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208. Two Fans
NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Reference: Post 188. The All-Natural Patio, 190. Commanding Heights, 145. Doors at The Elegant Ostrich
Diddlie leads me over to her carport and shows me two flat packs containing black Lasko fans.
“These are sixteen-inch, three speed, oscillating, pedestal fans with adjustable height.”
“Very impressive, Did.”
“Not really, they are el cheapo plastic from Snaz.”
“Delivered today?”
“Yeah, I called you right afterwards.”
“Why me?”
“Because you are my friend, sweety, and I need help.”
“Okay, what with?”
“These fans have to be assembled. Can’t you tell?”
“I hadn’t given it much thought.”
“Well, please, Fred, will you help me?”
She presses against me and squeezes my hand.
Mr. Liddell is stirring in his hutch.
“Oh! With assembly you mean.”
Yeah, she kisses my chin.
“Will you bend down!”
I bend a little and she presses her lips against mine and whispers.
“You see, Lou is away until next week and he usually bails me out of situations requiring manual dexterity and tools and all that.”
I put my arm around her shoulders.
“Of course I will help.”
I turn to look at the boxes more carefully.
“Fred, are those boxes really more interesting than me?”
“I am trying to get a better idea of what I just let myself in for.”
She holds fast to my arm. “Well, that’s up to you, honey.”
“We can get these things together, no problem.”
“I see, I guess it’s going to be the fans and that’s it.”
“Ah, we could always get lunch after, or now, if you prefer.”
“Let me get the toolbox.”
She turns away briskly and walks over to a cupboard against the wall at the back and brings over a toolbox. She drops her small old fashioned gray metal box at my feet. The loud rattling noise rouses Mr. Liddell’s interest and he pushes his straw up against the door to his hutch.
Diddlie goes in the house and soon returns with two boxcutters and we start work.
“Where are you going to put them?”
Diddlie rips the plastic off one of the fan blade assemblies.
“They go down on the patio with my new chairs.”
“You mustn’t keep them outside. These are indoor fans.”
“It’s okay. I’ll keep the fans in here when nobody is sitting outside.”
“Sounds like a good idea!”
When we had finished the assembly, she produced two extension cords from her tool closet. She plugged them in and handed me one. We walked over to the chairs where we had put the fans, paying out cord as we went.
Once the fans were in position and running, we sat down in the breeze.
“See how it blows the bugs away!”
”Keeps us cool too! Good idea, Did.”
“Yeah, there is another reason for them, but I can’t go into it now.”
“Did you hear that?”
“No, the air is blowing in my face and sounds like white noise.”
“Did, I think a car pulled up in your driveway.” I stand up and glimpse a red Fiat through the carport.
She gets up and walks over to see and soon returns with Lark who is talking to Diddlie, I hear only part of her conversation.
“…and Feather Jackdaw had stepped in to fund the new systems.”
Lark sits down opposite me.
“So, hi Fred. Have you heard about the Vice Pesident?”
“No, what is it?”
“She hasn’t been seen for three weeks.”
“How is that possible?”
“That’s the question. She is behind the movement to support “Intelligent America”.
“That isn’t the wackiest thing I have heard from her.”
“No but she is using funds that Macadamia wants to support his Nevada project.”
“Do you think she has been arrested or kidnapped or something?”
“With her money, I doubt it. I think she is just traveling incognito.”
Diddlie turns down the fan nearest her.
“What was that? I can’t hear above all this air rushing past my ear.
“Just redirect the fan. It’s Feather, Did, I think she has gone to ground.”
“Maybe, or she is hanging out with Putin in Russia. He supposedly has a crush.”
“I don’t believe it, Did. She loves attention too much.”
“Fred, she’s had interests in Russia for years, and she has spent plenty of time with the guy.”
“So, you think she has become a ‘problem’?”
“Diddlie, her problems are here in the States.”
“Well, Lark, she won’t lose her life here, but she might lose her money.”
“What’s the difference for someone like that?”
“Connections, Fred, as long as she is alive so are her contacts around the world. Some of them don’t even know who they are really dealing with.”
“Why not?”
“These businesses are like boxes within boxes within boxes. Government money and private money mixes together in their calculations and accounts.”
“Yup, like matryoshka dolls!”
“Yeah, Fred, and it is not just a Russian thing.”
“They are ripping off the taxpayer!”
Of course Diddlie! Big time, you never know who really owns what, unless you are an insider.”
“Okay, don’t tell me, they all live in the Caymen Islands!”
“Well, the Caymans are a great place to avoid taxes, but this is bigger.”
“Okay, Lark, what is going on?”
“I can tell you why they are funding some of these data centers.”
“You mean Feather is in on that?”
“Sure, Fred, money, money, money! President Macadamia is just a bunch of algorithms, and she wrote the basic code at Prestige U. about five years ago.”
“So that was the big break through, which was so secret!”
“Sure, Fred, they had the first working AI and have had to keep the thing secretly growing ever since.”
“Right, maybe it was the Middlesex Project, remember that rumor?”
“That was an arts project. Let’s not go there Fred.”
“Okay, but what do you mean by “Growing?”
“I mean the simulation gets more complex the longer it goes on, and that takes more and more electric power.”
“Do you really believe the President is just a simulation?”
“Oh, for sure, Diddlie. No doubt about it. AI and a few body doubles who look like the real Macadamia before he died in the fifties.”
“Lark, this is pretty far out!”
“The whole tech project is supposedly a secret government thing. It has a US government grant. I’ve looked at the paper work, but it isn’t just government. It is controlled by the organization behind Macadamia.”
“What organization?”
“Fred, Feather is the biggest part of it. I mean there is an international team working on it under her leadership.”
“There is?”
“Yeah, two of them died in accidents, back in 2024.”
‘Are you saying they were murdered?”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“Diddlie, they were Russians working for Putin’s part of the family business.”
“So, what’s that got to do with the Macadamia algorithms?”
“They came over here, supposedly to study at PU.”
“Oh! You mean they lost their lives over here?”
“They weren’t just studying. They were helping write and test the code.”
“So, the organization has a Russian component.”
“Right, a big one.”
“Do you mean it is serving Russian interests?”
“It is serving its own interests; it coincides with Russia is some ways and with the US in others. This isn’t about politics. It is about money.”
“Okay, so who got killed? I mean why?”
“Katya drowned in a boating accident in the Chesapeake and Slava died in an auto accident out in Louden County.”
“Was this reported anywhere?”
“They were identified in separate stories, as foreign graduate students in local news.”
“Well, why do you think they were murdered?”
“Nobody knows why. Maybe they found out something they weren’t supposed to know. Maybe they were going political.”
“Well, Lark, I guess you are fully recovered from your breakdown now. How did you find out all this?”
“This thing brought all my energy back! I just followed up on a lot of stuff, like a reporter should, but didn’t report everything.”
“Are you afraid for your life?”
“Not yet, no one knows about me.”
“Are you going to blow the whistle?”
“No way! I could be arrested for revealing classified information. Besides, who would believe the full extent of it anyway?”
“But it isn’t really a government project.”
“Right, Fred, imagine what would happen if a Congressional investigation got into it.”
“It is not hard to imagine a lot more accidents.”
“Well, it is a clever idea to make it, legally, a classified operation, to protect their own interests!”
“Fred, I keep what I have on a laptop with no internet card.”
“Diddlie, is this why you bought the fans?”
“Well, Fred, Lark suggested it.”
“Is that it, Lark?”
“Sure, I have to talk to somebody about it. It is the biggest story I have ever covered. We have a simple way to keep our friendly conversations to ourselves.”
“Yeah, these fans blow whole sentences out of earshot!”
“Proof on concept, Did.”
“But what about our phones?”
“See this, Fred?” Lark pulls something out of her purse. “Our phones are all jammed within five to twenty feet of this thing.”
