Day Eleven

Raj hadn’t seen really seen Beth in days, but she had been working hard on iSA.  When he booted up her branch on Wednesday, the command-line interface had been replaced with glossy iPhone buttons and real-time feedback.

It had two menus now: “See” and “Do”.  The first was an easy-to-use listing of all the cameras at his disposal.  There were more than before.  Some were even feeding real-time proximity information.  His own phone was 0.1 metres from the base, while Beth’s was 6 km.

The “Do” menu gave him a set of sub-classes to navigate.  Gates and doors, Wheelies, Helis.  He considered locking the front door at Beth’s work, but figured that would get he fired, and he needed her income right now.  He saw all the Wheelies were offline, and only briefly checked the Helis before continuing on.

He was halfway through forcing a call through to his own iPhone when he remembered something odd, and paged back to the Heli menu.

There were seven Helis registered, but one of them was pulsing orange.  He clicked on it, and half the screen showed a live video feed.  A forest somewhere.  It looked like the lens was wet.  Again, the video started to tremble as the engine started, but now a warning came onscreen: “Battery low.”

He tried tapping around the screen to see what he could do about it, but only managed to shut off the motor.  He tapped through to the weapons menu and saw the buzz saws were reporting damage, and the shotgun was empty.

He kept trying to find some kind of geo-locator pane to figure out where the thing was stuck, but it didn’t seem to be built yet.

Just then, GMail Notifier chimed.  But not his chime.  It was Beth’s sound, flashing an alert that she had a new email to read.  He was about to ignore it when the message arrived in the inbox, and another alert popped onscreen.  The name caught his eye.  From “Warner, Angela”.

His phone chittered, and he nearly dropped it, getting it to his ear.

“Yeah?”he squeaked.

“Almost home,” Beth said, the sound of traffic around her.

“N-now?  It’s only… four, right?”

“I’ve done a lot of overtime, so they’re letting me take some time to rest.  You want to go out for dinner tonight?”

“Sure.  Sure, yeah, that sounds great,” he smiled at no one.

“Great.  I’ll be there in five.  Get dressed.”

She hung up, and he found himself stuck in the chair.  Five minutes to change.  He could make it.  He clicked through to GMail, saw the message at the top: “re: Raj Aubrey.”  He opened it, read until his chest tightened.  Warner’s email was fluff and courtesy, but Beth’s email, quoted below, was devastating.

“Yes,” she’d written, “he was very upset with them on Friday.  Sam had made a comment about Raj’s employability (admittedly in poor taste) and Raj went ballistic and stormed out of the apartment.  Honestly, I don’t think he’s capable of murder, but ever since he was fired, he’s been so moody.”

He navigated back to the email listing, and was just about to mark the message “unread” when the display refreshed, and the message disappeared.  He stared at the screen for a second before hearing the sound of keys outside the door.

He quickly exited GMail, quit the iPhone emulator while Heli 1’s battery died, and tried to close out Beth’s iSA before the door opened.  He didn’t notice the “Save changes?” dialog box ruining his plan, because he was too busy trying to read Beth’s stern expression.