The airplane was leaving in a few hours, but Travis Cole still had some unfinished
business in his MIT office — one of which was to get his in-law off his back.
“Please, John. We’ve been over this a hundred times,” Cole murmured, leaning
forward on his desk to stare down at the computer monitor in front of him. He rested his
fingers lightly on the keyboard, his hazel eyes focused on the command prompt on the
screen:
DO YOU WANT TO EXECUTE? Y/N
Could he really do it?
Though Cole had made up his mind, it was now formal decision time. Pressing ‘N’ would
continue his life as a well-known researcher in eco-biology at the MIT Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory. Pressing ‘Y’ would end three years of cutting-edge work and move him and his
daughter to a new home in Washington, D.C. and a lucrative research job with the U.S. Army.
Cole’s finger hovered over the keyboard — he felt sick.
John François was, as usual, sucking on the end of an ornately-carved wood and
leather pipe. It went along with his academic look: elbow-patched sports coat, baggy
brown pants, and loafers.
“It’s not right, Travis,” François implored. “It’s not right to take Shannon away
from the environment she knows just weeks after her mother’s death. It’s just not right.”
Cole kept his focus on the task at hand. They had been over this a thousand
times. Shannon, Cole’s young daughter, was already in the car, waiting. In fact, all his
luggage and many of his important worldly belongings waited there as well. He would
return later for the rest of his stuff.
For now ...
For now, he had to just get away.
Cole’s finger still hovered. He blinked hard. Could he really do this?
Yes, I can do this.
“And what about this?” François said as he opened the cover of a three-ring
binder with the title TERRAN PROJECT written in blue across the front. François gently
thumbed through the pages and pointed at the different artificial intelligence programs
that Cole had cataloged and tracked while at MIT. “You’re just going to throw away
years of work?”
Cole ignored François and turned back to the computer terminal with its blinking
white cursor awaiting a reply.
He took in some air — and pressed the ‘Y’ key on the keyboard.
Cole turned to François while the computer executed his command unable to
watch. Instead, he looked at his aging in-law with compassion for the man. Since his
wife died of leukemia ten years before, François had lived alone. Cole and Shannon
were the closest thing he had to family.
“John …” said Cole gently, but François cut him off.
“Shannon’s only five years old, Travis. Taking her away from the surroundings
she knows isn’t the answer,” he pleaded. The older man had tears in his eyes.
Damn. Cole gently placed his hand on François’s arm. “John, I don’t know what I
would have done without your help after Kathy’s death. But I know what’s best for
Shannon. I have to give her a change.” Cole squeezed François’s arm, then looked
back to the computer screen. He watched as file name after file name appeared on the
screen, all tagged with the same statement:
FILE FOUND. FILE TERMINATED.
Cole looked at his watch. “Jeez. We have to go. You’ll see us off?”
François nodded in resignation.
“Thanks. Shannon will like that.” Cole glanced once more at the scrolling text on
the computer screen, turned, and hurried out the office with François close behind.
In the darkness of the vacated room, the program reached the end of its routine,
and then stopped on the last file. The text that glowed from the LCD screen turned from
white to red and blinked repeatedly insisting on an answer.
FILE FOUND. FILE ACTIVE.
ABORT OR CONTINUE?
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