The Civil Engineers Read online

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  Back inside his cell, Broussard jotted down some notes in James's file.

  The team had been witnessing the jumping behavior for almost a month now and up until today had just figured it was a mechanical glitch. Now they weren't so sure. They had programmed the bots with only rudimentary stimulus-response outputs in their look-up tables. If exposed to inputs that were defined as optimum values of a particular variable—variegated landscapes, stationary and moving objects of various sizes, learning goals, diurnal and nocturnal rest periods, etc., the bots would experience a tiny electrical pulse through their neural transmitter chips—what they hoped would be a close mimic of an endorphin release in humans. The algorithm then called for the sequence of events leading up to the exposure to the optimum variable (not to exceed ten seconds) to be recorded and burned into their hard drives with a flag. Subsequently, when a similar exposure occurred, a pointer would be called to direct the main processor to the flag and the original recording would be replayed in the auxiliary main processor (the AMP) at one quarter the time and with slightly increased resistance. The MITs would not receive the entire picture, just a ghosted image, but delivered with another neural jig to reinforce the connection between a particular event and an easy, pleasurable reward. This sounded pretty neat on paper; however, they had no way of knowing if the energy bumps were helpful or hurtful or totally ineffective. This type of programming was the basis for MIT movement.

  Issue number one: The MITs' training courses had all been on flat surfaces and in single-plane trajectories. To attempt any fancy aerobatics at this juncture would have been cost prohibitive and potentially damaging to the robots. So the team had not created any stimulus-response outputs involving jumping or going airborne from one point higher or lower than the first. The MITs did not have any precepts of propelling their bodies into the air to achieve locomotion. (In other words, nothing in should have equaled nothing out.) So how and why were the MITs jumping and diving?

  Issue number two: Ditto for the 'dancing.'

  Issue number three: James's damaged pivot leg undergoing some mysterious and near instantaneous repair job. Did this event corroborate Van's hypothesis about the weak leg brains or did it bust it wide open?

  Issue number four: No one was going to find any answers for another two weeks.

  Ten minutes later Broussard was pacing the floor. The block was its usual rowdy self as the men prepared for evening chow. For some reason (no doubt fiscal) all inmates were served dinner in their cells every other Friday. The night shift guards came on duty at four-thirty and were charged with this dubious honor. It really was a crap shoot. Depending upon which head cook—Leon or Bang—showed up for work, their palates would be either placated or bruised. But tonight Broussard had no cares because tonight was Gumbo Night!

  Juggy was busying himself next door with the finishing touches on his signature piece. The aroma of fried onions filled the air, and Broussard stopped mid-stride to savor it. Down the block he heard a screech and then a loud thwack! as a meal tray crashed into a wall. Obviously Bang had not made it tonight. Oh, well ...

  Soon Juggy's raspy voice was calling him to dinner, sounding as sweet as a country granny ringing the dinner bell from her front porch.

  His tattooed arm snaked around the cell divider wall, a paper plate piled high with steaming vittles in his hand. Very slowly Broussard took it from him, careful not to jiggle it.

  "Okay, I've got it."

  Broussard gave a rushed shout-out to the world and then dug in.

  After shoveling several spoonfuls down his gullet, he let out a loud aaaahhh.

  "Hey, Neal. That's some wicked shit, man!"

  "Juggy, to use the Lincoln vernacular, you peed in it this time."

  Broussard happily dug into the center of the plate, where the spices would be more compressed and bound to each other. Each bite set off an explosion of culinary ecstasy as the hot peppers and garlic and meat juices rimmed and charmed the insides of his mouth. He had always heard that good food was better than sex. While he still hadn't been convinced of that, it was definitely a contender!

  "Take a look at this." Juggy's hand reappeared. This time it held a small photograph. Broussard reluctantly set his plate down, wiped his hands, and took the picture. A tiny red face stared up at him amidst a swirl of black hair.

  "That's Bobo's new baby, Jackson Hillard the Third." Bobo was Juggy's eldest son and the only one of his nine children to have eluded prison thus far.

  "Hey-hey! How about that!" Broussard returned the picture. "When did he make his debut?"

  "Uh, lemme see ... July the tenth. Naw, that ain't right. That's Daddy's birthday. But it's close. Maybe July the nineteenth. Yeah."

  Juggy was moving things around in his cell. He was probably stashing the snap in his safe box, where an inmate's most precious possessions were kept.

  "That's my twelfth gran. And I think I'm gonna stop at him."

  Broussard laughed at that. "Juggy, I don't think you have a lot of say in that."

  Juggy was indignant. "The hell I don't! Bobo listens to his Pa. They were here last visiting day, and I told his wife then to stop squirting out these babies. She ain't working and Bobo's got his condition, you know, so the last thing they need is another crumb snatcher." He paused. "Now, I love 'em all, but, well, they ain't the brightest bulbs in the shed. And not too easy on the eyes either. Take after their momma's side of the family." He snorted and muttered. "More creature than human. And it ain't right to bring folks into the world to suffer like that." He spat out something onto the hall floor just as Officer Wilson, one of the night guards, was passing by with his food cart.

  The guard stopped abruptly and turned smartly on his heel. "I want that cleaned up by the time I get back."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  The guard moved on. Juggy continued. "But I'm blessed, man. Bobo's working, the family's healthy. My other kids ain't doing so great but they're doing, you hear what I'm saying? I got no complaints. God's been good to me and mine."

  Broussard grunted. He had not seen his parents in almost five years. He had no children. No brothers or sisters. His ex-wife had his ex-dog and all of his ex-money. And the only person who had ever honestly loved him, Uncle Curtis, was two thousand kilometers away and heartbroken that his golden boy was going to be spending the rest of his life locked away in prison. He did not respond to Juggy's comment.

  Later that night Broussard picked up where he left off the week before in Carlos Casteneda's book, A Separate Reality. Don Juan was laying down some tracks about anger and violence existing in the heart of the warrior because he could not see the real reality of the world ... some mystical, nth-dimensional version of the present humdrum universe that one could peer around its slippery edges into with only a few hits of peyote, a resolute inferiority complex and the burning desire to deconstruct old fairy tales. Harry Potter on acid. Oh, and it wasn't necessarily a better, safer, saner universe, just the real one behind the astral smoke and mirrors jobber that humankind had been weaned on for the past ten thousand years.

  Broussard put the book away. It was bedtime. The other men began their lights-out ritual, calling out to each other in abbreviated raps and songs to wish one and all a good night. He had never participated, but then again had never failed to listen. It was extreme urbanism, yet quite primitive ... probably a throwback to a time when the cavemen would gather around the evening fires after a day of hunting to console or encourage each other to prevail the next day. To Broussard, this was the only truly safe time in a prison; when the rages and the frustrations were released into the night and only the solemn hope for peaceful dreams remained in the heart.

  There was a soft whimpering juxtaposed with the soulful cadence of this temporary good will. No doubt it was Martinez. One of the psych doctors had finally upped the dosage of his meds. The awful screams had stopped, but the sadness enveloping the man continued. It leaked out of Martinez's cell and permeated the entire floor. The
re were times when Broussard found himself mentally pushing the second-hand melancholia away, muttering to himself, "I'm trapped with this nonsense and I can't escape." Maybe if he had a few chews of peyote he could achieve astral travel into the next universe; the universe where he was a free man, and the only sounds to be heard were of his lips smacking with satisfaction over a renewed life. He wondered what peyote looked like. Was it really a mushroom? And, if so, could Diane maybe sneak some in with a food package? He plotted a bit about this and then it was lights out.

  Broussard fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He dreamt that he was standing in a vast parking lot. He looked over his left shoulder and saw the Lincoln Memorial bathed in rotating spotlights. It must have been Washington D.C., but it looked more like Dallas in the areas that he could make out. There was a loud whooshing sound from the distance. His field of view rose and expanded, and he was shocked to see an unbelievably high wall of water roaring up from the Atlantic Ocean. The capitol building became visible for an instant before it was swallowed whole. He began to thrash about, clinging to the bare air as he clambered towards a moon, white and indifferent to the catastrophe unfolding below it. As the tidal wave plowed through the city, it made its way inexorably towards the stout pillars protecting the Lincoln Memorial statue. Broussard willed himself to fly above the monstrous leading edge below. The water came at him, and the angry foam lapped at his feet. He struggled to streak upwards to safety. That was when he dared to look down. And saw only a placid blue sea.

  4

  "Neal, what I hear you saying is that the world just has too many assholes clogging the drain."

  Broussard nodded. "Basically, yes."

  "And what qualifies a person as an 'asshole'?"

  He considered the question. "Well, I guess someone who unnecessarily makes life difficult for others."

  "So bullies are assholes?"

  "Yep."

  "And people who abuse animals?"

  "I'd say so."

  "And Hitler? People like that?"

  "I think Hitler probably left the asshole category at puberty. I'd put him in a different class all together."

  "The difference being..."

  Broussard looked him dead in his eyes. "Obvious. Look, I don't discuss Hitlers and that type. Can we change the subject?"

  The counselor shrugged as if he didn't care, which he probably didn't. Anger management classes were bullshit. You sat around "sharing" with a bunch of other pricks who were also strapped to the system and you went round and round with the same tired surface emotions until somebody coughed up a 'breakthrough' which inevitably ended up being some gross revelation about their parents or their uncle or their dog or their snot. Broussard was fed up with hearing it. But some had it worse. The counselors had to swirl in the muck twenty-four-seven. Broussard imagined that all of them had flamed out a long time ago and that he and the other cons were just conversatin' with the embers.

  This one, Cal or Kirk-somebody, shifted his attention to the body in the chair next to him.

  "Marcus, do you have anything to add to what Neal said?"

  Marcus shuffled his feet. "Ah, I don't think so. But he's right 'bout one thing. They got a lot of nut jobs runnin' around out there. I remember when I was 'bout six I saw my stepdaddy beat the brains out of a ... "

  Earth. Wind. Fire.

  Broussard's mind wandered. Where were the true spirit warriors? The larger versions of Man. Trapped in an anger management class with Batman and Superman? Did Superman finally get laid, or had he misinterpreted that particular sequel? Bruce Wayne was a first class player with hot babes practically swinging down from the rafters. So maybe only Superman was holed up with the real heroes in smoke-filled caves, showing off battle scars and trading religious anecdotes to dull their pains.

  He managed to get back to his cell with his wits in order. It was Friday. The Lab had been closed now for two weeks as Chang had promised. Work was still on schedule to recommence the following Monday, and it could not come quickly enough. He had excess energy.

  He was pacing again. He had crossed the floor half a dozen times before he stopped, looked up, and found Miss August looking down at him with those smoldering eyes. His own eyes drank in her dark mane falling like a waterfall about her bare shoulders. He traced the outline of her smile, sexy to be sure, but so much like a young girl's. She would be just as happy feeding oats to her horse at the family farm as she would be barking orders to cringing subordinates. The family farm. Christ, she probably did have horses somewhere. In Montana, maybe. She definitely had a Montana look about her. And she was young, barely out of her teens. But she was in college now, studying to become a Wall Street tycoonette. Had her parents seen this picture? If he had had a daughter, would he be okay with his daughter posing in the nude to further her career? Would I? Hell, no! Right? Change the subject. He examined the cracks on the ceiling. If he had a few primary colors he could have fashioned a Picasso-ish graffiti mosh of .... Let's see ... Diane's hips there near the ceiling light. My mother's eyes over there near the perpetual march of ants. What color were Mom's eyes? His mind tried to seize on a vision of her, failed and then promptly doused him in sleep. He awoke to a guard banging on his bars with his baton. "Nappy time's over. Get up and go see your family."

  Still half asleep he mumbled, "Uncle Curtis?" And then he remembered. It was Friday. Visiting day. And the only 'family' who would be coming by would be Diane. There was a sharp pang of sadness, but he managed to shake it off. Deal with what you have and forget about the rest. The guard ambled away.

  Juggy's disembodied voice came to him across space and time. "You got some hot water, Butch?"

  "Yeah. Just a minute."

  Broussard took his pants off and changed his underwear. A rank smell assaulted his nose. Somebody's john must have backed up.

  He turned on the hot water tap. Where is my hose? He looked under stacks of papers, clothes, books and finally found it nestled beneath his mattress. He hooked it up to the sink's spigot.

  "Okay. You ready?"

  He banged on the bars. "Juggy?" Was he suddenly deaf? "Juggy?" The guard must have heard him because he hustled over from stage right. He shot Broussard a brief look and then darted left towards Juggy's cell. The next thing he heard was the guard shouting excitedly into his walkie-talkie.

  That smell. It was even stronger now. And then it hit him. He felt his knees buckle, and he walked numbly back to his desk and sat down.

  Well, no visiting today.

  And no more blue plate gumbo.

  Jackson "Juggy" Hillard was gone.