“It all boils down to the programming,” Dick says as I emerge from the bathroom. “Not just ART’s but yours and your sister’s,” he shoulders his big tactical backpack. “You’ll have to see for yourself what causes certain events to happen. And how best to teach each other.”
“I hope you know that sounds a little crazy,” I follow him to the door.
“You and Carme have been preparing for this all your lives and just didn’t know it,” Dick pulls on his camouflage cap, draping his jacket over an arm. “I’m confident you’ll manage just fine.”
“Based on what? If we’re prototype 001 and no one has come before us?” I remind him as he opens the door.
“You may be the first but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been extreme bench testing and experimentation. I promise you’ll adjust and adapt,” he walks out to the second-floor landing, not so much as a goodbye or good luck.
Not a handshake or hug from someone I’ve known forever. I experience a jolt of panic as I contemplate what’s demanded, having no idea what I’m supposed to do, all dressed up in bionics with no place to go.
“Where will you be?” I have a right to know since he’s running the show.
“I’ll hook up with you later at the Gantry,” Dick pauses on the stairs, his aviator sunglasses fixed on me. “It may be a Sunday during a furlough but there’s plenty going on. A number of projects, including a space capsule drop,” he adds as I think back to what was on the books for outside contractors at NASA Langley this month.
The last time I checked would have been at the beginning of the week, and at that time there was nothing scheduled at the Gantry or its Hydro Impact Basin between now and the new year. But I’m also well aware that top secret research and related personnel aren’t necessarily listed on schedules and itineraries. Often, I’m not going to find out details until the last minute. If at all. Depending on my need to know.
“An SNC test model, spaceplane related.” Dick resumes going down the stairs, and I wonder what he’s referring to because it can’t be Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser spaceplane that lands on a runway like a glider.
We wouldn’t drop something like that from a crane at the Gantry or anywhere else. What a waste of time and money that would be, banging up the multimillion-dollar test model of a vehicle that was never meant to splash down in the ocean or slam into the desert to begin with.
10
I WANDER to a window, nudging the curtains aside as Dick emerges from the back of Dodd Hall, his breath smoking out in the cold overcast early afternoon as he follows the slushy sidewalk.
I watch him climb into the back of a blacked-out Suburban with dark-tinted windows, antennas, a satellite dome, and I instruct ART to run the tag number.
“A 2018 black Chevrolet Suburban registered to the US government,” he answers in the same bored monotone Carme resorts to when her nose is out of joint.
“I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the Secret Service,” I drop my duffel bag, my backpack on the bed to finish packing. “That’s who he was with in the hangar 4 days ago.”
“I have no information on which government organization,” ART lets me know rather snippily. “But running the plate has triggered an alert.”
“That would have been a good thing to be aware of in advance,” and he’s really starting to pluck at my last nerve. “Maybe you can somehow untrigger it? Because I sure don’t want another posse coming after me.”
“Not possible to untrigger,” and he gives me a Delaware address for the Suburban that I have no doubt is bogus.
The US Secret Service isn’t about to allow anyone to figure out where they garage their stealth vehicles, and I imagine Dick riding with his detail, well aware I was spying out the window like a Keystone Cop, that I got ART to run the tag as if it was going to tell me much. And in the process, we set off an alert that I instruct him to notify Dick about.
“So he can make sure we don’t have a darn SWAT team coming after us,” I add grumpily.
“Wilco,” ART snarks, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to get used to this.
Feeling naked with no skin. Everything exposed and found lacking.
“That was stupid of me,” I direct at my phone on the bed. “Dick may as well be sitting in his big wing chair watching the whole thing.”
ART has no reaction as I pack extra cargo pants, shirts, plus shoes and at least a week’s worth of underwear.
“Maybe next time you can give me a heads-up,” I let him know that he needs to anticipate consequences before following orders. “I’m assuming you had some awareness that running the tag number might result in an alert or alarm of some sort.”
“I did as you asked,” ART talks back like my sister when she’s being a brat.
“You did as I asked but not as I meant,” I reply, folding clothing as compactly as origami to fit inside my limited luggage.
“You didn’t inform me of what you meant,” he’s bickering with me now. “I didn’t have that data.”
“If I have to tell you what I mean, then we aren’t going to work very well together.”
He has no comment as I check my gun and clips, making sure I’m locked and loaded, ready with a round chambered.
“But just to be clear so we don’t set off any more alerts or alarms this afternoon?” I fill the silence. “Implicit in my asking for assistance is first and foremost you’re to protect my privacy and safety. If you have data that I don’t, I expect you to make suggestions and issue warnings.”
ART remains silent as I feel the shimmering rumble of F-22s pawing at a runway of the nearby airfield. The weather has improved, and Langley Air Force Base is up and at ’em.
“Before venturing out, I’d like the latest news and meteorological updates.” I couldn’t be more impersonal, using my artificial assistant like Google.
I’m quizzing him as if he’s little more than an Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) that gives me weather and other conditions pertinent to aviation. In other words, I treat ART the way he’s treating me, as if I’m transparent, nonessential and unknown, the way Dick can make me feel. And also, Dad, who suffers from absentia, as we joke in our family.