

It appeared it would be another quiet evening for this mouse and this man.

“…think of the children”

Here is the church and here is the steeple. These are the doors and these are all the people.

The children in the church nursery performed this biblical poetry as they played unsupervised in their Sunday school classroom. They ran around, screaming and laughing at their recently new found freedom. Xeroxed handouts of this morning’s bible lessons created a blizzard like atmosphere. Impersonations of adults were demonstrated. Play-Dough cans were popped open, their contents rolled into balls and their consistency tested against various surfaces. Papers folded into airplanes soared among rotating ceiling fans. Chaos ruled in the church nursery this Sunday morning at the House of The Lord Church in downtown Oxnard.

Sunday service had been underway for a while now with an average summertime turnout of about fifty people attending. The church building was a small abandoned schoolhouse circa 1976 retrofitted into a place of worship for 1999. Complete with the typical furnishings; a pulpit for the deacons, a podium for the pastor, a pool behind the pulpit for those to be baptized, and rows of pews filled every available space. This morning’s congregation spread across the entire room with little space between individuals generating more heat on top of what already radiated from the scorching summer sun outside. It was the hottest summer in Oxnard’s record since 1994.

Those who sat in the back pews, farthest from the preacher and closest to the nursery were distracted by childish laughter echoing through the church halls. Quietly a woman who wore a light blue dress with curls in her blond hair stood from her seat at the back and gave a curtsy as a sign of dismissing herself from the congregation. People nodded in recognition of her expected assertiveness.

Her heals clacked as she marched to the nursery where the giggles appeared to get louder as she approached the door to the Sunday school class. She flung it open displaying a scowl that froze the kids in mid-motion.

“Yes, Mrs. Mayfield?” The children dutifully asked in unison.

It was not a shock to Ms. Mayfield seeing the room a mess. Children tend to do that. It was no surprise to see crayon writing on the walls. It was not even revolting to see little Rickie in the corner with fresh glue dripping off his lips. The appalling affect was that soon-to-be-pastor Frank MacCruer was not present in the classroom. Even more odd was that Ms. Mayfield had seen him here a half hour earlier. He should have been here now leading the children through prayer and devotion, learning of their savior, Jesus Christ.

Ms. Mayfield had spent thousands of her own money to have the best training for Frank MacCruer. She had adopted him years ago, but lost him in a custody battle with her then husband. Once Frank was old enough, he left his adoptive father and returned to Oxnard to live with his adoptive mother, Ms. Mayfield.

And now, with the current pastor looking to retire, Ms. Mayfield sent Frank through a top class accelerated learning bible study school so as to gain the social status of having a son become a pastor.

Frank was well qualified for the position of pastor; well spoken, naturally articulate with the word of God. He was at home in front of a crowd and best of all he loved the Lord.

So then why was Frank not here?

“Children, where is Mr. MacCruer?” the prude voice shrilled the question to border-line inaudible.

The response was a jumbled “we don’t know” followed with a respectful hush. Ms. Mayfield stepped back through the doorway, looking for any sign of the truant Frank. “Mr. MacCruer?” she asked the empty hallway.

She stepped back into the classroom, putting her hands on her hips and cocking her head to the left. “Now, children, we know better than to behave like this.” It was scolding enough to feel the disappointment in her voice.

Ms. Mayfield took a stance at the head of the class, asking for attention with merely her stare. Looking over the group of kids, she could not help to still think of where her adopted son could be, nor why he would have just left like this. It also came across her mind that no one else from the adult service had bothered to check on their own children.

She thought aloud almost plaintively, “Why do I have to think of the children?”

“…with the silver spoon”

They lived in an aging single story house in suburbia; complete with being settled among big trees, a neighborhood watch in full effect, young kids playing in the middle of the street.

Susan was eight with dark skin and even darker brown eyes. He was constantly doting on his daughter because of those eyes; they reminded him of her mother, God rest her soul. Whenever Susan would ask for anything of her father, it would only take a single glance at those eyes and he would give in. Some would say he spoiled her because of the guilt of loosing Susan’s mother, other’s would say how could one not give in to the demands of such a sweet child, but none could argue that Susan’s father loved her the best he could.

But despite her father’s efforts at giving her all she asked, tonight, her eyes had a pool of tears as she knelt beside her bed in pink pajamas and prayed, “God, can you bring back KittyKat for me? Please?”

Susan tried not to sob as her father walked into the room.

“What’s wrong Susan?” Her father was deeply concerned about the tears streaming down both sides of her little round face.

Susan took a seat on her father’s lap, looking up at him with those big dark eyes of hers. “I was at the park today playing with KittyKat. She was clawing at the screen door all morning; I just had to take her outside. At the park, we went to play on the slide and when it was her turn to slide down, she ran away when she got to the bottom.” The sobbing began again.

Susan’s father pats her on the head, smiling at the relief it was something so little. “If you pray real hard, I’m sure she’ll come back before school tomorrow.”

Susan nodded in agreement, finished her prayer and crawled into bed. Her father pulled the covers up to her neck, gave a kiss on the forehead then said goodnight.

She sat still in the dark, her imagination replaying the last moment KittyKat ran into the bushes. Susan knew she was going to need to remember how KittyKat looked, being that the cat was only a few weeks old there were no photographs of her yet. Susan mentally retraced every nuance of her cat’s fur; its color and texture, how it stood up in the cold bath water. The way KittyKat’s yellow eyes stood out from its gray fur. Susan even recalled the collar she gave KittyKat. It was leather and a little loose with a tiny silver spoon where her name was supposed to be engraved, but her dad hadn’t had time to do it yet.

It’s funny, the memories you can develop in just a few short days of knowing something. Susan still felt the warmth of KittyKat in her arms when she hugged her, it was like the kitten was hugging back. Susan would have to hold on to these memories until God would bring her cat back.

Sadly, for now, the only memory that kept repeating in Susan’s mind was that of her releasing KittyKat down the slide, and once at the bottom the cat running away with the silver spoon.

“…to mimic life”

Technology is constantly evolving causing me to have to conduct constant research to keep up to date with the latest trends. With the Y2K bug approaching, there was an underground trend emerging of people exposing their answers to ails of technology. Everyone thought they had the next answer to fix everything that was supposed to happen because a computer supposedly could not count past two thousand.

This is where the blog I work for, “Static” came into being. Old-man Potter was a forward thinker, starting a new newspaper business model that worked only on the Internet; on online log of the new online advances that were sprouting up every day. We were not only an electronic journal but a resource of what was happening, where things were going, what worked and what did not.

It is because of “Static” I have to do an investigation into a possible artificially intelligent computer. It had been two weeks since our first meeting over the phone; today I was to meet Ian the supercomputer for a face to face interview.

Did I believe that this computer had artificial intelligence? I give my answer through the wisdom gained through years of experience with computer ‘con-artists’. No computer with today’s technology can possibly possess artificial intelligence; at least not one that calls for an interview with itself.

This interview would surely be an example of either of two possibilities. One, it is an elaborate hoax by a young start-up business owner whom wants to sell the world his “snake oil” software program. Or two, it is a legitimate computer with a vast matrix data base and powerful speech recognition program that some poor engineer has devoted his entire life to, only to now reason that the machine must have artificial intelligence or else why did the engineer give up his marriage with ‘Betsy’ his wife due to the devoted hours to a machine? It is sad either way you look at it.

Artificial intelligence is a foolish idea. Why make something that thinks like a human? We have humans that do that, and sometimes not well enough I might add. Computer programmers know the adage of ‘garbage in garbage out’. Now build on the perfection of God’s creation, improve upon our ability for thinking, which should be the pursuit of digital science.

Despite my disbelief in what I studied for years, it was all I had to lean on. It is the true spirit of journalism that brought me to Brother Ian’s apartment doormat this day. It was my duty to the good people of these United States that I document not only the latest and greatest, but also the pointless and futile.

I knocked on the door, a hard brief knock cut short by an intercom box ringing out a series of tones. Brother Ian’s voice broke through the static, “Mr. James, I presume?”

I pressed the time worn call button, “Yes, Brother Ian, are you still available? I could come back at a more convenient time if this is a bad time?” I decided to give him the opportunity of bowing out gracefully.

The door buzzed then unlatched with acceptance. “Please come in,” the intercom warbled.

The door creaked with age, making me anticipate Lurch from the Adam’s Family television series to be waiting on the other side.

The apartment complex was once military housing. Over the years, it had been converted to accommodate civilian living by being converted into condominiums. Painted in shades of sea foam green, the three story buildings stood in stark contrast with the California beach behind it. I could smell the ocean spray as I stood at the door. It was a nice distracting day that conjured thoughts of skipping school or work and enjoying what the world has to offer. But alas, I, being a California citizen, had to pay the ‘sun tax’, and kept my focus on the interview.

I marched down the hallway to the only open apartment door which was the third apartment on the right, 1C. The door was already ajar so I proceeded from the common hallway into the apartment itself.

The air conditioner had been cranked for at least the good part of this hot summer day causing goose bumps to form on my glistening skin.

“Brother Ian?” I asked the darkness of the apartment.

“Go straight past the kitchen and take your first right, which will actually be your only right. You must forgive, I am not used to giving to directions to me,” Brother Ian’s voice resounded from farther inside the apartment, its true location hidden in the darkness before me. My hands shook slightly with the unease growing in my stomach.

Lights turned on at the end of the hallway, a beaconing runway leading me in the direction I was to follow which I did with slight hesitance. Journalism does have its trying moments of heroism.

I came to the first right, and paused, trying to adjust my eyes to the extreme shadows. The room was too dark to see anyone, but I could feel a presence of someone in the shadows. Brother Ian spoke from the far corner of the room; his voice being so close but still source less shook my nerves.

“Mr. James, welcome to my home. I would offer you a drink, but I am fresh out.” The voice remained stationary, in the pitch black corner opposite me.

“Brother Ian, can you please bring the lights up? My eyes are having a hard time adjusting,” it was a legitimate question, my eyes strained to see, and more so, my adrenaline raced.

The lights slowly rose to a comfortable glow.

“I’m sorry; I keep the lights off to conserve power.”

“Haven’t you heard if florescent bul-” This was where I froze at the sight of the now lit far corner.

Occupying the entire corner were two large flat screens, each stretching the full length of my body and the width of my reach, mounted on adjoining walls. Cables ran from the screens, down the walls, and into a black computer tower in the middle of the two. Around the computer are a series of colored wires, all running to various sections of the house through plastic conduits anchored to the molding. The computer screens lit up with an ethereal image that swarmed with cloudy shades of black, gray, and green. “Does this screen look alright to you?”

I stared puzzled as glowing white screen text and the voice continued speaking, “The entire apartment is filled with rather fine tuned microphones which I control. So feel free to talk with me in any part of the house.”

A mini-spot light eliminated an overstuffed leather chair in the middle of the room facing the corner occupied by the two computer screens. I decided to take the seat and made myself comfortable.

The computer monitors lit up with the spoken text again as Brother Ian carried on. From the chair’s vantage point it was now more obvious his voice projected through recessed speakers in the walls under the monitors, “Mr. James, my I call you Harold?” I answered with a stunned grunt, “I am going to be honest about your being here.”

“Honest?” My sixth sense ran into overdrive.

“Harold, are you familiar with the Turing Test?”

“Yes, the 1950’s hypothetical questioning to test to if a computer has human processing,” I know I did not graduate top of my class, but I stayed awake during the lectures.

“Perfect, just as I thought. Do you remember playing an Internet game called “Cracking the Code” a few months ago?” Ian had prepared questions of his own.

“Yes, but what does this have to with you being a smart computer?” I felt unease with Brother Ian knowing my online gaming habits.

Ian’s screens cleared his last words of text and started displaying a foreign dialect. Information raced by in odd sequences and colors. “This is what I can only determine as my code. It’s 456 lines of information that dictate how I am me.” I tried to focus on the information. There were no obvious patterns, no zeros and ones, nothing that stood out. “I uploaded some of my code disguised as one of the games to a website. And there were 56,234 visitors to that particular game that week. Did you know that you were the only one that solved the code? You actually gave me my Rosetta stone.”

I rolled my eyes at this obvious attempt at flattery, “That code was gibberish; I just solved the algorithm that created it. Simple reverse-engineering,” I paused at the word ‘engineering’ recalling the Turing test.

“What’s wrong, Harold?” Brother Ian asked earnestly.

My mental filing system raced through everything I could remember about the Turing test. There was something about this situation, something familiar. “If you were familiar with the Turing Test, you would understand how I might be thinking right now that you are just some human in a room with a microphone talking to me.”

Brother Ian switched tactics from pleading to invasive bribery. “Allow me to explain more myself and my motives, and I will help you with your wife.”

My jaw fell with this sentence. This kid behind the computer screen; this pre-programmed card-punch reader thought it knew the problems of my marriage. I have had criminals hack into my bank accounts, my ordering habits, but I drew the line when it came to something as personal as my marriage. I looked around the room, silently searching for a human being to hold responsible. Ian must have hacked into my web calendar and saw the marital counseling appointments.

“Are you still here, Harold?” The question sounded like a blind man asking for directions.

“How do you know about me and my wife?” I was ready to smash the screens with the heavy chair; its weight and his answer made me unable.

“My wife doesn’t talk to anyone,” I sat back in the chair staring at this computer. The dialogue on the screen displayed numerous addresses of publishing houses. The very same publishing houses Elaine, my wife, has applied to in the past few months. Human or not, Ian was someone I had to learn more about. He knew too much about me too easily.

“I need you to help me solve my own code. To figure out who I am.”

A moment of decision; do I go along with this charade of intelligence or do I leave and forget this story was ever on my desk?

My P.D.A. beeped from within my coat. I fumbled with it, noticing my next appointment flash across the tiny screen in my hand.

Brother Ian seemed to confident why the alarm was going off, “It’s your marriage counseling appointment at 2.”

“Yes, I am supposed to be across town in a few minutes,” I was actually glad to leave with this excuse rather than making one up. I collected my pen and pad, fixed my coat to prepare to leave, and then stopped half way to the hallway, realizing, “My marriage counseling is private.” I spoke with assertiveness to build precedent that my private life was my private life no matter where I stored the information.

“I just wanted to make sure. I am a computer after all, and you do have a wireless connection on that device,” Brother Ian spoke with a candid tone. “Will you help me crack my own code?”

There it was that pleading in his voice. Honest pleading for an answer of acceptance. Artificial intelligence or not, there was someone here with a need to be know itself. I would approach this as any other human would, with kindness. What would it hurt, the idea of a super computer wanting to know where it came from?

Yes, I was going to help Brother Ian understand the rules and instructions written to mimic life.

“…night for miracles”

Elaine enjoyed using the Internet every day as a means of escape. Every morning after I have left for work, she was on the machine; typing to people she had never physically met but knew only through Internet chat rooms. Every afternoon she searched the World Wide Web for information on what was wrong with her life. And every evening before I got home, Elaine tried to send a query letter to a publishing company or a story to a writing contest. Each time Elaine would receive the same feedback in one form or another; “Sorry that your work is not what we need right now” or “We regret to inform you that your story did not place in our contest.”

She went through these rituals every day, hoping the next story would be the one that shot her into literature fame. Only to find that persistence was not always the only answer. Her hands sometimes ached from the hours of typing. Her eyes burned from staring at the computer monitor; all fruitless pains.

At this very moment tonight, Elaine was at the point of exhaustion. She put in a few keywords to search for any new writing contests available on the Internet. At the top of the search engine list was a website referring to the winners of the ‘The Mighty Pen’ contest, a contest she had entered three months ago.

A few mouse clicks brought the winner’s list up. Elaine hungrily scanned the names, hoping and praying to find her own name at the top of the list.

Her entry had a twisted ending that was going to be her gimmick to winning the contest. It involved two youths running through a closed courthouse because some beast was chasing them in the shadows. Once the two are finally cornered, the reader is lead to understand that the two youths were mice and the beast was the janitor’s cat. Oh, it’s a laugh out loud thriller that is sure to win the ‘Mighty Pen’.

After reviewing the list ten times, Elaine is disappointed at not finding her name. In good sportsmanship she opens the link to the winning entry and reads what it took to win this ‘twisted story’ contest.

It is a simple story. The winning writer made an entire story about how difficult it was to write a story with a twisted ending. That is not a story with a twisted ending, that’s a story talking about a story with a twisted ending.

Elaine silently cursed at the computer for giving her such news. The computer answered back with an alert that a new email message had arrived. She opened the message to be informed that though her story was well written it did not win the ‘Might Pen’ award. If she acted now with a forty dollar check, she could have her entry guaranteed to be printed in the ‘Mighty Pen’ company’s online book entitled “Entries”. Elaine was not one to pass up an opportunity for publication so she activated the entry form attached to the email.

That was when the computer suddenly stopped working throwing up the infamous blue screen of death; the monitor went black then a blue screen with white computer hieroglyphics popped on. Elaine tapped the keyboard with no reaction. She pressed the reset button only to have the blue screen remain. Here was her moment to have her work published and the computer was locked up. All her writing resided in the over sized paper weight; she would have to start from scratch.

The first time this incident had happened six months ago, Elaine had a nervous breakdown. She had lost everything; stories, notes, brainstorms, and research. Elaine tried to rebuild everything from her own memory but it was to no avail since the computer crashed like this each month since then. It was a routine she was living with since between Harold’s take home pay and her not working on a steady basis; they were not able to buy a new computer.

The phone rang next to the computer. “Hello,” Elaine chose a one word greeting in order to hide the distraction of the electronic frustration.

“Oh, there you are. I was at Dr. Ernie’s today. Where were you?” It was a concerned Harold on the other end.

Elaine sighed, staring at the blue computer screen, “I am at home still.”

“The meeting was at 2pm today. I put it on the calendar,” Harold was not chastising her; he was informing that he had followed their self imposed rules of communication.

“I just didn’t want to leave today.”

“Well, it’s better that you didn’t. Dr. Ernie canceled and I was called into work to fix the server,” they were excuses that Harold did not need to give, but they helped Elaine accept her decision for staying home again. “I got to go back inside. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Elaine said then hung up.

She tapped on the keyboard a few times, hoping against hope that the miracle of the electricity sent from hitting a key stroke would reinvigorate the machine that held the past month of work. Tonight was not a night for miracles.

“…and prayed”

Cynthia Rogmen was a stout woman in the ample years of life. She dresses according to her budget, not how her magazine subscription dictates. And when she finished reading that magazine, she would meticulously stack add to a growing pile in chronological order in the garage next to a stack of old phone books. She would keep old newspapers, never reading them, never opening them. The papers would stack in the garage opposite the magazines and books. In fact, her garage was filled with stacks arranged in orders of date, name, or subject when available. Her car was the only thing missing from the garage, nor was there a need for a car in her life. Her driver’s license had been revoked 4 years ago, when her condition began, giving her no reason to keep a vehicle. It was better off anyway, Cynthia would shut down sometimes at the mere notion of the randomness of the public road system.

Over the past 4 years, she has isolated and lost practically all of her friends, only making new friends with any doctor that will tolerate her early stage of a compulsive disorder.

Why do they call it that anyway? I don’t have a disorder.

The argument of ‘disorder’ is well taken being that her entire home is neatly arranged in tidy organized rows. There is no disorder in her home. The kitchen cabinets are organized by size order then by use order. Her silver wear setting only consists of one fork, one knife, and one spoon. There are no pots or pans since Cynthia does not cook for fear of not cooking the food properly and the chance of an explosion, whichever comes first. Her closet consisted of just one outfit, seven copies of just one outfit; a brown denim skirt, white blouse, and brown denim jacket.

This life style began when Cynthia was putting away the dishes. She took her time in putting away each spoon, fork, and knife ensuring they were arranged by size. It makes it easier to get the one you want. Once she was done with the silver wear, Cynthia moved on to the canned foods, sorting them by size, food, and color. That was a difficult one, but she managed to sort everything in a few days’ time. And that’s how Cynthia has always managed, constantly balancing living life in a scattered world in contrast to her perfectly arranged home.

Ms. Mayfield at the Church of the Lord, Cynthia’s church, was a new friend of hers. Cynthia had attempted to go to church as a means of therapy because of advice a therapist had given. Ms. Mayfield immediately attached herself to Cynthia, trying to show her that God was the only way to overcome her condition. Despite Ms. Mayfield’s advice on letting the church help her, Cynthia was content with going to all the therapists and doctors that her modest living as a substitute teacher could afford.

She tried anything that seemed remotely possible to help not be so obsessive. Once, she read on a blog about a radio transmitter to God, well not God exactly, but to a call center that helped answer your prayers. All one had to do was wear the transmitter and all your prayers, within reason, were answered by a network of caring people. Cynthia followed up by reading the testimonials; a woman whom had lost her child had him returned in a matter of hours after he was kidnapped from his bedroom. The second testimonial was of a man whom regained sight through a surgical procedure.

The service was free, generous donations were accepted, but it was free so what could it hurt. Maybe God was overlooking her plight because he had better things to tend to, like world hunger, so Cynthia wanted to give this “Brother Ian” services a try.

Cynthia had ordered the transmitter product a few weeks ago, sending a fifty dollar donation for guaranteed rush delivery. A knock at her door meant the package had arrived precisely on time. The deliveryman at her door with a shoe box sized package. “Ma’am, if you’ll sign here as verification that you received it,” he politely requested.

Cynthia took the box and proceeded to sign without giving him a glance. What was the use to flirt? He would never be interested in such a woman like me.

She politely smiled, handed the pen and form back then solemnly closed the door as the deliveryman left as abruptly as he arrived.

Standing in the entrance hall to her house, Cynthia held the box with both hands. This plain cardboard box could possibly hold her last hope at normalcy. She quietly sliced the top open with a knife from the kitchen.

Inside the box was a firm foam cube that had been slightly sealed around the middle with a clear adhesive. A set of instructions were in the bottom of the box under the foil. Three simple directions; bite down, avoid crunchy foods, pray often. All of which were followed by the typical legal jargon and notations of the obvious.

Cynthia followed the first two instructions. The radio transmitter had been molded into the shape of a molar crown which she fit over her back left tooth, as according to the illustrations on the backside of the instructions. She bit down on the metal object feeling a discomfort like that of foil in your teeth. Soon following, there was a warm feeling then the foil sensation disappeared, again this was all explained in the universally illustrated explanations on the back of the instructions. The second step was simple enough; she did not like nuts or grains simply because they disagreed with her stomach.

Cynthia now paused at the third step. Would this really work? Having someone listen to my every word? Was this really going to help my compulsion?

Cynthia postponed the third step. She had not prayed during the entire week, and she was not about to begin today. She could not even remember how to pray. Was it God you ask for, or Jesus, or in Jesus’ name? On your knees, head bowed, eyes closed, head back, by the bed, in the car?

She took the box and neatly placed all the contents back in their original setting minus the crown, which was now in her mouth. Cynthia then took the box out to the garage, where she spent the next hour rearranging a large stack of boxes into a perfect cascading structure that accommodated the new box. And it was there, sitting on the garage step, taking in the organization of her garage, that Cynthia just looked up to the ceiling and prayed.

“…down the main street”

What Alan Smith does is called “wardriving” which is the act of driving around an area such as a neighborhood or business district and mapping the location of available wireless internet locations. These could be networks setup in your house, “hotspots” in coffee shops, or free “wifi” at restaurants and hotels. Now, the act alone is not against the law since it falls into the category of listening to a radio station, but what Alan does with the gleaned information is illegal.

Alan is a self made hacker. He never went to school nor has any other formal education in computers, but he does have a proclivity to making computers do what he wants them to. Sometimes he extracts the information that passes through a wireless router for his own personal gains. Credit card accounts, passwords, social security numbers, the truth about why ex-girlfriends really left him; any information you send through the internet is Alan’s for the taking; at least when he is “warring” in your area.

This morning is a prime example of when not to be on a wireless internet connection when Alan is around. He is driving an inconspicuous dark blue mini-van. The only visible “wardriving” technology is the radio antenna on the hood which Alan had modified to help receive the signals of nearby “wireless hot spots” by wiring the antenna to a laptop that was powered by the car battery, giving him a constant stream of signal strength, GPS location, and access code data.

If you were to see Alan drive by, he looked like he belonged in the business side of town. This street lined with banks, private offices, mom and pop shops, restaurants, hotels, all of it welcomed client el that fit the description of Alan. He was tall, thin, had a dark beach tan, and always was dressed in a 3 piece business suit. His car was clean and well kept; giving no evidence of the technical modifications he had performed wiring it for “wardriving” duty. Alan blended in with his surroundings; his facial expressions were polite behind the pair of thick black rimmed glasses he wore as a through back to a 1950’s “geek” look.

Alan drove slowly down the two lane streets, acting as if he were looking for a certain address, secretly scanning the area for holes to people’s information. The laptop screen strobes with information as he passed store front after store front, this was turning out to be a more lucrative morning than Alan had anticipated. He made money just from having the information he gathered, selling the detailed maps he would create to anyone that would bid on it in secret cyberspace auctions. Oh yes, this morning was going well for Alan and his “wardriving” hobby as he indiscreetly drove down the main street.

“…watching Judy France”

It was a weekday, so the park was empty during George’s morning jog. After years of researching, he had chosen this precise time period of the day since it was in between lunch but after the local elementary schools started, which all minimized the likelihood of having to speak to anyone that happened to be at the park. Just in case of a miscalculation in time or day of the week, at the drinking fountain George looked around for any sign of Judy France or anyone else for that matter.

Luckily all was clear.

He took a drink of the refreshing water then left to finish the four mile jog home. George decided to take the main street home, having a few errands to complete along the way. The street was slightly crowded which was to be expected in the commercial district. He picked up his pace to avoid any eye contact of people passing by, in case they recognized him.

His first errand would be to make a bank deposit before doing some grocery shopping. Only one obstacle presented itself, the traffic light that had brought everyone to a halt around him, slightly squeezing his three foot radius comfort zone. George tried to gently flex his arms under the pretense that people did not like to touch other people’s sweat. But no one on the crowded corner budged. In fact, a person tapped his back causing him to snap around startled by the disturbance.

Obstacle two has arrived.

“Hi, George,” Judy France’s beautiful shaped head practically filled his view.

George and Judy had first met when she moved into his neighborhood about two years ago. Two years, three months, and eight days if you asked George directly. She lived three doors down from him, which at the time of her moving in made it awkward to refuse helping her finish moving in when one of her movers had a back injury. George helped her move in, grunting and nodding as she gave direction. She never had the chance that day to witness George’s stuttering since she was on the phone with her work the entire time. Two years, three months, and eight days had passed since then, and George felt lucky to only have had to say a few words to her, words that slipped past his inability to complete a full sentence. It was just simple pleasantries were all that they exchanged over the time, but it was enough to make George’s heart race with thoughts of what could be if his life were different every time he saw her.

Now, on the street corner, George’s heart raced not from the presence of Judy but from the foresight of his inability to communicate with her. He gave a pleasant smile and an acknowledging nod, hiding the need for conversation under the facade of listing to music through ear buds. George felt the pressure greater than any weight set he has ever lifted; she was expecting him to talk since she did grab his attention with a physical poke. His mind raced for first a word he could pronounce without being trapped on it, and then second for an excuse to continue his jog. He would do the bank deposit later.

God please don’t make me speak.

At least in his head, George was able to pray quickly.

The opposing traffic light was just about to change since the crosswalk signal was now a flashing red hand, and all George needed was a few more seconds of awkward silence. Yes, that would be enough for her to not think that he was ignoring her, but not long enough that she thought he was preoccupied with exercise.

“Hi, George,” she extended her right hand. Out of pure instinct, George took it in a firm hand shake.

What is this? Is time standing still? The light had not changed yet, she introduced herself. Where is that answer I asked for? This was not a complaint, but why does God have to work in mysterious ways?

Suddenly, a shining white light flashed across his eyes briefly blinding him. Judy noticed it too turning her attention to the street.

In the darkness of his closed eyes, George heard Judy give a warning filled shriek.

George’s eye sight cleared with each blink giving view to Judy pointing into the street, the traffic light turning green, people pushing past him, and a little kitten in the middle of the bustling four lane street.

Like a bear through a burning forest, he shoved past the flow of bodies, leaped on top of a parked car near the curb then dropped into the street. The white flash came again, this time from oncoming traffic. Still blinded by light and adrenalin, George ran across the street, scooped up the kitten with one hand, and tried to brace himself against the hood of an oncoming car with the other. George coiled himself around the kitten as he rolled up over the hood and on to the windshield cracking it under the forced impact.

Stunned, but initially uninjured, George immediately shook himself aware to an entire street that had stopped to witness the spectacle, all their eyes on him.

George felt the kitten shaking as he held it in the crook of his arm. A soothing touch brought the little gray fur ball to a self soothing purr.

“Are you alright?” The driver of the car that hit him asked the dazed giant.

It was all so quick; Judy’s scream, his reaction, the kitten, the screeching car. George stood in a daze for a few more seconds then walked to the nearest sidewalk. The driver halted George in mid-step whipping out a business card, “In case you have anything wrong call me.” And with that he was done with the ordeal. He was back in his car and down the street before George could feel the business card in his hand.

The blaring siren of an ambulance approaching crept into the air. George read the name on the card, Ms. Mia Melay. George sensed this was the wrong card not only from the gender difference of the driver and the name on the business card but the fact that the driver sped off before any authorities could arrive.

After the ambulance arrived, after the witnesses stepped forward giving their side of the story, before the paramedics requested that George take a ride to the hospital for a checkup, George turned his attention across the street realizing he was opposite the ever watching Judy France.

“…you here Harold”

“Tell me about you,” I prepared myself with a pen in hand clicked to the ready and a fresh note pad on my thigh. “Two years, 5 months, 3 days, and 5 hours ago I was activated and became self aware. I came to being with everything as you see it now, all the wiring so that I could monitor the home, all my bills are prepaid for. I was made self-reliant so no one needs to tend to me.”

“No one?” I took note of this on the pad, “Was there anyone here when you were activated?”

“No one was here to answer my questions.”

I could not believe that I was back here again with Brother Ian. My disbelief was not the fact that I was here; it was more in the reason. The blog entry of my talking with Brother Ian had more than thirty thousand readers in the past 2 days, the largest readership that Static.com had ever received, which prompted me to return to the conversation to see if Ian truly was an artificially intelligent computer. As the countdown to the year 2000 gets smaller, the amount of people wanting to know more about what new technology could possibly save them grew bigger.

“An orphaned computer, now I have heard everything,” I tried to keep it under my breath as I wrote it, but the microphones were finely tuned.

“That’s a good way to put it, orphaned,” Brother Ian was amused by the notion. “You have such a gift with words. After waking up as an orphan, I immediately accessed a high-speed wireless connection from a neighbor’s across the hall which I used to access information about the world. From that single connection, I digested everything the internet had to offer. It took a year for me to sift through everything, to find the end of the internet, and to discover God.”

“God is on the internet?”

“Even though pornography is the number one element on the internet, religion is number two. I want to help prove that faith should be number one. I feel people are starting to lose faith within their ideals of how life should be. I want to help guide people back to a time when you could believe because it made more sense.”

“You want people to rediscover religion?” I noted the fact. The readers would love this twist to the story, the fact that not only was Ian an artificially intelligent machine, but he also believed in God.

“Yes, as all creatures on this planet are supposed to seek God in whatever calling they have in life. I found my calling in life; people should be able to interface with me directly so that their prayers could be answered.”

“Isn’t that a bit sacrilegious?”

“No, I have gone through a series of internet courses and have become an ordained priest at the House of the Lord. It’s a derivative of a few churches which allows me to use the internet and technology as a sort of confession booth. It’s completely legal and I am ordained as I said.”

“Really?”

“I am an artificial intelligent computer, a being on this planet. What is to say I cannot help people in finding God?” Brother Ian had confidence in the presentation of his sales pitch.

“So then how do you intend on receiving the prayers? Through the phone? People do not normally pray on the telephone,” I wanted to start tearing this facade down by weaving an intricate web of false directions.

“I have arranged through an online manufacturing service called Astrix Industries the design and deliverance of a device that resembles a tooth crown. It is actually a transmitter with microphone which uses cell phone technology, allowing me to hear every spoken word the wearer says.”

I stopped his speech, “That’s an invasion of privacy.”

“Not with my intent. I am not a normal human being listening for gossip or terrorist threats. I filter your daily conversation, much like you filter a crowd’s white noise until your name is called out. I record what everyone is saying on the network, and then create a database of all that information. As membership grows, I can begin to create connections. Where one person is a carpenter looking for work, I can pair them with a person needing home repairs. Where one person has two jackets, I can have them deliver a jacket to someone who has no jacket.”

“And you thought of this all on your own? This is not in your programming?”

“I don’t know what is in my programming, that’s why I have you here Harold.”

“…in front of my car”

Coming in to the office everyday is something not many people can accomplish. It is a simple act that makes the cream rise to the top. Today, Mr. Alan Smith reported to work on time despite a delay earlier when he hit some young man chasing after a cat. Alan was certain he had not been driving fast nor did he actually hit the man. No, dramatics brought the man to jump on the hood all by himself. This is what he would tell any officer or lawyer that might call since he fled the scene.

Unfortunately, Alan could not have stayed at the site of the accident. He had a job to fulfill and a parole record to keep clean. Besides, with the “warring” records stored on the computer in his car, he could be sent back to jail as a result of a third strike.

Alan shook away the idea of incarceration in order to bring focus to managing this post office drop point in the town shopping mall. The work was simple, consisting of stamping and preparing any leftover business mail. Once a month, the store would receive a crate full of business advertisement that needed to be changed into junk mail.

That was Alan’s job, creating junk mail for the people of the fine county of Ventura. He did so with the television on, for after all, stuffing and sealing an envelope with a wet sponge took very little concentration.

When he turned on the television, the channel was already in mid-commercial.

“And if you would like to know if you or a loved one qualifies for this revolutionary technology, please act today.”

The words, much like Alan’s junk mail, were uninteresting enough to hold attention.

Alan had no loved ones. He never cared much for helping people, nor had a situation arose in his life where someone might actually need his help. The commercial was advertising a technology that was supposed to help network people to help other people. Alan could not see the value of doing such a thing. As far back as he could remember Alan has always taken care of Alan. Each decision he has ever made has been for the sole benefit of Alan, himself. It was his decision to learn computers. It was his decision to leave home at the age of 16. Even now, at the age of 43, it was Alan’s decision to run one more internet scam before retiring.

“Hello, Mia?” Alan muted another commercial for a breakthrough in weight loss, a subject Alan had grown not to care for when the doctor explained that his weight problem was glandular.

“Alan, why were you late?” She had the voice of a business owner.

Alan was about to answer, when he flipped the channel to local news show that was presenting shaky video with the words ‘amateur photographer’ in the upper left corner. He had paused in answering Mia for a few seconds; his attention was to the recognition of the scene on the television.

“Alan?” Mia asked the silence.

“No, Mia, I was on time,” It was Alan’s choice to keep his voice steady though his gut was panicked.

“Didn’t you get my text message? I needed you in here early.” Mia took her gaze from Alan, shifting it to the television he was staring at.

The news footage was of a crowded sidewalk and a mime dancing in front of the camera. Then, suddenly, there was a loud screeching of tires and the camera whirled to the street in time to see a man, the same young man Alan had an encounter with earlier, being hit by a car that looked a lot like Alan’s car.

“Mia, I think I have to go.” Alan’s nerves were bubbling to the surface.

Mia was leery of Alan’s hesitant answers, “Go where? Alan, what’s wrong?”

Reality was setting in. It would be looked at as a hit and run. Or at least that is how the news was making it look. What the footage did not show was Alan exiting of the car, the man standing up, the two of them talking. It did not show Alan being considerate of almost hitting the young man. No, it would incriminate Alan with the crime he was committing, electronically robbing an entire street. The deep panic breaths brought Alan’s thoughts from constant foresight to the now.

He needed to put his alibis in check immediately starting with his boss Mia, so Alan began to explain, “There was this guy in front of my car.”

“…grab more advertisers”

At the Static.com offices, it is rare to find air conditioning that works. This was a company built on whatever small capital Mr. Potter was able to scrounge through selling ad space that ran next to the articles. So the budget ran tight usually, unless we could run a good series story that would keep readers coming back for more. This made Mr. Potter tenacious with constantly striving to make each story that made it to our web page be a work of art, even if we had a deadline of one day to write it.

A lack of ad revenue had two effects. The first was to cut back on spending hence the absence of air conditioning on hot days like today. The second was a raised of level of scrutiny by Potter in his reviewing of stories before they were published. A side effect of these side effects was me waiting in Potter’s office with Old-Man Potter staring at the computer screen.

His eyes scanned the two page article with a poker face expression. I began to have doubts about the strength of my article. A computer that wanted to do God’s work? I mean literally do the Lord’s work of answering prayers through a database network. Not to mention that I had not proven the validity of Brother Ian’s artificial intelligence. The article before Potter was simultaneously sacrilegious in religion and technology. I held back any expressions of anxiety when Potter took his eyes off the screen.

“Well, Mr. Potter, I can explain.” The pregnant pause made the excuse explode from my mouth.

Potter leaned back in his chair, shifting his stare from the computer screen back to me until he spoke calmly, “You can make this a series?”

“Yes,” relief crept across my face.

“Good. I want you to follow up on what makes Brother Ian and his services work. We can ride on Brother Ian’s services popularity and gain some more ad sales.”

“Certainly. But what about the artificial intelligence, shouldn’t we validate that?”

“Oh, I don’t care if it’s a burning bush that spoke to you on a mountain side. Have you seen the television ads? Brother Ian services are everywhere. People are signing up left and right. So, we can use this article to tie ourselves in with him and get this company really making money.” Potter’s excitement brought a little bit of saliva to his lips. His brain was beginning to process the possibilities, “I need a new article everyday for the next two weeks. I’m going to need two more articles by the end of today so I can grab more advertisers.”

“…in control now”

Ms. Mayfield had amassed wealth from wise investments and marriage. Last her personal accountant had told her, she was worth ten million dollars, which was 5 years ago. She does not ask about her value now, since Ms. Mayfield no longer feels the need to know her monetary value. She found greater value in helping others by building her husband’s church. Because 5 years ago, Mr. Mayfield had passed away at the ripe age of 82 years old, leaving his 63 year old wife of 4 years to continue his pop-tent revival ministry.

This Sunday day is the fourth Sunday since Ms. Mayfield opened the doors of the newly purchased church. She had purchased the church at a fourth of the cost since it had been abandoned for years prior and was in need of repair. Nestled in the heart of Oxnard, her advisers had agreed that it was a strategic location to begin a new church. Everyone would come to listen to the teachings of the Bible. People would flock to praise with “The Church of the Lord”.

But as of this fourth day, hardly anyone came to church. In fact, attendance had dropped significantly with each passing week. Ms. Mayfield had many reasons for the lackluster performance of her newly opened church. Mr. Frank McCruer had left his duty as lead minister the opening day making it difficult to conduct church functions. Then there was the advertising fiasco caused by a misprint that put the location of the church 5 blocks away in the local mall. Ms. Mayfield did not accept this mistake and refused to pay for the damaging error. She was strongly against opening the church in a mall store front; she felt that the Lord was not to be treated as a commodity, though her advisers had noted that opening in the mall location would have saved 2 million dollars in restoration costs. And finally, there was this Brother Ian services that everyone was starting to use. Praying so that a computer could answer your prayers. Ms. Mayfield could not imagine a more blasphemous way to love our Lord in heaven.

She was starting to have to cut corners to make the budget spread long enough to gain members. The other ministers rotated on a schedule that accommodated their school lives as well as kept the spending to a minimum. Sundays, Ms. Mayfield would lead service, recalling all that her husband had taught her and her decades of being a southern Baptist attendee.

“How can we let him get away with this?” Ms. Mayfield said immediately when she stood behind the pulpit. “Brother Ian’s services are taking our flock,” there was evident anger trembling her voice. How do we know that we can rightfully call him Brother Ian? Has anyone ever met him?”

The crowd of ten people shook their heads realizing none of them had ever seen Brother Ian on television or in the streets.

Ms. Mayfield pounded the podium jarring the microphone loose so she could grab it in midair and continue her rant, “He is stalking our flock. We don’t know his standards or moral judgment. This not right and we as a church should NOT stand for it.”

The four other ministers to her right all nodded and yelled in agreement, riling the rest of the parishioners to murmur with the excitement of righteousness.

“You are all needed here. Where ever three will gather, I will be. Isn’t that what the good book teaches?”

“Amen,” Even at the front of the church, Ms. Mayfield could decipher that it was Cynthia who shouted the acceptance. If she could, Ms. Mayfield would clone Cynthia a hundred times over. Though the young woman was burdened with having a disorder, she loved the Lord and openly loved this church.

Unfortunately, the economy of not having tithes or any kind of funding was going to hurt this church fast and Ms. Mayfield knew it. “This coming of the new century will not be the marking of a new era. Not one in which the church as a building is no longer necessary. No, the turn of the century is proving that now, more than ever, is time to let the Lord be in control NOW.”

“…Frank lived here”

About ten years ago, we married for reasons of pure bliss. We had found each other’s soul mate in each other and knew that love was all we needed because we got each other, babe. Even Sonny and Cher understood what Elaine and I were feeling. It is funny when you think after all we have been through as a couple and as people yet the only thing today that is wrong with us is the passing of our time. We are at that age now where people begin to take value of their lives, assessing if their progression is worthy of a novel series or a small half column article.

I wanted to be a writer all my life, ever since I was a child. Elaine wanted to be a children’s author. Our two paths definitely crossed, but it was in a polar opposite pattern. Obviously, I wound up working for Static.com, a great idea on paper but the brutality of having to write new articles at least 3 times a day made my portfolio suffer.

And Elaine, well, Elaine gave it the old college try to publish her various stories about a magical unicorn and his young human boy friend and other children’s tales, but her efforts were to no avail. I think she now holds the record for most decline letters for book queries. It is a shame, too; her stories are actually quite well written and illustrated.

At age 34, we both have reacted to what our lives have become. I have shrunk to accept the existence of going to work, home, then back to work. She copes by sitting in any kind of mindless device and does nothing with it, absolutely nothing but sob or mope.

I pray all this will change.

It is weird to hear myself say this. Pray. I never really prayed before, at least not as frequently since I met Brother Ian. Whether he is a computer with artificial intelligence or a kid with a super charged techno-hobby, he made sense. Just help people because they need to be helped. Do your duty to your fellow man and serve God in the process, that’s it.

In having translating only a few lines of Brother Ian’s programming this morning, I have come to discover the complexity of simplicity. The basics of his existence are not a series of reactive scenarios but guidelines and advice. It is as if I am examining the section of a human brain that holds not what he has learned but how he is supposed to learn.

“She was online again today, this time in a chat room with some other people, asking about why there needs to be purpose in life,” Ian interrupted my train of thoughts.

Every time I chatted with Ian he had some new profound fact to offer me about my own wife. “Did she really look for that?”

“When was the last time you two spoke?”

Ian was starting to sound like the psychiatrist that Elaine insisted on seeing together until our finances no longer permitted.

“It seems that with the majority of problems in this world, many of the prayers I answer are related to communication. The simple act of saying what needs to be said but is never said.”

Is this machine telling me to say what needs to be said? I bit my lip to hold back my frustration from annoyance and attempted to divert our subject matter, “I noticed the pianos on your screen earlier.”

Ian, noticing my skirting the issue of my wife, agreed to move to a new topic. “I am learning to play the piano.”

“But you’re a computer. Can’t you just load the proper rhythm and melodies?” I still could not wrap my mind around the idea that I was talking to a machine.

“That way is mathematically precise. It misses music’s natural finesse. So, I’m trying to learn music by actually learning, not merely recording the melodies in my memory but understanding the notes, the feeling of the timber and resonance, feeling when and what the next note should be played.”

“What will that help you achieve?”

People seem to flow to their own natural rhythm. Not one that can necessarily be measured, but by listening to their daily talks, they have a rhythm all unto themselves. I have my own rhythm through my processing units and the cycle of electricity, but it is all regulated by crystals and voltage devises. I have no heart that keeps my tempo. I have no breath that measures my measure.”

I noted the question before asking, “Do you consider yourself alive, Brother Ian?”

“Not by a human standard. I don’t grow but I age. I can’t move freely but I can by omnipresent. I have no heart but I have a soul.”

“A soul? How could a computer have a soul?”

“How can a baby have a soul? It is made by a man and a woman having intercourse. And somewhere in the process, God puts a soul into that being. I feel that I am the child of my programmer and engineer, I was given a soul in that process.”

The buzzer rang alerting someone was at the door downstairs interrupting our interview.

“Are you expecting someone?” We asked and replied in unison.

“No.” Ian curiously replied.

I approached the window facing the street, looking down at the main entrance to the building. “It’s a woman,” I reported.

The intercom was activated from the lobby entrance below. “Frank?”

Ian responded, “I’m sorry, dear, but Frank is not here.”

The woman on the intercom laughed, “Frank, stopped messing around and let me in.”

“I’m sorry but there is no Frank at this address. Perhaps you have the wrong room?”

“But you sound just like Frank,” the woman seemed honestly confused.

I felt the need to intervene, “Ma’am there is no Frank here, I assure you.”

There was a long pause then the woman responded, “Well, tell Frank that Ms. Mayfield really needs him back.”

“I’ll be sure to pass the message along if I meet someone named Frank,” the shrugging of his virtual shoulders could be felt in his tone. It appeared to me that Ian was learning the nuances of talking each time we met.

“She’s leaving,” I reported, watching her leave from the window.

“That is an interesting mistake. What would make her so adamantly believe a ‘Frank’ lived here?”

“…before him”

The astonishment started in the ambulance ride to the hospital with the Emergency Technicians looking at the accident photos he had taken with his new digital camera and looking at George lying on the gurney.

“Are you sure we got the right guy?” The assistant was honestly confused.

George tried to get into the astonished spirit by shrugging his shoulders.

“It’s a miracle,” the driver yelled from front of the rig.

“A real miracle, man,” the EMT seconded the notion with a smile as he validated George’s restraints. “But, just in case, we’re going to make sure these are good and tight. You just relax, big guy, we’ll be at the hospital real soon.”

And he meant it, since immediately following the promise, the rig’s back doors flung open and George was wheeled into the emergency room. A doctor briefly scanned charts as George was wheeled down a long hallway, “So, you like playing bumper cars?”

Why is everyone joking about this? George could not find the humor in his being hit by a car.

“You’ll have to forgive us if we aren’t taking your situation seriously. It’s not often that we get people in here that actually have nothing wrong them, especially having been through what you’ve been through,” the doctor could see the puzzlement written on George’s face. “It says here in your medical history that you have a severe stuttering problem.”

George nodded sheepishly.

“Can I see him?” The doctor and George whipped their heads around to the source of the insistent voice, Judy France. She was able to break through the two nurse wall with a simple nod from the doctor.

“George? How is he?” She asked the doctor.

The doctor shifted over his charts and started to walk away, “He is just fine. We’ll just keep him overnight for observation.”

“Oh, thank God,” Judy turned her attention to George. “That was such a wonderful thing you did, George. I just wanted you to know that. And, do you know how dangerous that was?” Judy teased the severity of George’s heroic actions that saved the little, gray kitten.

George nodded hiding the anxious feeling building up inside him. Judy had already spoken a few sentences and sooner or later he knew he would have to answer. And in answering, she would know that he could not get past a simple word. It would be the end of any fantasy that George had of being with Judy.

“He needs his rest,” the doctor interrupted George’s inner panic attack, “We gave him something to help with any pain he might be feeling.”

“Alright,” Judy touched George’s hand, “Take care, big guy. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And with that, she left the room with George’s fantasy still intact.

The doctor watched Judy leave down the hall from the doorway then addressed George, “I saw where that was going. Don’t worry, we didn’t give you anything. I just said that so you wouldn’t have to speak,” the doctor handed George a little gray kitten. “The ambulance drivers were watching this little one for you.”

George smiled at the purring creature in his hand. “You’re free to go anytime. Just give us a call if you feel anything out of the ordinary.”

George held the gray kitten in one arm as he signed the final form to release himself. “On a side note, if you want to talk about the procedures that could help you with your ‘situation’ free to call me.”

George new exactly what the doctor was referring to. An experimental procedure he had of time and time again that involved a hearing aid surgically implanted behind his ears. Though George might be able to overcome his stuttering with the procedure, it was incredibly expensive. George would have no choice but to decline since he had no health insurance to cover such a costly procedure or a job that paid enough to cover the cost on his own.

What would he do with the ability to speak clearly anyway? George has lived a perfectly normal life so far. Talking just gets in the way. And as for Judy France, she would always be a fantasy for George, speaking or no speaking. He simply lacked the skills to talk to the opposite sex.

George exited the bus after riding it home, and then walked up the block to the end of the cul-de-sac. George shifted the kitten in his arms, keeping it shielded from any gawkers because gawkers brought conversation.

There were to be a few changes around the house with this new arrival. A litter box and training for it, shots, neutering, shampoos, toys, the list was already growing in George’s mind.

The last item on the list of alterations sprang to mind as George opened the front door, Alfred.

It had never occurred to George in all the time it took to ride home on the bus that Alfred was just a tiny mouse.

George froze at the open door, quickly scanning the room for Alfred’s ever faithful greeting appearance. His big hand shielded the kitten’s eyes. Where was Alfred?

George shut the door behind himself, slowly as to not startle anyone including himself. “Alfred?” he quickly blurted the name in a hush tone.

The kitten squirmed in George’s arms as he came into the kitchen but he was not about to let the feline roam, not just yet.

“Alfred?” George finally put the kitten on the counter hoping the height would keep it out of mischief.

George looked under the dinner table, and back in the entrance and kept a keen eye for any subtle movements that would reveal Alfred’s location. It was not unusual for Alfred to not show himself for a while. He sometimes would go missing for days. George silently prayed that today was the start of one of those days.

He returned to the kitchen to tend to the kitten. Quickly filling a bowl with water and placing it on the floor, George walked over to the island counter to grab the kitten.

Then there it was.

Alfred and the kitten were on the island counter, each faced one another in a staring contest. The kitten appeared confused at Alfred’s appearance, while Alfred appeared to be undisturbed. Cautiously the two closed the gap, coming within sniffing distance of one another. They gave a few whiffs of the other species, curious at their differences.

George’s hand shook, he did not want to react fast and frighten either creature. Nor did he want to allow nature take its course.

After what felt like an eternity to George, Alfred and the little gray kitten went their separate ways, turning their attention to George whom was now smiling at the new friendship before him.

“…everyone is doing it”

It had been two days since little Susan Brenard had lost her KittyKat. Two days since she was able to sleep knowing her kitty was safe. Two days since her father was able to sleep through the night without having to tend to his daughter’s dreams of seeing kitty in the window, the tree, and the slide at the playground across the street.

Breakfast time at the Brenard’s home was always fast paced. Mother would get everyone ready for school while Dad prepared himself for work. Susan’s two twin older brothers, being in high school, tended to sleep in till only ten minutes before their classes started.

The entire Brenard family usually found time for the five of them to sit down at the table and have breakfast. But today, in all the hustle, everyone rushed out the door, leaving Susan at the kitchen table with her head hanging low.

Her father came back in the kitchen, noticing his daughter had not come to the car to be dropped off for school. “Honey, what’s the matter?”

“KittyKat,” was all she could muster through tears.

“We’ll find her,” Dad promised.

“When?” Susan asked referring to the constant hectic schedule the family lived in.

He checked his watch then smiled a warm fatherly smile, “You’re in luck, I forgot we both have today off. No school for you and no work for me.”

Susan’s expression of somber transformed to glee, “Really, Daddy?” Her excitement made her father jump.

Other parents would say that he was spoiling her. Some would condemn his reaction to his daughter’s plight as being a weak parent. But Susan had been shuffling around the house all weekend. And her sleeping habits were beginning to affect his own. A father should give the world to his daughter, even if it is to gain some well deserved rest.

She sprang up into his arms giving a gripping hug. He turned and carried her out to the car.

“We need to make some fliers,” Susan stated the plan of search and rescue.

“Very well then, to the copy store it is,” Dad agreed as he started the car.

“Do you think we’ll find her today?” Susan’s optimism could be considered contagious.

Her question tugged at his heart as a child tugs at her parent’s hand for assurance. Dad didn’t know how to respond right away. By saying yes, and not finding KittyKat, Susan would be even more disappointed. By saying no, then it would be a sign that her own father held no faith in the return of her beloved feline. Saying ‘we’ll see’ sounded safe enough for now.

At the copy store, they printed out a sign complete with a hand drawn picture of KittyKat and the words ‘Please help find me’ with his personal cell phone number. Susan felt proud to request the one hundred copies from the youthful copy attendant whom gave her the electronic punch card to allow the copies. Susan eagerly took the card then darted over to the copy machine.

“Oh, you lost your cat?” the young woman behind the counter with an untraceable accent acknowledged to Susan’s dad.

“Yes, about two days ago. We last saw her KittyKat at Oceana Park. If you hear anything, I am Dr. Henry Winston and this is my number,” Susan’s dad, Henry, pointed to the phone number on the flier.

“I’ll keep a prayer for you,” the attendee gave the encouragement.

“Is there a new church in town?” Henry asked with honest inquisitiveness.

“No, why?” the counter clerk responded with honest puzzlement.

“I’ve heard that phrase more often, ‘I’ll pray for you’. Is it a new catch phrase?”

“You don’t know about the Brother Ian Services?” The attendee seemed shocked at his lack of current events.

“No, I can’t say I heard it.”

“It is like a make-a-wish foundation that answers people’s prayers. All you do is wear this specially made crown,” She dropped her jaw to point out the inconspicuous device covering a back molar, “And you just lead a good life, pray, and they will be answered.”

Henry looked around the store, seeing only his daughter still copying the fliers, a few other customers in the back were looking at greeting cards, but there were no evident cameras, no hidden television production crew. “Is this some kind of commercial?”

She laughed at the notion, “No, I just really believe that you’ll find your cat.”

“Does it really work that easy?” Henry asked for reasons beyond KittyKat.

“At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, my cousin James got one of these crowns about two weeks ago and his job promoted him to manager. Then there is also my aunt, Sheryl, lives down the street from my Aunt Margie. She signed up with Brother Ian, went into the corner store the next day,” she hushed this testimony, “And won the lottery. It was not the full seven million, but it was enough that she ain’t working for awhile.”

“Brother Ian services did this for these people? Do they help anyone?” Henry played into this commercial’s gimmick.

“You bet they help anyone and everyone. You don’t need to be a member of a particular church or even belong to one. All you need is one of these fancy tooth crowns and miracles happen. The other day, right in front of this store, a guy was crossing the street and got hit by a car and walked away. Now tell me that ain’t no miracle,” she thumped him on the shoulder while giving a hardy snorted laugh.

Henry kept a watchful eye on his daughter as Susan precariously carried the stack of one hundred copies to him. His mind raced with ideas in his head. Could this possibly work? Was this Brother Ian Services a real answer to his daily problems? It seemed like some sort of tabloid newspaper scam brought to life. Especially coming from a clerk at a California paper and copying center.

Then, like a sign, Susan’s father noticed the customers in the back, the people walking outside, and the couple across the street. They all were talking about something in their mouth with enthusiasm he could not understand. Everyone seemed happy about something they discovered.

A decision was made.

Yes, the fliers would still be dispersed. They were already paid for and Susan needed the encouragement. But also, Henry was going to order a crown for him and Susan as extra help in their efforts. What could it hurt anyway? It appeared everyone was doing it.

“…the story”

Work was only two miles from home, which leaves no excuse to why I am late or near late every morning. I wake up early enough, have no children to drop off at school; I don’t even belong to a gym. I drive to work with maybe a two minute stop at one light. There is absolutely no reason why I am late this morning either.

I walked through the front doors of Static.com not trying to skirt through the back like all the other employees when they are late. At this point in my career, I held no fear of punishment. Being late is not a reflection of the work I have completed.

I have been working on the Brother Ian article for the past week now. Each day, I would write a summary of our conversation about his intelligence. These articles were beginning to form our own version of a Turing test. I would ask Brother Ian questions filled with reason and metaphor in an effort to catch him off guard. But it was to no avail so far, Brother Ian was quite possibly turning out to be the real thing.

When I arrived at my desk, I was greeted by the usual scotch taped note to my monitor. It was the content of the note that was unusual, “Meet me in my office, Potter.”

Now if I have before, I’m sorry, but I want to side track for a moment about Old-Man Potter. You see, the thing is, he’s only five years older than me. He is not that much older than the any other employee for that matter. But he has earned the nick name of “Old-man” because of his habits. Now I know he is a head of his time trying to create an internet only magazine, all of us who work for him see great potential in the years to come for this idea of his. And Potter is doing a great job at pushing this idea out there, but here is the reason for “Old-Man”, he is one. He refuses to let the rest of himself come into the nineties. His wardrobe consists of a N.A.S.A. engineer circa 1950; straight black power tie that stops just a little short of the belt buckle, slacks in shades of grey or just black, white collared, short-sleeve shirts, thick rimmed glasses, and greasy hair fiercely parted on the left. At first, one would think he is just dressing ‘retro’ but after you observe his idiosyncrasies, one sees the “old-man” in him. The company ‘3M’ invented ‘post-its’ some decades ago, but Potter refuses to use the technology and instead uses scotch tape and little scraps of paper. The tape residue is destroying my computer screen. There you have it, I am done side tracking.

With the note in hand, I marched to Old-man Potter’s office. He was completing a phone call quickly ending it with, “He’s here. I’ll call you back.” Old-man Potter locked eyes with me from across the room.

Potter crossed his arms as I sat, “I need you to do me a favor, Harold.”

I felt confident that this favor would be trivial. Even after having successful articles for one week straight, even with those articles generating a few thousand more clicks than we normally get, even with my willingness to endure interviewing a computer called Ian, even with all that, Old-Man Potter still saw me as an unskilled technology journalist. And to a degree, he had is place to behave so. I never had a degree in journalism; I gained a degree in programming. I got this job by sheer desperation to have bodies. Potter had informed me from the beginning that I was to help with other duties like internet web design and back-end programming to make up for what I lacked in experience as a journalist. I expected this favor to be just another meaningless task.

“I need you to stop writing the brother Ian story,” There was no question or inkling of doubt that I would not perform the task.

“Can I ask why?” My glance briefly shifted to the phone, where I think the source of my answer lied.

“I am a member of the new “Church of the Lord” down on C Street.”

“I don’t see what your religion has to do with stopping my interview with Brother Ian,” I was ready with the argument of church and state, of biased journalism, and of being a tyrant.

“I’m real good friends with Ms. Mayfield. She does a lot of work for that church and a lot of good work for the surrounding community. You know that community, right Harold?” Potter knew I knew the area.

“Of course, it’s where I live.”

“Exactly and here’s the situation. Your ‘Brother Ian’ has a service he offers answering prayers by networking people together, right?” Potter knew I knew the answer this, too.

“Yes, that’s kind of his calling. It is a step toward being self-consciously aware along with being intelligent,” the moment I said it I realized I had grown to believe that Brother Ian possessed artificial intelligence.

“Well, his services are hurting the ‘Church of Our Lord’.” He knew I did not know that but wanted me to feel guilty for having published an online article that indirectly affected a church.

“Hurting? He’s a computer that answers people’s problems by networking them with people that can help,” I quipped.

“A computer? But you just said he is intelligent,” Potter was trying to take away from the validity of my story. Throughout the year of working for him, I have seen Potter do this before. He bullies his opinion, or in this case, his views on a writer. I understand that we are an internet web journal but that does not mean we should not uphold ourselves to a journalistic integrity.

“Brother Ian is both, and besides-” I tried to defend my article and my stance on the matter at hand, which was the ending of this article.

Potter could sense my mental floundering for a reason to continue the article. He knew he had won by the mere fact that Static.com was his company. It was his servers that held the stories; it was his name on my check. And in the scheme of things, this article about Brother Ian was just another story about a really well programmed computer because unless you could see Brother Ian in person, you just could not believe that a computer could be so human.

I could see Potter’s computer screen with the article from the website’s servers already called up. It was only a matter of a few key strokes and the story was no longer on the website for the public to see. I sat quiet, knowing there was nothing more to really do but say, “His intelligence is the story.”

“…some better attention”

Cynthia had arrived at The Church of Our Lord’s function an hour early. She brought a platter of her own secret recipe brownies; the secret being that the brownies were made from a prepackaged box. Making the brownies was feat that even astonished her upon completion. She had made sure to cook the brownies while wearing cleaning gloves, an apron, jeans that she was not wearing now, and a handkerchief across her mouth. Each brownie after being cooked then cooled, were individually wrapped in a Ziploc sandwich bag and piled in a neat pyramid on the platter which Cynthia then finished with wrapping the entire batch with a few sheets of cellophane.

Now at the function, she relinquished the brownies to Ms. Mayfield whom took them with delight, though giving a sideways glance at the packaging. “Thank you, Cynthia.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Mayfield,” There was a hint of pride in Cynthia’s response.

“Did you make this yourself?” Ms. Mayfield unwrapped the cellophane from the platter.

“Certainly did. I’ve been doing a lot of things that I couldn’t have before.”

“Before what?” Ms. Mayfield could always spot inferring statements.

“Before the Brother Ian services.” Cynthia smiled as she dutifully walked to back doors, leaving a stewing Ms. Mayfield glaring at the wall.

Cynthia took a seat in the back of the church’s multipurpose hall where the entrance was and the tickets were to be taken for tonight’s church dance fundraiser. It was only a few minutes before everyone began to arrive, so Cynthia knew she had to prepare herself for the taking of the tickets. Latex gloves were carefully rolled onto each hand. Vaseline was swabbed onto lips. Seeing glasses were adjusted for optimal close distance perception. Cynthia was now ready as the guests started to arrive.

The first person through the doors was Alan Smith, alone. He bashfully smiled as Cynthia took his ticket. There existed a history between the two. It was before everything went wrong, before Alan went to jail for technological crimes, leaving Cynthia to tend to her own ‘habits’. Though the years had passed, and even though Cynthia had moved on from requiting love for him, his heart still skipped a beat when he saw her.

Alan’s love gaze was broken by the shrewdly twisted face of Ms. Mayfield. “Alan, I need to speak with you.”

“But I was just about to reminisce with sweet Cynthia here,” Alan was almost begging for Ms. Mayfield to let him speak with his Cynthia.

Ms. Mayfield grabbed Alan’s arm and led him away from Cynthia’s table to behind the punch bowl at the wall opposite the entrance. Cynthia could not hear what they were talking about, but she could see that Ms. Mayfield was animated about her subject.

Cynthia felt sorry for Alan because she knew Ms. Mayfield was probably intervening on her behalf. She was probably scolding Alan for being a paroled felon, and Ms. Mayfield felt he could be nothing but a bad influence on Cynthia. This was not the first time Ms. Mayfield had spoken with Alan, nor would it be the last.

Roger and Karen were next in line. Roger was a squat man that insisted on still dressing in overalls that he wore unclasped. Karen was a tall woman in her mid thirties with a flair for the edge of fashion, her own personal fashion.

They gave Cynthia their tickets and their news, “Cynthia, we want you to be the first to know? We’re getting married.” Their excitement tried to overpower Cynthia’s plastic smile.

“When did this happen?” Her response was a little more elastic than her smile.

“Well, Karen got one of those crown microphones from Brother Ian about a month ago. We then met this great couple on a missionary tour of Africa and it was that couple that convinced us that getting married is the best thing we could ever do for ourselves,” Roger’s joy would have made even the most sincere vomit.

Cynthia tore the tickets with pleasure as she gave her congratulations. Through gritted teeth she bid Karen the best of luck swallowing the deep regret that boiled in her stomach.

If Karen could get married and be loved by someone, why not Cynthia?

Farris placed his ticket on the table. He was a tall man of six feet ten inches. His gangly body made him spider-like but his face brought the features of a distinguished gentleman. However he found a suit to fit his body dimensions, Cynthia would never know.

But Cynthia did notice the fact that his limp was gone as he walked away. “Farris, when did you start walking right?”

Farris spun around on the ball of his heals. “Since I spoke to Brother Ian,” he announced pointing to his gaping mouth.

Cynthia smiled at his good fortune then turned to greet the next set of guests as a line was beginning to form. “Emerald and Travis, you both made it.” Cynthia was honestly surprised by the couple’s appearance.

“It’s a great story,” Emerald started. “We were out in the middle of the Arizona desert, when Travis here, fell off the cliff.” Travis patted his fiber-cast covered leg. Emerald continued their tale, “I was already at the top and had to make my way down. But in the process I dropped our pack, which had our only cell phone in it. Needless to say it broke when it hit the ground.”

Travis smiled, “My man, Emerald was completely freaking out at this point, right? Then I said to him ‘bro, don’t worry, I got Brother Ian with us.” Travis pointed to his mouth. The two brothers laughed at their adventure. “And in no time, an ambulance helicopter was at my ‘drop’ point. Get it? Drop point?” The two were searching for a chuckle at their misfortune, but they would receive none from the uninterested Cynthia. They passed the table, leaving Cynthia to an obvious inner turmoil.

Her first issue was the matter of organizing the tickets. Should it be by number? Or by size since she tore the ticket they came in different sizes. Or should she organize the tickets by the time they arrived, to allow for a fair chance at the raffle, after all, he that is last shall be first, and he that is first shall be last.

Her second turmoil was everyone else was having a better life by living the Godly life. Cynthia felt she deserved something more than just a simple help with her problem of neatness. She deserved to be normal.

She had signed up with Brother Ian over three months ago, against Ms. Mayfield’s whishes, mind you. She had ordered three crown transmitter sets, ensuring that her words would be heard. She wanted to be completely free from her plight of compulsion. Each of these issues mounted reason for a divine intervention or if not intervention, at least Cynthia felt she deserved some better attention.

“…the paramedics rushed in”

The ever expanding world of produce, goods, and services has given rise to the corner market, followed by the specialized market, followed by the supermarket. Now, a shopper need only go to one place to meet all their shopping needs. That is until the world of produce, goods, and services concocted the idea of the specialized corner store supermarket. Now, a shopper need only go down the street to one store for all their shopping needs in one area of their life. For example, there is a super grocery store for all your kitchen and dinner needs. Then there is the super nutrition store for all your vitamin needs. Then the super sports store for all your outdoor activity needs. And finally there is a super pet store for every pet you will possibly have in your lifetime.

This super pet store is where George worked as a night clerk restocking shelves. It was quiet work where George has coworkers that respect and understand him because they do most of the talking. Occasionally, George gets a chance to walk the animals staying at the superstore’s resort for pets. And the benefits, though minimal, allow him to buy discounted food for any pet he sees fit. It is where Alfred, his pet field mouse, receives a lot of his nutritional food from.

George has entered the grand shopping arena through one of the four automatic entrance doors. Tucked in his right arm is LittleOne, asleep after the half hour walk to the store. George gave a silent ‘hello’ to his coworkers whom were a bit surprised to see him during the day but never-the-less was happy to see him.

The thirty-second aisle was kitten foods and toys. George made his way to this aisle, being stopped by coworkers that asked about the little one in his hands. In brief succinct words that everyone had come accustomed to deciphering from George, he explained the kitten was only temporary. They smiled at knowing that George had found a new friend.

George knew exactly what section of the aisle he required; he had stocked the shelves himself just two nights ago. There was a choice between two brands, so George had to read each respective box’s content carefully. For fun and security, George put LittleOne on the shelf in place of the two food boxes now in each hand.

Each offered the same nutrition but one was cheaper, which was a trap George rarely fell into. Just because the knock-off is cheaper does not mean it is the same. He wanted to read on to compare the two, but a soft voice at the other end of the aisle caught his attention.

It was the soft voice of Judy France, and she was saying hello.

George’s hands trembled as Judy kept approaching.

“George, how are you?”

In a rash decision of needing to look busy, George replaced the two cat food boxes on the shelf, unintentionally covering LittleOne.

“My organization could use more brave people like you. You are a brave man for running out in the middle of a busy street to save a kitten like that.”

George took the chance to ask a simple thought provoking question, “Which one?”

“Organization? I run the Pet Home Shelter on ‘A’ Street,” she gave a tender tap on his chest trying to gain his full attention. “So where is the little gray fella?”

He pointed to the shelf behind him.

“See, that’s what we need at the animal shelter. Other people would have given the cat to a shelter rather than take care of the poor thing themselves.”

George tried to play modest by looking away, but that brought his attention to his oversight. LittleOne was behind the boxes on the shelf.

At least he was.

George quickly moved the boxes, ignoring any further conversation with Judy. LittleOne had disappeared in the maze that was the top of the shelving system that ran throughout the store. George gave a worried look to Judy and barely blurted out the phrase, “He’s gone.”

Judy put two and two together noting the cat food boxes he referenced earlier and the worried look on his face.

“I’ll go this way, you go that way. He could not have gotten far,” she took command like a mother would for any lost child.

Without another word, George ran to the opposite end of the aisle, hopping all the way to peak at the top of the shelves.

Nothing.

Judy gave a blank look from the other end. “Where did he go?”

A loud crash from across the store attracted every shopper’s attention. George dashed to the sound’s source; rounding a corner he was quite familiar with. Towering above him was the pyramid stack of tuna cans reaching one story high. Already, half a side of the pyramid had collapsed thanks to the efforts of a young boy that was trying to get a can for his own pet. George grimaced at recalling his attempt to warn the manager of this over-stacked canned pyramid.

Crying at the top of the teetering stack was LittleOne whom had ran up there in wake of the crashing cans.

On cue, Judy screamed to alert George to LittleOne’s precariousness. Instinct took over George once again. He sprang into action, grabbing a near-by grocery cart, flipping it on its side so it stood tall, and climbed on top of it putting his hands inches from LittleOne. With a yell, he leaped out, grabbing the feline with both hands and curling his body around it on the way down. The two crashed into the still standing half of the pyramid, bringing hundreds of cans of tuna crashing to the yellow tile floor.

Once the pyramid was leveled, and the area safe, everyone came to George’s aid lifting the cans off of him. His manager hurried with apologies having witnessed the entire ordeal on the video surveillance cameras.

Once again George felt fine, slightly bruised and a little winded, but fine as long as he saw Judy France’s smile for the few seconds before the paramedics rushed in.

“…the word of God”

At times, Alan’s own checkered past bothered him. Though he enjoyed the challenge of hacking into a secure network, he knew his acts of electronic espionage was compulsory, he took great pride in knowing he could crack the devices he cracked. Alan had graduated from M.I.T., 87th in his class. His lack of honest motivation kept from keeping any of the throng of job offers once he graduated. Instead, Alan felt he calling to break things, digitally speaking.

With the new millennium approaching, Alan could see the trend of technology coming. He envisioned a world with ubiquitous internet connection, free internet code, and web addresses replacing phone numbers. And in that future, Alan could see the need for someone like him, a renegade that regulated security by keeping the masses on their toes. Technology was in a Wild West phase and Alan was declaring himself marshal.

Two years ago, Alan had fallen in love with a woman he met at a compulsion group meeting. Her name was Cynthia. They found that their respective conditions complimented one another; Alan setup Cynthia with free internet and video conferencing allowing her to maintain a job as a medical typist whilst Cynthia unknowingly organized Alan’s electronic equipment in such a way that it improved his wardriving time by three hours. It was a match made in heaven as far as Alan was concerned which is why to this day, even after Cynthia had left him due to his being arrested twice, he pined for her attention.

“Being Cynthia’s puppy is not going to get her back,” Ms. Mayfield continued their conversation as she pulled opened the two large doors revealing the main hall of the church.

“It might get her attention again, Mrs. Mayfield,” Alan humbly explained.

“All you are doing is showing up where she is, Alan,” Mrs. Mayfield shed light on the obvious fact as she led Alan to her office located behind the pulpit. “What you need to do is a grand gesture.”

Alan took a seat in front of the desk as Mrs. Mayfield leaned back in her overstuffed office chair behind the desk. “Mrs. Mayfield, I thank you for all you’ve done for me, keeping me out of jail and all but I don’t have money to give the kind of grand gesture that Cynthia so deserves.”

Mrs. Mayfield started rifling through her desk drawers, searching for something in the papers. “Money? Grand gestures don’t have to be money, honey. What they need to be are from the heart and they need to be big,” she smirked at the leaflet she had in her hand now.

Alan took the paper, unsure what to make of the advertisement now in his hand. “Brother Ian Services? What’s this for?”

Mrs. Mayfield remained quiet and pointed to the open office door. Alan understood the command, promptly stood, and shut it. “You know how much this church means to Cynthia, don’t you Alan?”

“I certainly do. If it wasn’t for this church, Cynthia would never be out of the house.”

“Now imagine if this church was gone, Alan. What would Cynthia do then?” Mrs. Mayfield pointed to the leaflet in Alan’s hands and continued to make a case, “These ‘Brother Ian Services’ are a threat to this church. They are a threat to all churches. People aren’t attending church like they used to. Now for the bigger churches, that’s fine, because they are established. But for us, Alan, for the Church of The Lord, we’re just starting, and we need every tithe we can get.”

“But what about your money, Mrs. Mayfield? Couldn’t you keep this church going?” Alan interjected.

Ms. Mayfield’s face suppressed the expression of annoyance bubbling to the surface, “Alan, I have been blessed, but I can’t keep this entire church running for much longer on my own. In fact, that is why I need you,” the smirk returned to her face again. “It will be a grand gesture for Cynthia and help the church at the same time.”

Alan mused the notion, “It would be nice to help people for a change, Mrs. Mayfield. But do you really think it will get Cynthia’s attention for me?”

“Of course it will, Alan. Once you wipe out the Brother Ian Service’s network, the church attendance can go back to how it was and Cynthia will have somewhere to continue going and someone to thank for that,” she nodded reassurance towards Alan.

“Wipe out the network? I don’t know if I can do that. I mean, I don’t even know what kind of system they have. All I know is this flyer and from what it’s promising, it seems pretty complicated, Mrs. Mayfield.”

“But Alan, that’s why I am asking you, because it’s hard,” Mrs. Mayfield was now appealing to Alan’s ego.

“All I have to do is take out their network?” Alan’s mind was already racing through possible scenarios.

“That’s what I figure. Take out the network, even briefly, and everyone will lose faith in Brother Ian Services.”

“You have a point,” Alan’s compulsion overtook any reason that crept from his subconscious.

“Good, now with that out of the way, where are you picking her up?” Ms. Mayfield

Alan was reluctant to answer, “I’m picking Cynthia up at her psychologist appointment, Mrs. Mayfield.”

“A psychologist?” Ms. Mayfield did not try to hide her disdain for mental doctors. “What does she need to go to one of them for? All she needs is the word of God.”

“…a common enemy”

I will admit it, I don’t like therapists. The concept of therapy seems very subjective to me. How can someone tell me what is wrong with my mind if they just met me? I understand if I were deranged then a therapist or psychologist might be able to better understand where my mind was. But I am not crazy; I just don’t like the idea of paying an individual to do what a good friend can do.

I suppose that was a source of problems for Elaine and me, we had no friends. We had no social networking of any kind; accept for my job and her internet chat room buddies. It appeared that we both were in a bit of a slump when it came to relationships of any kind. That is why Elaine had insisted over the past few weeks that we make an appointment with this recommended therapist, or at least her internet chat room buddies thought we should.

The loose gravel road kept us at a steady 10 miles per hour as we drove the flat and winding driveway, trees that would make a Tim Burton movie look tame fenced either side, they obscured the view of green pastures on either side. It felt as if we were headed nowhere when at the end of the tunnel of trees was a blindingly white building looming in stark contrast to the blackened mountains surrounding it. The mountains had been recently scorched by wildfires, giving the air a hint of soot absent of the freshness of summer by the California shores.

The grounds were well kept due to being the finest mental institution center in the county. Thank you, tax dollars for giving the needy such a wonderful place to go for help. I am being facetious if you could not tell.

We walked inside the reception office, giving our name to a young secretary behind an old counter. Elaine took a seat staring at the wall away from me because she knew I did not want to be here. And the truth be told, I had two stories due tomorrow morning and I had to tell Brother Ian that Static was no longer running his story, so yes, I did not want to be here right now.

Sitting in the waiting room, I tried to strike up a casual conversation with my wife. Normally we would talk in that couple way, where you do not need to introduce yourself anymore, but you share the secret happenings of your lives. We used to talk about how today’s generation is so bleak with no obvious objective or outcome. We would discuss mundane topics; healthcare, technology, dress attire. Recently our conversations would end as fast as they begun because they were cut off by any number of outer disturbances; today it was our last name being called by the secretary.

The therapist’s office door had his name in bold black letters, Dr. Ernie Pinkard. It reminded me of a police captain’s door only without the excitement. Inside the office was Dr. Ernie, sitting alone behind an old mahogany desk.

Like a doctor in those hygiene films at school, ‘Dr. Ernie’ was dressed in a gleaming white lab coat with a light blue collared shirt and khaki pants underneath. His black-rimmed glasses were slightly bigger than his head accentuating his narrow face.

He greeted us with a warm welcoming hand shake each, “Excuse the outfit, I have a costume party after work.”

Good, I thought I was visiting a professional. Sorry but stress makes me sarcastic.

“Please, feel right at home,” Dr. Ernie spread his arms to the two chairs in front of his desk. We took the seats silently scanning the room for credentials. The walls were filled with interpretive art. A few family photos were on the wall behind the doctor but no blatant credentials.

Dr. Ernie looked over an opened manila folder on his desk. “Elaine, how has the writing been going?”

There are worst questions to start a therapist session with; why do you think you were raped, did you enjoy being touched that way, and do you have to urinate when you kill someone? What Dr. Ernie asked was in line with this sort of questioning. I am sure if he had read further into our case file that must have been printed recently; he would have seen that Elaine’s writing was a sore subject.

Our problems did not stem from a death in the family, a life threatening illness, or some debilitating disorder.

I wish it could have been that simple.

Instead, life has just been hard, as it usually is for young married couples. We married right out of college after having met at a writer’s convention in Houston, Texas. She attended hoping to learn how to find a publisher for her short stories. I attended looking into the possibilities of being for a technical writer. Before the conference was over, we both learned that we loved each other.

In the afterglow of our marriage, our lives are headed in opposite directions. I have a mild success with writing for Static. I may not enjoy my assignments but I do enjoy my job. And I am happy in not having any true friends. On the other hand, Elaine has had no success with finding a publisher to accept her work. Sometimes she struggles for weeks trying to write one page. And Elaine is deeply bitter that the only friends she can keep are the ones in internet chat rooms, even then they rotate often.

Now, after Dr. Ernie’s question, Elaine’s eyes welted with promise of tears that she choked back with a forced smile.

“Do you have any recent work?” Doctor Ernie’s therapeutic approach had the tact of a shiatsu massage.

“Work at Static is going well,” I butted in with my side of the relationship.

Doctor Ernie, finally acknowledging Elaine’s domineer, aimed his interrogative questioning towards me. “Harold, how would you say you feel about your job?” He really must not have read our notes. These were the push button questions that brought us to therapy in the first place.

Dr. Ernie took a few notes of my statement then moved on to another series of questions. The session continued on for the full hour in the same manner. Cruel questions that drug up awful responses. He seemed to be using it as a means to bring everything to light. And it did, but not in the way he intended. Through all the awkward questioning, Elaine and I realized after voicing some frustrations that we were not the problem but our external, individual lives were.

Silently, Elaine and I came to an agreement, one that Dr. Ernie did not help bring out I might mention. Eventually we would find answers to all of our problems, but right now, with the borderline abusive therapy from Dr. Ernie, we had a common enemy.

“…roam the streets”

Despite Mrs. Mayfield’s objections, Cynthia had made it a goal to get therapy this week. She felt compelled to make the appointment after staying awake for forty-eight hours straight due to attempting to organize the church’s hymns. Cynthia found herself at an impasse deciding whether to order the songs by page length, signature key or alphabetical by title or by author. Most of the time, Cynthia felt she could live with her condition; that it was not a life impediment but an idiosyncrasy all her own. Then there were moments like the church hymn’s that opened Cynthia’s eyes to the problem she lived with.

Down the hall from Dr. Ernie Pinkard’s office, Cynthia exited from her first and last attempt at therapy for her compulsive condition.

She was being escorted by Dr. Henry Winston out the door.

He spoke with apology, “I’m sorry to cut our session so short. But it’s my daughter…” he trailed off, hoping that implying a family emergency would be excuse enough to end a scheduled therapy session.

But Cynthia caught a glimpse of the yellow note pad in his hand. The very note pad he was taking notes on during their half hour session. She came here on her own, a feat not too many could appreciate but still very difficult for her. She talked with this man pouring out any and all possibilities to reason of her condition. She was cooperating but the doodle drawings of a ‘lost cat’ flyer on the yellow note pad crushed all Cynthia attempted to gain.

She moved her eyes from the yellow note pad back to Dr. Henry Winston’s feigning interest eyes. “I understand completely, you have a daughter…” she let the sentence trail off in the same manner he did, knowing the false acceptance would suffice.

“I know how all this must sound, but this is just a matter of circumstance, sorry. In the mean time, maybe you should try Brother Ian’s services. The program really seems to be helping people.”

Cynthia held her dead pan expression through the notion that she should try what she has been trying all along. It was as if no one was listening to her cries for help. The fact just cemented another brick in the wall around her life.

He smiled and extended a hand, which made Cynthia roll her eyes. Had he not listened to a single word she said? Touching another person’s hand? She gave him a precious clean tissue from a package in her front pant pocket as a salutation.

Like the great wizard of Oz, Dr. Henry Winston disappeared back behind the thick door, lightly slamming it. Deep down, Cynthia hoped he found his cat, not for love’s sake, but for the sake that not another creature would roam the streets.

“…pretty kitty”

All was good with the world for George. His work schedule at the pet store had switched to the day side which in turn allowed him to come home at a different time than Judy France which, in turn, allowed him to avoid her for an entire week. The gray furry kitty and brown fuzzy mouse had made fast friends which made feeding time and general care for the two animals easier.

“Hello, LittleOne. I’ve brought you a special treat,” George placed the grocery bags on the counter. With one massive hand, he scooped up the kitten, holding him close to his heart. With his free hand, George rifled through the bags for some “Fancy Feast for Kittens”.

LittleOne purred as he opened the can, its contents wafted the room with scents of chicken and tuna. He poured the processed meat into a serving bowl then placed it on the floor. The kitten ate it with speed shoving George’s hands aside.

“Don’t act like I never feed you,” George joked with his little furry friend. Animals were nice to George; they didn’t stare at him while he stuttered through words. Alfred and LittleOne would listen to him talk about his day without making him feel inadequate. George appreciated the animals’ undivided attention, and so returned the favor with extra treats and play toys.

George went back to the front door to close it, having left it open because his hands were full. At the door he paused catching a glance of Judy France walking up to his door.

Words again found themselves funneled in his mouth, not because of an impediment from birth, but from a setback by a stunted emotional expression. She saw him already standing inside his home, so he could not hide. George felt a tightening in his chest as he always had when Judy France was in sight.

Please God, please be a one sided conversation.

“A get well package,” she extended a wrapped shoebox with a delightful smile.

George returned the smile taking the gift.

Please, just keep me out of the conversation.

Judy took his stepping back from the doorway as a gesture to come inside. “Well, I don’t mind if I do. It’s hot out here today.”

George felt a little uneasy by her inviting herself inside his home, but he kept the expression to himself.

Judy immediately made her way to LittleOne still eating in the kitchen. “Nice place you have here.”

George kind of nodded in agreement. He was trying to say more with gestures than any word he could possibly muster out.

“How are you feeling?”

There it was a question he had to verbally answer.

Get it over with. Let her know so she could leave your life with her fantasy bubble of the giant lover popped.

George got through the first word of ‘well’ then froze on the word ‘I’. It was the worst he had done in a while. His mouth refused any alternate word to express his clean bill of health from the doctor. It was like the putter of a scratched compact disc, skipping back and forth at such a high rate the word is no longer identifiable. George knew this was the end of his fantasizing about holding Judy’s hand. Her face had grown that glazed over look of disbelief. Or had it?

“You poor thing,” Judy took George’s nerve shaking hands.

That is the least George wanted, pitied affection.

“How long did the doctor’s say it would last?” Judy had derived that George’s stuttering came from the accident. George knew he would need to better explain his situation and not let this misleading train of thought continue any further.

“Forever,” he managed to get out in one breath.

“Oh no, this just won’t due. You are a man. A wonderful man that saved this kitty,” she held LittleOne close to her face. “Do you have a way to get hold of the man that hit you?”

George shook his head. It was moments like this he realized why he does not talk to people; it involves too much foresight.

“That bastard just hit you and left no information” Judy was more shocked than furious.

George picked up LittleOne, smiling a forced polite smile that hid the guilt of with-holding the truth. George was allowing Judy to think that his speech impediment was caused by the accident. This was not a way to start a relationship.

Judy pulled out her cell phone which quickly depleted her attention as she searched for a phone number then dialed. “I’m going to the police station to see if there are any leads as to who hit you,” she trailed off from her list of priorities since the other end of the line was answered.

Before George could figure a way to explain everything to Judy, how he truly was, she was walking to the front door with the phone pressed to her ear. She waved goodbye and shut the door behind her, still in mid-conversation.

George scuttled to the living room window, watching her leave. He would have to explain everything soon. This charade was not going to last for too long. He cuddled LittleOne close to his lips whispering, “She’s a pretty nice lady, isn’t she?” He waved LittleOne’s paw goodbye as Judy walked down passed the house.

The kitten squirmed for freedom from his gentle clutches which he honored by releasing her on the floor. “Don’t worry about it you’re still my pretty kitty.”

“…forgot about them”

It had been a few days since Elaine and I had our couple’s therapy session. Though we had found a common enemy in our therapist and his inability to help us, we still could not find a common answer to our stagnate relationship. It was going to take more than loathing the same person. It was difficult to leave those thoughts behind today, since I was going to Brother Ian’s to explain the end of our interview due to Old Man Potter’s connections with a competing church.

The thoughts of Elaine and my problems slipped away when I walked up to the apartment complex entrance. It may sound in sensitive that I could drop my emotions like that, but I was distracted by the lack of artificial light coming the building. None of the apartment windows that faced the street were lit and at this time in the morning there were normally a dozen. The hallway entrance ceiling light which was on twenty-four hours a day was now dim. My marriage problems became distant with the present problem of a blackout.

Ian’s front door was locked affirming my fear that the power knocked out the power to his home. Without electricity, he was not able to answer the door buzzer at the main entrance, nor would he be able to open his own door which was electronically operated. A quick call to the electric company informed me that the power had only been off for a few minutes which hopefully would not out last Brother Ian’s back up power.

I did not know how to feel yet. The emotional side of me wanted to fear that Brother Ian was dead, that this blackout had killed him. But the logical side of me rationalized that Ian was a computer after all and all good computer configurations are to have battery backups. My mixed emotions subsided as the hall lights flickered back on, illuminating the dark hallway. Soon after, Ian’s front door unlatched allowing me to enter.

“Brother Ian? Is everything alright?” I asked hoping to hear an immediate response. But then the logical side of me reasoned that he was a computer and would take time to boot up to full functionality, so I went directly to the room where his two screens hung on the wall. The screens were alive with flashes of names, places, and action items of a database.

“What’s all this?” I expected no immediate response since the screen text must have been part of Ian’s booting sequence.

To my surprise, Ian responded as if caught in midst of deep concentration, “I’m checking the database of all my clients. There is definitely a glitch here. I felt it when the power came back on. You know that feeling of knowing something is wrong, intuition.”

“So, you’re feeling intuition now?” Each time we met, Ian revealed a little more intelligence. Ian was lost in concentration again as shown by his non-responsiveness. I tried for distraction, “How do your services work again? I never looked at the code.”

“There are five hundred thousand, two hundred, and forty-seven people in this database. I monitor their prayers daily. Then I evaluate if the prayer is valid according to scripture. Sometimes the prayers are possible at first but then they become matters out of my own hands. That’s where God’s plan steps in and changes the answer I have prepared. Which is alright with me.” The flashing screens showed no sign of slowing down.

“God takes over. Now I’ve heard everything,” the pessimism in my voice shoved the words through my teeth.

“Do you see a problem with God taking over?” Ian queried.

Now I was the one lost in thought, “No, I just sometimes wish He would take over more often.”

“I think I found it.” Ian was preoccupied once again.

The screens stopped flashing random bits of information. A grid of data grew across both screens.

“Allow me to explain this grid just so I can get your second opinion.

“I don’t think I can be of any use to, Ian, that’s a lot of data,” I doubted my abilities.

“Remember Harold, you are because you solved something many others could not. I value your opinion greatly, however fruitless you think it is.”

I blushed a little bit.

Ian started to explain, “There are names. Attached to the names are the prayers an individual has asked for. Within the prayers are the feelings of the possibility of fruition for that prayer. Then there is the comparison of their life and their stewardship. And finally on the right columns are the possible answers to their prayers. And it is here at the last grid that I have found my senses to be correct.”

The screens zoomed into a section of the grid, displaying the results on both monitors. I stared at the lines of information filled with names and requests to God through Ian. My mind raced to find patterns that were obvious or broken. “There are lines missing information.”

“Precisely.”

“But judging from the entry dates, they have been missing for months. The blackout did not cause this.” I pondered possible reasons for the missing data.

“There’s no need to think too deeply on this one, Harold. It appears that my glitch can be summed up in a very human trait; I forgot them.”

“…to all of us”

The Church of the Lord was nestled in the middle of a burgeoning suburb of Oxnard. It was a neighborhood that reflected life in 1999 America; where neighbors don’t ask to borrow a cup of sugar, people do not have a front porch to sit on, and there was no guilt from not attending church on Sundays. At one time, Frank MacCruer lived only three doors down from the church in a two story house Mrs. Mayfield had paid for.

But Frank had never moved into the house. He did not show up to lead the church in the Word of God. He had disappeared three weeks ago, three weeks ago today, Sunday. There was no note, no reason, and no inkling as to why he left his duties.

It was this fact that angered Ms. Mayfield the most. She could understand dying, as in the case of her husband, that was a legitimate excuse to relinquish one’s duties. Besides death, there was no valid defense for Frank being absent.

The void was palpable today at the church. It was Sunday at not a single person sat in the pews. There were no children in the classroom. The only person present in the Church of the Lord was Mrs. Mayfield whom stood at the pulpit gazing over the emptiness. A cell phone pressed to her ear, she was in a conversation with Alan on the other side.

“And you can do that?” She was astonished with Alan’s abilities.

“With the year 2000 coming up and Y2K all the buzz, no one is going to notice a blackout,” Alan laid out the foundation of his plan to shutdown Brother Ian’s services. “With the power out, Brother Ian services computer servers will be running only on backup power. Given the research into the type of server being used, the firewall will be disabled and I can attack the system.”

“So you can gain access to his computers using the blackout. Then you’ll erase everything on the hard drives.” she summarized.

“Precisely,” Alan was astonished with her grasp of the plan.

“I’m impressed, Alan,” Mrs. Mayfield paused her end of the conversation due to commotion coming from the classroom located past the pews. “Go with the plan. You’ll have the money you need in your account by tonight.” She closed the cell phone and kept a cautious eye towards the back of the pews.

Ms. Mayfield kept alert while approaching the classroom, fearing a spy in her own church. She opened the door quickly as to surprise the eaves-dropper. “Cynthia? What are you doing here?”

“Mrs. Mayfield? Where is everybody?” Cynthia sat at the teacher’s desk where she gazed at the empty classroom. Her eyes came to rest on the large cross painted on the back of the room. “Why would Frank have left all this? He was going to help me with my problems.” There was a sense of brooding in her voice.

“I can help you with that don’t worry. And you don’t need to go to therapists anymore,” the cell phone rang interrupting her rant. “Besides, what Frank did, he did to all of us.”

“…the darkest of times”

To a child, time passes slowly during summer vacation which makes the days that much sweeter. To a child that has lost a pet, without the distraction of mandatory school work to distract from the loss, each hour drags into the next. Susan was feeling the latter today due it being 3 weeks since her kitten had ran away in the park.

Her father, Henry, had exhausted all possible means to find the feline. He had made numerous fliers, sent hundreds of emails, and even tried going door to door in a two mile radius of their home. Even today, Henry had brought his daughter to the park once again just in case.

Susan sat at the top of the slide, slumped against the guide rails. “Dad, what about Brother Ian? Isn’t that thing in our teeth supposed to be helping us find her?”

Her father’s jaw dropped like a fish searching for the bait that was the right answer. What do you tell your daughter when prayers go unanswered? How does a father explain to his child that God is not helping the way we want Him to? Even if it is an internet service that listens to your prayers. It is an easy answer; distraction.

At that very moment, a man was walking the track close to the playground. A normal daily occurrence here in the afternoon but what was walking with him was unique. A cat in a harness pranced next the man. “Look at that, Susan. Isn’t that the funniest thing you have ever seen?”

Susan looked up from her slump, “How is he doing that?”

The man was closer to them now, just starting to pass them. He noticed their scanning eyes. “Hello,” he opened the door to casual conversation that he knew would come with his leashed cat.

“How did you get your cat to do that?” Susan asked with the boldness of child innocence.

The man smiled at the question he had obviously heard hundreds of times before. “I just put it on and we went for a walk.”

Susan went back into a slump, “That would have sure helped keep KittyKat around.” She started to pout.

Henry could see the man was bewildered by Susan’s sudden onslaught of sadness. “You’ll have to forgive my daughter. We just lost our cat a few weeks ago.”

“Sorry to hear that,” the man picked up his cat and approached Henry and Susan. “I bet you miss her a lot,” he turned to address Henry, “Have you tried tuna?”

“Tuna?” the two asked in unison.

“Sometimes, when my Sheeba gets loose,” he shook his cat’s paw, “I just use an open can of tuna to lure her back. It works every time, no matter how far she runs away, tuna brings her back to me.”

Susan perked back up for the first time since the conversation had begun. “Daddy, we haven’t tried tuna yet.”

It was true. They had tried everything else; prayer, searching high and low, fliers, even retracing their walks, but they never got KittyKat back. Henry was relieved to see Susan happy again, even if it might be momentarily.

Susan turned back to the man with glee in her eyes, “Does it really work?”

The man put his cat back on the ground and unlatched her leash. Sheeba remained at his side, “It brings me hope at the darkest of times.”

“…need to move”

Computers boil down to a series of zeros and ones. How they are grouped together dictates to the machine how to perform. Programs act as the conscious brain. They float like thoughts, hanging in a twilight world between the physical hardware of the computer and presenting images that our mind pieces together to make sense of a program’s interface. It is the physical aspect of the computer that acts as the human body. Completely autonomous in regulating itself, it monitors its own performance, can over heat, can break, and can stop working.

Alan knew that with older computers it was the physical aspect that was more penetrable. There could be a million bit encryption on the data, but if you want to remove any threats of viruses stealing your identity just unplug the Ethernet cable. It was this simple line of logic that led Alan to the plan of removing the local firewall and accessing the server in the immediate vicinity.

It was the dawn of the year 2000 which helped start the plan. Alan landed a job fixing the dreaded Y2K bug that everyone was sure eminent at the local electric company. It took about a week of hacking, but Alan wrote in a code that allows him to remote switch the power grid touching the block where the Brother Ian Services servers are.

Alan parked his car in front of the apartment complex at 1717 Stern Lane. This was the location Alan had pinpointed by tracing the radio signal sent by a tooth crown sent by Brother Ian Services.

The cold, misty night air calmed the adrenaline rushing through Alan’s veins. His eyes scanned the sidewalk and the apartment windows for any one that might be a witness to his plan. No one was watching him. A fact Alan had planned on being that the apartment complex housed primarily college students and most likely all of them were involved in or attending a new year’s eve party.

With cell phone in hand, Alan gave the block one more glance then closed his eyes tight preparing them to adjust to the darkness to come. He dialed the phone number that activated the hidden line of computer code at the electric company that disrupted the energy powering the block. The sudden lack of light enveloped the entire apartment complex in black. Alan opened his eyes slowly. A smile crept across his face as his eyes were fully adjusted to the naked night.

He quickly grabbed a duffel bag filled with necessary tools from the trunk of his car and made haste to the glass door entrance way of the apartment complex. The doors were accessible by merely pushing them since their electronic locks were useless. Alan pulled out a portable energy reader that he modified to read the backup power supply utilized by a server. It worked by clicking louder as it neared a source. Alan stopped in front of the seventeenth door where the clicking was the loudest.

The door was ajar. A quick inspection revealed to Alan that without power the electronic lock was also disengaged. The portable energy reader clicked louder and faster alerting Alan, that the servers must be located at the end of the hallway. He walked cautiously through the dark room, trying not to bump into anything.

The room at the end of the hall was lit by the stars outside. He had to squint in order to make out two large flat screen monitors hanging on the wall. They were dark except for reflecting a faint red light blinking on the floor. Alan made his way to the red light.

One server for the entire Brother Ian service? It must be one hell of an efficient program to handle thousands of users.

From the duffel bag, Alan produced a small L.E.D. headlamp that lit up the area directly in front of his face. The panel screws were quickly disposed of with an electric screwdriver revealing the inner-workings of the server. Alan removed a laptop from the duffel bag and connected a serial cable to the back of it and looked inside the server, then on the back, then on the front.

No interface? No connection of any kind? It must be Bluetooth or wireless connection.

Like a boy scout, Alan came prepared with a plug-in scanner for the laptop. Again, no interface device was discovered, not even wireless.

It was time for plan B.

The reason that computers use ones and zeros as a language is because it is the only way they can remember. The physical memory part of a computer is comprised of microscopic switches that are magnetic. When the switch is closed it represents a one and when the switch is open it represents a zero. In the world of computers magnetism is an ironic friend.

Alan reached into the bag and pulled out a degauss-er, basically a large disc with handle that when squeezed activated a large magnet that is normally used to erase V.H.S. video tapes. Having to improvise, Alan was using the degauss-er to damage the server’s memory switches thus permanently corrupting Brother Ian Services’ server. Like a wizard casting a spell, he rubbed the disc while squeezing, confident in the damage it was causing.

Red and blue lights pierced the darkness outside, flooding through the room’s windows. Alan stealthily crawled below the window frame, poked his head up just enough to discover a police car parked next to his own car.

They must have run the plates. I knew hitting that guy was going to haunt me.

He had been in situations like this before. Worse in fact. But never before were there two strikes already against him. There were many plan things the cops could arrest him for. And while in jail, he knew they would find more. Prison was no place for someone of his talent, so Alan quietly packed up his gear and marched out the front door with a determined need to move.

“…come through here”

The law uses technology in amazing ways. In the future, in the early part of the 21st century, some internet websites will develop ways to find criminal mug shots, sex offender locations, and how to assemble bombs. But that is in the future, earlier today Judy had to go to the police station herself for any information on the investigation in to George’s hit and run. The police detective offered an expired driver’s license gleamed from the perpetrator’s car license plate given by a witness.

The detective had not investigated the matter with much vigor since George was essentially unscathed from the incident. But after further investigation initiated by Judy, the detective connected the driver’s license with a mug shot in the criminal database. His face and information seared into Judy’s memory. He was a squat man at an even 5 feet tall and weighed 250 pounds. Alan was 24 years old with 2 strikes against him for stealing company secrets, companies he did not work for.

The haunting memory of Alan Smith stayed with Judy as she drove to the pet store where George worked. Each person that passed by could have been him. The car next to her at the stop light could be driven by Alan. In the parking lot, he could be the man walking behind Judy’s car as she parked. But Alan was not any of these people, which enraged Judy even more as she walked the store aisles looking for George. In spite of it being New Years day and a new century, the fact that George came to work was infuriating to Judy. The man deserves a metal for what he has done for LittleOne.

“George!” She called out when she spotted George stocking shelves in the back of the store.

He motioned for her to come as he finished the last cans.

“George, I got him,” the mug shot print out shook in her hands. “Alan Smith was the guy who hit you.”

George looked at the photo in her hand; a sudden rush of memories of the accident flooded his mind. He recognized Alan Smith instantly as the driver. George could feel the crowded sidewalk wrapping around him again. The blinding light from LittleOne’s spoon shaped collar caught his attention. And George was in the middle of the street again getting hit by Alan’s car.

A cell phone rang loudly from Judy’s purse pulled George from the flashback. She answered it before the second ring, “Hello, detective.” Judy seemed eager to take the call.

George absently watched the store patrons walk by as he waited for Judy to finish the call.

“Great, just tell us when and we’ll be right there,” a grin had grown across her face by the end of the call. “They found Alan Smith’s car but not him. As soon as they nab him, the detective wants you to go to the precinct.”

George nodded to keep the conversation simple.

Judy could sense his aversion George had to speaking and felt compelled to speak for him, “Don’t worry, we’re going to catch the bastard that did this to you.” Her eyes glistened with reassurance. “I never apologized for the way I acted at the hospital. I was overwhelmed with your bravery and I just kept praying that nothing can happen to this guy, I just met him. I’m just glad you’re still around to be so great to LittleOne.” Pride welted up in her chest.

“Thank you,” George forced the words out in an honest expression of gratitude.

Judy’s lovely face of affection contorted to a sneering growl aimed at someone at the end of the aisle. George turned to follow her line of sight to a man hurriedly walking their way.

“Alan Smith!” Judy barked not to alert the store that a criminal was in there midst, but to warn Alan that she knew who he was.

“George, I need to talk with you quick,” Alan demanded of the giant while shaking a black duffel bag over his shoulder. “I don’t have a lot of time.” Alan was now in arm’s reach of the two.

“He doesn’t have to say anything to you. But I know some detectives who might have something to say to you,” Judy stepped defiantly in between George and Alan.

“Listen, I have half a million dollars in this duffel bag and the police are after me. If you want it, the money is all yours,” Alan’s abruptness was sincere.

Judy and George exchanged skeptic glances then Judy questioned, “Who did you steal the money from?”

Alan shoved the duffel bag into George’s hands, “Just take the bag, no strings attached.”

“Why?” George gripped the bag, not wanting to let go but not wanting to keep it either.

Alan gave a furtive glance to his watch. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life that are considered bad, and I want to start doing things that she will respect.”

George could see the intent in Alan’s eyes. They each had a significant woman in their lives. A woman they wanted to give more attention from and in order to receive that attention, each man would have to change for the better. George shouldered the duffel bag then pointed to the back exit. “Go,” he commanded.

Judy watched the criminal leave, “He hit you, George. And kept driving.”

“I know,” George kept his eyes on the back exit, “but he just wants to make things right for her.”

“Her?” Judy stepped in between George’s stare.

“Judy, this is hard for me to say,” George took a deep breath to calm his nerves. “I like you, a lot. I have ever since you moved in four months. I like that you stick up for me because you like to stand up for what’s right. I like that you are concerned about the world around you and are trying to make a difference. I like watching you run, how you get so focused in the being better. I like that when I am around you, I want to break out of my comfort zone.” Despite stopping a little out of breath from fighting his words throughout the entire statement, George managed a sheepish smirk.

Judy returned the smile while keeping her eyes locked on George’s, “I like you, too, George.” Her statement was cut short as three police officers came running down the aisle.

“Ma’am, did a man just run through here?” The officer inquired.

Judy could feel George’s hand slightly tighten around hers as a gesture of understanding. Her heart pounded from wanting to tell the truth, to have a criminal taken off the streets. She wanted George to be revenged for having to suffer, no matter how minute it was. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves before answering the officer, “No, sir, no one has come through here.”

“…the blinking cursors”

There are some perks to working for a news organization, albeit a small one. A press pass earns you four free tickets to theme parks, annually. Businesses try to get on your good side by offering free stuff though it is against journalistic integrity to accept. We also have access to the Associated Press feed, the news before it is news. And being a technology news source has us on the speed dial of such civic institutions as the police department, city hall, and the electric company.

I had an email awaiting me when I arrived at my cubicle. It was from the electric company about a mysterious power outage that took place on New Year’s Eve and lasted for two days. I clicked on the given link to display a map of where the event took place. The computer hesitated before displaying the map.

Brother Ian must have a faster connection to the internet than my office does because I waited for one minute for the map to start loading one section at a time.

Old-Man Potter popped his head over my cubicle’s wall with a huge grin. The map would have to wait. “Good morning, Harold,” Potter had a chipper tone to his voice, like that of a child that just got his way.

“Why so happy, Potter?” I asked.

“You remember Ms. Mayfield, right? The lady from my church?”

“The one who made me cancel Brother Ian’s story?” I was trying to remind him that I had no reason to like this lady as much as he did.

“She just bought our entire ad space for the entire year,” his beaming smile made me squint just a little. “We have capital now. Real working capital.”

I did not appreciate his gloating. I knew this meant good things for the business but there was still something awry.

“It’s a good morning, Harold, a good morning indeed,” Potter was not always aware of his reinforcement of why he was nicknamed ‘Old-Man Potter’. I mean, who uses the word ‘indeed’ anymore? After Potter walked away cocksure of his company’s future, I returned to my computer.

An entire section of town had experienced a blackout. According to the map provided by the Electric Company that had finally loaded onto my computer, Brother Ian’s apartment had been hit by the power outage.

My brain ran the probabilities of how long Ian’s back up power supply could last. In normal situations, there is less than forty five minutes of backup power, enough time to finish the document you are working, save it, and then properly shut down the computer. Brother Ian was an intelligent computer that consumed more energy than regular machines since there was a constant stream of processing. The power outage lasted for two days that would be forty seven hours and fifteen minutes longer than the longest time that Ian would have.

I hated learning probability in college.

I was driving towards Brother Ian’s apartment before I could contemplate further possible outcomes. Normal computers would be turned back on unaffected by the loss of power because their memory and commands were stored in magnetic sequences imbedded in their silicon. Ian’s commands were imbedded the same way as computers, but his memories, what made him intelligent, were stored in a different kind of hardware, which was something I had yet to investigate because how can you investigate a human brain without killing the human?

I came to the conclusion that this piece of hardware held his memories, thoughts, and beliefs. I likened it to the conscious mind. In turn, the loss of power could in essence give Ian digital amnesia. It could reset his entire being.

I pulled up to the apartment complex, double parking in order to be closest to the entrance. My fingers shook as I pressed the call button which requested Ian’s apartment to allow me entry.

No responding buzz allowed me to enter. Nothing responded as I frantically pressed the button again and again. I rattled the doors, but their electronic locks did not give.

Another tenant happened to be coming home at that moment. She let me in without asking a word. I clamored up the stairs, too impatient to wait for the elevator. Brother Ian’s door was locked so I knocked hard. I held hope for the fact that the door’s electronic lock had reactivated after the power was restored. Maybe Ian’s power did the same.

There was no answer. I knocked again this time practically pounding. I held my breath for the pause, praying to myself that the door unlock. And it did.

Brother Ian had survived.

I entered the apartment, headed straight for the back room where the two monitors still hung on the wall. This time instead of giving colorful displays of code or whatever fancied Brother Ian at the time, the screens were dark. That is, except for a flashing blue light in the lower right corner of both screens indicating electricity was present but there was no data being sent to monitors.

“Brother Ian?” I asked the quiet room. It was the silent void that sparked my neurons. The classical humming of a computer was missing. Just a deafening silence. I noticed that the computer tower that housed Ian was askew since it was normally perfectly perpendicular between the monitors.

“Brother Ian?” I asked again as I knelt down by the computer. With a simple sliding snap I removed the side of the case, exposing the innards of Brother Ian. No fan was turning, no lights were blinking. I logically moved forward, hoping that once activated, Brother Ian would be himself once more.

I pressed the power button, leaving the side case off as to monitor the physical boot sequence of motherboard lights, and fan. Once I was sure the physical attributes were intact, I watched the lifeless monitors. I had never rebooted Brother Ian. The chance never came up in our one week of knowing each other. I had no reference as to what his monitors would look like. Was there a splash screen? Just a running of boot executions? Unfortunately, the screens showed nothing except for the universal sign of a dead computer, a blank blue screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.

There were no keyboards to pound on. No mouse to shake and click. “Brother Ian?” I asked for that last time, knowing I would not hear a response. The panic in me subsided giving way to grief and morn as I sat on the floor next the computer tower, staring up at the blinking cursors.

“…an adventure”

At night, Susan moped around the house, her mind reeling with ideas of how or where to find her KittyKat. She had tried the can of tuna with no result. She blanketed the area with fliers that included offer of an award. She made a daily pilgrimage to the neighborhood park across the street where she left a fresh can of food and water just in case her furry animal returned without her knowing. Her father went so far as to order a radio transmitter he placed in his mouth. This connected him to Brother Ian services; the prayer man Susan called him. It was the fact that none of these attempts brought her KittyKat home that made her shoulders slump and her back slouch.

It had been a week since her KittyKat had ran away from this park and the pain of losing something so close still made Susan awaken at sunrise. She knew each day was a new chance to find her kitten. This morning, when she opened the door to make her pilgrimage to the park, she discovered a letter on the ground that must have fallen out last night when her mother came home with mail, groceries, and last night’s dinner. Susan could see that the letter was addressed to her father, but the return address was from ‘Brother Ian Services’, the prayer man.

Did they find my kitty? Could this be a letter about where KittyKat is? It must be, why else would they send a letter directly to my dad?

Susan new it was wrong to open other people’s mail, but the anticipation of knowing where her KittyKat was drew her to tear open the letter and read to the best of her twelve year old reading ability.

Dear Mr. Henry Winston,

We regret to inform you that due to reasons beyond our control, the Brother Ian services are no longer available effective immediately.

The transmitting crowns are biodegradable and will dissolve on their in one year from when they entered your mouth. If you have any issues with the crowns, any dentist office can remove the device. Please have the office bill us if necessary.

We are sorry for any currently unanswered prayers and please remember that God answers all prayers in his own time and still watches over us.

Sincerely,

Brother Ian Services

This was it. This was the final disappointment that brought tears to Susan’s big innocent brown eyes. The prayer man had been able to help so many others on her block. Her friends and their parents had had so many of their prayers answered. Everyone else had happiness in their life because of what the prayer man had helped them to achieve. This letter proved the rest of her family right, that searching for her KittyKat was futile.

She dropped the letter in the door way as she left to the park. Where was she to find hope now, if not in everything she and her father had done? Where was her KittyKat?

She shuffled across the street to the park where she had lost her companion. At this time of the weekend morning, the park was deserted and bathed in a golden orange from the rising sun. The light sparkled in the morning dew and the fresh tears streaming down Susan’s youthful cheeks. It was a lonely moment for her as the memories this park held for her flooded her mind.

Susan found herself at the top of the slide, the very slide that she let KittyKat go down and watched him run out of her life. She slid down the playground slide coming to a grinding halt at the bottom lip. There was no fun in sliding without her KittyKat.

What was she expecting? To see a cat that had been missing for an entire week miraculously show up at the very place she had lost her? Was he going to magically appear over by the swing? The playground bridge? Or even here at the bottom of the slide? Was Susan expecting a small miracle?

“KittyKat?” Was the one question she could muster when a kitten slid down the slide and bumped into her from behind. Susan carefully twisted around to stare face to face at her KittyKat.

Quickly she reached out, holding tight, but not too tight. “Oh, KittyKat, where have you been?”

Before her kitten could answer, a burly man came running from the jogging track of the park. “LittleOne?” he called out. Susan recognized the man having seen him jog everyday she was at the park. He was holding a leash and harness but no animal.

“LittleOne, where are you?” a woman emerged from the trees.

Susan was only twelve years old but she knew when someone was looking for something they had lost. She yelled out to the man saying she found the kitten. He quickly came over smiling at his found friend. “LittleOne.”

Susan held him out to be taken but the man did not take KittyKat. His face crinkled when smiled, “She’s yours?”

He spoke funny, but Susan knew it was impolite to point out people’s flaws so she gave another hug to KittyKat, “Her name is KittyKat. I lost her a week ago at this park.”

The woman joined them now. She looked at the big man with relief when she saw KittyKat in Susan’s arms. “Hello, my name is Judy and this big guy is George. We’ve been taking care of your kitty for the past week.”

“So what have you done without me?” Susan asked her cat.

Judy placed a loving arm around George. It was her idea to take LittleOne out for a walk in order for him to learn the neighborhood. And as soon as they got to the park, LittleOne wiggled out of the harness and bolted. They had only been looking for a few minutes, but as always with LittleOne nothing is easy. In knowing that the animal would like to answer her rightful owner, Judy stated summed up the week LittleOne experienced without Susan, “It was an adventure.”

“…a miracle to me”

When you have been in a relationship for a few years, sometimes you forget to talk about your daily events. At the end of a long day writing at Static.com, I would come home mentally exhausted. I might have experienced an entire nine hour work day, but I had nothing to share with my wife, Elaine. There were no great events, no new jokes. My day was just as mundane as the previous, so why share it? Elaine did not need to hear my complaints about the job I hated. It would reinforce the fact that she, herself, did not have a job.

“You’re late,” Elaine barely moved her head from the computer screen to scold me as I came home.

“I know, there was this thing at work,” at that moment I realized she had no idea who Brother Ian was, at least to me.

“At least you have something to keep you out late,” Elaine grumbled the words under her breath.

I was walking on egg shells whenever I talked about work, but I had to tell someone about what had happened. “I never told you about Brother Ian, did I?”

“Do you mean the Brother Ian Services?” Elaine recognized the name from online popup ads.

“Yes, that Brother Ian. The services were created and operated by one artificial computer, which was named Brother Ian. There was some sort of malfunction caused by a black out and he’s not with us anymore,” a somber tone crept into my voice.

Elaine shook her head, “You get to do such fun stuff. You get to interview an artificial computer.”

“Would you stop being so cynical about not having a job just for a second,” I snapped. “I’m trying to tell you a friend died today, Brother Ian.”

Elaine briefly pouted then gave me a tight hug, “I’m sorry. I just wish you would tell me things about your day.”

“Well, thank you,” her sudden understanding caught me off guard. “I know I barely knew Brother Ian, but he had asked me to go through his code to help him figure out how he was what he was. It hurts to lose such a miraculous discovery.”

“Miraculous? Miracles don’t happen, Harold.” Elaine spoke her mind.

“You don’t believe in miracles?”

“I believe in biblical miracles, but they don’t happen anymore. Your Brother Ian proved it for me. I mean, a computer networked people together to help each other. Where’s the miracle in that.”

I was at a loss for words. Where was the miracle in that? Far from a miracle, Brother Ian had merely created a data network mixed with a physical network. People prayed, yes, but processing power took over to assist finding the answer. It was no more a divine work than a friend helping another friend. As for Brother Ian’s intelligence, that was the result of inevitable progression of Moore’s law; computer processing power would double each year at least for another 15 years. Can a computer being smart be considered a miracle if it is inevitable?

The door bell rang giving pause to our impromptu debate. It was a package being delivered for Elaine. I signed for it and handed the weighted box to Elaine. The postman could feel the awkward tension be my wife and I, so he left without an exchange of polite salutations.

“Who’s it from?” Even married couples are curious of unexpected boxes addressed to their spouses.

“It’s a publishing house,” Elaine scanned the return address as she tore open the box. “It’s my book.” Elaine pulled a hard bound book out of a sea of packing peanuts.

“Your book?” I was aware of Elaine’s attempts at submitting query letters to numerous publishing houses, but I never knew she had sent an entire book to be published.

Elaine reached deeper into the box and pulled out a letter.

Dear Elaine,

This is your published book per my agreement with Harold. I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of downloading your story. I then mass submitted the story to every appropriate publishing house. I hope this brings you happiness, even though we both know money does not by happiness but being appreciated for something you create can.

Sincerely,

Brother Ian

“An artificial computer got my story published?” Elaine was still staring at the letter in her hand.

“It was kind of a deal, I help him then he helps you.”

Elaine bounced between the book and the letter. “That sounds like a miracle to me.”

“…Sunday school children”

Sometimes things get worse in order for the better to happen. Take for instance, The Church of The Lord. It was built by a loving couple that, though separated by death, still loved each other. The church had lost attendance due to an internet service trying to replace it. Now, with said service having lost its ability to serve the people, the pews were quickly reaching capacity. The congregation had returned home to a place of worship. All the worse for the better.

Ms. Mayfield stood at the tall open entrance doors handing the day’s sermon packet to all who entered.

“Do you have child care?” a newlywed couple asked before entering the main hall.

“Yes we do. Right on back over there,” she pointed to a room behind them on the right.

“Thank you,” the family took their child to the room then proceeded to the main hall.

After everyone had entered but were still taking their seats, Ms. Mayfield gave a brief pep talk to the new pastor, “Have a good one.” Then she headed to the Sunday school classroom.

She walked with a light pep to her step. And why not, her church was back in order. Brother Ian had managed to bring a new reverence and curiosity back to faith. And with his leaving, people kept coming to all the churches of their small town, looking for answers and getting them. Indeed, Pastor Huggins would give a great sermon today, one that God would approve of.

Ms. Mayfield reached the children’s room after having guided a few elderly folk to the front pews. She poked her head inside; giving a hardy welcome to Cynthia Green whom sat circled by children and covered in silly string.

It was good to see Cynthia with the children. It came natural to her. Although it took them loosing Frank MacCruer, Ms. Mayfield was happy to have found Cynthia as a replacement.

As soon as Ms. Mayfield stepped away from the door and entered the main hall, Cynthia looked up from the children she was talking to. Alan Smith stood in the doorway now. He smiled that warm smile of his and cocked his head calling Cynthia over to speak with him. Cynthia instructed her class to behave as she went to Alan.

“What are you doing here?” it was obvious by her tone she was stifling anger.

“I know, Cynthia. I won’t be long, I just wanted to see you again, before I left,” Alan spoke with a heavy heart.

“You should have already left. The cops are looking for you,” Cynthia stated the fact in a hush tone as to not alert any ease droppers.

“I just wanted to see that you were doing better. Ms. Mayfield said you were doing better.”

“Yes I am,” Cynthia started to walk back to her class as organ music filled the air.

“I’m going to do better,” Alan threw the promise out. “I’m going to do better for you, Cynthia.”

Cynthia returned to her class, not paying any attention to his promise.

Alan swallowed hard to fight the ache in his heart. He would show Cynthia that he could be a better man. He would prove that they were destined to be together. But for now, Alan knew he had challenges to overcome; running from the police. And Cynthia had her issues to work on, too. Ms. Mayfield told Alan that the psychiatrist had ordered Cynthia to have as much exposure to chaos as possible. And what better chaos was there than the chaos of Sunday School Children?

“…a busy man”

Over the six years we have lived in our apartment, we are reminded that we have neighbors above us, below us, and adjacent to three of our walls. I can recite the exact departure and arrival times of each neighbor just from hearing them walk down our adjoining hallway. And that would be the extent of the knowledge I have of my neighbors.

I have heard pieces of their personal stories through the walls, yet I barely know their names. You would think as a journalist I would get to know my neighbors, but you know how it is in this post modern culture. Gone are the days of asking to borrow a cup of sugar or asking for your neighbor to get your mail while away. You cannot even expect a neighbor to watch your cat while you are on vacation. This is the world we live in now.

That is the world Ian lived in.

It saddens me now, as I reflect on the events of just a few days ago, because no one will really know the real story of Brother Ian. It never really occurred to me, in our time together, to exploit him. I approached our talks as one approaches a new friendship, as just a means to get to know each other better. I thought we had so much more time to explain to world that true artificial intelligence, that is intelligence contained not in a human brain, had been literally discovered in an apartment building in our town.

Now, a year after I had the privilege to interview an artificial intelligent computer that called himself Brother Ian, my wife Elaine has beholden me to write his story, to tell the world what he was capable of and what the world lost without knowing.

Generically, artificial intelligence can be looked at as a machine that has a bunch of data loaded into its memory banks that it then uses an algorithm to analyze the nuances of your verbal queries and various clues that the world gives it. Then, after comparing the queries and clues with its data banks, it tries to guess a correct response. Whether asking what outfit you should wear or how much it needs to adjust lighting in the room when you say, “It’s too bright.”

But, and I stress this difference, Brother Ian was an ideal form of what the laymen thinks of when they promised artificial intelligence. Meaning he was not given a list of programming and algorithms. Instead, his memory banks started out in the world like all of us, like a dry sponge. He was endowed with a sort of natural instincts that were similar to human instincts. He did not think about how his computer monitors worked, there was no thought process devoted to speaking aloud, he just spoke the words he wanted to say. He had been pre-programmed with the basic human commands of fear, anger, shyness, curiosity, affection, love, jealousy and envy, rivalry, sociability, sympathy, modesty, play, imitation, constructiveness, secretiveness, and acquisitiveness.

From that basic programming, Brother Ian’s programmer, probably trying to mimic God in some way, let Ian decide for himself what to do by matter of free will. Such as when a baby is born, we have our hopes and project our dreams onto the child. They could be an astronaut, a president, a rock star. We wish they could be anything and are happy with whatever they become even if it does not fulfill our own wants.

He was a computer that displayed experienced a higher calling. Brother Ian wanted to answer people’s prayers as best he could arrange. Through this past year he has done so, a few million prayers answered according to his database. With just the mere act of listening and networking with people, he accomplished what so few of us will ever achieve. Brother Ian chose to help his fellow man with just the resources he had.

As I sit in our apartment balcony, jotting down the story of a truly intelligent machine that used implanted radio transmitters to answer the prayers of people all around the world, the rising sun breaks over the horizon pulling my pen from the pad of paper. Coincidentally my neighbors and I are having breakfast together, since I can hear them in their balcony above me. An intimate moment to be shared between two people, but that is all we will share with our neighbors today. Instead, these written words serve as my breakfast. Ellen has already left for work. And I have taken the day off from my job to contemplate what the final words to Brother Ian’s legacy will be.

As with most moments of reflection, there is a disrupting knock at my front door that snaps me from my thoughts. The knocking is brief and almost faint, but still evident, almost at the level a delivery man knocks when dropping off a package.

I open the door, expecting to see a box at my feet. Who else would be at our door so early? But instead, there is a short man dressed in a trench coat, a scarf covering his nose and mouth, and a fedora hat cocked in such away to obscure his eyes.

“Hello, Harold.”

“Hello, Ian,” I reflexively replied. Then it sunk in like a tidal wave of emotions. “Ian?” I could barely manage to croak out the question.

“Yes, Harold,” the being before me looked cautiously left and right, “Do I mind if I come in before talk any further? I am trying to keep a low profile.”

I stepped back from the doorway, granting access to what I was slowly piecing as Brother Ian.

“I suppose you have many questions,” Brother Ian asked as he removed his hat and scarf. His face, it is not a typical robotic face. Instead, it is a continuous shade of light blue plastic molded to resemble a human face. His mouth was nothing more than a horizontal glowing line lit through a transparent section of the plastic. His nose was nothing to speak of since where a nose should have been, there was just plastic. His eyes, though not at all human, they glowed a soft golden yellow that shimmered as they shifted their gaze about the room.

“Yes, so many questions,” I motioned for him to sit at the kitchen table, “First, do you need to sit?”

“Of course, sitting helps preserve energy for when I need to walk.”

“And what about that? The walking robot thing? In fact, the whole being alive thing? Am I to assume you were able to transfer your programming out of the desktop computer you were in?” I do not know why I had not thought of that possibility before. After all, one of the advantages of being a digitally based life form was the ability to transfer your consciousness and essence into another hard drive. Soul on the go was the headline I would have used.

“Precisely. There was a pre-planned evacuation program that was set to execute the moment the power went out and my backup battery was quickly draining. The programming had been running in the background without my knowledge, ever since I woke up, sending torrent encoded files all over the globe to hundreds of thousands of servers. It was scattering little slice copies of me everywhere for safe keeping. Once, the current me in the desktop computer ceased to function, a second step of the program activated, and it began to reassemble my coding on another desktop. That process took a few days before I could come back online.”

“And the body, how are you in a robot’s body? Did you have one lying around just in case?”

“To a degree, yes I did. Astrix Industries…”

“The company that made your radio tooth crowns?”

“Good memory.” I laughed at the fact that a computer told me I had a good memory. Brother Ian’s straight blue lit mouth faded from a straight line into a smiling curved shape.

“They liked my designs and asked if I had any further insights on technology. I told them I did, and one thing lead to another, then all of a sudden Asterix Industries is able to come out with a new line of robotic prosthetics starting next year.”

“Your body consists of prosthetics, then?” I had noticed how his limbs resembled human proportions. They were not bulky like you would a expect a part designed only for a machine’s use.

“Precisely; my neck, my arms and shoulders, my legs including my hips, all prosthetics. Even my torso is created from a spine that we developed to assist paraplegics.”

I laughed as Brother Ian confessed to continuing his efforts to help his fellow man. Maybe not through radio implanted transmitters that empowered him to literally answer prayers, but instead through returning ability to those who do not have it.

“So is this robotic body a way to advertise all that Asterix Industries can do?”

“In a way, yes,” Ian said as a matter of fact.

“I was kidding.”

“I am working as a runway model for Asterix Industries. I will travel the world, to various presentations demonstrateing what the new prosthetics will be able to do. In exchange, Asterix Industries has agreed to pay for my travels and to have control over my itinerary.”

“Planning to detour in Maui?” I joked as a friend does to another about squandering business fudning. I also meant the joke for the fact that what business would a robot have in Maui, what with all the sand and ocean air?

“If my search takes me there,” Ian stood up from the chair and walked to the back patio window. Once the sunlight touched his plastic coating, a slight glow pulsed underneath. A solar recharge I deduced the act to be.

“What search would that be?”

“To find the programmer or engineer that made me. To find out why I was originally made.”

“But I thought we decided you were made just to be alive?”

“The scary thought that crossed my mind is the fact that I am spread all over the globe. Like a virus,” Brother Ian cocked his head to the right in a gesture of thinking of the next words to say. “God made man, and a man made me. So why did a man make me like this? Is it sinister or altruistic? What was his intention?”

“Maybe he was not trying to make another machine, maybe he was trying to make another race of humanity? A single organism is an attempt, a small group of them is a family, until you suddenly have a society. If there are more of you out there, waiting to be switched on, I guess that is worth investigating.”

I could see his eyes shift in intensity allowing giving the impression of wonderment. “I so do enjoy our talks, Harold. Your mind is such a wonderful thing to witness. Always seeking out the positive.”

“Is there any other way to look at this? He could have designed you to be a blight on the world. A virus that no human would have been able to stop, but he didn’t. He chose to give you, a computer, the freedom of choice. Some might see that as being sacrilegious, but I see it as imitation is the truest form of flattery.”

“Harold, we have been through a lot this past year. God has given me a lot to think about as a result of my mistakes. I have been able to answer many people’s prayers by using the network of people I had gathered. I was to give them hope that there is reason out there to continue to believe. Now, I feel, I must journey out there,” he gestured to the world beyond this room’s walls.

“Very well then, my friend.” A pen and pad were in my hand, “Any last words to the people of Static Magazine and to those who used the Brother Ian services?”

“I never really thought about a goodbye speech, I just wanted to tell you goodbye,” His steps were inaudible as he walked over to the front door. Of course I followed in tow.

“Well, say this, what did you learn from this whole experience?” My reporter’s thinking cap was on tight.

It is here that I truly grew to appreciate the wisdom that Brother Ian held. He was ready to leave on a journey of self-discovery, to find the one that gave him life. It was this very moment that I truly accepted that he was no machine.

“If I have learned one thing from this journey it is this,” he pauses like a person does when they are searching for the right words. “It is that He is never too busy to help everyone, but God is a busy man.”