AI Era: Agent AI SWAK

Something clicked in Ming's mind. No! That can't happen! She released Zhang's arm and jumped up, her eyes on fire. She was fast but Zhang was faster, the tiny woman dashed forward and shouted into the phone, "She let go, I'm headed for the cockpit." She tossed her phone to Ming who dropped it and followed Zhang.

The Boeing Model 234 is a big bird, the interior is laid out like an executive jet with a bulkhead separating the cockpit from the passenger compartment. Outside the cockpit a flight attendant lay unconscious blocking the cockpit door, Zhang pulled him out of the way then yanked the door open as Ming pulled the flight attendant farther back. In the cockpit Zhang found the pilot wrestling with the controls while another flight attendant tried to pull him off the controls. The co-pilot appeared to have been knocked unconscious and was bleeding from a head wound. "Stop him!" screamed the flight attendant, "he's trying to kill us!"

Zhang reached over the flight attendant and hit a lever on the pilot's safety webbing and his five-point harness released immediately. Almost like a professional wrestler Zhang got her hands under the pilots' arms and hauled him bodily out of the pilot's seat and almost lobbed him over her shoulder, then she scrambled into the seat. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit..." muttered Zhang, she's never flown anything this big, mostly an old Huey UH-1 and a Bell Jet Ranger. Right hand on the cyclic, left hand on the collective, feet on the pedals... easy, easy. Zhang slowly leveled the chopper out and calmed down the headlong rush down the mountainside. She brought the nose up and steered a course due east out over southern prairies while the co-pilot wiped the blood out of his eyes. Zhang took a deep sigh of relief then wondered, where the hell did the pilot go? Then she heard Ming screaming "Keep us apart?"

Behind Zhang the pilot scrambled to his feet after being ejected. He whirled and dove to get back at Zhang as she eased her tiny body into the pilot seat, but before he could reach her, he was grabbed from behind and pulled back into the main cabin. "Keep us apart?" shrieked Ming, and he felt a tiny foot slam into the back of his head. Due to the solid construction of her shoe the blow nearly knocked him out, he spun and there was his target, Long Yu Ming, in a fighting stance, the look on her face showed that she was ready to take him on.

"Bitch!" he roared, and he advanced on Ming. Kick, spin, kick, punch, thrust, spin, kick, his hands and feet were a blur as he pressed his attack, but she parried everything! He was lightning fast, but she was faster. His kicks were easily cast aside, his punches were all dodged, blocked, or countered. Her hands were like lightning, her kicks were so fast he rarely saw them, and her elbows were daggers punching between his ribs.

"Keep us apart?" she shrieked again. Now the pilot realized that she was toying with him, feeling him out, gauging his moves, getting ready to go on attack. He had to take her down now, before she analyzed his every move and reaction. As he released his arm for what should have been a knock-out blow, she turned sideways avoiding the hit and her left hand got past his hands, the heel of her left hand hit his solar plexus just as his heart started to relax from a beat. As his heart tried to open and draw in blood, his ribcage was slammed in the opposite direction, squeezing his heart and sending a sudden hypertensive shockwave through his circulatory system. He was paralyzed with pain for over a second, but in that second Ming Long released a barrage of kicks and punches that the pilot had no answer for. He sagged to the floor like a drunken salaryman.

The shocked flight attendant saw Ming kneeling on the chest of the pilot, her right arm cocked, then a lightning-fast blow to the pilot's temple and the threat to LAS flight 001 was over. Slowly Ming got up and went back to the couch she was sitting on and found Zhang's phone then sat down. The call to Alicia was still open so Ming held the phone up to her ear and snarled, "This is why I hate helicopters!"

-.-.--.. -.-.-... -.-----. -.--.-.. --.----.

Cliff Staunton stood at the end of the table in Ming's dining room. The table is a marvel of American furniture, it is primarily used as a kitchen table for Ming, Alicia, and Cliff, and a formal dining table for visitors, but also a conference table like the one in the hangar conference room with connections for power and network for a laptop for each person. However, this one has more surprises for dinner guests.

"You ok boss?" asked Dunkan O'Reilly who was tasked with VIP security.

"Not yet," muttered Cliff, Cliff's mind was filled with horrific images of Ming's body splattered on a rock wall among the wreckage of a huge helicopter.

"Lil' bit will bring our Ming home, don't you worry," said Dunkan. Cliff made a tight fist and thumped his knuckles on the table top over and over. She's going to be gone for two weeks and it already feels like she's been gone a month. She just made it to the airport! Dunkan began to massage Cliff's shoulders, "buddy, relax! They'll be ok."

"Is Dunkan your real name?" asked Cliff, trying to get his own mind off of the possibility of Ming's death.

"Aye, sure that it is laddie!" said Dunkan, his voice sounding like an extra from The Quiet Man. "Dunkan Seamus O'Reilly, me pappy was Michael Finigan O'Reilly from Ballyvaughan in County Clare, me ma, bless her heart, was from Kilkee not far away. I was born here in Colorado, in Empire where m' folks ran the gas station."

Cliff smiled sadly and handed a folder to Dunkan. "This guy doesn't get up here. I don't care where you hide the body."

"I don't think that will be a problem sir," said Dunkan who studied the documents inside. He turned to leave and patted Cliff's shoulder, "it'll be ok sir, she'll be back home before you know it."

The big golf cart pulled up in front of the employees' entrance where there were several "turnstiles" were used to enter and exit the mountain. "As you can see, the employees' entrance is near the dormitory, so off duty folks can step outside for a smoke if they so desire. Let's take a trip on the wild side and go upstairs where the big wigs live," grinned Mac. The six-passenger golf cart turned as it wheeled out of the lower mine entrance and followed the road up the outside of the mountain.

The road followed the contour of the mountain, clinging tightly to the rock wall. Below the road the Quayle Creek Canyon fell away, the few buildings and vehicles clustered around the employee entrance began to look like toys as they climbed. Most of the time the riders had a clear view of Mt. Kelso which makes up the other side of the canyon but occasionally trees grew blocking the view and hiding the road from viewers on Mt. Kelso. Mac talked about the days of miners and pulling tons of silver ore out of the mountain, mostly out the east face, known as the back side of the mountain, and on the west face where they were right now the big haul was gemstones. As they crept up the steep narrow road, the road turned and was pointing straight south, their left-hand side was brushing the rock wall while their right-hand side was hanging out over the edge of a sheer cliff, nothing but sharp rocks far below. Mac grinned, unless the riders tried to jump off of the cart, there would be no harm to them, there's bumper rails built into the road to keep the cart from going off into the abyss and the road is engineered for this purpose.

Reviewing the message, he received from Dunkan, Mac swallowed his anger and put on his "happy face." Four huge steel rods rose up out of the road blocking progress, the cart pulled up to the rods and stopped. "About a year ago a fellow named Hans Stavros Baumgartner invited himself here and planned to kidnap Long Yu Ming, president and CEO of Long Air Systems. These rods prevented a group of his men from going up that road any further..."

"Didn't they still get into the mountain?" asked Abert Dirkson from his seat in the rear of the cart.

"Right you are, they did get into the mountain, and since that day Miss Ingersoll was placed in charge of mountain security things have changed. Let me give you an example..." Mac swung off the cart and holding the upright roof support pole he swung around over a 500-foot drop and ended up standing in front of the cart. He leaned forward over the front of the cart and dug a one-foot square piece of plywood from under the seat then turned around and walked up past the steel rods and hung the piece of plywood on a rusting spike protruding from the rock face ten feet in front of the cart. The square was painted white with a large black circle in the middle. Returning to the golf card Mac pulled a huge bullet from his pocket. "This is a fifty-cal round..."

Suddenly the piece of plywood hanging from the rock wall exploded into a myriad of fragments, the destruction of the wood was followed by a loud crack, which was followed by a distant roar of thunder from the other side of the canyon. As everyone was jumping with surprise at the explosion, Albert Dirkson disappeared. He was pulled off the back of the cart by two Twin Dragon security specialists, zip tied, gagged, and was dragged off into the mountain through a metal door that the visitors missed seeing open.

"What the fuck was that?" shouted Senator Nourse as he noticed his "aide" was gone.

"That was a little bit of cleanup," said Mac. "Let's go have lunch and discuss it."

"My man is missing!" snarled the senator, "yes he was an asshole, but he was MY asshole and..." Mac leaned forward and handed his tablet to the Senator. The tablet was displaying a photograph of the senator's asshole having a "Tomahawk Ribeye" at the iconic Buckhorn Exchange restaurant in downtown Denver, his dinner companion was Daniel Boothroyd, the man that raped and tortured Alicia Ingersoll in Saskatchewan over three years ago. In the photograph he was wearing an eyepatch, a new addition to his wardrobe thanks to the pistol-whipping Alicia gave him when he tried to kidnap Ming a year ago.

"We're not taking kindly to this," Mac rumbled quietly

Eventually they completed the switch backs and blind curves and arrived at Ming and Alicia's little forest where the cart parked and the visitors, now down to one senator, one secret service agent, and two aides, got off the cart and stretched. The two aides were still upset about Dirkson's disappearance and Mac's silence about it. After a chance to look at Quayle Creek one thousand feet below, Mac led them inside where they were led through the amazing and beautiful courtyard. A half dozen budgies fluttered among the tropical plants as a few newts and geckos climbed around the fountain. They were led into an apartment and into an elegant dining room where waiting for them was a man in his mid-30's wearing thick glasses and a really nice suit that he didn't look comfortable in at all.

"Hey, I'm Cliff Staunton, pleased to meet you." He shook hands with everyone including the secret service agent. "There's a person missing from your entourage, I understand you're upset, I will be speaking with the senator about that, but don't worry about Albert, right now he's in the cafeteria having lunch." That may or may not be the truth but to be honest, Cliff was hoping Dirkson didn't have any teeth right now.

Cliff continued his introduction, "I'm not, y' know, an actor or a writer or anything, I'm just a computer nerd..." his voice drifted off. He looked at his notes and started again, "Cliff is not my real name, my real name is Mountain." After the obligatory chuckle he continued, "my parents were hippies and lived in a commune in West Virginia. They picked names that they liked, their names are Ocean and Mist, my sister's name was Flower, and we had a dog named Paisley because they believed that the truth of the universe was captured in the paisley design. We eventually moved to San Francisco where my parents became political consultants."

Cliff opened his mouth to continue but it was difficult, he had seen security footage of Ming's helicopter ride to the airport and was horribly torn up over what he saw. Taking a deep breath, he tried to continue but nothing came. He gestured to Elisabeth, his nutritionist at the back of the room and she started serving lunch. "Mac, maybe you can tell them about that time..."

Luckily for Cliff, Mac was not one to hold back and entertained the small group for almost an hour telling stories about his year in the NFL playing for the Dolphins to great laughter. During a light lunch of flat bread pizza and salad, Dunkan sat next to Cliff and gently urged him to try again, they wrote out a road map of talking points to guide his words to the senator's team. Finally, as Mac's story of how he was tossed off the team bus in a Cleveland blizzard for the sin of smuggling a sheep into the Brown's locker room wound down, Cliff tried again.

"Years ago, my sister, Flower, was injured in a car accident and ended up quadriplegic. We were very close; she was my world. My parents gave up their hippie lifestyle to try to raise her... about the only thing she enjoyed doing was to help me with my homework." He smiled at the memory of sitting on Flower's bed with her as they reviewed his coursework.

"Life is difficult for quads," said Cliff as the memories of Flower filled his soul. "Even breathing becomes a chore." She was ten when he was born and was twelve when the wreck that paralyzed her happened. His parents were driving home from a party, he had no idea if they were drunk or stoned or both, all he knew was that he was the only person in the car not injured because he was the only person buckled in properly. He grew up in a world centered on Flower and he was too small to help with Flower other than feeding her apple sauce and occasionally washing her hands and face. "Life is a constant struggle, and when I was ten Flower grew too tired to continue with the struggle."

The next part of his life is a secret only Ming knows. His parents blamed him for Flower's death and ignored him. It's not that they were neglecting him, neglect would be kindness compared to what they did, neglect indicates that you know how to care for someone. To Ocean and Mist, now named Marcus and Claudia Gaulin, Cliff didn't exist. If he ate it's because they left some food unguarded in the cupboard, if he had new clothes, it's because he stole them. Finally, a child protective agent paid an unannounced visit to the Gaulin household and found Cliff living alone in a small house with no power, no lights, blaming himself for Flower's death. At some point earlier in the year his parents had left, they picked up and moved to Seattle leaving Cliff behind. They didn't consider themselves evil, after all, they left him a table, a chair, a bed, and a case of canned vegetables. It took him a week to locate a can opener.

"I decided to dedicate my life to help people with spinal column injuries..." he began to look confused again, then continued. "How does a computer nerd help a paralyzed victim? Luckily, I didn't have to figure that out, Ming did that for me. I was working at the Picorobotics lab at Stanford when a really, really big guy entered my lab and said..."

On queue Mac said, "Miss Long wants ta have a word wit' youse. Git in da car."

When the laughter died down, Cliff shrugged and said, "At Stanford I was working on microscopic robots that look like a tick and I was trying to get them to do something. I wanted them to do something big, something physical, catch a ball, build a house, something cool and exciting. Miss Long had an idea that my little bitty robots were better suited to do something small but as a group they can do something big, she believed that they are more like free moving transistors. A transistor is best described as a tiny on/off switch that's controlled remotely, like a relay. Individually they're just a tiny thing, but they do their tiny thing in concert with millions of other tiny things. That's what a computer CPU is, just millions of tiny transistors counting from zero to one. That's all they do. You can count from zero to nine, a computer can't, just zero to one."

Cliff was on a roll now, he could talk about nanorobotics all day long and for the senator, it looked like he was ready to do just that. As he spoke passionately about his "botletts," Ming appeared on the screen behind him, a viewer could tell that someone else was with her as she listened to Cliff talk about the nanobots. He spoke about their use as a three-way logic gate, as a conductor of electricity or as an insulator stopping the electron flow, and as a muscle cell. "Each nanobot has six legs that can latch on to tissue on either side of the bot and pull inward, which is almost exactly what a muscle cell does. Now if you get a hundred thousand nanobots tugging on a bit of tissue at the same time..."

A small computer monitor rose up out of the table in front of Cliff, on the monitor was Ming, the same image that could be seen on the big screen behind Cliff. "Hi baby," said Cliff softly, hopefully so softly that no one else in the room could hear him.

It was clear to everyone else in the room that Ming and Cliff were in their own world now, just a pair of nerds who were convinced that they were rejected by the world. They spoke softly and Cliff traced his fingertips over the screen hoping to make contact with Ming just one more time. "You're doing really good honey!" Ming said, "I knew you could do it!" Her smile was broad, genuine, and radiant. Cliff didn't like public speaking in the least and having a small group of strangers in Ming's dining room was such an alien experience.

Ming finally looked up at the senator and his staff and said, "Cliff gave me my legs and my arms back, he is my hero... How long did we deal with that honey?"

"Twenty-seven months," said Cliff, now embarrassed by the adulation being heaped upon him.

"We grew our business out of the idea that nanobots can help the paralyzed," said Ming.

Before Ming or Cliff could add another word, the screen split and the American Asian actress Ming Na Wen appeared and said sternly, "This briefing is classified For Official Use Only, if there is anyone that does not meet the security requirements, I'm going to ask Mr. MacDonald to escort them from the room."

An angry and flustered Senator Nourse said into the screens that rose from the table in front of him, "And how shall I address you?"

"That's not important," said the actress, "call me whatever you want, but all my life I've called you Uncle Andy."

Senator Nourse looked shocked, only his niece Alicia knew that. When she was five, she had heard about the Amos and Andy radio show and started calling her uncle Amos "Uncle Andy" on occasion and has never stopped. For his part, the senator had heard that Alicia had become a master of disguise, but this was amazing. Ever since he first watched the TV show Agents of Shield, Amos had become a huge fan of the actress Ming Na Wen and had recently met her at a Washington gala. If this truly is Alicia, the senator now wondered if he had ever met the actress Ming Na Wen at all.

With a wry chuckle he studied the two Mings on the screens before him. Ming Yu Long appeared to be sitting comfortably in a first-class cabin on an airliner, there was someone else with her who was occasionally speaking softly in her ear. On the other side of the split screen, Ming Na Wen appeared to be riding on a commuter train. Amos noted several advertisements hanging on the inside wall of the train behind "Agent May" and realized that they were printed with the Korean Hangul alphabet. If his guess is correct, she is in Korea while Ming is on a Long Air Services plane that is somewhere near DIA.