To Dream

By Louis K Lowy

Guilt ridden over the death of her 17-year-old son, Jay, scientist Niyati Bopari heads a team that creates a Humachine (human machine) for mega-corporation Ameri-Inc. Niyati dubs the Humachine J-1 and creates it in Jay's image. She secretly infuses it with Jay's DNA. J-1 is the most sophisticated robot ever created and its purpose is to replace human labor. Before J-1 and his blueprints can be transported to Ameri-Inc. headquarters a rogue Ameri-Inc. agent attempts to steal them. Anatomy of a Humachine is a science fiction tour de force spanning two centuries and crossing two planets. Book I: To Dream centers on J-1, an artificial intelligence struggling to find his humanity; the grieving scientist who created him; the ruthless head of the corporation who owns him; and the iron-willed leader of a rebel force seeking revenge for the death of her family and the destruction of her planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IFWG Publishing International
• Release date: Jan 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781925496093

Book preview

inspiration.

 Chapter One

Date: 2250

Planet Truatta

GTS Warehouse

The Humachine, J-1, swiped back a lock of hair that had fallen over his left brow. He turned his attention to the Teleporthaton resting in the middle of the warehouse. Seated at his desk, J-1 straightened the short sleeves of his zip-front khaki coverall, and sent an internal message to the fifty-foot-high purple apparatus: Ready for transport.

It responded with its own internal message: What borough?

The Teleporthaton stood next to another apparatus, the Receive & Package, or R&P. Both machines ran like parallel covered bridges for fifteen hundred feet—nearly the entire length of the building—and were key components of the assembly line.

The R&P beamed in raw genimetrothiasine—GTS—from the outside mines into the window-less and door-less warehouse. The R&P also bombarded the raw GTS with various light spectrums to break down its impurities and labeled the large sealed trunks. Depending on demand, the processed mineral would either be placed on warehouse storage shelves for later distribution, or sent directly to the Teleporthaton for dispersal to Ameri-Inc.’s distribution satellites centered on the outskirts of Earth. There it would be weighed, repackaged, and flown in armed and guarded shuttles to Earth. Finally, it would be sold to disease-eradicating and anti-aging conglomerates that would slice it up, re-repackage it, and dispense it to those rich enough to afford it.

What borough should I transport GTS? the Teleporthaton asked J-1 again.

There was a familiar rumble in the distance. Despite having never been out of the warehouse since being brought here from Earth 193 years ago, he’d heard the sound plenty of times before. It was a common carbonous oxide thunderclap shooting up from a fissure in nearby Lake Freeto-Lay. Though it may kill some of the Dizney trout, an indigenous fish that were staples of the restaurants in the nearby resort city of Apple, J-1 reasoned by the shortness of the clap that it was no big deal.

What borough? the Teleporthaton repeated a third time.

Milton Enterprises Prefecture, J-1 internalized back.

The Teleporthaton chirped twice. Its conveyor belt rolled inward along the machine’s tunnel-like structure with a soft hiss. J-1 turned his attention to the wire cage where the lifters were stored. Shelf removal, he internalized to the cage.

Number of lifters needed? the cage flicked back.

Crisp, short, clattering sounds tapped against the roof. J-1 glanced up. The carbo-oxide ice storm cometh. J-1 internalized back to the cage, Three hundred.

The cage door rolled up and 300 lifters emerged. The lifters were simple, lanky machines resembling large dustpans with six-foot-high broom handles. They glided forward, hovering a foot above the floor. Their purpose was simple, to move the trunks of GTS between the storage shelves and the assembly line machines.

The lifters glided to the tall shelves lining each side of the walls, where the trunks of GTS were stored. In turns, the lifters floated upward and slid their spatula-shaped bottoms beneath the containers and carted them to the Teleporthaton.

A sharp rumble cracked overhead. It was one of the loudest thunderclaps J-1 had ever heard. He studied the ceiling for a moment waiting to see if there would be a repeat. There was none and he went back to work.

The final two lifters removed their trunks of GTS. As they passed J-1, a sonorous boom rattled the walls. One of the lifters rocked and bumped against the other. Their bottoms interlocked. A large spark crackled from one of the lifter’s stems, knocking its container to the floor. J-1 sent an internal message to the pair of tangled lifters: Coco and Horatio, power down. The two tangled lifters descended to the ground. They remained motionless until the thunder booms passed.

Coco and Horatio, activate, J-1 internalised.

The two lifters powered up and separated. Horatio, who had held onto his trunk, carried his tray to the Teleporthaton. Coco wobbled like a bird with a clipped wing. The wounded lifter banged into J-1’s desk. Pause, Coco, he internalized. Coco stopped and hovered a few feet from J-1’s chair.

J-1 stood and approached the dropped container. He bent down and examined it. There was a hairline fracture in it. A sliver of a bluish-purple gel seeped through the crack. In his nearly two centuries as warehouse manager, he had never seen refined genimetrothiasine. Though there were a few raw samples lying around that his human supervisors at Ameri-Inc. had left behind before warehouse operations were turned over to him, purified GTS was always contained in airtight trunks to maintain its integrity.

J-1 leaned in closer, bringing his eyelashes so close to the crack they feathered it. A glow—no, more like a glowing sensation—swept through him. He knew what he should do next. His orders were clear: note the damaged trunk in the warehouse database, isolate it and notify his supervisors at Ameri-Inc. Something—an inner tickle—compelled him not to. He rubbed his finger against the crack and sniffed the gel smudged on his fingertip. He shuddered from the sweet-sour smell. His stomach fluttered as if a squirrel had raced across it.

Status of lifter Coco? The wire lift cage internalized to J-1.

J-1 ignored the question. Something was happening beyond a tickling sensation. His processors felt as if they were in a sports staditorium, doing the wave.

Status of Coco? the lift cage asked again.

In progress. J-1 dug his forefinger through the crack until it widened.

Outside the warehouse, the noise grew. J-1 barely noticed. He removed his finger from the trunk and rubbed the gelatinous substance with his thumb.

J-1 did what he had never done before—ignored his protocol. He sniffed the gel, licked it from his fingers and waited. There was no reaction. That made sense to him. Its anti-aging effect on humans was something he didn’t have to worry about. He walked to his desk to follow through on what he should have done from the beginning; notate the damage and inform his supervisors. On the third step his knees wobbled and he staggered to the floor. His body shook violently and his head felt as if it were a lava-spewing volcano. Outside the warehouse, the noise grew from clatters to cavernous booms.

Chapter Two

Date: 2030

West Redlands, Florida

Ameri-Inc. Research and Development

Robotics Division

Someone was trying to open the locked bathroom doorknob from the outside. It was their third attempt in five minutes. Niyati Bopari coughed, took one last draw on her Gold Flake King, dropped the cigarette into the toilet and flushed. Niyati waved the smoke away until it dispersed. She coughed again, washed her hands, glanced in the mirror and smoothed her shoulder-length, gray-streaked hair. She flattened her smock, unlocked the door and walked out.

Armando Robles from accounting glared at her. I have a long drive home with no rest stops. He rushed in, sniffed ostentatiously and added, This is strictly a no-smoking environment, before shutting the door.

Niyati hurried down the hall and into the Robotic Research and Development reception room of Ameri-Inc. Any word, Kaye? she asked.

Her secretary was at her desk. She hand-signaled the word processor. A notice arose on the screen. The bizjet is circling Tamiami Airport, waiting for the go-ahead to land. Give us an hour. Regards Miguel and Pete. She spun the screen for Niyati to see.

Niyati nodded and glimpsed at the wall clock. It was nearly 5:00pm. That meant they would be here around 6:00pm. There’s no need for you to stay beyond work hours, she said to Kaye. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Are you kidding? Kaye asked. After all these years, I want to see these two in person. She shrugged. Besides, I can use the overtime.

Thanks. Niyati knew Kaye was aware of how nervous she was about this. Before Niyati entered her lab, which was located behind Kaye’s antechamber, Kaye crossed her fingers and added, Good luck, Doctor Bopari.

Niyati’s lab was a twenty-by-twelve room with three solid walls and an iron-barred, panoramic window on the west wall. The tinted window faced the wetlands and the Everglades beyond. In the center of the tidy lab was her desk. It held a phone, her laptop, and a framed photo that faced outward. Against the solid walls were thirty larger computers, each on individual stands housed inside their own kiosks.

Hanging on the south wall was a sixty-inch 3D monitor screen. J-1 was slumped dormant on a stool in the southwest corner. He was dressed in jeans and a navy-blue polo.

Niyati sat at her desk and drummed her fingers. She couldn’t remember being in the lab when it was totally down like it was now. She hated the silence. It made her antsier than she already was. Nothing was to be turned on until after the demonstration. That was the order she had been given: security reasons.

She stared at the dimly lit room and attempted to recapture its normal sounds: the rustle of her smock as she bounced from one computer to the other amid the constant back and forth chatter. Behaviorists, code programmers, aerodynamicists, bio-mechanists, mechacytologists, geometricians, plastic surgeons, and cosmetologists answering and asking her questions about J-1 from their own computers located around the world and her own voice responding to them.

She even tried imagining the late afternoon—and sometimes evening—videoconferences with corporate reps Miguel Acevedo and Pete Hemley. She glanced at her wristwatch. It was still another twenty minutes before they were scheduled to arrive.

Niyati studied the cardboard back of the framed photo sitting on her desk. Though the picture faced away, she knew every detail. She reached for it, but pulled her hand back. It had been a long time since she studied it. During the project, the photo became quick breaths between decisions; glances during international conferences; and contrails of memory in the wee hours when she analyzed, connected, and inputted data into her mainframe.

She yearned to hold the photo. Niyati took a deep breath. No, that was a lie. The truth was she didn’t want to think about it. That’s why she had agreed to head this project—it required endless hours of work and massive amounts of concentration. Unfortunately, at this moment there was plenty of time and nothing to focus on. She looked at J-1 slumped on the corner stool. She had given him umpteen vigorous trial runs. Maybe she should do one more to be sure.

No. Niyati again reached for the photo, hesitated, and turned it around to face her.

Chapter Three

Date: 2030

Kendall, Florida

SR-864 South, between exits 16 and 18

Pete Hemley flashed the headlights of the rented Egyptian Solarcomfy SUV. An elderly man in a rotund Ford ProEdsel, who was driving at a turtle’s pace in front of them, paid no attention. Hemley glanced at Acevedo and flashed the lights again.

Acevedo smiled to himself. Born and raised in Hialeah, he was used to the bumper-car mentality.

Hemley shook his head, put his right turn signal on and swerved the SUV from the fast lane of the expressway into the middle lane. As he did, an H-Civic2 barreled in behind him and blasted its horn. Hemley lunged back into the lane he was trying to escape from. The driver of the speeding car, a young girl with shaggy dreadburns, shot him the bird as she raced past.

Shit! Hemley again flashed his lights at the elderly man. What is it with these people?

It’s South Florida, Acevedo said. Eighty-year-olds drive at twenty, and twenty-year-olds drive at eighty. He studied the condos and commercial buildings sliding past them. Though he had left the area nearly three decades ago for Washington, DC, the tropical-colored buildings in green, blue, terracotta, and orange, hadn’t seemed to change one bit.

Hemley glanced in the rearview mirror, whipped the steering wheel to the right and gunned the SUV. When he was safely in the middle lane he grinned at Acevedo and said, Take that, South Florida!

Acevedo nodded. He didn’t exactly like Pete Hemley, but he didn’t dislike him, either. Hemley was an ambitious young gun: thirty-four, big house, pretty wife, two kids and looking for advancement. At times too eager to brown his nose, but in the four years they’d been the liaison between corporate and Project Humachine, Hemley had been a straight shooter. And he wasn’t a backstabber like a lot of people at Ameri-Inc. Do you think this so-called Humachine can do all Bopari says it can?

Hemley shrugged a shoulder. If it does half, the execs should cream their jeans.

Yeah, Acevedo said. Our promise: Improve mankind through technology.

Hemley glanced at him. You sound cynical, Miguel.

Not me, bro-bro. Despite Ameri-Inc.’s mission statement, Miguel Acevedo figured that the Humachine they were picking up, and the others to eventually follow, would replace God knows how many hundreds of thousands of human employees. No wonder they had pumped more than a billion dollars into its development. Peanuts compared to the ultimate savings.

If this thing actually works, Hemley said. Think of the lives it’ll save: police, firefighters, soldiers, exterminators, miners. Anyone who works in hazardous environments won’t have to anymore. No more injury or death because of sleep deprivation, distraction, or ill intent.

I’m not arguing, Pete. Not at sixty-one, Miguel Acevedo thought. Not while he was less than two years from retirement and his pension, stock portfolio, and company shares would make him golden for the rest of his life. Especially not when he had plans to purchase one of those old-style shotgun houses off of Duval Street in Key West, or maybe a villa outside of Catalonia, and spend the rest of his days with a beer in his hand.

I know I sound like a company toady, Hemley continued, but the savings will be geared toward education, healthcare and providing for those who can’t provide for themselves. You’ll see, Miguel, that’ll be something to be proud of.

The SUV’s female activoice kicked in. Mr. Hemley exit eighteen, West Redlands, is approaching. Would you care for music? The region is noted for Haito-LegUp and—

No thanks, Hemley replied. Pete Hemley flicked the turn signal on as he inched toward the exit. Miguel Acevedo adjusted the Glock strapped beneath his left armpit. He hadn’t decided if he’d spend his retirement reliving or forgetting his job because he wasn’t sure which one appealed to him the most.

Chapter Four

Date: 2030

West Redlands, Florida

Ameri-Inc. Research and Development

Robotics Division

Niyati stared hard at the photo of her son, Jay. At his chestnut eyes and dark, sweet-tea-colored skin. Niyati touched her forearm. His skin was hers. Jay’s hair was also like hers: black, shiny and full. A lock of it cascaded, as it nearly always did, just below his left eyebrow. She slid her forefinger along the lock as if she could brush it back. His high school graduation mortar cap was angled proudly on his head. He had the strong, straight nose of a leading man and the sincere, full-lipped smile of a leader. So much potential, she said.

Niyati studied the angel-white graduation gown cascading down his slim torso. In the picture, Jay’s right arm was slung around Niyati, who was grinning proudly. I want to make a difference, Mom, he had said to her just before her husband, Pallab, snapped the photo outside on the auditorium lawn after the ceremony. That was eight years ago—when Jay was seventeen, she was thirty-seven, Pallab was still her husband, and they were still a family.

Jay, she whispered. In her memory a horn blared and she remembered it all, again.

A red pick-up with a firefighter’s sticker on its windshield smashed into her passenger side mirror. In her ears she heard Pallab scream, "Maadher chod!" Jay’s graduation cap ripped from his hand and jabbed her below the eye. Her calf ached from stomping on the brakes. The tendons in her fingers burnt from clutching the steering wheel with all her strength. The crackle of glass and fiberglass and the crunch of metal drowned out everything.

Then nothing.

No Jay, and eight months later a divorce decree and no Pallab. All she had left was a heart-shaped locket with Jay’s ashes and a desire to work forever. She wanted a cigarette. Niyati glanced at J-1. A marketing exec at Ameri-Inc. had long ago dubbed him the Humachine and attached the crass tagline: Beyond machine, practically human! She was glad she had stuck to her guns to have it made in the exact image of Jay. Corporate had fought like hell for it to be androgynous. To appeal to as many consumers as possible, they had argued.

But she had won.

They had known she was the leading expert in, among other things, quark circuits, and genefluodigy, which was the science of bio-core fluid and its relation to DNA. More importantly, they understood that without her the project would never succeed.

She noticed a separation in the seam of his shirt. Niyati opened her bottom drawer and removed a small sewing kit. She mended the tear, brushed back a tuft of hair that had fallen over his left brow, glanced to make sure his collar was straight and his zipper was up, and returned to her desk.

Niyati looked again at the photo. She wondered what her life would have been like had she pursued her hobby of dressmaking instead of science. Her eyes welled up and she turned Jay’s picture face down. Niyati slipped the sewing kit back in the bottom drawer and removed her personal touchslate. She pressed in her password. As the slate screen lit up she rose from the desk, approached J-1 and thought, God help me for what I’m about to do.

Chapter Five

Date: 2250

Planet Truatta

GTS Warehouse

As quickly as J-1’s convulsions had started, they stopped. His internal clock estimated that they had gone on for four minutes. He stood and tested his limbs. Everything worked properly. He looked around the warehouse. Other than the disabled lifter, Coco, and the broken GTS trunk, everything looked normal. Outside, the noise had quieted to muffled thumps. The tail end of the carbo-oxide storm, he concluded. He started to file the incident in the database, but stopped.

Something was different inside him. Something minute and intangible, like the residual heat from a burnt match head or the touch of a spider web. Whatever it was, he needed more information to analyze it. J-1 sat at his desk and crooked his neck from side to side. Sample the GTS again, his processors internalized, for data analysis. He eyed the splintered container. It was his to do with as he pleased. That knowledge produced a crackling sensation in his circuitry that he had never had before. His polyflesh tingled. Sample it again.

J-1 leaned down, swept two fingers along the trunk’s crack. He scooped up blue smudges and rubbed them in his eyes. He braced himself for the convulsions, but they didn’t come. In their place, he saw a vision of a traveling carnival. There was a boy, around ten or eleven, standing in front of a double Ferris wheel watching the red, green and yellow lights of the twin spheres swirl against the night sky. A woman with the same mocha-colored skin as his had her arm around the boy’s shoulder. A man with similar skin joined the woman and the boy and handed them cotton candy. The image grew murky. He lost focus. A burning sensation filled his eyes and the under-surface of his polyflesh. Before he could utter, Overload, J-1’s power shut down and it went black.

Chapter Six

Date: 2030

West Redlands, Florida

Ameri-Inc. Research and Development

Robotics Division

Niyati felt below J-1’s left wrist until she touched a nearly indiscernible lump. She lifted a small, hidden skin flap and beneath it was a Transportation Serial Device port. She connected the TSD cable from her touchslate to the port on J-1’s arm. Niyati opened a password-encoded redizac file on the touchslate titled Jay genetic code. An image like a tornado appeared on the screen.

Above and below the spiraling image were rapidly changing numbers and letters too quick to follow with the human eye. Niyati tapped her middle finger on the swirl. A button icon labeled Replicate? appeared beneath the spot where she had touched. She looked at the overturned picture and said, "Jay, my son, mujhe tumse dil se pyar hai—I love you with all my heart," and pressed the button on her screen.

The twister-like image on Niyati’s touchslate grew and sucked up the revolving letters and numbers and transferred them into J-1. His eyes shot open. The image on the touchslate swirled for several minutes, and shrank and dissolved as if sliding down a drain. J-1 exhaled and his eyes again shut. A bing-bong noise sounded on Niyati’s computer followed by a message that read Replication completed. Congrats!

Niyati removed the TSD cable and placed it in her smock. She pressed J-1’s skin flap back into place until it couldn’t be seen and double-tapped the genome icon on her touchslate.

An image of a little girl sitting at the top of a sliding board appeared on the screen. Are you sure you want to delete Jay genetic code? Once you do, this file can’t be retrieved, the girl said. Below her were the buttons Delete? and Cancel.

Niyati pressed Delete? The girl slid down the board. When she reached the bottom and her feet hit the ground the bing-bong noise re-sounded and the little girl said, Jay genetic code deleted. Congrats!

Niyati went back to her desk, sat and replaced her touchslate and cable back in the drawer. She imagined Mary Shelley sitting at the same desk with a quill pen writing Frankenstein.

~~~

Pete Hemley parked the SUV in the nearly deserted parking lot.

 The Ameri-Inc. building was secluded. It was built on the edge of the Everglades and was set about five hundred feet back from Huizenga Highway. The entrance was gated and the perimeter was lined with well-designed shrubbery. Miguel Acevedo had recognized oak trees, hibiscus and azaleas. The others, he had no clue. He opened the SUV door and heard a bird or maybe a gator caterwauling in the distance. Acevedo and Hemley stepped out.

Acevedo took a quick breath in through his nose. He kind of liked the rotten-egg smell of swamp water. It reminded him of the canal behind his childhood home in Hialeah. He swatted a mosquito from the back of his hand. It didn’t take a genius, he thought, to know by the low-lying orange sun, that the workday had ended. In fact, the only cars in the barren lot were an older vehicle and a late model Reagan Hydro. The Reagan’s an expensive car, he thought. It was probably the doc’s.

The building wasn’t much—cracker-box shaped, sand-brown, CBS construction with iron-barred windows. To the side was a large overhead door where the loading dock was. There was an eighteen-wheeler parked by it, but no activity was going on.

You miss Miami, Miguel? Hemley asked Acevedo.

A little. You miss North Dakota?

Like a clogged artery.

They walked toward the building’s entrance, a double plate-glass door. When they entered, Acevedo smiled. He smelled café Cubano.

~~~

Kaye picked up her office phone and pressed Niyati’s extension. Misters Acevedo and Hemley are here…Certainly, Doctor. I’ll send them right in. She hung up.

Acevedo gulped the last of his café Cubano and handed the thimble-sized tumbler to Kaye. She said, Are you sure you wouldn’t like some, Mr. Hemley?

That stuff’ll stunt your growth, Hemley replied.

She smiled and escorted them to Niyati’s door. As the two men entered, Niyati stood and straightened her skirt and smock. She walked toward them and extended her hand.

Acevedo studied the slender woman with the thin fingers. He recognized the even, balanced face and the overworked, pretty brown eyes. There was more. An elegance—a feline grace—that their video sessions hadn’t picked up. He grasped her hand. Doctor Bopari, so nice to meet you in person.

Mr. Acevedo, Niyati said.

Miguel. Acevedo thought her eyes lingered a second on him before she turned to Hemley.

Mr. Hemley, Niyati said.

Hemley smiled at her then his gaze went to J-1.

Following Hemley’s eyes, Niyati said, Would you like to meet him?

You bet.

She escorted them to the corner where J-1 was still slouched on the stool.

May I touch him? Acevedo asked.

Of course, Niyati replied.

He reached his hand out to J-1’s face. He was in awe of the robot’s resemblance to her: the rich brown skin, silky hair and slender torso. As if blind and trying to form a visual, Acevedo rubbed his fingers along J-1’s face. It’s unbelievable. He motioned for Hemley to feel it.

Hemley touched J-1’s mouth and nose. He looked at Acevedo. He’s even warm.

 How’d you do that? Acevedo asked.

It’s a combination of the nano-regs and the bio-core fluid. There are over a million regs imbedded in the polyflesh, each one linked to a regulated thermostat that receives data from two central bio circuits. The accumulated data is squared proportionately with the existing E.M.P.T. to the existing enviro—

Whoa, Doc, Acevedo said. I’m not much of a science guy.

Niyati smiled. Let’s just say his skin reacts to stimuli the same way as ours.

Is there a button or something to power him up? Hemley asked.

Ameri-Inc. specified that J-1 have a factory code installed to wake him.

Ah, right, Hemley said. A safeguard against black marketers and pirates.

So how do we shut him down? Acevedo asked.

We don’t, Niyati said. Once J-1’s activated it’s permanent. However, when he goes into commercial production there will be an audible password that the purchaser will be able to program to bring him in and out of standby mode.

What about hackers? Hemley added.

She shrugged. Based on TRPEN protocols, J-1’s pemi-porlight encryption formulas will refract and re— Niyati cut herself off, flashed a smile at Acevedo, and said to Hemley, J-1 is programmed to not only detect hackers, but to go into attack mode and send back viruses far deadlier than what it receives.

Doctor, Acevedo said. You’re amazing. They locked eyes for a moment.

Niyati blushed and turned away. There were hundreds of teams who worked on this project. They deserve much of the credit.

But you were at the helm, Acevedo countered.

None of the teams were in touch with each other, correct, Doctor Bopari? Hemley said more as a statement than a question.

I understand perfectly the desire for Ameri-Inc. to be the sole proprietors of this technology, she said. It was all according to their wishes.

Acevedo noticed with curiosity that Niyati’s lip twitched at the end of the last sentence.

Can you switch on the factory code, Doc? Hemley asked. So we can see him in action.

It’s already activated. One only needs to say the password to bring him out of standby mode. Would you like to do it, Mr. Hemley?

That should go to Miguel. He’s got seniority.

Niyati raised her eyebrows at Acevedo: How about it?

It would be an honor.

Niyati stepped close and he smelled her perfume. It was a jasmine scent mingled with tobacco. A tingle ran through him. He had a vision of the two of them sharing a cigarette on Smathers Beach in Key West.

Say to him, she whispered, I want to make a difference, Mom.

Acevedo said to J-1 in a firm, loud voice. I want to make a difference, Mom.

J-1’s eyelids opened. Acevedo was surprised not only by the same rich, mahogany hue in the robot’s eyes as Dr. Bopari’s, but also by the gleam of life in them.

J-1 stretched his arms over his head, yawned, and stood. He looked at the two men and said, Mr. Acevedo and Mr. Hemley, I presume.

Hemley and Acevedo looked at each other and then at Niyati.

Talk to him, she said. He doesn’t bite.

What’s your name? Hemley asked.

J-1.

May I suggest asking something a bit more challenging? Niyati said.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Acevedo asked.

J-1 crooked his neck from side to side. Niyati’s eyelids widened. J-1’s head moved the same way her son, Jay’s, used to when he was contemplating. She glanced over and saw Acevedo looking at her. She quickly turned away.

Darwin's theory of evolution declares that species change over a period of time through mutation and selection, J-1 said. Since DNA can be modified only before birth, a mutation must have taken place at conception or within an egg such that an animal resembling a chicken, but not a chicken, laid the first chicken egg. Hence, both the egg and the chicken evolved concurrently from birds that were not chickens and did not lay chicken eggs, but by degrees became more and more like chickens over time. He smiled. I conclude, Mr. Acevedo, that it is a catch-22, a case of causality in which the consequence of a phenomenon is also its basis of origin.

Who’s gonna win the Stanley Cup? Hemley asked.

Niyati saw Acevedo reach into the inside pocket of his sport coat. She caught a glimpse of his shoulder holster and stiffened.

I’m not a prognosticator, Mr. Hemley, J-1 said. But if the Tokyo Moons can keep Kumiko Suganami tied to her contract, I would—

Acevedo whipped out a notepad from the pocket. Catch. He tossed it at J-1.

Without missing a beat J-1 snatched it. —consider placing a few yen on them.

He’s amazing, Acevedo said.

You’re only scratching the surface, gentlemen. Niyati’s eyes fell to the slight bulge of the holster below Acevedo’s armpit. She frowned.

Catching