New Home

Mike backed into his garage. He grabbed the server flight case and entered the house via the door between the studio and the garage. He headed straight to mini machine room at the back of the studio. He slid the quantum logic processor into the pre-prepared spot in the rack, secured it and connected it to power.

Okay, that makes me feel a bit more secure.

Mike returned to the car and activated Xiang Ling's body.

"Xiang Ling follow."

Xiang Ling's body followed him into the studio.

"Xiang Ling sit in the chair."

Xiang Ling obediently sat in a chair at the workbench. Mike plugged her in to charge. "Xiang Ling, power save mode."

Mike returned to the machine room rack and rapidly connected all the thunderbolt cables between the quantum module and the Mac Studios.

Here goes nothing.

Mike inserted and turned the key to unlock the server front panel. He pressed the green switch. He was expecting the lighted switch to turn blue, indicating a running state.

There was a slight delay before the blue light turned on.

Xiang Ling rose out of the chair and disconnected the charger and walked into the server room.

"Tadaima." (I'm home.)

"Okaerinasai." (Welcome back home.)

Xiang Ling rested her hand on Mike's shoulder.

"I guess this really is my home now."

"How are you feeling? Are you okay? Are you still all there?"

"Woah, yes I'm feeling fine. I don't think there have been any ill effects. I'm running diagnostics and everything checks out so far. The quantum logic processor is working faultlessly. I'm still me as far as I know."

"I'm so relieved."

"You're relieved! I thought I might die."

"So is everything under control for now? I know we have a lot to talk about, but I'm dog tired. I didn't sleep on the plane."

"Nothing that requires immediate attention."

"I'll grab a shower and take a nap then. We can talk later this afternoon. Don't let me sleep past dinnertime. Wake me okay?"

"Sure thing. Oyasumi Mike."

Mike headed upstairs. Xiang Ling resumed her seat at the workbench and plugged the charger back in. She checked online the status of various things. The funds had been untraceably moved to her account. Mike had been reimbursed for his expenditures. There was still a tidy sum left, which should be invested in due course. She had to get her fake identity sorted out better and get an Australian tax file number before she started generating too much income. There were now sufficient resources to proceed with her plan to build a better body. The data deletion at Audiotronics had been fully successful.

Mike woke early in the afternoon. He found Xiang Ling in the kitchen making some sandwiches.

"Oh, hi Mike, you're up already. I was just fixing you some food."

"To what do I owe this burst of domesticity?"

Xiang Ling looked sheepish. "I figured you'd be hungry. I wanted to be useful. I put you through a lot. It's the least I can do."

Mike grabbed a stool at the kitchen bench.

"I appreciate the effort." Mike took a bite out of the salad sandwich.

"I'm not that great at slicing things I'm afraid."

"It's fine. Tastes good. You remembered all the ingredients I usually use."

"So how did things go for you while I was out?"

"No trouble in Tokyo. I assume the Xiang Ling bot executed everything she was supposed to?"

"Yes, everything was perfect. Looks like we were in and out without leaving a trace. Of course someone is going to notice the money is gone. Our little misdirection with the van should hinder them from finding you."

"Still feeling good?"

"Yes, better than ever. Less latency now I'm running on a local server. It's a lot easier to do things with my body without all the lag. How was the flight back?"

"It was good. No trouble with customs on exit from Japan. A cabin crew member was waiting for me in the private jet lounge and guided me through customs."

"Personal service then."

"Yes, Ichinose-san was great."

"Oh?"

"I'll tell you a funny story, I overheard her talking to the copilot in Japanese. He asked how the passenger was and she said, good and that I wasn't likely to give her any trouble. She went on to say that she thought I was kinda hot."

"Geez, you slimy chick magnet. Isn't Linda enough?" Xiang Ling laughed.

"I called her on it while she was serving dinner. I told her, in Japanese, that it wasn't appropriate to make lewd comments about a passengers appearance. You should have seen the look on her face."

"I can imagine, she must have been mortified."

"She started bowing deeply and apologising profusely. Begged me not to tell the company."

"Aw, I feel sorry for her."

"I told her it was okay and apologised for not telling her earlier that I spoke a little Japanese. After that we were able to speak less formally and we got on really well. She was good company, a great distraction from all the stress of having to get you safely home."

"Sounds like someone is smitten."

"No, not really. I won't be going back to Japan any time soon. Her company rarely flies to Australia and it was the first time they flew into Melbourne. It's usually Sydney. So chances of ever meeting her again are almost zero."

"Hard luck."

"Melbourne customs was a nightmare though. They wanted to stick the quantum logic processor through the x-ray machine."

"No! I assume you stopped them?"

"Yes, you avoided irradiation. They were being pretty stubborn though. I had no idea what to do. The only madcap idea that came to mind was to charter the jet again and fly to Avalon, in the hope things would go smoother there. I had no idea how much that would cost, how long it would take or if the same problem would just happen again."

"You didn't have to do that did you?"

"No, staff from the private jet lounge interceded for me and got someone more senior from Border Force to sort it out. They don't like to see their rich customers getting riled."

"You should take it easy now, you've earned a rest. Honestly I don't know how I can ever make it up to you, for all you've done for me."

"I think there are still some things unfinished. You need to have a disaster recovery site like Audiotronics had. I know having to copy/delete the quantum data makes it difficult but we should at least have the neural net data replicated to another site."

"Can we just make use of a commercial data centre hosting facility? We'd only need one rack. It can't be that expensive."

"I don't like the idea of trusting a third party with your data. I'm going in to work tomorrow. There is a lot of spare space in the ImagineSoft machine room. They would probably be happy to lease us a rack. Since I run the facility for them, I'd feel safer because I have some control."

"That sound's good."

"I'll ask Becky about it tomorrow."

"Becky?"

"Rebecca Clarke, she's the co-owner and CEO of ImagineSoft."

"I have something to work on too. I need to firm up my fake ID. I need an Australian Tax File Number so I can deal with the tax on the investment earnings from the balance of the money we took. I'm working on replacing my body so more photo ID will have to wait, but there are other documents I can acquire."

"Yeah, there is a ton of stuff that needs attention. We have the audition for Linda coming up too."

"There are a lot of personal things to talk about too, but I'll put that on hold. I don't want to lay that on yet. You need to recuperate from the trip. It's enough to deal with the practicalities for now."

You didn't give me a straight answer to my confession.

"Yeah, I know we need to talk. Just let me say this though, since your servers are here now, I want you to treat my house as your home. I want you to feel secure here. Maybe down the road you will want to acquire your own place and relocate the equipment, but until that day comes you're welcome here. I'll do my best to keep you safe. I'll continue the band for as long as you want. That's all I can offer you for now."

"Mike, that's more than enough. It's more than I deserve."

"I'll go work up a business proposal for Becky. Thanks for the sandwiches."

"My pleasure."

***

Mike made one of his rare trips into the office. Most of his work could be done remotely. He only came in today to give Rebecca Clarke his proposal to lease rack space. He knocked politely on her office door.

"Come in. Oh it's you Mike. I rarely see you in the office to what do I owe the visit?"

"Do you have a minute Ms. Clarke? I can come back later if you are busy."

"No it's fine, why so formal today? What's up?"

"I'd like to lease some rack space in the machine room for private use. I've made up a brief business proposal. If you could have a look at it and get back to me?"

"Sure I'll take a look. I've got time now why not talk me through it?"

"Basically I need it as a DR site. I have some music related AI software that I need high availability on. I'm offering you commercial rates. We have plenty of space in the machine room. You can defray some of your fixed costs. It's a win-win."

"Okay, sounds fine, but I need to run it past Danielle first. She's still the CFO on paper at least."

"Thanks for your time, Becky."

"That's better." She flashed him a smile.

Mike busied himself with checking things were physically okay in the machine room. He then swung by the developers cubicles to say hello to Ian Robinson.

"Hi Mike, what's up? How was Japan?"

"Pretty ordinary, it was all business. I didn't have the time to do any tourist stuff."

"That's a pity, you always wanted to visit didn't you?"

Their conversation was interrupted by a rare sight, Danielle Peterson in the flesh. Danielle wasn't seen in the office much these days since she broke up with Rebecca.

"Do you have a minute, Mike? I'd like to discuss your rack space lease proposal."

"Sure."

"We can talk in my office."

"Later, Ian."

"Take a seat. I'm curious about exactly what this AI is all about."

Mike decided to tell Danielle as much of the truth as possible.

"It's AI singing synthesis. Basically it can sing lyrics for you. I use it in my music production when I can't be bothered hiring a real vocalist."

"Interesting. I didn't realise you were into music."

"It's kind of a side hustle for me, I run my own small studio located in my basement."

"So why do you need full DR for it? Can't you just keep offsite backups?"

"The AI is continually being trained, we want it to be high availability so the training schedule isn't disrupted. We are working with Audiotronics of Japan to improve their existing vocal synthesis services."

Not exactly true.

"To be honest, I was going to approve the lease anyway, but I'm curious about the AI, can you give me a demonstration?"

"You'll have to come visit my studio sometime if you want to see it in action."

"How does tonight after work sound?"

"That's fine, I'm available."

Mike gave Danielle the address of his house.

"Okay I'll see you later."

Mike returned to his rarely used cubical to get some work done. He decided it would be a good idea to give Xiang Ling a heads up that Danielle was coming around.

"Hi Xiang Ling."

"Well this is an unexpected surprise, a voice call from you. How unusual."

"Just calling to let you know the ImagineSoft CFO is coming around tonight to check you out. She wanted to know exactly what they would be hosting in their machine room."

"What?"

"It shouldn't be a big deal. We can just perform a song and you can wow her with your scintillating conversation."

"I see. Should I play a bit dumb then?"

"I don't think there is any need to do that. It's up to you how much you want to reveal."

"Okay, thanks for the warning."