Don’t Call Me Terry

by Roberto Sanhueza

“Guilty Baby” appeared in issue 107.

“That kid gives me the creeps!”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. He’s much too smart for his own good.”

“It’s not only that, he’s got a way to look at you, man! It makes me very uneasy.”

“Yes, and he’s growing good and strong and I don’t see an actual way to stop him from inheriting all of old Alistair’s money, when he comes of age.”

“Don’t even mention it. I’m not going to allow some late-arriving son of my father’s to do away with what is rightfully mine!”

“Calm down, Howard, it’s not like you haven’t tried something before, but while he stays at old man Alistair’s mansion with your old man’s personal AI playing Nanny for him, he’s pretty much out of your range.”

“Right, you’ve pinpointed the exact trouble, but I think I have a way to get rid of that pest of an AI and get the kid out, by himself.”

“You’re beginning to get my full attention, speak out.”

“You see, what we’ve got to do is...”

The child is sitting down in the middle of a room, he’s alone. But his cockeyed head gives the impression he’s listening to someone, which in fact he is.

“Tell me again, Jarvis, and show yourself. You know I don’t like speaking to the air.”

The epitome English butler is suddenly standing besides the child, he’s tall and thin, dressed in long tails and wearing sideburns.

“As you wish, Master Terry.”

“Don’t call me Terry! You know I hate it”

An almost invisible smile crosses the butler’s face. “Yes, Master.”

“Do you have to look like that all the time Jarvis?”

“It was your father’s wish and programming, I should add, that my appearance be this one. It seems he always wanted to have a butler, such as myself.”

The child’s voice is very low and contained as he speaks to the butler. “Old Alistair wasn’t my father, and you know it, Jarvis.”

“Of course I know, Master, but let’s call him your father for convenience’s sake. It wouldn’t be proper to call him anything else, now he’s no longer with us... neither now your... brother Howard seems so intent in getting rid of you once and for all.”

It’s the child who smiles now. His plump pinkish face is entirely a giggle, but the giggle doesn’t reach his eyes. They are cold and much wiser than you’d expect in a child his age. “Howard, yes, Howard, he’s up to something, all right. Too bad he’s found every hack we’ve tried on his system. But that’s not what you wanted to tell me, is it Jarvis?”

“In fact not, Master. You have an appointment in half an hour with a certain Ms. Castelli from the Social Works Bureau.”

The child’s face seems to grow harder hearing this. “An appointment? Do you mean she’s coming over here?”

The smile flashes and disappears from the butler’s face once again. “Of course not Master, she’ll merely beam us her Sim.”

The child smiles as well, but his is a mischievous and almost malevolent smile. “So we’ll have to play Nice Kid again, won’t we Jarvis?”

“Indeed, Master Terry.”

“Don’t call me Terry!”

At eleven o’clock, Jarvis appears once more in front of the Child.

“Ms. Castelli requires authorization from the house to visit, young Master.”

“Don’t have much of a choice, do I? Send her in.”

The child removes himself from the console he’s been jacked to and hurries himself to the next room, a quite standard children playroom, with toys, real and simmed, with one of the walls displaying VR views of an ocean beach. As he grips and cuddles a teddy bear, a middle-aged woman’s sim appears in the center of the room.

The child looks at the woman, he smiles broadly and says “Hi! You gonna play with me?”

The child knows the woman in front of him is not real, only a VR simulation and he knows she probably looks nothing like the person there, every characteristic of her persona having been chosen to better fit the role she plays. What he doesn’t know is whether her sim is only sight & sound or fully sensorial. Probably the latter. Jarvis wouldn’t allow fully sensorial sims to pass the house’s firewalls.

What she sees is a boy, around six years of age, sitting among his toys and quite friendly.

“Yes Alistair, I will play with you if you want me to.”

“Goody!”

And then the real game begins. The woman is intent on noticing any strange behavior in the Child. Although she has no way to know that she has in front of her a most unusual child, she is trained in discovering behavioral pathologies in children. The child, on the other hand, at his young age, is a master in faking common children’s mannerisms and responses.

The duel lasts about an hour. She makes him draw, sing and tell her stories he knows. Finally she gets up and says, “That would be all for now, Alistair. I would like to talk to Jarvis now, if you please.”

“Sure! I’ll call him up for you.”

The Child goes out of the room as Jarvis materializes, he runs to the console and jacks in, meaning not to miss a word of the conversation.

“Ms. Castelli?”

“Jarvis, can I call Jarvis? I wouldn’t know what to call you if not that name.”

“Jarvis does just fine, Ms. Castelli.”

“Okay then, I understand you are the child’s legal warden, as appointed by his late father Mr. Alistair Connelly.”

“That is correct, Madam.”

“I understand also you are a legally approved educator A.I. and you have provided Alistair junior’s education so far.”

“That is also correct.”

For the first time a smile appears on the woman’s face. “You have done a very fine job so far, I must admit. The tests I have given young Alistair during this hour we have spent together show he is quite acquainted with matters educational and others you would expect a child his age to master. He is in fact a very bright little boy.”

Jarvis’ face shows no expression whatsoever. “Thanks, Madam.”

“He is, however, badly lacking in socialization. Living alone is definitely not good for a child, Jarvis. He needs to get in touch with his peers. He needs to go to school.”

In the next room Alistair hears these words with a shocked expression.

“School Madam?”

“Exactly, Jarvis, I will file my report this afternoon and we, at the Social Works Bureau, expect Alistair to attend the school of your choice not any later than next Monday. Good day to you both.”

A flicker in the air and the woman is gone.

A while later the child and Jarvis talk.

“What do you make of it, Jarvis? Can I get around this?”

“I doubt it, Master. It wouldn’t be a good to thing to attract undue attention to your situation. So far we have managed to keep a low profile.”

Alistair remains quiet and thoughtful for some time. Then he looks up to Jarvis and a sweet childish smile crosses his cherubic little face. “School it is then, who knows, this might be more fun than we imagine.”

“Okay, so you got him out. What next? Do we send someone to shoot him?”

“Of course not, be a bit smarter for a change. The kid travels to School in a heavily armored car driven by his A.I. Killing him inside the building is out of the question. Besides I don’t really want him dead. We’re going to kidnap him instead.”

“But that’s just as hard as shooting him, if not harder. What do you have in mind?”

“It’s hard, but it can be done. You see, the car he uses is driven by Jarvis from the house...”

“Good afternoon Master Alistair. Did you have a nice day at school?”

The child is sitting very upright on the back seat of the big limousine. There is no one sitting on the driver’s seat. Jarvis’ voice is, however, heard from the car speakers system.

“If you call nice spending a day with a bunch of spoiled little brats and pretending to care for their stupid games, yes, I had a nice day.”

“The car’s got a GPS system so it’s tracked all the way . The only moment the car is out of range from the house is when entering the tunnel on its way under the river and switching from aerial signal to the internal wiring of the tunnel. It’s only about half a second but it’s more than enough for what I have in mind.”

The limousine swiftly and silently goes through the streets, a gray ghost of a car. Alistair can’t see Jarvis but he can imagine the smug smile he would have if he were there. Sometimes Alistair almost forgets Jarvis is not human.

“Ms. Castelli said it loud and clear young master, you have to socialize. It will help you to better blend when you grow up.”

Alistair sighs. “Yes, I know, Jarvis. I know all there is at stake here. I agreed to come. Didn’t I?”

“What Jarvis isn’t aware of is the fact that I own the company which manages the tunnel, and the moment the kid’s car goes in we’ll use that half a second to cover the limo with a bubble which will kill all signals coming in or going out while broadcasting a fake one from the tunnel hardware.”

Alistair looks indifferently out the window to the city spreading around and up. The looming towers cover all his view and a setting winter sun can hardly be seen among them. Mist is coming from the nearby river, it is a cold afternoon.

“It normally takes the limo 3 minutes to cross the tunnel. By the time Jarvis realizes the car is taking too long to come through we’ll have the kid far away from there.”

“What if Jarvis calls him on the phone while he is inside the bubble?”

“That call won’t go through, of course, which would be highly suspicious to Jarvis. It is the only factor we have no control over. Considering his usual pattern, as we have monitored all through the week, Jarvis calls when departing from school and then again when arriving at the house. We’re gonna have to risk it.”

The limousine passes the toll booth and approaches the tunnel. Alistair is looking at his handheld and hardly notices a big hauling truck in front of the car.

As the limo enters the tunnel a red light starts flashing behind it. “Entrance to the tunnel temporarily disabled. Please stand by.”

Alistair is still intent on his handheld.

At the house, in the empty room, a small red light blinks for a second on the console as the limo goes in the tunnel and the GPS signal is interrupted but it goes back on immediately as the signal is picked up and broadcast from the tunnel. Everything remains quiet.

Inside the car Alistair raises his eyes from his handheld as a huge shadow falls over the limo. His small hand rushes to an alarm button but it is already too late: the whole limousine is covered by a big bubble, a back door in the truck ahead opens and the car is bodily lifted inside. The whole process doesn’t take more than 30 seconds.

By the time the alarms start sounding in the house and Jarvis is aware the limo is taking too long to come through the other end of the tunnel, the truck is far away in the other side of the river.

Alistair is sitting alone in a bare room. Its only furniture are a chair and a small table. In a close-by room his half-brother Howard and somebody else look at him on a screen.

“So you made it. I didn’t think you could.”

“ But there you have him.”

“Hasn’t Jarvis called the Police yet?”

“No, and I don’t think he will. I guess he’s looking for the kid himself, and he has a pretty good idea about who’s got Alistair. Only he doesn’t know where.”

“That wont hold for long, he’ll break into your firewalls any time now. That A. I. is pretty resourceful.”

“Yes I know, that’s why what I have to do has to be done real soon. Let’s go in.”

The two men go in the room, the child shows no surprise or fright seeing them.

“Hello, Howard.”

“Hi, kid, you don’t look surprised.”

“Who else could be so stupid? Jarvis will find me soon, you know that.”

Howard smiles to the child, but behind the smile he is not at ease. Something doesn’t quite fit in the kid’s attitude.

“Stupid is as stupid does, Terry.” Now for the first time the child flinches when he hears the name he hates. Howard notices and goes on. “You are here with me, and Jarvis is out there somewhere in the net looking for you. Call me stupid if you please.”

“What are you gonna do with me, Howard? You gonna kill me?”

“Of course not, little brat. That would cause more trouble than it would solve. I want you alive and kicking until you come of age, but I want you out of my way to total control of old Alistair’s money.”

“And how do you plan to do that, Howard?”

“Actually it’s not me who’s going to do it. Alistair. Let me introduce you to Dr. Mendez. He is a bio-software expert who has a virus or two we want you to get acquainted with.”

Two more men come in the room and grab the child, he remains totally calm and does not move.

Howard goes on. “These days nearly every human child is given at a very early age the implants that will allow him or her to access virtual reality, and those are upgraded as he gets older. We mean to give you an involuntary upgrade which will keep your implants, and therefore your whole neural system, under my control. It’ll keep you out of mischief, kid. After that you can go home to your A.I. nanny.”

“And I suppose my vote, in your favor, of course, will also be most welcome when I’m old enough to vote in the stockholders’ meetings.”

Something deep inside Howard starts lighting the alarms. The kid is not frightened at all. Furthermore he doesn’t talk like a six-year old. He shoves those thoughts asides and says to the other man, “Give him the shots, Doc.”

Mendez approaches Alistair holding a gun syringe in his hand. The child does not flinch as he takes the small arm and puts the gun’s muzzle against it. A muffled sound is heard followed by the distinct “clink” of a metallic object falling on the floor.

Howard and Mendez look at each other with astonishment in their eyes, there on the floor lies the little capsule. It did not go in.

“What’s wrong Doc? Shoot him again!”

Once again the sound of the metallic capsule falling on the floor is heard.

Howard proves his heritage of sharp thinking and fast decisions. He goes straight for his gun and shoots the child who is still sweetly smiling. The bullet goes right through him and goes into the wall with a loud bang.

“Did it ever occur to you, Howard, that I might not be here where you think I am?” Saying this, the child vanishes before the terrorized eyes of the men in the room.

“A sim! The kid’s a sim!”

“But that’s impossible! The house is shielded. No signal can come through. Besides, we were holding him and the needle went inside him! We felt him, damn it!”

Alistair’s voice can be heard in the room although the child can’t be seen anywhere. “He’s right, Howard, I am a sim, and you all can see me because, as you said yourself, nearly every human being these days has the implants that allow him to contact Virtual Reality. Ever heard of fully sensorial sims? They are not only seen and heard but also touched and even smelt. Neat, isn’t it? They are not entirely legal and widely used yet, but Jarvis knows where to get them. Of course you felt me! But syringe capsules don’t have any neural system nor implants, do they?.”

The men stand still and unmoving. Suddenly the child materializes in the other end of the room. He smiles quietly and walks among them out of the room, they still don’t move.

Outside he stops and speaks. “Okay, Jarvis, you can come and get me now. I suppose by now you’ve tracked me already.”

Jarvis sounds as composed and phlegmatic as ever. “Of course, Master Alistair, you are on the south side, by the river in a warehouse on Liverpool street. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Shortly afterwards, a discrete ground car, not the flashy limousine this time, stops by the warehouse and Alistair gets in. Jarvis can be seen at the wheel, although the car is driven from the Connelly household.

“It turned out exactly as we planned it, Jarvis. Howard never thought his schemes would turn out against him.”

“It was nevertheless a dangerous gamble Master. Having to go there in your real self, not as a VR Simulation.”

“It couldn’t have been done only with sims. Since the house was heavily shielded, when they opened the limo they would have found it empty. I had to be there to project the sim.”

Alistair goes on. “Howard’s idea to get me out of our house and to have a chance to get a hold of me was a good one. To put some bio-chip virus in me and then let me go under his control was also a good idea. What he had no way to know was that I’m not your everyday six-year old kid.”

“Indeed you are not, Alistair.”

The child laughs, and as he laughs his face twists in a very un-childish expression. “They didn’t know I wear no implants, they didn’t know I need no implants. They didn’t know I was made by the bioengineering teams on the Moon under old Alistair’s orders and designed to carry his personality imprint when he finally passed away. Only he passed away sooner than he expected, and I was left to inherit him with all my neural enhancements intact.”

“And you also have me, Master Alistair.”

“Oh, yes, Jarvis. I also have you. We’re two of a kind. You’ve coached me really well on how to improve my innate neural control. That’s how I could jack into Howard and his friends’ implants to make them see and feel what wasn’t where they thought it was.”

“And now it is we who can control Howard’s vote in the stockholder’s vote, as he had meant to control yours, Master.”

If Alistair hears a certain extra emphasis on the “we” in Jarvis words, he doesn’t show it.

“Yes Jarvis, It is us. The road to total control of the Connelly estate and wealth is quite easier with Howard out of the way.”

“There is only the matter of that policeman on the Moon, Master.”

“The Moon cop, yes, he’s proved impervious to all our tricks so far. We’re going to seriously have to tackle with him Jarvis, but not just right now. I deserve a well-earned rest. This school business is killing me. Do I really have to keep on going there, Jarvis?”

Jarvis smiles, as the car goes through the Connelly estate gates and for an AI, his smile is very human, almost loving. “Yes Terry, you do have to go.”

“Don’t Call me Terry, Jarvis!”

The gate closes behind the car.

Copyright © 2004 by Roberto Sanhueza