CHAPTER 23

“What we have here is a fish.  A Purple, red and yellow fish.  Nice to look at, but terrible to eat.”  Such were the words shared with one, “Herman Turtle,” as Roxanne had chosen to name the ten-inch span of hard-shell staring at her as she perched on a rock peering into the quiet lapping of surf.  “What cha think?”

Herman pulled his head back into the safety of his house.  “Not to worry, Herman.  I hate turtle meat, soup, anything turtle.  I told you that weeks ago.  So, relax.”  The once prosperous writer of people’s dreams to be free stood up and stretched her back.  The silk dress she had worn on the infamous night of abduction had been restyled to fit the fashion of the day—cut off above the knee, the bottom hem used for sundry tasks from fishing line to head band.  The halter type top served the hundred-degree temperature as well, allowing extra air to flutter around her bare back.  Shoes?  Well, heels weren’t the best choice for sand—and sand—and sand.  But, having found a wedge of hard stone, the heals were now nubs, the sawed-off hollow portions used as bobbers on the line (silk strands from her dress) that drifted in and out of the tide waters.  

A fish every two days was a good average, especially when all there was for a hook was the twisted wire from her strapless bra.  The rest of the time, coconut “crunch,” coconut soup, and coconut beverages made for a reducing diet that couldn’t be beat.  Roxanne figured she’d lost at least fifteen pounds.  Tanned, slim, and with layers of threaded shells hanging from her neck, she figured, “Things could be worse, you know, Herman? 

The turtle moved a millimeter.  Really.  What if it never rained?  No water.  No life.  Got to look at the bright side.”

She turned and began the long walk along the beach to the rocky peninsula where a high-ground grotto served as her cave house.  High atop the rocks waved the bright red bra and panties—her distress flag for wayward sailors with binoculars to see.  “Ha,” she lamented as she glanced up at the windless movement of her only means of getting attention.  Gazing back at the beach line, she reminded herself that the island was deserted and approximated maybe two miles north and south, with an east/west distance of less than a mile.  She peered over her shoulder.  Herman was coming. But “slow” wasn’t the appropriate word.  “C’mon, Herm.  Let’s have some coconut soup, eh?  Hey, I’ve even got some more of that special weed grass you get off on.  Hurry up!”

She entered the cave and sat down on a rock.  The “boys” had been generous with leaving her purse next to the book on shell jewelry. Ironic assholes.  A compact mirror turned out to be a constant companion, as well as a reflective surface for shining some attention should any sign of life come cruising by.  Fat chance.  Her small notebook and pen (always steady items in her bag for recording writing ideas) was also appreciated, the pad now containing twenty-six pages of diary notes.  Lipstick (useless, save for the notches she drew on the wall showing sixty-three days in a devils paradise) and a pepper spray (really useless) which rounded out her traveling goodies.  Oh, lest we forget the trusty, but now less-than useless cell phone.  Even with the solar power technology, the twenty third generation iphone was only good for the old downloaded music, given she was several thousand miles away from a phone transmission facility.  Still, she was grateful for the music and the touch keyboard that allowed her to become proficient at Chess and Scrabble.

As Herman made his way across the sand, Roxanne flipped open her diary notebook and settled in for the usual afternoon wait for the tide to bring in the bigger fish and hopefully a meal.  With the accompaniment of the phone music, she entered, Day 63 – And to think I made fun of Robinson Crusoe as a story that was so far in the past that no one with any ambition or forward thinking would find it interesting.  Well, I’ve not lost my ambition, and that dude had skills I wish I had… not to mention the ability to keep it together.   But, I’m not ready to start building a permanent tree house here.  Not yet—not by a long shot.  Every night I dream of that fat pig of a city politician gloating over thinking I’m disposed of forever.  But I’m far from gone.  Someday, a ship is going to come by and I’m going to get back there and have my pound of blubber.

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The monitoring lab had long ago noted Roxanne as “off-scan,” meaning that for whatever reason, she was out of the orbital range of the satellite and was no longer being tracked.  Speculation had it that after being blindfolded when she entered the limo on that fateful night, she subsequently slept through some travel time and ended up on the other side of the equator… “off scope” as they joked.  For now, her monitor remained dark, situated as it were next to Richard’s, where, on this day, all eyes were fixed on a long-absent visit to his therapist, Dr. Osama.

Richard sat in his chair, perspiration streaming down his cheeks, his hands gripped tightly around the ripped sections of a girlie magazine.  “Fucking… I can do it… they say… can’t be done… but…”

Dr. Osama glanced at the clock on the wall reading 3:40. “Five times ripping it in half seems fine, Richard.”

Richard glanced up.  “Fine?  You think ‘fine?’  Six… that’s what it takes.  Six rips and at least I will… have powered… over something.  Mother fucking…”  The high gloss pages slipped from his hands, flying in all directions.  “Shit!”  He dropped to his knees and gazed at the many dismembered limbs and faces scattered about.

“It’s alright, Richard.  It’s alright.  You’ve proved your point…”

He glanced up, his face in a rage.

“To yourself, Richard.  I’m just your witness.  To yourself.  Proved the point to yourself.  Now…”  She glanced back up at the clock.  “Could we use the final five minutes and touch on what this is really all about?”

Richard began shaking his head as he gathered the magazine fragments into a neat pile.  “Could have done six if they weren’t so glossy.  Why do they have to make them glossy, anyway?  Wet is so obvious.  Wet is not how it is.”

“How is it…really?”

Richard threw a glance and smirked.  “Guys never work up a sweat… get wet.  We’re off without any of that phony sweaty crap the girls love to work into.  Phony!”

“Your vocabulary of expletives has enlarged since I saw you last, Richard.  How come?”

He stood up, carefully lifting the pile of ripped pages and placing them on the coffee table.  “You told me months ago to get out of my “cloth-skin,” as you called it.  I did.  In fact, the last few weeks, I’ve really enjoyed cursing.  It’s a hell of a release, you know.”  He sat back down.

“Yes.  For a man of extremes, venturing into truck driver talk is good for you… at least for the moment.”

“No ‘moment’ here, doc.  I’m really enjoying it.  Might make it part of my reinvention.  God damn it!”  He rose and started for the door.  “I’m gonna find me a porn book that’s not glossy.  Mother fucker.  Six rips is doable.  I know it.”

Dr. Osama rose.  “My four o’clock cancelled earlier.  Sit down.”

“I can’t afford another fuckin’ session.”

“On me.  Sit down.”  She went into her outer room and returned quickly with a magazine.  “Hate to part with it, but this is the real thing, Richard, and it’s not glossy.  She handed it to him.  The cover showed a blurred image of two bodies making love.  The title of the magazine was in Japanese.  “Rice paper.  Organic.  Should give you quite a challenge.”

Richard looked at her incredulously.  As he thumbed through the magazine, he grinned.  “What… you crazy?  You read this shit too?”

“I’m a sex therapist, remember?”

“Jesus.  This is pretty raunchy.”

“Depends on your point of view.  How about we get back to that obsession you brought up in the beginning of the session… you know, before you felt compelled to rip the magazine six times.”

“It took seven sloppy efforts.  Seven, Dr.”  Richard dropped into the chair and gently laid the magazine down on the coffee table next to the pile of torn pages.  “I told you.  She was just a dream.”

“But you said you felt you knew her.”

“And I spent weeks going crazy trying to remember.  Wishful thinking.  She’s some kind of dream woman, some kind of goddess crap trying to wake me up.”

“Well, sounds like you’re doing some analysis yourself.”

“Doc… I’m gonna rip this up… six times… then…”

“Then?”

“I’m gonna tell you about a real woman I met.  You tell me.  I’ve been with her for seven weeks now, and I haven’t touched her.”  He picked up the Japanese magazine and gripped it firmly on both edges.  “And she’s a hooker.  You think about that while I take care of some business.”  He took a deep breath.  “Now, you can do this… you can do this.”

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Flags from nations of the world furled in the nervous breeze outside the stone and steel structure that spired toward the cobalt sky of the Pyrenees alongside the dense pine trees surrounding the architectural wonder that Quill had gifted the scientific community just thirty days prior.  The seemingly random vertical girders of bronze rising above the roof of the three storied structure gave the impression of an unfinished building… the result of Quill’s complete trust in A2’s designing and engineering.

Inside on the structure’s giant platform stage, Quill’s projection of himself in a holographic image from one of his desert hideaway took center stage.  Addressing an assembly of over three hundred of the world’s top scientists, he spoke quietly and respectfully, bringing his ribbon-cutting ceremony to a close. 

 “…and so, let me close with but a reminder of our duty and responsibility as scientists of the future.  This structure designed by computer and built by an army of nanobots is but a small sample of what is ahead of us.  You men and women are accustomed to routine scientific breakthroughs, but we have a long way to go in dealing with perhaps the most compelling technologies of our century, robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology.  I wish I could represent a different, a safer picture to you, but we are faced with completely different challenges than those of the past.  I’m referring to robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots that share a dangerous and potentially, out-of-control factor: they can self-replicate.  As was said many years ago, a bomb, a bomb is blown up only once – but one bot can become many, and quickly resist, and perhaps, overpower our best defenses.  

“Our 21^st century technologies—genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR)—can reduce nuclear threats to a pillow fight.  They are capable of birthing completely new classes of accidents and abuses.  Most alarming, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are as easily within the reach of individuals or small terrorist groups, as they are to us, the accepted developed nations of the world.  We are living in an age where this kind of advancement will not require large facilities or the complicated task of acquiring raw materials.  Knowledge alone will enable the use of them.

“I’ll leave you with a final comment.  We are living with the possibility of many scientific wonders such as this building complex, or weapons of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), a destructiveness largely amplified by the power of self-replication.  I will be working along side you to develop means of controlling this apparent inevitability, but until such defense mechanisms are created, we must be careful… very careful.  Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.  May nature watch over us.”

The reserved applause was only made less frightening by the orbiting images engulfing A2/. In her most calm and seductive Whoopi voice, A2 whispered, “Very persuasive speech, Mr. Quill.”

Quill stepped down from the studio platform and moved toward the passageway leading through doors that opened and closed with silence.

The real Quill stepped back to his living quarters.  “Glad you approved, A2.  Sometimes, it’s not easy to be honest with you around.  You know that, don’t you?”

“It’s crossed my mind, Mr. Quill.”

“Yes… well…”  He paused at the doorway.  “I should probably check up on A1 first thing in the morning.  Don’t you agree?”

“Mmm.  You’re probably right.  I’m sure he appreciated your speech as well.”

Quill chuckled.  “Never without your quirky sense of humor, are you?”

“Never, Mr. Quill.  You were quite insistent on that in my programming, remember?”

Quill’s eyes raised and fixed on the polished titanium door panel.  Blurred reflections of A2’s orbiting images in the distant background held him for a moment.  “Yes.  Yes, I  do.”