Forever Yours
39
Unexpected Success
THE PARTNERS met with Darla Gallitzin in Luke’s office on Monday. The last three days of the previous week had been frantic. The number of queries to Pythia Speaks continued to climb. About one out of ten users followed the link that led to the Forever Yours landing page. One of twenty-five people who hit the landing page eventually bought Forever Yours.
“That doesn’t sound like so much when you look at the percentage,” Darla said. “Just four-tenths of a percent in sales. But Pythia had 35,000 hits on Friday. That came down to 140 sales of Forever Yours. We didn’t anticipate that many sales in the first six months of release. It’s a high-ticket item. Of the $495 price, EMEE collects $145. The cost of goods and shipping comes to $91.40. That means a royalty payment of just over $250 per copy. Friday’s sales netted $35,000.”
“Holy shit! And I was happy to get the payment from the government. This is going to change things drastically,” Isobel said.
“Well, with success comes the pain,” Darla said. “First of all, EMEE was not prepared for the volume. They ran out of stock for the drives last week. They have about two hundred back orders as of this morning and are placing rush orders from the manufacturer. Statistically, when orders are not shipped within twenty-four hours, two in five are canceled. EMEE has one employee devoted to flashing the drives and packaging them for shipment. I’ve sent an assistant to Savannah to negotiate shipping costs on their behalf. And shipments aren’t just going to the US. Shipping costs will be greater for overseas customers, not to mention VAT and Tariffs.”
“But if the number keeps growing…” Chastity said. “I mean we went from 9,000 to 25,000 queries a day overnight and 35,000 within three days. Daily! Your number can’t include all the sales since the release of Forever Yours.”
“I gave you an adjusted percentage based on the past week,” Darla said. “What you will see is the percentage dwindling, but still feeling pretty consistent.”
“Why’s that?” Luke asked.
“A significant portion of daily visits to Pythia Speaks is repeat visitors,” Darla explained. “If four-tenths of a percent of Friday’s 35,000 bought, the likelihood is that only one-tenth of a percent of today’s 50,000 visitors will buy because over half of that 50,000 will have already been to the site and made their decision to purchase or not purchase. The total will still look something like 100-150 units sold. Of course, these are all projections. We just don’t have enough history to get a real number on it.”
“I can’t believe we’re looking at 50,000 visitors,” Henry said. “How is Pythia Speaks holding up?”
“She’s expanded to six servers,” Darla said. “Response time is still holding under ten seconds. Like the orders for Forever Yours, a proportion of the queries are coming from outside the US. As long as the question is phrased in English, Pythia responds.”
“I asked a question Tuesday morning,” Isobel said. “I know you said she was non-political, but I asked who I should vote for.”
“How’d it… she respond to that?” Henry asked.
“She said, ‘A pure heart will make a pure choice.’ I wonder how many people asked the same question and how many different answers she gave,” Isobel said.
“I’ll review the logs and see what they say,” Henry said.
“It’s not all positive,” Darla broke in. “There are crackpots out there who believe you, Henry, are the devil incarnate, offering eternal life to the damned. They believe you said the Bible, the Koran, and other sacred texts are irrelevant because the world has changed. There is even a meme floating around that has cut your statement from the interview that, ‘The wisdom is not always going to be wise. You see that all the time with religious writings and the people who follow them.’ Those people who believe the religious writings—even a little—are ready to go to war against you.”
“Well, they aren’t exactly incorrect in their assessment of where I stand,” Henry said.
“It’s a hornets’ nest,” Darla warned. “We’ve even seen a small number of death threats against you. To those people, you are the next worst thing to an abortion doctor. Most of this chatter is just venting. They are on about the same plane as threats against a billionaire for putting tracking nanochips in vaccines a few years ago. But we have to consider the possibility there are some credible threats out there. We’ll forward all those to proper authorities.”
“Well, that sucks,” Henry said.
“Oh, honey,” Chastity said, putting a hand on his arm. “We need to talk about physical security. If there’s a threat against you, it could easily extend to all of us. I’ve been worried about this for a while but didn’t have any data to put with it.”
“You’re right,” Isobel said. “The boys go out and get in front of a camera, but they aren’t the only ones in the sights. Even our office could be targeted.”
“In all likelihood, just taking reasonable precautions will be enough to safeguard all of you. Monitor traffic coming into the office. Be aware of people who might be following you. Don’t walk alone—especially at night,” Darla said.
“In other words, act like a woman,” Chastity said.
“What?” Luke asked.
“It’s the way we have to act all the time. Don’t accept a drink in a public place. Always leave together. Stay out of poorly lit areas. Get an escort to your car. Women have to live like that every day. Predators are everywhere.”
“Shit. We’re so blind to what’s around us,” Henry said. “I knew all that. It just never really sank in. I’m sorry to all of you.”
“It’s a good warning, but don’t get paranoid,” Darla said. “Our agency will continue to monitor all comments and track keywords on social media. We’ll report anything that looks serious to the police. You have work to do. The purpose of these threats is to make you afraid to do your work. Don’t let them.”
“Thank you, Darla. Chastity, let’s start putting together some ideas on corporate security,” Luke said. “But we aren’t going to slow down either the development or marketing of our products. We’re on the cusp of doing something remarkable. Let’s not let it get away.”
Two army officers were waiting for Henry when he left the meeting with Darla.
“Captain Bernard,” he said, greeting Rebecca. They were usually casual, but since she had a subordinate with her, he decided on the formality.
“Mr. Pascal, may I introduce Lt. Michael R. Smith of the Pentagon’s Cyber Resilience team,” Rebecca said. “The two of us have been assigned to your development team to work on the military grade version of the network defense system if it meets with your approval.”
Henry shook hands with the tall and skinny black lieutenant. The uniform hung to his angular frame as if on a wire hanger. Henry wondered that anyone was allowed in the army with such large glasses.
“Welcome to Open Cloak, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said straightening to a height of about six-four and towering over Henry’s six-foot frame.
“Let’s go back and get you set up and introduced to the rest of the team. We’ve got another new hire just finishing up paperwork with Conrad. By the way, here in the office, I just go by Henry. There is no need to call me Mr. Pascal. The only one in the office who insists on the use of her title is Mrs. Riordan, our financial manager. You can also refer to her as ‘Her Highness.’ Just not to her face.”
“Thanks, Henry. I’m Rebecca and this is Mike. It appears we’ll be assigned here for at least six months. When army personnel are assigned to a civilian office, we are not required to wear uniforms so, with your permission, we’ll go to regular business attire tomorrow,” Rebecca said.
“Thank heavens! The uniforms are nice, but a little intimidating in a small office like ours. Here’s where we’ll make magic happen.” Henry led them into the mini office where six desks were arranged to all have a view out the window.
“Wow! I expected a cubicle in the basement,” Mike said.
“Just because that’s where we keep you at the Pentagon, doesn’t mean it’s your equivalent in the civilian world,” Rebecca laughed. “Remember, I don’t even have a window at HQ.”
“It’s a pleasure to know our office is an upgrade,” Henry said. “Ah, here’s Conrad and Leanne.”
Conrad entered the small office with a woman of indeterminate ethnic background. Her skin tone was slightly darker than that of Henry, but could have been Latina or Middle Eastern or Mediterranean. She appeared to be in her mid to late thirties.
“Conrad and Leanne, let me introduce you to our two army staff, Rebecca and Mike,” Henry said.
“Charmed,” Leanne said, offering her hand first to Rebecca and then to Mike.
The single-syllable greeting belied any other thoughts about her heritage. She was obviously from the deep south.
The group went about setting up their workstations and chatting about the task they had at hand. Henry excused himself to work on his other projects. Conrad was in charge of this team. Henry wasn’t sure how well it would work if he came in conflict with his girlfriend over the direction of the code. He’d wait and see.
Henry called Scott Perkins at Page Services. With the sharp increase in traffic, he wanted to be sure the server farm was prepared to handle things.
“We’re in good shape, Henry,” Scott said. “With our current setup and adding a couple more boxes, I believe we’ll be able to handle half a million queries a day. We were caught a little flat-footed when the traffic started to spike last week, but we were back to speed in an hour.”
“That’s great to know, Scott. How about the hits on our Forever Yours sample pages?”
“You’ve got twenty pages being served there and each one is confined to its own partition, as you requested. They are getting a couple hundred hits a day. Average session is four queries. Data walls are scarcely growing at all. It looks really stable.”
“I’m glad to have you as a partner in this,” Henry said. “How many total servers do you have on your farm? I know it’s smaller than some of the majors.”
“We’re currently running four hundred boxes. That’s something that is definitely looking like a limiting factor for our corporate growth. We simply don’t have room for more than a hundred more units. I’ve got Brenda out looking for space, but migrating everything might be more than we can handle. We’ll give your boxes priority, but a lot of people want to get online. Hosting AI apps is increasing dramatically.”
“How’s power consumption?”
“As you can imagine, hardware and power are our two greatest expenses. Not only do we have the power requirements to run the machines, but for the air conditioning, too. The place can turn into a sauna in twenty minutes if the AC goes off. We’re in danger of data loss and hardware loss within an hour.”
“Backup power?” Henry asked.
“We have a generator. It could keep pace with reduced capacity, but not with a real outage. A major earthquake or an attack on the power company and we’d be toast. Our constant backup would allow us to reset to the point of interruption but whoever thought we’d be depending on external drives in this day and age?”
“We do here at Open Cloak,” Henry said. “I’ve made a hire and he’ll be starting right after Thanksgiving. He’s a specialist in power management. We’ve toyed with some processes and even filed a patent or two for reducing power consumption. I’m hoping that putting a guy on it full time will let us move forward with it. I might need to send him out to visit you.”
“He’ll be welcome as long as he doesn’t expect a luxury office to work in. We’re pretty bare bones.”
“I might be interested in investing and giving you a little capital infusion. If you don’t have one, you might consider putting together a prospectus.”
“Yeah. Judy’s got some preliminary work on that. We’ll step up the pace.”
“Take care, Scott. We depend on you guys.”
Thanksgiving dinner was served by Sylvia and Ryan, with Henry, Lisa, and Chastity as their guests. When they’d invited Henry and Lisa, Henry immediately asked if Chastity could be invited as well. Sylvia was surprised, but more than happy to have the extra guest.
“You’ve all been living in the row house for a couple of months now. How is it without the company occupying part of your space?” Ryan asked.
“So much has changed in that time,” Henry said. “I think having a couple of cats makes up for not having six extra people, though.”
“They don’t take up that much room!” Lisa protested.
“I think they’ve decided Henry is okay,” Chastity laughed. “Whenever I can’t find one of them, all I have to do is look for Henry’s lap. She’ll be there.”
“Or on my chair just before I sit down,” Henry said.
“I never thought you would be much of one for pets,” Sylvia said. “Although you did take good care of Oedipus.”
“Who was Oedipus?” Lisa asked.
“A club-footed guinea pig I had in junior high,” Henry said. “He was a sweetheart and would sit on my lap while I worked on the computer. Seriously, no one I know has ever had a guinea pig that just curled up on his lap.”
“And how many carrots did he go through in that position?” Ryan asked.
“Oh, a few hundred. Speaking of which, I’d like some more sweet potatoes,” Henry said.
“Who was speaking of sweet potatoes?” Lisa asked.
“They’re the same color as carrots,” Henry explained.
The banter at the dinner table was lively and enjoyable for all of them. They didn’t make a big deal out of Chastity’s relationship to either Henry or Lisa, but it was obvious there was more of a connection than just as a renter.
“So, your Forever Yours page is getting a lot of hits,” Henry said to Ryan. “It seems to give more complete answers to people’s questions than most of the others. I think that’s because your database is the largest. But I hope you are continuing to add to it. It will be interesting to compare answers from the public persona to answers from our private version.”
“So, you aren’t uploading more info to the public AI?” Sylvia asked.
“No. The AI can collect more data from questions that are asked, but it isn’t out searching for new data from other sources. For one thing, I didn’t want the public versions to expose too much of our families. And, like I said, I’d like to see how far the two AIs diverge from each other. Even in my tests, two identical setups yield different answers to questions.”
“And your parents contributed, too, Lisa?” Sylvia asked.
“Parents and grandparents,” she answered. “Grandpa is a great storyteller and loves recording things for his Forever Yours AI.”
“I’m surprised his public persona isn’t the most popular,” Ryan said.
“I think the problem is that he records almost all his stories on video. We haven’t really got the video component working yet. The AI could look up and play back a story, but it can’t make one up and show it. I’ll be interested to see comments from other people with the number of packages we’ve sold now. We’ve been contacted by a couple of the memoir writing companies to see if they can somehow integrate the AI into their workflow as well,” Henry said. “I think it’s possible. They are recording a memoir or history. We’re trying to record a personality and a life.”
“I’ve used three of the services and they’ve each sent me back a book,” Ryan said. “The books are substantially the same, but each has a different style and presentation. Just asking a couple of the questions of the AI reveals a different set of answers. Some are more loquacious than others.”
After dinner and cleanup, the family played a few tabletop games and then the trio went home.
“You were awfully quiet, love,” Lisa said. She sat next to Chastity in the back seat as Henry drove them home.
“I don’t have much in the way of family stories to share,” she said. “It’s pretty yucky. I didn’t want to be a downer for the party.”
“Hon, you are definitely not a downer for us,” Henry interjected as Lisa kissed Chastity. “And speaking of parties, what would you like for your birthday?”
Chastity’s birthday was the twenty-seventh and always fell just a few days after Thanksgiving.
“Can you erase my past?” she asked.
“You sound serious,” Lisa said. “Are you hurting?”
“I never thought I would, but I just want to forget about so much.”
They arrived home and put the leftovers Sylvia had pushed them to take in the refrigerator. Then they played with the cats for a while before all going to Henry and Lisa’s bedroom and cuddling together. It was obvious that Chastity continued to be down after the family gathering.
“Tell me what you want erased,” Henry whispered to her.
Chastity turned her head toward him and began to cry.
“I still have men contacting me and trying to get dates. I don’t mean dates like going to a movie. I mean dates like fucking me. They find me through one of the sites that still have my bio, even though I’ve dropped my membership. Or worse, a movie,” Chastity said.
“You made movies?” Lisa asked, petting her hair.
“Not many. When I turned eighteen, I’d already been performing online for a year, lying about my age. The people who took me in charged me rent of joining them in bed twice a month, so I’d had plenty of experience. A company called me from LA and offered me an ‘audition.’ At least I managed to negotiate a little. They paid my expenses and $500 for a day of work. I had to spend half an hour masturbating to orgasm, then do a scene with a guy who was hung like a horse. He never got all that hard, but he used his cock like a whip to lash me and then managed to feed it inside until he came. I flew home. That was how I spent the weekend after Thanksgiving when we were seniors in high school.”
“I wish I’d known or had been able to do something for you,” Henry said.
“You were just a seventeen-year-old senior. You didn’t have a way to help. Besides, I wasn’t going to tell you about it. I already liked you and wanted to be around you and Luke and Isobel.”
“Still…”
“Yeah. Still,” Chastity said. She was lost in a kiss with Lisa as Henry held the two of them for a minute. “Over the winter holiday, I went back to LA. I shot a dozen scenes, and made $4,000. Then I told them goodbye and never went back. Those scenes keep resurfacing. Every time someone sees one, I get contacted through one of the sites, wanting me to come to work, go on a date, or just suck their dicks. And, of course, people recorded some of my ‘performances’ in my chat room. I’m so tired of it.”
“Then I’ll get rid of it,” Henry said.
“Wait. Really?” Lisa asked. “You can do that?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“I know you said everything on the internet was temporary instead of permanent like we were all told,” Chastity said. “But how will you even find it?”
“Well, it’s a lot easier to lose things on the internet by accident than on purpose,” he said. “But we’re creating interesting ways to eliminate threats in our security development. I think if I can find it, I can eliminate it.”
“Is that legal?” Lisa asked.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. What pornographer is going to complain?” Henry answered.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
