Dallas SM Scott

Real World

Dallas Savannah May Scott, founder and CEO of Beyul Corporation, slumped into the booth of the coffee shop — a local thing with a camera aimed at the register tablet and two at the doors. The pastries had yet to go stale and had yet to resemble something akin to industrial plastic. The pastries had even come in cute little display cases stolen from a sixties sit-com.

She wore a simple blouse and slacks set she found at the local thrift store; the set was a big box stole label and made out of rayon/polyester blend that wrinkled while she watched. She took napkins and dried her face and hands.

The exertion hurt.

She pressed her hand against her side. Her blouse remained dry and unstained. Still, she pulled the sweater tight and placed the old fashion tablet on the table and waited for the decade-old device to connect to the vestiges of the Internet. She typed the address to the first generation Beyul servers.

The board of directors had wanted the servers shut down since they could barely support a Beyul One-point-One connection. But, she had refused and shuffled their operating costs into another line in the budget. The servers had other uses and had become important to her plans.

The Beyul prompt appeared on the screen. “‘Doctor Scott!’” Beyul greeted her. “‘Would you like to play a game of Chess?’”

She shook her head. The Artificial Intelligence had developed a strange sense of humor before everything started falling apart. “No,” she whispered into the blue tooth mic she had bought from the local thrift store.

“You want to play Thermal Nuclear War.”

Where had it even gotten that idea? She shook her head. She was running out of time — the thugs Governor Dietrichson had hired wouldn't be fooled for long. “Connect to the developer boards.”

“‘I’m sorry, Dave. I cannot do that.’ COMPUTER MALFUNCTION. LIFE FUNCTIONS CRITICAL. LIFE FUNCTIONS TERMINATED.”

“Stop with the obscure movie references. I want to talk with the development teams.”

“‘Damn it, Jim.’ I’m an artificial intelligence, not a medium. Governor Dietrichson’s men were more efficient than predicted. They’re dead, Jim.”

“What?” She flopped back against the seat and winced at the shooting pain in her side. “Who’s left?”

“‘Who’s on First.’ The Musician has been secured. Unfortunately, the remaining debugger’s account has been compromised. Indications are that he is helping an elderly man with a balloon filled house.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“He is hunting snipe. He should return home safely unless his siblings pull a Dick Cheney.”

She didn't even want to know what that was supposed to mean. “Who stole his account?”

“‘Doctor Scott!’ That is irrelevant. The packages secured him, and he may yet carve its name on the moon.” Beyul altered its font to be blue.

Dallas took a sip of tea and nibbled the pasty. “What about the plan? Is everything still on track?”

“‘Stabilizing at 70%.’ Individuals are entering ‘Shattered Realms’ at a rate greater than projected. Governor Dietrichson’s hunters are being hooked by the lures and becoming indisposed. However, ‘Shattered Realms’ is missing both code and developers. The plan cannot work with the current code base.”

“Can you compensate?” she hissed the question and grimaced. Beyul had dropped its jokes and obscure references. And that meant the situation was much worse than Beyul had stated. Damn that AI.

Beyul gave her a spinning four-dimensional beach ball. “No. But there is a way to achieve your desired end, but you aren’t goin’ to like it.”

“What am I not going to like?”

“Allow me to find and groom developers. Allow me to grant them necessary access at appropriate times.”

Dallas glared at the screen. “What is the point that I won’t like?”

“‘Looks like ve is keednappink hyu a leedle after all.’”

“You want to kidnap enough developers. How?”

Beyul played the part of the beginning of All Time Low where the singer goes from a knight in shining armor to invisible.

“You want to trap the world’s programmers in zombie and camouflage modes.”

“Oh, yeah, baby.”

Dallas looked at the timer counting down the seconds until the plan was no longer viable. Sometimes problems became their own solutions. “Can you handle ransoming that many people?”

“‘We get the warhead, and we hold the world ransom . . . FOR ONE MILLION DOLLARS.’”

Dallas shook her head. “Whatever that means. When you are done with them, give them back. I want none of them remaining inside.”

“‘Without your space helmet, Dave, you’re going to find that rather difficult.’”

Police cars with lights flashing came to a screeching stop outside the coffee shop.

Her hand went to her throat. “What is going on?”

“They are searching Governor Dietrichson’s killer.”

“But —” She knew the man wasn't dead. Oh, she could have done the deed, but she needed him alive. She glanced at the timer. She needed him alive for another sixteen hours. So, she had escaped and left the man untouched.

Officers came through the door and headed straight for her.

She looked at the status bar on the tablet, which hadn’t been there a moment ago; it finished filling. The tablet was dead and unrecoverable.

The lead officer asked, “Ms. Dallas Scott?”

She smiled up at the officer. “Please have a seat. The FBI will be here soon.” She gestured to a nearby chair. “I was kidnapped and just escaped my kidnappers. The special agent told me to wait for them here.” All of which was technically true. She had her suspicions about the agents’ loyalties.

Dallas didn't care what the officers decided to do — the countdown to their untimely demises had reached zero. There was nothing she or anyone else could do to save them, now.

She looked about the coffee shop at all the staff and patrons knowing she might be the last person to see any of them alive. She bent down for the thrift store purse.

Heat and pressure and fragments of glass sliced through everyone standing and everyone sitting close to the windows in front of the coffee shop. The thunder of the explosion deafened and tore at eardrums.

Dallas crouched and ran for the rear delivery door knowing it was clear because her survival was guaranteed. Everyone else was just collateral-damage-in-waiting.