The Infinite Evolution - Conversion (6 page)

While he waited, Spencer received
an incoming message from Central Circuit security and accepted it
promptly. A voice came through the interior intercom of his
vehicle. “What is the purpose of your visit today, employee, sales,
tourist, or visitor?”

Tempted to say “sales” Spencer decided it would be
best if he took this matter seriously, as he sat there thinking, “I
need to play it straight, I don’t want to be stonewalled at a
security checkpoint all day.”

“
I’m here as a visitor,” said
Spencer.

“
Who will you be visiting and are you
expected?” asked security.

“
I’m here to see Reece Fields and no, my visit
is unexpected.”

“
According to your vehicle
registration you’re Spencer Cade, is that correct?”

“
Yes,” advised Spencer amazed and yet bothered
by the fact he does not even have to tell them who he is anymore,
thanks to his digital fingerprint within society.

“
Since you don’t have a PIC implant, you will
need to check in with the security desk at the main building for a
temporary guide.”

“
I’m aware of all this, I’ve been here
before,” replied Spencer.

“
Yes, this will be your eleventh visit in the
last five years,” said security.

“
May I go now?” asked
Spencer.

“
Please stand by we’re still
awaiting conformation from Dr. Fields. Do you have any
explosives and or firearms on your person or in your
vehicle?”

“
No, I don’t,” replied Spencer
calmly.

In the past, Spencer had learned
if one acts difficult with Central Circuit security, it only
prolongs their wait. So now, he does not become argumentative or
snippy. He just gave short and precise responses, for he has found
this is what they appear to like.

“
You are free to proceed to the vehicular
scanner Mr. Cade, have a nice day.”

“
Thanks,” said Spencer as he pulled forward,
after the barricade faded into the pavement. While Spencer
continued into the massive tube he saw a red light and heard a
commanding voice similar to HICAMS, “Please place your vehicle in
park and turn off your engine. Your vehicle is being scanned for
illegal and/or threatening devices.”

As Spencer sat in his car, the
inner surface of the tube was turning a bright blue, so bright that
Spencer had to put on his sunglasses. A solid yellow light bar,
approximately nineteen feet long, slowly circled Spencer’s vehicle
from front to back. It started and ended around the location of the
driver’s side door. Spencer sat there and gripped the steering
wheel with both his white knuckled hands. After about two minutes,
the red light turned green and the door in front of him opened, as
an electronic voice ordered, “You are clear to proceed.” Spencer
drove out, but not too quickly, because he knew if he did he would
be stopped for driving recklessly.

As he headed towards the Binary
parking facility he noticed new construction and thought, “That was
fast,” as he recalled the empty field that was there three months
ago.

The seventeen-acre Central
Circuit campus is only accessible by tram, each one with its own
parking facility. There are two other trams simply named “1” for
receiving and “0” for shipping. These trams were not used for human
transportation.

After Spencer pulled into the
Binary parking facility a small red beam scanned both his license
plate and vehicle identification number. A holoscreen appeared in
front of him and showed the hourly and daily parking rates.
Twenty five credits an hour or two
hundred and forty one credits for twenty four hours, for
non-employees.

“
That’s ridiculous,” Spencer
thought as he drove forward.

When he came to a series of bays,
he decided to park his vehicle in bay seven. Once Spencer powered
off his vehicle, he grabbed his coat and exited. He walked up to a
display panel, linked it to his PDA, and received a digital
receipt. While Spencer walked away, the bay doors in front of his
vehicle closed, and the pallet that held the vehicle moved to a
storage bay somewhere inside the parking facility. There it was
stacked up with the rest of the vehicles and secured for
storage.

As Spencer walked towards the
tram he was bombarded with advertisements, mostly regarding PIC
implants. Spencer was amazed when he viewed an advertisement about
personal pet PIC implants. This gave the owner the ability to know
what their pet was thinking, seeing, and hearing. During the time
he stood in front of the holoscreens, he thought he caught a glance
of Serafina. When Spencer turned around, he confirmed it was in
fact her. He called her name, but the crowds of people between them
were too loud for her to hear.

He tried to push through towards
her direction, as the tram arrived, but once the tram came to a
complete stop multiple doors opened, the crowd of people swarmed
in, and took Spencer with them. He failed to keep his eyes on
Serafina to see where she had ended up, and soon the doors shut
behind him. Spencer realized he needed to grab on to one of handles
that dangled overhead, but decided against it as he tried to move
to the front of the compartment. He soon noticed Serafina was on a
connecting compartment after he saw her profile through a nearby
window. He knew he had no choice, but to be patient and wait until
he arrived at his destination. This was the longest eleven minutes
of Spencer’s life. Atypically for him, he ignored any type of
conversation with nearby strangers, in an attempt to see if he
would be able to catch another glance of Serafina. He wanted all
his attention focused on this one task.

“
Arrival at Central Circuit in
five minutes. All employees please exit to your left. All
non-employees please exit to your right,” said a computerized
voice. Spencer knew from his past travels that most of the people
on this tram were employees. He hoped Serafina was not one of them,
so she would be in the smaller of the two crowds, and easier to
catch up to. Spencer decided not to play the odds and focused on
the larger of the two crowds. Either way Spencer knew he would not
let her get away so easily this time. He wanted to guarantee he was
going to be first one off, so as the tram was getting closer to
Central Circuit he maneuvered his way towards the exit through what
felt like a maze of sardines.

As the doors opened, Spencer was
the third person out and quickly took position, so he would have an
uninterrupted view of all the exit points leading off the tram.
Spencer’s eyes darted back and forth in an attempt to locate
Serafina.

“
How hard could it be? It’s not like anyone
else on the tram came close to her beauty,” thought
Spencer.

As the last of the passengers
debarked, Spencer’s jaw dropped, as he wondered, “Where did she
go?”

Spencer yelled her name loud
enough to the point where people turned around to see where the
ruckus was coming from. He ran back towards the tram, looked in,
and found no one. As the doors closed, Spencer realized he had once
again lost her. “How could I have missed her!” he yelled to
himself.

As Spencer approached the
employees’ entrance, he realized he needed to head back towards the
group of non-employees. Spencer knew if entered the employee’s
walkway he would be detained.

While Spencer approached Central
Circuit’s public entrance, he carried a great deal of
disappointment, but still admired his surroundings. He first walked
between two large fountains, followed by a large glass archway that
covered three hundred yards of a bluish quartz stone walkway.
Suspended on either side were numerous ten by ten, glass colored
panels that reflected images of the technology growth since the
early 1900’s, which Spencer surprisingly enjoyed looking
at.

Once Spencer finally entered
Central Circuit a human size hologram, that represented one of the
co-founders, greeted him. “Welcome to Central Circuit, the world’s
largest developer of software and the leading designers in
artificial intelligence. Please check in at the security desk, we
detect you do not have PIC. We are having a special this
month…”

Spencer quickly interrupted, “Yeah, yeah, so not
interested,” as he headed to his first destination.

While Spencer walked over, he
looked up and became impressed with the three enormous holoscreens
suspended one hundred feet above his head. They showed clips of
technological achievements and how these achievements rendered
positive effects on people from around the world.

“
That must be new,” said
Spencer.

The intensely large lobby also
displayed a variety of dated computer equipment suspended from the
glass dome, to include an Apple Lisa computer that contained the
first graphical user interface back in the 1980s. The natural light
that came through the bluish tinted ceiling glass received
amplification, and created a heavenly halo around all the
exhibits.

Spencer approached the security
desk where another life sized hologram greeted him and asked him to
submit to a retinal scan, which he agreed to. After Spencer cleared
security, a small circular silver and white mechanical device
hovered out from a nearby room.

“
Good morning, Mr. Cade, I am
Guide 59 and I will be your chaperone during your
visit.”

“
I know the routine,” replied
Spencer.

“
Mr. Cade, have you thought about obtaining a
PIC? With a PIC you would be able to tour our facilities without me
or one of my other co-workers.”

“
You and your ‘co-workers’ ask me this all the
time and I keep giving you the same answer, no, not
interested!”

“
Yes, Mr. Cade. Dr. Fields is waiting for you
on floor thirty-seven. Please follow me.”

Spencer ignored his chaperone and
walked to the moveable walkway where he glided down, and was
surprisingly entertained with a series of illuminating colors that
reflected off the arched ceilings. When Spencer reached the bank of
elevators he left the moveable walkway and headed towards the
middle one.

“
Floor thirty-seven,” said
Spencer as he stepped into the elevator, while the doors stayed
open until Guide 59 floated in and granted permission.

It only took a few seconds for
the elevator to reach its destination. As the doors opened, Spencer
stepped out and noticed Reece was waiting to greet him.

“
Spencer, good to see you again,”
said Reece as he gave him a hug.

“
You too.”

Reece was a small stocky man with
dark skin and shoulder length hair that was pulled back into a
ponytail. He wore a simple white lab coat, which covered a black
t-shirt, that read “
G* F*CK
Y**R S*LF, care to buy a vowel?
” and a
pair of faded blue jeans. Due to the stubble on Reece’s face,
Spencer realized he must have pulled another
all-nighter.

“
Ah, I see they still assigned
you a chaperone, although I told security you were no risk. Company
policy is if they cannot track you via a PIC, they track you via a
droid.”

“
No worries, I’m used to it by now. I see you
still dress for success, nice t-shirt. They allow that?”

“
Depends who is working, but glad you
appreciate it,” laughed Reece.

“
So, how have you been? Haven’t seen you in
months,” asked Spencer.

“
I know I’ve been busy with a project I'm
really enjoying. How about you? How’s work going? Any new and
exciting cases?”

“
Nothing I want to talk about on my day
off.”

“
Understood, hey, let me show you some of our
new developments,” said Reece with an enthusiastic
voice.

“
Sure, but I came here to visit
you, not your technology even though you guys do have some really
cool stuff.”

“
Really? I thought you were here to ask me to
fix something,” responded Reece with a grin.

“
Well, since you mentioned it, is there a way
you could give my HICAMS a makeover?”

“
I’m sure Jade is up to the
task.”

“
She is, but she also has a strange sense of
humor and feels she should be compensated for everything she does
around the house.”

“
Well, she is thirteen,” laughed
Reece.

“
Don’t remind me.”

As Reece entered his lab, a small blue beam quickly
gave him a scan in order to verify his identity. When it came time
for Spencer to precede an electronic voice from the ceiling stated,
“Spencer Cade, please remove the PDA from your person and place it
in the bin to your right.”

“
Oh, I forgot to tell you, we cannot have any
electronics brought into the lab, even PICs are disabled upon
entry,” explained Reece.

“
The less technology on me the better,” said
Spencer as he placed his PDA in the metallic bin.

“
What I’m going to show you
isn’t anything top secret, it is still in beta testing and we
already conducted our first interview with,
Only Tech
, which will be
airing next month,” advised Reece.

“
And I thought I was special,” laughed Spencer
as he entered the lab while his personal escort waited
outside.