The Man in the Cloud

By Dale Rominger

Things are not going well for Drake Ramsey. Sales of his latest sci-fi adventure novel have been abysmal. His woman is being head-hunted for a prestigious academic position in Seattle, of all places. And it is becoming increasingly evident that his six-year-old daughter is smarter than he is. 

 

But it's his best friend Gerard who is facing the real crisis. Gerard works on the cutting edge of AI development and robotics. Who is responsible when an android he has programmed commits a murder? The net tightens around Gerard, and only Drake can save him. The mission takes Drake to a dingy bar in Taipei, through Seattle's buried city, to an orphanage in Ukraine. Drake will solve the crime—that's just what he does. But can he resist the advances of the ravishingly beautiful robotics expert on Gerard's team?   

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Backroad Café
• Release date: Jan 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223451327

Dale Rominger

Dale Rominger has been a minister, educator, speaker, world traveler, and consultant. He has traveled extensively assisting in development projects and creating education and encounter programs with international partners. Now retired, Dale lives in Seattle with his wife, Roberta, reading, writing, and cooking.

Book preview

1

I SPIT INTO A PLASTIC tube and discovered that I’m part Neanderthal. When I read this disturbing news, I immediately got up and went to the bathroom. I leaned over the sink, almost knocking over the real orchid in its small glass vase, and looked into the mirror. Sure as shit, there it was. A brow ridge. While not as pronounced as my Neanderthal brothers, it nonetheless hinted at my dubious ancestry. And if I flattened my hair against my scalp, I could almost discern a sloping forehead. For the first time in my life, I was glad I couldn’t grow a beard. Not enough hair. That’s got to count for something, evolutionarily speaking. I mean, Neanderthals were hairy bastards.

I was on an Asiana Airlines flight from Seattle to Taipei, reading a document entitled Ethnicity Estimate for Drake Ramsey. The report ran forty-nine pages. By the way, that’s me. Drake. Drake Ramsey. People call me Drake. We were flying business class and, on an A380, the seat was more like a compartment. The TV was bigger than the one Zuri and I have in our bedroom. When they turned down the cabin lights, a beautiful young woman from Korea came and unfolded my seat into a bed. Sheets, blanket, pillow, neat as could be. She leaned forward when I sat back down, brought her face level with mine, and seemingly unaware that Americans prefer about three feet of personal space, leaned in close, and said, I’m here to serve you, Mr. Ramsey. Is there anything else I can do for you? I shook my head no. I think I actually blushed. At that moment, it occurred to me I was no longer twenty-seven years old. Or thirty-seven. I’m on the backside of my forties with no return.

Here’s my ancestral lowdown from Ethnicity Estimate for Drake Ramsey. Seems both Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens evolved from Homo Erectus, but Neanderthal migrated out of Africa into Eurasia long before Sapiens did. My brute brothers were hanging out in the Caucasus Mountains from 200,000 to 30,000 years ago. They lived in limestone caves. They were cavemen. I come from cavemen. Sapiens entered the Caucasus about 45,000 years ago.

The greater Caucasus mountain range runs northwest to southeast, dividing Europe and Asia, the very place where Zeus bound Prometheus to a rock for giving fire to humans, and now we know Neanderthals too. But this is where it gets sticky, so stay with me.

According to Ethnicity Estimate for Drake Ramsey, I’m also part Azerbaijani. Can you believe it? Neanderthal and Azerbaijani. How the hell was I going to tell my little girl? Because this was her idea, kind of. Well, Zuri’s too. Tracing my ancestry. But I was going to have to tell her. Sometime between 45,000 and 30,000 years ago, one of my ancestors did it with a Neanderthal. I’m figuring it was a female, and I hope she was drunk. I mean, have you seen pictures of Neanderthals? I’m just saying. And did they have consensual sex back then? I’m thinking not. How was I going to tell my six-year-old daughter that my existence is in part due to some Neanderthal caveman having his way with my Sapiens great-great-great-great-great something or other?

Some experts are saying there could have been a good deal of interbreeding between Neanderthals and Sapiens, so we non-African types ended up with about 2.5 percent Neanderthal DNA roaming around in us. Not Africans though, and Zuri is going to love that. She’s originally from Zimbabwe. Zero Neanderthal DNA for her. And to make matters worse, Ethnicity Estimate for Drake Ramsey tells me that my Neanderthal genetic legacy means I’m more prone to depression, schizophrenia, rheumatoid arthritis, excess body fat, excess blood clotting, allergies, and skin lesions. And a fucking brow ridge!

This all started about four months ago. Zuri and I were sitting in the living room of our double shotgun in Tremé, New Orleans. I had poured us each a large single malt because we had something serious to talk about. A good whiskey can help when seriousness is on call. Here’s the thing: Zuri was a professor at Loyola University, teaching and researching in the areas of African, African American, and cross-cultural studies. To be honest, she practically built the program, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed. The University of Washington called her, saying they wanted her to come to Seattle to talk about the possibility of developing a similar program there. The big guy in cultural studies was retiring and he was also the guy who wrote the intro for Zuri’s latest book. So, I’m thinking she at least has a chance. Now, that’s a big deal, and how does a man tell his best friend, lover, and mother of his daughter that he doesn’t want to move to earthquake country? Well, he doesn’t. But I wasn’t happy about it, and in the dark of night, I had to admit to myself that if my second sci-fi novel hadn’t been tanking, I’d probably have been happier for her. The timing sucked.

Anyway, we were sitting there pretending to talk through the issues, Zuri excited about possibilities, me avoiding the obvious implications, when Nia (that’s our little girl) approached in her pajamas. We had put her to bed some time earlier, but we both knew she’d be reading or on her computer. She had a program for kids.

Zuri is one smart lady, sure as hell smarter than me. But Nia, she’s something else. She is off the scale. Her IQ is so high you get a nosebleed just thinking about it. I have no idea how a guy like me, an ex-reporter from the mean streets of Fremont, California turned novelist, is going to keep up with her. Simple answer, I’m not.

Nia walked up and squeezed between my legs, put her hands on my knees, and stared at me. What’s up, Sweetie? You should be thinking about sleep, I said.

I have a question, she said.

Shoot.

She paused and tilted her head ever so slightly to the left before speaking. Where are you from? she asked me.

Zuri chuckled quietly. I turned and looked at her briefly, annoyed. Turning back to Nia, I said, I’m from California. You know that, Sweetie.

No, I don’t mean California. I mean who are you? A long time ago, she said.

I don’t understand, I said.

Nia, what do you want to know? Zuri said.

Turning to her mother, Nia said, Daddy’s not from where you’re from. Where I was from a long time ago.

You mean my ancestry? I asked.

Yes, of course, your ancestry. Who are you? Andy can’t tell me.

Zuri was born in Zimbabwe and lived there until she turned eight. In her eighth year, her mother sent her to New York to live with her aunt. You have to remember, things were really bad in Zimbabwe back then, and I mean really bad. Zuri’s mother was trying to save her life. Well, she’s an all-American girl now, but she holds on tight to her African roots. We’re off to Harare at least once a year for Zuri to reconnect. But here’s the point. Zuri is as black as a moonless night a thousand miles from city lights, and there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Nia is also an African and an American. Me? I’m a good old white Anglo European American. I can’t even get a decent tan. No doubt that damn Neanderthal DNA.

For some reason, Nia’s question threw me that night. What with the possibility of moving from New Orleans, not really knowing where I was going with my third Chad Steel space adventure, desperately wanting to regain the glory of the first novel, and feeling guilty for not throwing a party for Zuri’s success, I just wasn’t wanting to deal with my super-brain of a daughter wondering who the hell I was. How could I tell her when I wasn’t certain myself?

Well, Sweetie, I’m not really sure, is all I could say. I mean, my people came from Europe a long time ago, but I don’t know the details.

Go to bed, big girl, Zuri said. And turn off that computer. I don’t want you talking to Andy all night.

"But I want to know who Daddy is," Nia said, turning to her mother.

I promise Daddy and I will find out who Daddy is. Now go to bed, Zuri said.

Yeah, right. Daddy and I, as if I wasn’t capable of finding out who I am all by myself.

As Nia left the living room, her feet padding on the wood floor leading to her bedroom, I said, Who the hell is Andy?

It’s that AI assistant for kids. Gerard gave her the link.

Oh... I had no idea what she was talking about.

About ten days later a plastic test tube arrived with instructions. Zuri had contacted Origin®. The tag line for Origin® was Give OriginDNA. Give them something to rejoice in. Give me a break. They could have warned me about a Neanderthal thug raping my old grannie. I filled the damn tube with my spit, handed it back to Zuri, and forgot about it. But of course, it reminded me of the whole Nia encounter—who is Daddy, really?

The flight from Seattle to Taipei  is over thirteen hours, so I downloaded Ethnicity Estimate for Drake Ramsey onto my tablet. And there I was at 39,000 feet reading about who I was, really.

Gerard was sleeping like an Alabama Republican behind me—as if he had not a worry in the world. I got up and went to the galley for a cup of joe. I returned to my seat, pulled out my tablet, and wrote an email to Nia. I simply said, This is who I am: Great Britain 37%; Europe West 35%; Scandinavia 9%; Ireland 5%; Italy/Greece 4%; Iberian Peninsula 3%; Finland/Northwest Russia 1%; West Asia/Caucasus 1%. It wouldn’t take Nia long to figure out that two percent was missing, but damned if I was going to tell her I was two percent super-orbital ridge.

Of course, Neanderthal became extinct. The big brains in the field aren’t really sure why. Could have been climate change. Could have been lack of a good diet. Could have been interbreeding with Sapiens. But I put my money on the theory that we humans simply killed them off. Let’s be honest. Whenever Homo Sapiens Sapiens migrated into a new area on this beautiful and brutal planet, a lot of things died. Just ask the megafauna of Australia. Oh wait, you can’t. They became extinct after the first humans arrived. And we Homo Sapiens Sapiens are still at it today.

2

ZURI ACCEPTED THE INVITATION to visit the University of Washington, or U-Dub, as I would learn the natives call it, to discuss possibilities, programs, finances, and contracts. On the flight from New Orleans to Seattle, I opened my laptop and looked over a letter I had sent to my agent demanding to know why the film option on my first novel, The Woman in Blue Skies, hadn’t appeared in my inbox yet. The option had been purchased by an independent filmmaker six years before, and not a damn thing had happened since. No scripts sent for my approval. No A-list stars signed up. I insisted that I maintain some creative control, and I liked to tell people that if Jennifer Lawrence wasn’t interested in playing Rashida, then I was calling the whole thing off. But so far, nothing. Blue Skies was a big hit, sold like crazy, and was still making bucks—a boatload more than Zuri made, I might add. The book was a grand, Proustian sci-fi saga recounting the adventures of the amazing, intelligent, incredibly strong, manly-man Chad Steel and the intelligent, beautiful, fierce, blue Rashida as they traveled through the galaxy on the starship The Liberté C57-D. Boy, it’s good. Chad Steel is the kind of man men want to be and women want to be with. Rashida is the kind of woman who is always packing heat on her right hip. On her left, hidden steel. Unfortunately, the follow-up Chad Steel and Rashida exploit, while not dead in space, was an embarrassment, sales-wise that is. I mean, the writing was top notch; the story was first rate; the characters unbeatable. I maintain the problem was the friggin’ title. 

The book is called The Girl in the Spaceship. Can you believe that? Girl this and girl that. Girls and tattoos. Girls and trains. Girls half formed. Girls gone. Girls interrupted. Girls everywhere. But there are no girls in the story! There are women. Strong intelligent women. But no girls! It’s stupid. It’s insulting. I mean, where are all the feminists when you need them? I can’t carry the ball by myself. I need some downfield blocking. There should be outrage. My agent and publisher thought it was a great idea, The Girl on the Spaceship, instead of my quite marvelous original title, Encounter at o² Gen. Right?! You agree. How can you not? Brilliant title. But no, everybody had to have the word girl in the title, and now my sales are only trickling in.  

Enough already with the word girl in titles. It shows a lack of imagination, for God’s sake. I’ve kept a very important file of books with the word girl in the title. This is what I’ve got so far:

Girl, Forgotten; Warrior Girl Unearthed; The Skin and Its Girl; The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea; The Girl of Hummingbird Lane; The Girl Who Read Noam Chomsky; Last Girl Ghosted; Darling Girl; The Ghost Girl, Banana; The Girl Who Never Came Home; The Girl Who Climbs Trees; Quantum Girl Theory; The New Girl; Golden Girl, Dream Girl; The Girl of Fire and Thorns; A Girl Like That; The Girl in the Silver Mask; The Perfect Girl; The Girl in the Mist; The Girl with the Red Balloon; Girl Out of Water; Girl Made of Stars; The Girl Who Takes and Eye for an Eye; Undead Girl Gang; The Coldest Girl in Coldtown; The Girl King; The Girl Who Never Was; If I Was Your Girl; The Downstairs Girl; The Girl from Everywhere; Fat Girl on a Plane; Girl in Pieces; Girl Mans Up; The Girl the Sea Gave Back; The Girl Next Door; The Zig Zag Girl; The Girl from Savoy; The Girl from Hockley; The Girl from Everywhere; The Girl He Used to Know; The Tumbling Girl; The Red-Head Girl from the Bog; American Girl; Boy Meets Girl; Girl in a Ted Tunic; The Girl from the Coast; Circus Girl; The Other Boleyn Girl; The Search for the Girl With Blue Eyes; The Polish Girl; The Little Drummer Girl; The Girl from the Fiction Department; The Little French Girl; Strawberry Girl; French Girl; The Girl from Widow Hills; The Girl in the Silver Mask; The Girl Who Never Came Back; Brown Girl in the Ring; Girl with the Pearl Earring; Ariane, A Russion Girl; Momma’s Little Girl; The Story Girl; Twenties Girl; The Girl Before; A Gem of a Girl; Third Girl; The Girl Who Never Grew Up; Black Girl Lost; God Bad Girl; Sunday Girl: She Can Run, but She Can’t Hide; The Girl from the Papers; The Hanging Girl; The Girl in the Window; The Girl; The Girl from Bletchley Park; An Old Fashioned Girl; The Girl from Guernica; The Girl from the Fiction Department; The Girl from Barcelona; The Girl Who Lived Twice; Granny was a Buffer Girl; Old Girl  Speaks Out; Girl A; The Girl from France; The Girl in the Picture; Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun; The Mallen Girl; The Italian Girl; The Girl Who Cried Monster; The Onion Girl; The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon; The Girl in a Swing; Girl from the Island; Little Girl Lost; The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes; Bad Girl; The Girl on the Boat; The Girl from Home; Bad Girl; The English Girl; Gossip Girl; Gone Girl’ The Goose Girl; The Girl from Rawblood; Nowhere Girl; Girl Waits with Gun; Little Girl Lost; The Girl on the Train; The Girl Who Fell from the Sky; The Good Girl; The Girl in the Ice; The Miracle Girl; The Luckiest Girl Alive; The Other Boleyn Girl; Lost Girl; Wicked Girl; The Girl from Berlin; Girl with the Pearl Earring; The Girl from Dunslaney: Little Drummer Girl; Girl with the Golden Eyes; The Girl in the Red Coat; The Girl of Fire and Thorns; The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo; The Girl at the Lion D’Or; Funny Girl; Girl Interrupted; The House Girl; The Girl with All the Gifts; The Girl with Ghost Eyes; The Winter Girl; This Girl; The Windup Girl; The Girl Who Chased the Moon; Twenties Girl; The Girl You Left Behind; A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing; Slave Girl; Bad Girl Novel; Ghost Girl; The Girl from the Train; The Crow Girl; The Girl with Ghost Eyes; The Crow Girl; The Italian Girl; The Winter Girl; Gonzo Girl; The Dead Girl; The Girl in the Silver Mask; The Clay Girl; Girl at War; The Zigzag Girl; The Girl in the Castle; Vinegar Girl; and, of course, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; The Girl Who Played with Fire; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest; and The Girl in the Spider’s Web; The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons.

And that’s just the beginning. Rest assured that I will continue to keep this list and report back to you. No need to thank me. It’s just who I am.

However, where was I? Oh, the letter to my agent. Well, after demanding action on the movie option for Blue Skies, I stipulated that she should arrange book readings and signings in Seattle for The Girl in the Spaceship. I mean, if I had to go to that deathtrap, crisscrossed by fault lines and surrounded by volcanoes, I might as well sell some books. While Zuri was being wined, dined, and enticed, I would be surrounded by applause, followed by an endless line of excited, appreciative, and affectionate readers longing for me to sign their books, while hoping to steal an intimate word or two with the author—me, Drake, Drake Ramsey.

Yes, it was a strong letter. Polite, even friendly, but she would be in no doubt that I meant business. I read it over a second time and then clicked on the link to her reply. She said she had to check on the movie thing. Movie thing? Check? Check?! What did she think? That I’m going to live forever? Had she forgotten that my fans are clamoring for the movie? I had the feeling she wasn’t taking the movie thing seriously enough. And she only arranged one reading. One! At Elliott Bay Book Company. Company? Why the hell Company? What’s wrong with bookstores? Sounds pretty damn pretentious to me. I bet Proust didn’t have to put up with this kind of shit.

On the flight from New Orleans to Seattle, I claimed the aisle seat, Zuri the middle, and Nia was by the window. Zuri glanced at my laptop, sensing that I was looking at the letters again, working myself up. She leaned against my shoulder and put her hand on my arm.

Stop reading those letters and close that thing. You’ll drive yourself crazy. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m sure sales will pick up.

"Okay? Are you kidding? One author event. Only one. Everything is not okay. With Blue Skies, there weren’t enough days in a month to fit in all the readings, I said. And at some pretentious book Company. What’s with the Company?"

For God’s sake, Drake. Calm down. Look. Look at Nia, sitting there doing something on her laptop. Peaceful. Calm. Learn from your daughter, Zuri said.

I looked over and, sure enough, Nia was quietly typing and clicking away, oblivious to what was happening outside the window and with me.

Learn from your daughter. That was rich. Nia, sitting by the cabin window, was probably doing advanced calculus or writing an essay on the dangers of the paradigm shift implied in the advancement from artificial intelligence to artificial superintelligence and the resultant ramifications of actualizing the singularity.  

Don’t get me wrong, I love her. I love her in a new way. I mean in a way I have never loved anyone. It’s almost overwhelming. She’s her mother’s daughter. I can see the Zimbabwean in her. Her slightly rounded face that I think will become more slender as she grows older. Her hair growing like wild beauty framing her face. Her dark eyes, the kind of eyes you can fall into, that you want to fall into. And she’s a little scary. She’s only six years old but, every so often, she tilts her head that little bit to the left, pauses before speaking, and then sounds like there’s a miniature adult locked up inside that little-girl body. It’s not that her choice of words is always adult-like. It’s the way she learns, forms ideas, and asks questions. She has always been way ahead of the curve. Walked before she should have walked. Talked before she should have talked. Learned the word no before she