Tinman

By Emil Crise

The Tinman is a fictional sci-fi thriller that bears a warning to our relationship to new technology. Like fire, the arrival of artificial intelligence can comfort us, or burn us.
Meet Captain Russell Adam Calhoun, the last of a dying breed of old school Airline Pilots. Captain Calhoun is a cankerous old spirited soul fighting to hold on to his identity and job as artificial intelligence he refers to as the Tinman, and its collaborators he calls the Suits, arrive on scene. Add Dronies, the new ground operators to the list of his enemies and you have the essence that ignites the fires of Calhoun.
In the story Captain Calhoun forms an unusual bond with a young ground Dronie Trainee Becky, he refers to as little Red Riding Hood. She is the spark that guides him to find his own lost touch with humanity.
Together they battle to save his aircraft, himself, and maybe the world from an apocalyptic battle between the ‘Knights of the Circle, self-appointed guardians of time travel, and the Vatican crusaders called the Ancients.

The Tinman is a story that will grow on you as you experience the inner growth of Captain Calhoun in his own battle to accept himself and make peace with his past and a world that seems to be leaving him behind.

The ending will leave you in suspense. A bomb planted on board an aircraft piloted by the Tinman is headed to the Vatican City. Captain Calhoun in an attempt to take back the airship leads us on an emotional rollercoaster as he fights for control of his aircraft and his own attachments to humanity. After all Captain Calhoun summed it up best when he said; “ the Tinman was probably more human than him.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emil Crise
• Release date: Oct 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463340493

Emil Crise

Emil Crise is a fiction writer. You can reach me at [e-mail]

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Tinman | Emil Crise

TINMAN

Emil Crise

Copyright 2018 Emil Crise

Published by Emil Crise

Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase and additional copy for each recipient.

Prologue

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for avast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke.

― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Chapter One

I scanned an article in the paper, a headline spot on ‘Essex’ caught my eye. They were a multi-billion-dollar company celebrating twenty years of service since Nozoma and Alset had merged to form one of the biggest companies on the market. One made its fortune selling books, the other robot technology. Together they seemed to have their hands in just about everything.

Company made a big, big, donation to the Vatican for humanity charities. Hope that’s where the money found its home.

Next, I turned to the sports page. Damn White-Sox blew another late inning game. Same song and dance, no closer in their pitching rotation. Wasn’t brought up in Chicago, raised in Ohio but lived there a stint, adopted them after abandoning the Indians and their forty-year drought. Couldn’t see myself as a Cubs fan. Too many yuppies and elites for my upbringing. I’m a South-sider all the way. I will give the North-siders one thing, there is a sacredness to watching a ball game in the cathedral of Wrigley field.

Once heard the difference between the two fans like this, you’re either a Billy Joel type guy or the Ramones, Disco or Punk.

I put the paper in the recycle bin and stared out at the tarmac. Beautiful night. Flicked my cigarette on the hangar floor stomping it out seeing the fueler arrive. Hate littering but not a trash bin to be had. Nasty habit. On the bucket list to quit.

It was a warm night for Canada. Sometimes you’d still get snow in May. I glanced at my watch. Everything was right on schedule. Ten pm departure, and cargo, both human and boxes were loaded. In front of me the massive 747 bird owned by First Air Airlines. Some affectionately called it the whale because of its size and humpback upper deck.

My nearly 45 plus years flying had positioned me as Captain on the Beast. Once the biggest equipment made. Still the longest.

Captain, I say that loosely in jest. I was Captain of an automated drone. My copilot a heap of metal the Suits called Artificial intelligence. I called it the Tinman. Swear he looked just like the Tinman from the wizard of Oz. Even had some thinga- ma-jigger cap on his head that looked like an oil can, silver to boot. The newer models on the Boeing 800 planes look a lot more realistic, almost like a mannequin you see at Macy’s.

On the ground they had backup drone operators monitoring every movement of the flight. Video cameras in the cockpit everywhere. Big brother keeping a watchful eye, somewhere thousands of miles away, Kansas I think? Didn’t really matter, never spoke with them, never hardly spoke with anyone. Everything automated, right down to the passenger briefings. Got my best damn sleep in the cockpit. Been downright lonely if not for the gals in the back.

Ah yes, the Stewardess. They were the last thread of humanity left in aviation. Suits just hadn’t figured out how to replace them yet. Folks want service, and a pretty smile. They were at least a couple of years away from installing that type of artificial technology, or at least a good reason to get rid of them. Didn’t pay them squat anyway, no pensions, most couldn’t afford the health insurance.

Diverse group of gals and gents. Some with as much education as a Harvard professor. A few on the other side of the spectrum turned tricks at a strip bar before flying the friendly skies. The travel lure sucks a diverse crowd to its alter. At any rate they were the last to provide any sanity of a human touch rapidly corroding away. Human-touch. The sound of it made me chuckle, my co-pilot was a heap of metal with a snake like arm that hissed as it operated the aircraft in a painfully methodical rhythm. An evolution or by product of fly by wire technology. Oh, it could fly the plane alright. Not even sure why they kept a Captain on board. Course when the shit hits the fan, no telling how the Tinman will react.

I guess the last of our union contract demanded those grandfathered in would retire as pilots and not drone operators. But hell, they broke all the other language in the contract. Couldn’t see why they wouldn’t break that.

We weren’t even allowed to hand fly, company policy. Fact is on my yearly simulator training all I was responsible for was to push the button. A big Green button on the autopilot panel. That’s it, that’s all I did. No more simulated fires or engine out emergencies in near zero visibility with gusting winds. Just push the green button and it would make the captain’s announcement and set automation to dispatch the aircraft off the gate. They say monkeys are color blind, so I at least had that going for me.

Didn’t even have to push it when we docked again. First training event after I pushed it I asked my instructor, now what?

He checked his watch. Feds say we got to be in here for another hour. He reclined his seat and made himself comfortable, wasn’t long before he was sawing logs.

Guess it didn’t matter anyway. We were no longer needed in the cockpit, at least that’s the way the Suits saw it. Some Tech’s I befriended were convinced you could disengage the Tinman in the cockpit and take control over the aircraft. Even bypass the drone operator’s control comfortably sitting in some confined box on the ground. But nobody seemed to really know how.

Too be honest with you between reading golf magazines and sleeping off a hangover in the cockpit, not sure I still had the skill set to fly the damn plane anymore. More than not, the flight attendants would call to wake me after we landed so they didn’t miss the hotel shuttle.

Hey, don’t act surprised about a little sleep in the cockpit. Suits used to run some crews for sixteen hours.

Sixteen hours! Sixteen hours of enduring the dog ass smell of contaminated pack fumes while drowning yourself in airplane coffee made from mold fed potable water, just to get thru a five-leg day.

That’s followed by eight hours off duty, not sleep. Still had to get to the hotel. And let me tell you while you comfortably sat resting in the back with visions of rock a by-baby in the treetops floating in your head. Your captain was probably napping right along with you preparing for when the winds to blow and the cradle to rock.

Had to get the rest from somewhere. Takes a lot of energy to deal with gusting crosswinds rocking the hell out of your arrival into a low vis approach courtesy of a lake Michigan fed blizzard. Bottom line you can bet your sweet ass one of the pilots was napping enroute from Washington to Chicago. One-man sleep, one man watch. That’s just the way it was, crews took care of each other back then.

None of this crazy dependence on Artificial Intelligence technology in the heyday of flight. Had you told me thirty years earlier this was how it would be, I’d have laughed and figured you crazy. Of course, the customer got real cozy with ninety-nine-dollar specials down to Florida. That wasn’t gonna pay for my wages up front for very long.

Frustrating for those who dedicated a lifetime perfecting our trade. Gotten to the point most neither cared or knew we still existed. Gets old hearing passengers say they didn’t realize pilots were still on board. After a while I’d even quit greeting the folks at the door. Can’t tell you how many times my company wrote me up for that.

Suits wanted me to allow customers, (for a fee of course), to snap a photo with the Captain in the cockpit. My once respected profession had bottomed out to nothing more than a picture with Donald duck at Disney World. Don’t get me wrong. At first, I did what they asked. Didn’t take long to feel like I was the monkey working for the organ grinder.

Think the Suits loved the idea because they were so pissed off they still had to pay a few of us (now only a handful,) to sit and collect a paycheck. Damn union let it happen. Should have greased the politician’s hands like everyone else. God knows where my union dues went. The fall started with the cargo companies. They, the pilots, should have held the line.

Suits were on top of their game. Started routing pilot-less traffic over the ocean port to port. Money drove the new fed laws. Flights went from three pilots internationally, down to two, and eventually none on cargo trans-Atlantic flights. At that point the machines got our jobs. Damn Cargo pilots didn’t hold the line.

Suits lost a plane or two over the ocean when it first started but nobody batted an eye over lost boxes. Once they got their stride port to port, the feds allowed them to operate pilotless aircraft over land. The Suits like sharks in the water could smell the blood. They got so cocky they didn’t even try faking they were bargaining in good faith with the pilots. To them we were a dying breed. Wages dropped to an all-time low, reminded me of my days flying for the regionals.

ATC privatized and hired what they called monitors. Each monitor had its own sector and unlike old school ATC, they now controlled and flew the aircraft through their assigned sector.

A pay grade or two above the monitors were the drone operators. Basically, subcontracted pilots sitting on the ground in a replicated cockpit. Most were Boeing and Airbus employees, the only two aircraft makers left, and the principle owners of the airlines, give or take a smaller outfit or two that could afford to buy into the system and operate aircraft in the new drone mentality.

‘Nifty system, the Suits said patting themselves on the back. Planes could take off and land under the guidance of the Tinman while drone operators on the ground cast a vigilant eye should things go astray. Told that each Dronie could monitor over a hundred planes an hour landing at multiple airports.

Above them the Techs, they made sure the software worked and was secure from hacking. That’s where the risk hid. That was the Achilles heal for fly by wire technology. A lurking danger under the surface of a thin veil ready to bust through at any moment. I hope the Pilot money went there, but I’m sure it went in the Suits pockets instead.

Looking back on all of it. The system had evolved and turned on me. I was nothing more than a carnival freak side show. Part of my salary was tips. Can you believe that? Well let me tell you, it’s no coincidence my tip jar was empty. Hell, only had a few years to go, if I didn’t need the money I would have already went. Mandatory retirement at 60 for those who refused to hook into the system. Become a Borg is the way I saw it. They the Suits allowed pilots to keep flying to 75 if you agreed to hook into the system. Seen a few in the cockpit in the older planes. Wires attached all over their body. Techs said they could actually read your thoughts. Looked like some scary sci fi movie. The newer aircraft eliminated a lot of the wire. Those poor bastards wore a helmet that looked like a drying machine at the beauty shop. Scary as hell. Sad to say the least.

Wasn’t always like that for me. Things started out really good. Served my country in the military. Marine. Trained as an A6 pilot. She the ‘prowler’ was a beauty, best damn aircraft ever made. A multi-functional work horse. Need air defense? Got it, two machine guns mounted on each wing. Ground defense? Hello! Anti-radiation missiles ready for drop. Need fuel? Got that too. That gal could tanker her share. Signal jamming? Now that’s the gal’s specialty. That’s where I learned about electronic warfare. That’s the learning that churned away at my stomach and gave birth to my despise of my metal friend seated next to me in the cockpit.

Why back when I was twenty something, still wet behind the ears, the technology then would blow your mind away. She, the prowler could open your garage door, jam cellular signals, or stop a remote detonation from thirty thousand feet.

Can’t imagine the technology they got today.

Miss those days, miss the camaraderie of the crews, even miss the bond we had with my gal the A-6. That’s when you could trust a machine, that’s before the machines took your job. That’s before the Suits controlled everything, including our future. Everything comes at a price I guess. We all want to live a long life, but not with the change that follows it.

First wife left on my third deployment. Guess she got tired of me never being home, even when I was. Got a kid with her. Ain’t seen him in fifteen years.

My first deployment took three years. The bond between my son and I never established. Somewhere down the road he adopted the same hate his mother had for me. Still on the bucket list to fix. Told by those smarter than me, time and space are relative. I worry that time has created too big a space, to fix.

Second wife was a doll in bed, big hair, big . . . you get the point, but really nothing more to say about that one.

The third, . . . well that one hurt, thought we were soul mates. Guess her soul mate was a Fed Ex driver. Caught the two in bed together. She said she couldn’t live without him. Gave the Fed Ex slogan, "it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight, a different meaning for me. Maybe that’s why I always hated cargo companies, that, and of course them allowing the Suits to steal our jobs.

For the most part I’ve given up on love. Couldn’t figure out how to keep it while I was young, pretty sure it’s passed me over by now. Got a few gals along my route that fill the void, the rest of the time booze, golf, and gambling seem to entertain me just fine.

I waved to the fueler and headed into the ops room. I preferred to get a printed copy of the dispatch release even though it wasn’t necessary anymore. Everything electronic, but by printing a copy it forced the company to keep a printer in the office. Just a small dig that I hoped pissed the Suits off. Wasn’t like I had any real responsibility on the plane, but the contract called for a paper release, and I’ll be damned if I was gonna give and inch to the Suits or machines that took our jobs.

Chapter Two

You got company tonight, A gruffy strained gravel voice said peering out of his office. It was Bill the office/airport manager. He was on special assignment in Ottawa this week. He said to clean up the operation. That was a polite way of saying they were short on folks. First air didn’t like to share the wealth. Ran a lean operation. More in likely he was there to sub out work to the lowest bidder.

First air was all about brand and nothing about commitment to workers. Of course, First Air only existed because Boeing subbed us out. Now we were subbing our shit out too. Best way to get to the lowest common dominator in workman pay without tarnishing the brand. Complaints? Seriously? We just pointed the finger and denied accountability. It was the new evolved model of American capitalism. Media perception first, quality second. Can’t blame this one on our generation. Half of us can’t even program our Facebook accounts on our phone.

We, Bill and I, both lived in suburbs outside of Youngstown Ohio. First Air had a Base there. Old steel mill town. Big mafia town in its heyday. A lot of blue-collar money to be had with the steel mills. They entwined their sharp tentacles into organized labor. Took a slice of your pay on the weekdays and another slice of it on the weekend running gambling and prostitution.

Don’t get me wrong. Y-town was a great place to grow up in. A quintessential model of America, a melting pot. A mixture of immigrants from all corners of the world looking for a better life migrated to this rich valley of water and game.

Sioux, Crows, and Black-foots used to reign the territory. Had some unique religious beliefs we all came from mother earth and that they were guardians to protect her and live in balance with her. A circle that fed off each other.

Once dated a gal who described herself as a tree hugging conservationist. A