The Power Trip

J. Cafesin’s

The Power Trip

—

It’s just a game. No one was supposed to die. Especially by suicide—the very thing I’m building Drew to prevent. I knew it was a bad Trip. Kara did too. But we didn’t stop it, and neither did Drew.

Wish I could rewind the last two months…

Chapter 1

I’m up coding again. 4:22a.m. glows red overhead. 

Drew’s win ratio spiked with the last run. Either I’m brilliant, or this is another short-lived glitch. A few tweaks and I kick off another test. Consider a quick nap but nix trying.

I pace between my bed and desk. Holoclock projects 5:31a.m. in ultraviolet. Stop and stare at my screen. Drew is annihilating the expert in twenty six percent of the games now. How to bring that number up…

I’m back at my desk coding before I realize I’m sitting.

My mom passes my closed door. 6:44a.m. glows in deep blue above me. Sunrise is coming. 

Drew may be reaching true cognitive General Intelligence with the latest win rates. Could get me a Nobel before 25. I’d finally matter— beyond my mother.

She’s in the kitchen. I hear her making my lunch, like she has every school day for the past 11 years. Won’t tell her I’m not taking a sack lunch to my first day at college.

7:01 a.m. floats in sky blue near the ceiling. I wanna stay on Drew, but it’ll take hours for results on this run with my ancient hardware. Be in my first class at Stanford by then. Tingling in hands and along my scalp. One more time I’ll be the odd one out—younger, tagged smarter, a child pariah inadvertently challenging everyone to a dick contest over IQ.

“Here we go again.”

I dress. Jeans. Black tee. Clip on my old iBand and slip on my optiglasses. Not smartglasses, like most everyone has now. I don’t really care. Don’t need the distraction of another connected device. My Univiz5’s are fine for vision correction.

Stand in front of the long mirror. Hair’s a mess. Don’t comb it. Trying to pull off college caj, but just look lame—a geek trying for cool. I wilt, then grab my laplet, slip it in my backpack and go to the kitchen.

“Morning, baby,” Mom says, folding the top of the roll over sliced turkey. “How ya doing? You ready?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Drop my backpack on the table and get a protein bar from the cupboard. “Had a hard time sleeping. Kinda dreading today.”

“You’ll be fine, I’m absolutely sure of it.” She’s said this every time she signed me up for a club or sport. Cub scouts to middle school band to high school robotics, I never made the friends she promised. “Stanford’s full of kids just like you. You’ll fit right in. No worries.”

“Hmm… seriously?” I lean against the counter and eat the protein bar. “Sure as hell ain’t looking forward to a repeat of my public school experience.”

“It won’t be. You’ll get involved in internships and class projects with kids at every grade level. You’ll find your niche there, Guaranteed.” Her hazel eyes behind her ancient optiglasses twinkle with rare lightness.

Ain’t no guarantees in life, Mom, I think but don’t say. No point in killing the moment.

“I’ve gotta get going, honey.” She gathers her hair into a ponytail. Fastens it with a yellow scrunchy. Makes her look twenty. She’s 42. “Don’t forget to take your lunch. And remember you’re on BART until University Station, then—”

“I got it, mom. I don’t need micromanaging. Go to work. I’m good.”

She gets serious. “May turn out to be your best day ever, Rocket.” She’d dropped the end word Science long ago. “Never know. Just don’t take crap from anyone and you’ll be fine,” she adds, but I’m not sure to me or for herself. “I love you, Ian. And I’m so very proud.”

“You’ve said.” I smile. She frowns. “I love you too, mom. And thanks for making me lunch.”

“Like always, kid.” She hands me the sack lunch, then gently pulls my face to hers and kisses my cheek quickly. “See ya tonight,” she says, gathering her things. “Can’t wait to hear about your first day.” And she’s out the back door. 

I drop the sack lunch on the kitchen table. The oak is worn, water-stained and scorched from hot pans on the rare occasions my father cooked before he left. 

Pull the brownies from the bag and stuff them into my backpack, then toss the bag in the trasher and turn it on. It hums while igniting her gracious efforts, and most of my guilt, to dust.

Chapter 2

I scroll through Chatter on my way to BART. A sink hole swallowed up half a strip mall in Shoreline. Residents are screaming for Tesla and Chevron to stop lithium fracking. It won’t matter. Corps do whatever they wan—

White light blinds me, then a piercing sting bores into the top of my head. I yank out my earbuds, swipe at my hair and the air.

“Ian Michael Wheaton,” the drone booms. Blue and red lights of the police drone flash two feet from my face. “You are in violation of California Education Code, 601.2. Mills High School has reported you a minor truant.”

“Shit,” I whisper, hoping it didn’t hear. I’ve never been stopped before, but know better than to run. “I’m not truant. I graduated Mills last June. They obviously haven’t updated their records yet. Please check San Mateo Unified School District for my status.” I’m more annoyed than scared. They don’t arbitrarily shoot people anymore. But I’d rather avoid another bee sting.

“Please stand by,” the drone announces.

I stand in the hazy daylight feeling lame as cars slow to ogle me. The few walking cross the street or disappear into a shop. Any sudden movement triggers the drone to release a strong enough shock to drop me until cops arrive. The sting was to get my attention. Everyone’s plugged in these days.

“You are clear to proceed, Ian Wheaton.”

“Thanks,” I mumble, resisting the urge to flip it off. It takes off in hot pursuit of someone else to harass.

Make it to Stanford without getting tagged again. I’m probably the youngest in all my classes, though it’s hard to tell. Especially with me at almost six feet, with a shadow of facial hair, which I don’t shave so no one marks me for a kid.

Meet a guy named Vijay in both Math41 and CSAI. Brown skin, brown cropped hair. Dark eyes behind last year’s Lunar4’s. We walk to Bytes cafe for lunch. Ironically, I follow his lead and buy a turkey sandwich. We talk about our developing projects. Everyone here’s hoping to develop the next big thing.

“It isn’t totally working yet,” Vijay says, soft Indian accent. “But it is learning.” We sit at a table outside. “I hacked Chatter and InstaPin. Endless training data. My ‘Empath,‘ that’s what I call it, can now detect mood changes in real time.”

“Cool,” I say, instead of deflating his derivative idea. Emotional classifiers have been around for decades. “So, what do ya wanna do with your Empath?”

“Sell it to advertisers, of course. Depressed? Buy our energy drink. Feeling empty? We’ve got a sale for you!”

“Harsh, dude.” Can’t help shaking my head. “But we’re all ad blind now. Everyone knows we’re being targeted and ignore the assault for the most part.”

“Yes. Yes. Everyone thinks advertising doesn’t affect them. Of course it does. None of us are immune to every device we own telling us how to think. Even what to believe in. Get behind what people feel in the moment, and they’ll buy into all kinds of crap. Hope is an enticing siren,” he says, followed by a smug grin.

“You’d have an even better one if instead of predicting, you can get them to actually do what you want.” I’m teasing, irked so many of my gen are developing tech to sell more crap.

“Right. Like mind control. Good luck with that.” Vijay’s gaze drifts to a redhead walking towards us, deep in dialog on her smartglasses. She passes without glancing our way.

“I’m working with AI too,” I blurt, maybe to feel seen. “Building a biological neural net that simulates human brain development.”

“Like the Brain Initiative?”

“Not quite. The NIH is modeling an adult brain, inputting controlled responses. My software learns from first principal, like a child’s brain does. I call it Drew, after Andrew Martin, the robot in the old movie Bicentennial Man.”

“And what do you hope to do with Drew after achieving the brass ring of synthetic cognition?”

I know he’s ribbing me but don’t care. “If we can track brain development from infancy, it’ll show us what makes us tick.”

“Where’s the money in that?”

“Well, I’m still tightening the code. I’ve only got the processing power to simulate 500 million neurons on my Parallax. The human brain has billions.”

“You can turn it into a therapist. Or a diagnostic tool for crazy people.” Vijay’s characterization that dysfunctional behavior rendered one ‘crazy,’ though typical, is still annoying.

“Yeah. Disease too. MS. Parkinson’s. Alzheimer’s, even brain cancer.” I savor the last bite of my sandwich.

“You may have a unicorn for the right market,” Vijay says as he shoved his detritus into the bag his sandwich came in and stands. “The risk, of course, is someone using your brain maps to mess with people’s minds.”

Unlike your ‘Empath,’ I don’t think to say until I’m in my CS221 class.

More to come…