Creatures of the Storm (23 page)

Ken nodded tightly. “Okay.
Okay. I know it’s only, you know,
paper
. I can
show
you what I mean.”

“Please do,” Josephson
said, clearly adding
in the next two
minutes, or else…
without saying it
aloud.

Cling leaned to the side and spoke to his
boss out of the side of his mouth, loudly enough for everyone in
the room to hear. “It’s getting late,” he said. “We better start
thinking about that long drive out of here.”

Josephson ignored him.

Ken opened his battered briefcase again.
“It’s right in here,” he said. “I burned a demo DVD late last
night. It’ll show you what…”

He pawed through the papers still in his
valise, but came up with nothing.

“It’ll show you what…” he said again, and
zipped open the side pocket. There was nothing inside.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ken,” Marty said.
“Don’t tell me.”

Ken looked up at him, stark
terror in his eyes. “I put it right
here,
” he said. “I’m
sure
I did, right before
I left the house.”

Cling gave a long, liquid sigh. “God…” he
whispered loudly.

Ken kept looking. And
looking. And
looking.

The speaker phone in the
middle of the table went
bleep
. “Mr. Mackie?” said a husky
British female voice. “Maggie is on the line. She insists on
speaking with you.”

Josephson almost smiled.

Marty winced. “Oh, for–” He looked at the
CEO. “His secretary,” he said. “Really nice woman, but Adrienne,
tell her we’re in conference.”

“I’m sorry, sir. She says it’s urgent.”

“Umm…it might be about the demo disk,” Ken
said, clearing his throat. “If you don’t mind?

Josephson gave him half a nod. He was
watching him very, very closely.

“Put her through,” Marty said, trying not to
look at anyone.

Maggie’s pleasant, measured tones were a
welcome relief. “Ken?” she said. “I’m afraid you left the demo disk
here.”

He smiled weakly. “I was afraid of that. At
least I wasn’t going crazy. Ha. Ha.”

No one else smiled.

“I’d e-mail or upload it to you, but you know
it’s far too big for that,” she said from the phone.

“Shall we send a messenger over?” Marty
said.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Fein,” Maggie said, sounding
pleasantly surprised. “How did that necklace work out for you?”

Marty smiled spontaneously, then looked
embarrassed. “An anniversary present,” he explained to the
cold-eyed men next to him. “Maggie had a great suggestion for my
wife’s present this year.” Then, to Maggie: “Great idea, Maggie.
Thanks.”

“I hope it got you everything you wanted,
sir,” she said slyly.

Even Josephson had to smile at that. “Yeah,”
Marty said, “it did fine, thanks.”

Cling looked impatiently at his Rolex. “We
really can’t wait for a messenger service,” he said. “Mr. Josephson
has an evening appointment back in Westwood, and the weather —”

“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Josephson is there?”
Maggie asked.

The sleek executive with the hundred-dollar
tie cleared his throat. “Uh, yes. Hello, um, Maggie.”

They could all hear the smile in Maggie’s
voice. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir, even at a distance. I was
so glad to see that your wife’s surgery went well.”

Josephson’s eyebrows went up. “How …?”

“Oh, forgive me, sir,”
Maggie said. “I’m an incurable reader of the society pages. There
was that whole piece about her in the
Times
last week.”

“Oh,” Josephson said. “Right.”

“And your daughters
looked
so
lovely
at that Bonaventure affair last month. You must be very
proud.”

He was thoroughly charmed. “Well, yes, we
are.”

“Rachel going to Stanford and all…”

“Yes, we–”

“Listen, um,
Maggie
,” Cling
interrupted, sounding remarkably patronizing with only two simple
words, and earning him look of annoyance from his boss. “Can’t you
just run the disk down here? It’s a small town, you can’t be that
far away even in the rain, and that would take half the time of a
messenger.”

“Mr. Cling, there’s nothing I’d like to do
more, though I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

He looked put off. “How did you know
who...?”

“Oh, I recognized your
voice. I caught your interview on
MoneyLine
last month, about VeriSil
and those intellectual property lawsuits. Very nicely done, sir,
really.”

He blinked. It was obvious
that no one
ever
recognized
him
. “Oh,” he said. “Oh. Well, why…why is it you can’t bring it
down?”

“Well…”

“Maggie…” Ken began.

“Because I don’t actually have a physical
body, you see. Sir.”

The three executives stared dumbly at the
speakerphone. Josephson himself was the first to speak.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What?”

“I have no body, Mr. Josephson. I am simply
Ken Mackie’s personalized copy of Everybody’s Assistant.”

It took them all a moment to absorb it. Then
a huge grin grew on Marty Fein. “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said
under his breath.

“Not a chance, Marty,” Maggie said, sounding
like a modern-day version of Rosalind Russell. “You’re way too
sweet for that.”

They all laughed this time. “That’s amazing,”
Josephson said. “Truly? Not a trick?”

“Not at all,” Maggie and Ken said together.
Everyone laughed again.

The color came back into his face. “Okay, I
admit it. I didn’t forget the demo. It’s right here.” He held up a
golden DVD he had found right where he’d put it. “And forgive the
little dumb-show, Mr. Josephson, I–”

“Hey!” Maggie said from the speakerphone,
“Who are you calling dumb?” and they all laughed again, Ken
included.

“Not
you
, Maggie,
obviously,
” he said, grinning now.
“I wanted to show you how amazing, how
astonishing,
this new artificial
intelligence application really is.” His eyes were alight now, and
the others were staring at him with a mixture of awe and wonder. He
loved
that expression.

“Forget ad copy or market
analysis,” he said. “Just listen
to
Maggie. She may be ‘artificial’ in a technical sense, but this is
real
intelligence, a real
personality
. She can put
things together. Deduce, conclude, extrapolate. Make
jokes.
And she has
access to virtually every source of public information
instantaneously, through the satellite referral system that’s built
into the box. This is what happens after only a few days of
interaction with her...host? Sponsor? Boss?”

“My god,” Josephson said.
“So everyone
can have one of
her?”

“Well, not me
personally,
” Maggie
said. “I’m one of kind.”

A chuckle from the group.
“You got that
right,” Ken
muttered.

“My specific persona has
evolved directly in response to Ken Mackie’s unique wants and
needs, and it didn’t happen by filling out questionnaires or
speaking test words into a mike. My heuristic structure allowed me
to infer
it, building from the first
moment he spoke to me.”

“It took about two days for
her to become…
her,
” Ken said. “Before that she was a highly efficient
voice-enabled calendar program, much like the one I described to
you a minute ago. On that third day, however, she was…
Maggie.
”

“Your
Assistant, Mr. Josephson, or yours, Marty, or your wife
Stephanie’s, will be very different, but just as easy to evolve. As
good for you or him or her as I am for Ken… but
different.”

No one said anything for a long moment. In
that silence Ken knew that he’d done it. He’d sold them.

All three of them had questions, and they all
asked them at once. For the next fifteen minutes, he sorted them
out and answered everything he could, referring to the notebooks
he’d brought, explaining the satellite referral system.

It was done. He had
won
.
They were
reaching a real
understanding about the
next phase of development –

–when Maggie interrupted.

“Ken?” she said. “Ken, you have to get out of
there.”

He stopped short and frowned.

“What?”

“You all
have to get out of there.
Now
.”

“Um, Maggie, look, I think we’ve–”

“It’s the storm, gentlemen. And no, this
isn’t part of the presentation. This is real.”

Cling, who had been remarkably silent during
the enthusiastic conversation, gave another liquid sigh. “What are
you talking about?” he demanded.

“I’ve been monitoring the security cameras
around the VeriSil campus while we've been speaking,” she said.
“Keeping an eye on things. The water level is getting out of
control, and a sand levee on the construction site just let loose
and it’s flooding the lower levels of the parking garage right
now.”

“Oh, shit,” Marty said, and stood up fast. He
looked wildly at his CEO. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he
said. “I was assured–”

Josephson stood as well. “Nobody expected
rain like this,” he said. “We’ll deal with it. But if what Maggie
says is true—”

“It is,” she said. “Believe me. You’ve got
less than ten minutes to get out of there before the whole garage
fills up and the power fails.”

Now all of them were on their feet. Marty
opened the door and called to his secretary. “Adrienne, call
Security. Get everybody out of the building, send them home.”

“But–”

“
Now
,” he said sharply. “I’ll explain
later.” Then he led Josephson, Cling, and Mackie out of the room
and down the corridor to the express elevator. They could hear the
announcement over the PA; phones were ringing at desks all around
them.

“You believe her?” Cling
asked, fussing with his briefcase and iPhone as the trotted towards
the elevator. “I mean…
it
?”

“She’s never lied to me before,” Marty said.
“Besides, I owe her one for that necklace.”

The elevator went
ting
and the doors
opened. It was empty. All four men piled in and Marty hit the P1
and P2 buttons at the same time.

In that instant, Ken’s cell phone rang. He
already knew who it was. “Hello, Maggie,” he said. “Thanks for
staying in touch.” He set the phone to SPKR.

“I’ve got you on the security cam,” she told
them all. “You’ve still got a couple of minutes. But Marty, get out
on P1 and ride with Ken or Mr. Josephson.”

“I can’t,” he said gruffly. “I parked on P2
today.”

“Marty,” she said, and they could hear the
gentle admonition in her voice, “forget about the Lexus. It’s
already underwater.”

“What?” he said. He sounded
positive wounded. “No, come
on
.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Things are happening very
fast. Mr. Josephson, Mr. Cling, it’s lucky you drove an SUV today.
If you hurry, you’ll be able to make it to Highway 181 and out of
town before things get much worse.”

“Thank you, Maggie,” Josephson said.

“Carl,” Cling said, “you don’t actually–”

“This would be a good time to stay quiet,
Stefan,” Josephson said.

The elevator made another musical note and
the doors opened on the first level of underground parking.

It was chaos.

Water was gushing down the
walls, and it was already three inches deep on the polished
concrete. Employees were dashing down the stairwells and splashing
towards their cars, desperate to escape as the overhead
fluorescents flickered and started to fail. The harsh sodium
emergency lamps above the EXIT signs kicked in with a
buzzz
, bathing
everything in a sickly lemon-yellow light.

“Just get to the Rover, Ken,” Maggie said
from his cell phone. “I can talk you through to West Ridge Road; I
have access to the traffic cams.”

The two out-of-town execs and Ken bolted out
of the elevator at the same moment and started towards their cars,
parked next to each a few feet away. Then they stopped and turned
together.

Marty was still in the elevator. He was
poking at the P2 button.

“Marty, don’t do it,” Ken said. “Maggie
said–”

The phone in his hand spoke. “Marty? Please.
The water’s past six feet down there. If the elevator opens down
there, it will flood, you could be–”

“It’s my
Lexus
, goddamn it,”
Marty said, almost whining. “That’s a seventy-thousand-dollar
car.”

“Marty,” Maggie cajoled.
“
Please…
” ... and
in that instant, Ken realized that her vocal coding didn’t
allow
her to scream or
shout or even cry. This was probably as passionate as she could
sound: concerned. Urgent.

They all started talking at once. The water
was still rising.

“Marty, for Christ’s sake,” Josephson said.
Ken looked at him in surprise. It was the first time he’d hear the
man speak with any emotion at all. “Leave it the hell alone! Come
on!”