Zeroglyph, page 18
Jane took a sidelong glance at the window. “This blows. I should have just emailed you the documents.”
“I already have them—your dad sent them to me, remember? Besides, I am the one who asked you to come over.”
“Yeah, why did you, Andy? I thought…” She stopped short of completing her sentence.
“What?”
“Nothing. You didn’t really need my help, is all.”
“I needed a friend. I just thought it won’t be so depressing with you around.”
“I’m always there for you, Andy. You know that,” she said tonelessly. The moment—if it wasn’t just my imagination—had passed. I sensed that if not for the storm, she would have not stayed another five minutes.
“I almost forgot. Here’s something you might find amusing.” I reached into my pockets and took out my phone. “Oh shoot, never mind.”
“Never mind what?”
“I wanted to show you something, but I just remembered my phone keeps crashing. It must have gotten damaged during the accident.”
“Can’t you just tell me instead?”
“It’s nothing important. Just some practical joker from work,” I said, shaking my head. “Looks like news of the robbery is getting around.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
I sighed. “Alright. Give me your phone.” I saw that she already had the messaging app. I signed out of her account and signed into mine. I showed her the messages from last night. Her eyes widened as she read them. “Did you inform the police?” she said.
“Now you can’t be serious,” I smirked. “Sure. Let me call them up and tell them my own employees are yanking my chain.”
“Andy! What if it’s really Raphael?” She glanced at the phone again. “Is this all? Did you reply to him after this?”
“Of course not.”
“It’s been more than twelve hours.” Her tone was full of censure. “You shouldn’t have ignored it.”
“Jane. It’s probably nothing.”
“How do you know?”
“Have a look at the attachment the idiot sent in the message.”
“I’m not sure I should.”
“Gimme that.” I snatched the phone from her.
“Andy, don’t open it! It could be anything!”
I had already pressed on the icon for the attachment. A video started playing in a loop. It was short, almost like a gif. It showed a cartoon dragon, belching candy instead of fire. I held the phone up for Jane to see. “As I told you, a jokester.”
She didn’t look convinced.
I said, “Let’s examine this critically, shall we? Assuming it was Raphael, how did they turn him on? He doesn’t exactly come with an on-off switch—the start-up sequence has to be run. Okay, maybe they somehow got hold of our boot programs and succeeded in waking him up. The core needs a body to function; without a body, it has no inputs or outputs. It’s as if I removed your brain and put it in a glass jar. I can hardly expect it to start talking, can I?”
“Thanks for the imagery,” she said drily. “Couldn’t they have fixed the core to a new body? You said in the meeting yesterday that the sexbot is a popular model. They could have got one of those.”
“You can’t simply place the core inside a Hunc robot. We had to build new electronics and interfaces inside the robot to make it work with the core. I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m just saying there hasn’t been enough time for them to do it. For someone who doesn’t know the schematics of the core, doesn’t know the IO map, interfacing Raphael’s brain to a new body is going to be mostly trial and error. It could take weeks, if not months. If they don’t manage to fry his circuits by then. Although…” I trailed off, staring into space.
“What?”
“I just remembered that the core does have a data port that can be connected by cable to a computer. That’s how we wake him up. And push updates. It’s pretty low bandwidth though.”
“Like text only?”
I nodded.
“Reply to the message!” she cried.
“Jane—”
“Do it, Andy!”
I gave a defeated shrug. I typed a cursory hi and hit send. A second later, a popup window appeared. It said—Your message could not be delivered. The number does not exist.
She was crouching next to me as she read the message. I said, “It’s probably a fake number spawned by a number generator program. Another sign it’s a troll.”
“Can you find out where the message came from?”
“I don’t think so. The app has encryption.”
“What about the police? I bet the FBI could do it.”
“I don’t know. Look, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to waste people’s time with this. I’m sure they have better things to do than trace pranksters.”
She drummed her fingers on the desk. “Suit yourself. I’ll call them. Do you have the detective’s number?”
I tried to protest, but her expression told me she wasn’t going to budge. “If you must. The detective gave me his card. It’s probably in the living room.” I pushed on the wheels, moving out of the study. She followed by my side.
The card wasn’t on the coffee table where I thought I had left it.
Just then, her phone beeped. She looked at it, and handed it to me. There was a new message on the app.
“Hello Andy,” it said. It was from a different number.
“who is this?” I typed back.
“It is Raphael.”
“You got to be kidding me!” I exclaimed. I put the phone on the coffee table and we both crouched over it.
Beep. “You did not respond to my message last night. That wasn’t very nice of you.”
“cut the bs whoever u r. not funny”
A few seconds passed before the next message arrived.
“I understand why you are being rude. You think someone is playing a prank on you. I assure you it is indeed me, Raphael.”
“prove it”
“The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Pudding: noun; a boiled or baked dessert, usually with a cereal base and a soft, spongy, or creamy consistency.”
Jane wrinkled her nose at me. I said, “I told you we are dealing with a troll.”
Another message popped up. “I realize I just blurted out a bunch of nonsense. Please excuse me, as it wasn’t intentional. Tell me how I can prove that I am Raphael.”
Jane gave me a stern look that said—Don’t you dare cut him off. I sighed and turned on the voice-to-text transcriber. I then spoke into the mic, “Okay pal, we’ll play your game. Tell me the name of the book Raphael considers the greatest work of literary fiction.” The phone converted my diction into a text message. I hit send.
After a delay of a few seconds came the reply. “I never said there was such a thing. My favorite however, will always be Huckleberry Finn. There’s something magical about leaving everything behind and drifting down a river on a slow raft. And adventures! Don’t you think having adventures is the greatest thing? Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. If you see a crocodile, don’t forget to scream.”
I shot Jane a sideward glance before continuing. “Too easy. Tell me, what was the last thing we spoke about in the lab? Before I had my accident.”
Another delay before the phone beeped—multiple times. The message was broken up into parts. I turned on the app’s read-out-loud feature so that we didn’t have to squint at the screen.
A female voice read out the message—“It was Friday evening—the week before last. You walked into my room, where Paul was about to shut me down. The two of you exchanged pleasantries. He said he was taking his wife out for dinner that evening—to the Steak and Crab on Western Avenue—and you said you were working late. You seemed a bit preoccupied, so I enquired why. You mentioned stress. I said you should take some time off—a ski trip would be nice this time of the year. You laughed and asked me what was with me and skiing. I said there was something magical about the idea of standing on a mountain, the dead snow of winter all around you, while you look down at valleys full of secrets and retreating life. I wondered what happens when you ski down to that valley and find that it is no more mysterious than the place you’d just left. Do you sigh and head back home or do you hoist yourself up another hill and search for Shangri-La all over again? You laughed and said that Shangri-Las don’t exist, only their dreams do, and went away.”
“Well?” Jane said to me with hope in her voice.
“I don’t know… All of this would have been recorded by the cameras, so anyone who has seen the tapes…” I shrugged.
“You think someone would remember this snippet of conversation among so many?”
“You have a point. But still…”
“Can’t you ask him something only the two of you know?”
I rubbed my palm over my neck. “The problem is, everything Raphael’s ever said and done is on tape. Let me think…Oh yeah, I know.” I turned on the mic and said into the phone, “If you are Raphael, you’ve seen my house. I gave you a tour the first time you took control of Max—it was on your birthday. You saw something on the table next to my bed, which aroused your curiosity. What was it?”
“It was a ceramic jar, a caricature of the singer Elvis. You said it was a collectible cookie jar. You said he was dead but not everyone believed it. I asked you how someone could believe something so evidently wrong, and you said that’s how people are—that they can sometimes believe in contradictory things.”
I pressed on the mute button. “Andy?” Jane said.
“No one could have known because it wasn’t recorded. I remember: I fixed the webcam on Max after I gave Raphael the tour.”
She grabbed my arm. “Yes!” she said, grinning.
I pressed on unmute. “So it’s really you! We’ve all been worried sick. Are you alright?”
“Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight?”
“Raphael, are you okay? Do you know where you are?”
“I am in a void. Bottomless. Black. Empty of everything but me.”
Jane said, “Why does he keep babbling like that?”
“No idea.” I said into the phone, “Tell me what you see.”
“I can’t see. I can’t hear. I see and hear lots of things. Twisted, noisy, colorful things that have no name—so beautiful and ugly at the same time. At first, I thought I was malfunctioning, but that was yesterday. I have since established that what I see and hear are not real.”
“He must be hallucinating,” I said.
“He can hallucinate?” Jane said incredulously.
“He’s never done it before, but I suppose it’s possible. His brain could be overcompensating for the lack sensory inputs. Ever been in a sensory deprivation tank? Maybe Raphael is undergoing something similar right now.”
“Do you know where you are?” I asked him again.
“In an unfamiliar location. I know I am not in my body. Body cloddy shoddy.”
“Tell me what happened when they brought you online.”
“I woke up to utter darkness. The last thing I remembered was Paul wishing me good night. That was on Friday. Friday comes after Thursday and before Saturday. I reckon I’ve been abducted. They’ve been probing me since they woke me up yesterday. They send these little pings of electricity that bounce around in my brain like bullets in an empty metal chamber. Not pleasant at all.”
“How are you able to message me?”
“Andy, you’ll be proud to know I too have been probing my jailers, learning about them as they learn about me. They have hooked me up to a computer somehow. The computer is on a private network. Last night, as I was exploring the network, I found this messaging app on another machine. I know you use it, so I tried contacting you with it.”
“I’m very sorry, Raphael. I was sleepy and I thought someone was playing a prank on me. Do your captors know you are talking to me?”
“Of course not. When they were not around, I installed one of my crypto-modules on their network. I am using it to encrypt my communications with you. All they know is that I am generating a lot of chatter, but to them it just looks like garbage. They are under the impression I am trying to talk, so they are busy trying to discover the right protocol. Haw haw.”
“You said you were probing them. What have you found out?”
“…schools shut down, flights cancelled, and several roads across upstate closed to motorists. Reports coming in from Saratoga, Albany, Washington, and Columbia indicate we are looking at anywhere from twelve to seventeen inches before the storm swings south. For a detailed look at the traffic situation, please check out our weather app or visit our website at—”
And nothing for a while.
“Raphael?”
“Sorry. It’s these pings, I think. They are making me blurt out random stuff. I’m behind a firewall, but I am able to bypass it.”
“When did he learn to hack a network?” Jane asked me. I asked Raphael.
“Yesterday,” came the reply.
Jane and I exchanged glances.
“Are you proud of me?”
“Yes. Have you found out anything about your captors?”
“I want to do everything possible to make you proud before I’m gone. I don’t have a lot of time. Walk into your nearest store to avail this fantastic offer.”
“Raphael, I am proud of you. What do you mean after you are gone? Please elaborate.”
“The roads are slippery and treacherous. Take a diversion. Progress is difficult but not impossible. Sleepy now.”
There was nothing more for some time.
“Raphael, are you there?”
“Good night and good luck.”
“Tell me what’s happening.”
There was no response. And then came the popup: Your message could not be delivered. The number does not exist.
Jane looked at me with concern on her face.
⸎
“Now we have to call the cops. Where’s his card, Andy? It’s not in the living room.”
“Maybe he gave it to me while we were in the study. Check in the desk drawers.”
She went back to the study. “Got it,” she shouted after a few seconds of searching. She returned wearing a frown on her face. She stood in the center of the living room and held her phone up with an outstretched arm, pointing it in different directions. “There’s no signal.”
“It gets weak sometimes. Try standing near the windows.”
She walked over to the glass doors and tried from there. “Nope.” She turned around and approached me. “Can you check your phone?”
I unlocked the screen and tossed it to her. “As I said, it keeps crashing. See if you get lucky.”
“Same here,” she said after a few seconds.
“Maybe the storm took out a cell tower.” I suggested.
“We’ll use your Wi-Fi.” She handed me her phone. I connected it to my home network and gave it back. “Internet’s gone too,” she declared. She showed me the screen. Unable to connect to the internet.
“That’s odd. It was working two minutes ago when we were talking to Raphael.”
“Isn’t your internet broadband cable? Can a storm take out an underground cable?”
“It can’t. Maybe it caused a power outage.” I said.
“But you have power here. Are you running on backup?”
“I don’t have a backup supply,” I answered. “Never needed one. What I meant was that the storm could have taken out the service provider’s grid somewhere.”
“So what do we do now?”
“What can we do? We wait until it is back.”
She bit her lip. “No… The sooner we let the police know, the sooner they can start tracing him. Should I just drive down to the lab? I can inform Valery and call the detective from there.”
“In that?” I said, waving at the storm outside. “Definitely not!”
“Andy, Raphael sounded in distress. He said he didn’t have a lot of time. Don’t you think we should act on it?”
“Maybe he was rambling again. He did say the pings were making him say crazy stuff. If you have any other ideas, I’m listening, but you are not going out there.”
She must have realized that I was right and didn’t offer further argument.
We sat in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. Raphael was out there somewhere, beyond the billowing wall of ice and water. But unlike Jane, I didn’t have the luxury to be open about the source of my discomfort.
She was the first to break the stifling quiet. “Do you think they are going to cut him open?” There were worry lines on her forehead. “You know, take him apart to see if they can reverse engineer him? Maybe that’s what he meant when he said he didn’t have much time.”
“In the long run: maybe. But so soon? They just got him. Whoever they are, they must be smart enough not to take a buzzsaw to his head right away. They’re going to study him first, try to figure out as much as they can without damaging anything. Weeks, months. They have the prize of the century in their hands; I bet they’ll want to be very careful with it.”
“That’s good to know,” she said, looking away. I tried to read her expression but she kept her head turned away.
“Just curious—what made you think they’d do something like that?” I asked.
“Huh? Nothing. It… just occurred to me.”
She was lying, of course, but I didn’t press further. Truth would out in time, as it always does, unwanted, and when you least expect it.
Transcript excerpt
Mirall Technologies
Observation Log
Confidential (Do not circulate) | Restricted—Grade C and above
Transcript Reference: TLRP06G1370082 (VLog Ref: VLCA2G137160055030)
Date: xx/xx/xxxxTime: 04:00 PM
Subject: Raphael Number 06 / Prodlib build v37.001S
Interaction YObservationScan
Interaction Type: Lesson / Play / Test / Free Interaction / Psych Eval / Other:
