Her mouth twitched, and he knew he was right, she’d been thinking about the story. When he was overseas, he’d had a magazine writer embedded with his unit for a few weeks. The guy had a hardwired need to turn every experience into a piece of published writing, and Peter figured June was no different.
“I’ll call a few friends,” she said. “I can probably scare up something used.”
An odd sound came from her bag. A muffled electronic chirp.
He said, “What was that?”
“I think it was my new phone.”
“Who else has the number?”
“Nobody,” she said. “Just you. I did set up my email in the car last night. But I always leave the email alert on silent.”
They looked at each other. She dove for her bag.
It wasn’t an email.
It was a text.
And it wasn’t from Peter.
The sender’s name was listed as Tyg3r.
Peter stood beside her so he could see when she opened the text.
Hello, Junie. What would you like to know?
June’s hands seemed to release the phone of their own accord. It clattered on the table, bouncing in its silicon case. She looked at Peter.
“Nobody calls me Junie,” she said. “Only my mom calls me Junie.”
Peter’s voice was gentle. “I do believe that’s your mom’s algorithm.”
Her look turned into a look. Then she snatched up the phone again, her thumbs flying over the virtual keys. She raised the phone so Peter could see it, then looked at him for an opinion.
She’d written:
Who are you?
He shrugged. She pressed Send.
After only a few seconds, the phone chirped again. Peter read over her shoulder.
I am Tyg3r. The Yoga Queen made me. What would you like to know?
“Who’s the Yoga Queen?”
“My mother. She was a yoga fanatic before it hit the mainstream. It was her sign-off on her personal email. Plus she had this whole thing about how good code and yoga had all these similarities. Elegance and flexibility.” June’s thumbs were back in rapid motion.
How did you find me?
The phone chirped.
The cellular telephone registered to June Cassidy is compromised. The laptop computer registered to June Cassidy is compromised. This unregistered cellular telephone receiving June Cassidy’s password-protected email is not compromised. Ergo, this telephone is connected to June Cassidy. What would you like to know?
“Um,” said Peter. “This isn’t exactly my world? But this seems like pretty advanced shit.”
“Yeah.” June’s thumbs were back in action.
Who killed my mother?
The phone chirped.
Unknown. Please be more specific.
June replied.
What was the cause of death of Hazel Cassidy in Palo Alto, California?
A longer pause, then the phone chirped again.
According to the relevant pathologist’s report, Hazel Cassidy died of acute physical trauma due to collision with a motor vehicle. See this link for more information.
This time a Web link followed the text message. June touched the link and her phone’s Web browser came up. It was hard to read the page on the small screen. June expanded the size and panned around the document. It looked like a medical report, almost certainly something considered confidential and hidden behind a government firewall. Yet here it was.
“If this is your skeleton key,” said Peter, “it seems like it can deliver the goods. Is it really talking to you?”
June shook her head. “It’s not intelligent the way you or I would define it,” she said, still poking at the screen. “It’s a machine intelligence, with a specific set of skills. It’s probably designed to understand everyday language and respond in kind. Take Google. When you type something into their search engine, it recognizes your query by key words, then performs its function through their proprietary algorithm. I would guess that the skeleton key—might as well call it Tyg3r—uses the same principles, just more highly developed, more specialized. My mom said it was designed to learn, to help it go into hidden places. To open locked doors.” She made a face. “My phone is a crappy tool for this.”
Her thumbs moved across the screen.
Do you have another interface?
The phone chirped again. The sound was already getting annoying.
You can also find this program here:
A Web link followed the message.
“Shit,” said June. “I really need a computer.”
Peter was still having trouble wrapping his head around this. “You’ve been contacted by your dead mother’s artificial intelligence and you’re still thinking about your laptop?”
She looked at him sideways. “Welcome to the future. The tech world is full of this crazy shit. Change is exponential. Self-driving cars? Computers you wear on your wrist? We take last year’s miracle for granted. But that laptop is both my primary tool and the source of my livelihood.”
He was suddenly aware that he was still standing very close to her. After his sweaty panic attack at the hospital, then their all-night drive, Peter could smell himself, and it wasn’t good. But June hadn’t showered, either, and the back of her neck smelled like some exotic, possibly addictive spice, which was entirely unfair. She even had freckles behind her ears.