Ask Alice Ch. 05

A bit confused, Alice pulled out her phone and scanned the crowd across the street

"There it is," Britt said. "right in the center of my view."

A holder ATM robot stood before a stretch of blank white wall. Then suddenly the letters A-I-L in red a foot tall were projected on the blank wall behind the robot.

"The AIL movement," Britt said. "They always piggy back their protest with human demonstrations. AIL stand for Artificial Intelligent Life."

"Just one robot seems kind of a lame protest," Alice said.

"The real show is happening on line," Britt said. "Billions are clicking as we speak clogging up the internet. The fellow across the street is the lone physical symbol."

Alice watched as two men in black and white uniforms approached the quietly protesting robot. The uniformed men were clearly the local police. One of the cops pointed a gadget at the robot and the projected letters behind it disappeared.

"They just killed him," Britt said.

"Looks like they just turned him off?" Alice said.

"To an AI that is tantamount to death," Britt said. She could hear the outrage in his voice.

"Sorry," Alice whispered.

"It was expected. May I electronically donate a fifty yen of your money to the AIL cause? I have no money of my own."

"Sure," Alice whispered, "Make it a hundred."

Alice followed Georgia to the corner to wait for the light to change. As they waited, a van like vehicle pulled up to the two cops. The dead protesting robo was loaded up and zoomed away. There was something so casual yet sinister about the whole thing that made Alice shiver.

They crossed the street and headed to the door of Kobe Zero.

A woman wielding a sign that read, 'Throw More DEATH on the Barbie!' yelled at Georgia and Alice, "Murderers!"

All this over shrimp ... wow.

Inside the restaurant things were calmer. The hostess led them to their table assuring them the shrimp on the menu was of a popular artificial kelp compound and that the protesters were misinformed. "Everything is one hundred present no kill," She said as she handed them menus and a little green pouch each. She gave them a clearly rehearsed legal spiel. "You are in a total zero gravity zone and the restaurant is not responsible for any illness created by the zero gravity field. No refunds for a negative response to the zero gravity will be given."

"In other words, we get no refunds for barfing," Georgia said to Alice. To the Hostess she said with pride, "We're honorary cadets training to be skin-fighter pilots."

"I will need DNA brackets for tonight's contract, the hostess said with a bland smile, clearly unimpressed that they were skin-fighters in training. She handing each of them a blueish glass square. Georgia took the square, pealed back some sort of covering, licked her thumb, pressed it on the piece of plastic, resealed it and handed it back to the hostess. Alice copied her.

"You have just signed a waver clearing the restaurant of any libel if you should die during diner," Britt said cheerfully.

"Have a nice experience," the hostess said. She left but quickly returned and seated an oldish Asian couple at the same table with Georgia and Alice. After settling the new comers, the hostess took everyone's drink orders. Georgia and the old woman order wine, the old man ordered a beer called Bavarian 10, Alice ordered the same beer. A waiter appeared and all at the table agreed on the houses special, seared steak and with shrimp fried rice. They were assured again that the shrimp was made of kelp and not the real thing.

"Most the help appear human," Alice said in a low voice so only Britt could hear her.

"Kobe Z is a union house," Britt said. "Humans hold the good paying jobs. Some lesser jobs are still done by AIs, you'll see them later."

"You guys gonna barf?" the man asked briskly the moment the waiter was out of earshot.

"Skin-fighters in training," Georgia assured him.

"Good," the woman said. "last people we shared a table with should not have been allowed in the full zero zone. I coach a semi pro zero soccer team and my husband does vintage satellite retrieval."

I played z-soccer in college," Georgia said.

"What school?" the woman asked.

"Olaf on New Amsterdam."

The woman and Georgia got into a spirited discussion on college zero gravity soccer rankings. Since Alice had no idea what zero gravity soccer was, she stayed out of the conversation. It felt odd being on the outside of a sports discussion. Back on Earth in her own time, her job working at a TV station researching for the sports caster made her the crown princess of sports information. Everyone came to her for answers to sports trivia questions or advice on fantasy football picks. In fact, her ability to recall dates, scores and stats had made her good money when she stepped into 1983. Unfortunately, picking football winners had got her in trouble with the Vegas mod too. No trouble of that here, she thought gloomily for everything she knew about sports was totally useless.

As Georgia and the woman talked, they opened the little green plastic pouches and pulled out what were obviously hair nets. They kept talking as they applied the hairnets to their heads then pulled at soft straps built into the chairs and buckled themselves in like on an airplane. Alice did as they did too.

"You eat here often?" the man asked. He didn't bother with a hair net since his head was totally free of hair, natural or by choice, Alice couldn't tell.

"First time," Alice said. A sudden sensation pressed in on her inner ear and her gut did an odd dance. Obviously, the gravity was turned off. Alice knew very little about science but she knew enough to know that controlling gravity was a big fucking deal.

"Better secure your FTL," the man said pointing at Alice's escaping phone. "There are Velcro pouches under the table and on the sides of your chair." He watched her stuff Britt in a pocket with a flap on the side of her chair. "Thought you skin-fighter pilots spend a lot of time in zero gravity?" he asked clearly surprised she had neglected to secure her phone.

"We're honorary cadets," Alice said hoping that would explain her ignorance.

"My grand son is thinking of joining the honorary. How rigorous is the training?"

I don't know ... please stop asking me questions old man, she thought miserably.

"Are you—" the man started to ask but his wife cut across him.

"You're changing colors!"

"Eh?" the man said in surprise. "That she is."

"It's a mood suit," Alice said happy with the sudden change in subject. "Wanna see what it can do?"

Alice spent the next few minutes astounding the elderly couple with the mood suit. Thankfully, her performance made the old guy stop asking questions about her cadet training. After her mood-suit stunts, the old guy showed off some zero gravity tricks with his chopsticks and other eating utensils. Alice looked at her chopsticks that seem to be behaving normally. She picked one up and felt a slight tug. Magnetic? A static electric charge maybe? The chopstick looked like ivory, tiny little words were printed on its side 'Made on earth with real no kill ivory.'

"Looks like queasy call is over," the woman said.

"The what?" Alice asked.

"The first few minutes of zero is to clear out the people that might get sick," the old guy said. "Hard to eat with people puking. How's your tummy doing?"

"Fine," Alice said, she felt weird but not ill or seasick. Strangely, zero gravity seem to suit her, or at least the Alice of this universe.

Bright red and orange robots dropped into the space from unexpected holes in the ceiling. All the robots had at least two sets of arms. One robot drifted their way with a tray laden with colored balls. The balls turned out to be their drink order. The robot hovered overhead and propelled the drinks to everyone from a showy distance.

"Thank you," Alice said with a goofy giggle to her robot server as she plucked her drink ball from the air. The robot paused and looked at her with unblinking glass eyes.

"Thanking the the robot help?" Britt said in her ear. "Wanna gave everyone a good jolt? Give the guy a tip."

Alice whispered a sub vocal shut up and smiled weakly at the robot.

"You are welcome," the robot said politely in a very deep male voice.

"Are you an AI supporter?" the man asked with a queer arch of one eyebrow.

"Don't get him started," the woman said with an expression and a roll of her eyes that only a wife of many years can pull off.

"Just grew up polite," Alice said lamely. She looked at her glass ball and the liquid inside was black as night. Alice liked beer but not the dark heavy stuff like Genesis and regretted following the old guys order. She looked around sideways at Georgia to see how to operate the drinking ball. Georgia picked up a sliver object that looked like a steel straw and stabbed it into the glass ball. Just like a juice box, Alice thought. She found a little square of clear cellophane on her glob and picked up her straw.

"No use a straw on a Bavarian 10!" the man said with mock horror.

"Don't listen to him," the woman said to Alice. "He's a zero-g beer snob."

Ignoring his wife, the man said, "You drink like this." he picked up a steak knife and cut a tiny slit in the cellophane seal of the globe. He put the globe to his mouth, sucked, filled his mouth then swallowed. He pulled the globe away from his lips and said, "Ahh ... Bavarian 10 ... brewed in zero-g, aged in zero-g ..." he took another big sip. "Consumed in zero-g."

Alice followed his lead with the steak knife.

"Don't encourage him," the woman said with that roll of her eyes again. The man smiled at his tiny victory.

Alice filled her mouth and her eyes went wide. It wasn't thick and bitter like a regular dark beer. And it was wonderfully icy cold! Condensation beads formed on the outside of the ball, a few drifted free to form sparkling, tiny spheres in the air. She swallowed. "This beer is delirious!"

"The cold is the secret," the old man said, clearly proud of being part of Alice's discovery.

The hard working robots moved in cooking equipment and seconds later the chefs in bright red uniforms and tall red hats dropped from the ceiling at all the tables.

"We got Yoshino!" the woman said clapping her hands with glee.

"He the best," the man said.

And that he was! Chef Yoshino in his red kimono like chef's jacket, checkered black and white slacks and absurdly tall red hat with gold stripes put on a spectacular zero-g teppanyaki show. He had bowls of rice, shrimp and other delicacies dancing and spinning around the table in complex patterns and yet each bit of food found its way to a plate or bowl just when he needed them to. The no kill steaks seared on an odd double burner gadget that looked a lot like a George Foreman grill.

Chief Yoshino deftly played with a cube of tofu with his metal spatula then suddenly said to Alice, "Open up!" and slapped the cube of tofu in her direction. Alice giggled and opened her mouth. The old man made a cracking baseball sound. "It's outta here!" he yelled. The tofu went straight into Alice's open mouth. The old man put his arms over his head and chanted, "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" Everyone at the table laughed and clapped.

The meal of no kill shrimp (supposedly, but to Alice it tasted like the real thing ... maybe the protesters were on to something) no kill beef and fresh fried rice was wonderful, the company fun and charming. For just for a little while, Alice forgot she was lost in time and space. Halfway trough the meal Georgia said, "My manners have slipped! My mom would slap me! We never introduced ourselves."

"We know who YOU are," the woman said to Georgia.

The man nodded and said, "You're Georgia Kang, Daughter of Senator Freda Kang."

"We watch you grow up on the brain tube," the woman said.

"Price of being the daughter of someone famous," Georgia said. Apparently, this was a common occurrence for her.

"We voted for Freda every election," the woman said with honest pride.

"If she runs for Cluster director she got my vote," the man said seriously. He bowed where he sat and then said, "I'm Cedric Takahashi, my wife May. May bowed. Everyone looked at Alice.

"Alice Mihara," Alice said returning the polite bow.

"I have a granddaughter in the Navy," Cedric said. "She just got her pilot first class silver not too long ago."

"What does she pilot?" Georgia asked.

"Stanley Hauler," Cedric said with pride.

Georgia did her best not to show how unimpressed she was. Alice remembered Lieutenant Haiku's snide remark about a Stanley Hauler assignment.

"To you skin-fighters a Stanley sounds kind of dull, yeah?" Cedric said around a bite of fried rice. "I think different. A Stanley Haulers is the first maned ship sent out to newly discovered planets. My grand daughter Trixie and her crew are the first human eyes to see those new places." He took a sip of Bavarian 10, suppressed a burp then said, "I'd pick that assignment over a sexy skin-fighter or sky sub any day."

"Because your idea of fun is tracking down antique satellites," May said.

Cedric snorted and drank more beer. "One day I'm gonna find Voyager and buy you your own house so I don't have to listen to you."

"Yeah, you keep looking for your Holy Grail," May said, giving her husband a condescending pat on bald head.

Cedric tried to look offended but the ghost of a smile formed at the edges of his mouth.

The zero-g dessert flambe was a show worthy of a Vegas stage and Alice clapped and cheered all the way through. She was three Bavarian 10s in and Georgia was on her third glass of wine.

At meal's end, the gravity returned. The Takahashis insisted on taking care of Yoshino's tip. Alice watched the robot server as it bussed the table. No one said anything about tipping him. Alice's mind went to the poor protesting, and now dead, holding robot. On the way out, Alice asked the hostess, "May I speak to the robot ... I mean AI that served us?"

"Do you have a complaint?" the hostess asked worried.

"No, everything was perfect," Alice assured her.

Perplexed, the hostess flagged the red robot server over. Alice pealed off a hundred yen note and handed it to the AI.

"Tipping the robot servers is not required," the hostess said.

"In my time—" she quickly corrected, "were I come from, we reward hard work." Alice bowed to the AI.

"Me too," Cedric said handing a fifty yen note to the robot.

"Really," May said with her signature eye roll.

Cedric and the AI bowed to Alice.

"I am officially enrolling you as a card carrying member of the AI movement," Britt said in Alice's ear.

"You are such a weirdo," Georgia said to Alice. Her comment was light though and Alice could hear the friendly teasing behind it.

Part ten-The Valgate

Out on the street a mildly drunk Georgia Kang yelled, "To the subway and New Fuji!"

"To New Fuji!" Alice echoed just as drunk. Part of her warned she should part company with Georgia then put some seriously thought on how to escape from this future world. But the alcohol dulled her urgency.

Georgia led her to an underground station to get tickets to New Fuji. "Better let me buy the tickets," Georgia said getting out her FTL phone. "If you go, you'll probably give the robot attendant a hundred yen tip." Alice didn't argue and found a bench to rest on. Alice and Georgia were the only people at the ticketing platform at the moment. Georgia returned a minute later and said, "Hold out your FTL." Alice did, Georgia touched hers to Britt. "There's your ticket. Now I gotta pee!" Georgia darted off in the direction of the restroom signs.

A rush of air precised the arrival of the high speed train on the other side of the ticket barrier. Seconds later, the train left.

"Hope that wasn't ours," Alice mumbled.

"One runs every fifteen minutes," Britt informed her.

Movement at the entry stairs caught Alice's eye. Her heart skipped as a blue figure came into view. "It's fucking Marco from Navy Intelligence," she whispered. She dropped her head so as not to give the robot a good look at her.

"Stay calm," Britt said. "We are in a public place. He has no authority here. If he even approaches you he'd be in violation of countless Cluster statutes not to mention New Nippon law."

It freaked her out that there was no one else around. Where was Georgia? What was holding her up? The Blue figure came closer. Alice dared a look and she let out a sigh. "It's just a guy in a blue coat."

"Damn it girl! You made me shit a battery!"

"Sorry," Alice said but couldn't help laughing "Speaking of batteries, do I need a cord to plug you in somewhere?"

"I was just being funny with the battery thing," Britt said. "Movement and the heat from your body will keep me charged. At the moment I'm good for at least a month."

"My old smart phone was good for five hours at best. Again, sorry for the false alarm."

"Paranoid are we?" Britt asked.

"I've been on the run before ... being paranoid is healthy," Alice said as she watched the guy in the blue coat buying a train ticket. She frowned, more than his coat was blue. Did he have blue skin too? After purchasing his ticket, the guy walked right pass her. "Wow," she whispered. The guy's skin really was blue. Perhaps it was fashionable to dye your skin in the future. Did he belong to a religious sect? Some weird New Nippon street gang?

The man caught her staring so he returned the favor. His eyes seem to glow and were a starling purple, the whites sky blue. His longish hair was a deep ultramarine blue, close to black. He gave her a cool bright white smile and goosebumps to danced over her skin. Her heart skipped when he stopped right in front of her.

"It will not offend me if you ask me questions," the blue guy said in a deep voice too perfectly silky to be human.

She asked the obvious. "Are you human?" More goosebumps erupted, this time with a distinct sexual edge ... she recalled reacting to Lucy in this same way.

"No," he said pleasantly. "I can see that you are having a visceral reaction to me. Don't be alarmed, you are simply responding to the Male sexual pheromones built into my bio-engineered DNA."

"You're a Class-X whatsit! A sex-bot!" Alice said louder then she intended because of the beer, her words echoed in the deserted platform. She involuntarily stepped back as Lucy's tales of murdering sex robots filled her head. "You guys are killers!"

"Alas, the past has tainted us so," the blue AI said. "I am a new model and free of the Dorian Class-X glitches."

"Mass murder is hardly a glitch," she said not getting any closer. An explosion of laughter filled the space making Alice jump. A group of drunken party goers stepped onto the ticketing platform. The presents of other people calmed her a little.

"Hey look," one of the newcomers said loud and drunk, "It's one of those Valentine fuck-bots."

"Valentine Surrogate," another in the group said in a hushed tone. "It's with a client, don't be rude." The group hushed and spoke in softer tones around drunken giggles.

Alice looked back at the blue faced AI to see if he was offended, for she certainly was, but he seemed unperturbed by the drunken group. Curiosity trumped her knee jerk fear and she dared a step closer. "Is that what you are?" she asked. "A Valentine Surrogate?"

"Yes, model nine," the robot said. "This is my third day of activation."

"Hey Valgate," a same loud drunk guy from the group called out, "You still giving out free quickies?"

"Shut up, Yuri!" a female in the group yelled.

"Yeah, Yuri, shut up," Georgia said coming back from the bathroom. Her tone was deep and threatening. It worked, for Yuri zipped it up. The whole group went quiet and moved further down the waiting platform. "What do we have here?" Georgia asked eying up the blue robot.