Prob-psycho

Prob-Psycho By – Ankit Singhal With a stiff twist of her frail wrist, Penny removed the dollop of ground coffee from the espresso maker. The percolated dark liquid smelled just as the board read, “Today’s special - Kona coffee with a hint of raspberry.” Penny did not enjoy flavored coffee and did not hold anyone drinking them in high esteem. “A waste of perfectly good coffee if you ask me” she said to the shy teenager standing in front of the counter. “That will be $10. Cash or plastic?” Billy was not much to look at. At 160 pounds, his 6 foot 2 frame looked starved and slouched. He had read about cash, the use of bank notes and coins for purchases of this kind. It was a shame that government outlawed cash after the success of New Society. The word, cash, however, remained in common use. “Cash.” he said, placing his right index finger on the shiny sensor plate of the finger print scanner. This was nothing like cash. There was no anonymity in this like cash. Anonymity Billy desperately craved. Mid morning was the best time to get coffee. The morning rush had cleared, yet the staff usually retained their fresh, morning optimism. The new barista had kind eyes and a lovely smile. Billy enjoyed the sight of pretty girls in the morning. As any typical boy his age, Billy wondered if he had a chance with her. His attempt to exude confidence was failing under the weight of his hesitant expression. The green light on the scanner blinked twice and then turned a solid blue. Penny had never seen blue. Today was her first day at Corner Coffee store, an odd name for a store in the middle of the city block flanked by Broadway and Dudley. Penny was expecting a solid green, which meant $10 had been deposited into the store’s bank account. A solid blue meant a special alert. This cannot be good news. Billy, who could not keep his eyes off of her pretty face, saw her soft, fresh smile turn into an annoyed frown. He had seen that transformation before. In a moment, the pretty barista with the pretty face would check the NSOP alert and his chance of asking her out will be gone forever. Pretty girls like her did not go out with a Prob-Psycho. Penny read the console in disbelief as her mind processed the words flashing on the LCD screen. Subject’s Name - Bill McHill Current Psychopathic Behavior Probability (CPBP) – 89.3% Recommendation – Subject has demonstrated liking for smiling girls. Please smile and keep the interaction short. Press # if you would like to put authorities on alert. Nearest law enforcement officer – Sgt. J. T. Elliot (Patrolman, NYPD)

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Estimated response time – 12.5 minutes Penny did not realize that her face had lost all shades of color and her slim body was trembling. “Subject has demonstrated liking for smiling girls.” Maybe if she smiled, the psychopath would let her live. Billy knew the fake TV smile well. He had seen too many of them since Sunday, since Jaws died. NSOP knew about Jaws. What else did NSOP know? Billy did not want to push his luck. If he lingered, the nervous shop girl would certainly hit the panic button. The incident at Movie Hut last night was still fresh in his mind. He did not want a repeat. He wanted his life back. Damn you Jaws. Why did you have to die and ruin everything? The light on the scanner turned green. Billy wearily lifted his finger from the sensor, made an attempt at a half hearted smile, turned to the door and stepped out on the concrete pavement. He wanted to scream at the barista, wanted to yell out that he was harmless. He won’t bite! She would probably report him anyway. From his pocket, Billy pulled out his cell. Scrolling through his messages, he singled out the unsolicited ad from Personality Consulting Inc. The address in the ad was two blocks over. His appointment was not until noon. He had plenty of time to walk. Information travels at the speed of light. His name was already part of a list. A list that came out of some NSOP database. A list that Personality Consulting Inc. bought to market their services to prospective clients. Billy had worked interned for a database marketing firm. Depending on the correlator, these lists could get very expensive. Billy wondered how much did NSOP charge to sell his name to Personality Consulting Inc. Calling the rundown establishment seedy would have been an exaggeration. The building looked condemned. Billy re-evaluated his options before grudgingly entering through the squeaky revolving door. The building had air conditioning. The rickety elevator still had power and churned its way up to the nineteenth floor. The Suite 1906 turned out to be a well lit loft with huge bay windows and tastefully done industrial design interior. The office of PC Inc. felt out of place in this dilapidated building. Something wasn’t right. The single occupant of the establishment greeted him with an enthusiastic shake of hands and introduced himself as Mr. Pink. He held up his hand, pointing in the general direction of a chair in front of a neat desk. Billy sat down, fiddled with the placement of his arms in his lap, and finally decided that, folding them infront of his chest may be best defense against the chill of the room. Mr. Pink, meanwhile typed a few hundred key strokes on a shinny key board on the desk. The ever changing contents of the computer screen reflected multi-colored streaks of light on Mr. Pink’s shinny forehead. Billy could not see the screen, but he could guess it had something from Billy’s past.

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The office of PC Inc. was one large hall, lined up with banks of high end computer equipment. Lights were blinking on the front panels of a few of the machines, although no sound could be heard. The air in here was cold, compared to the rest of the building. On the far wall, a giant display screen was scrolling with line after line of test. Billy could barely read the fleeting text but it was clear that these machines were up to something. While Billy’s mind wandered around the room, Mr. Pink was speaking. Billy had to pull his thoughts together and concentrate. Mr. Pink said “Billy McHill, born 20120712.1203 at County General, Buffalo, New York. Is that you?” Billy nodded. The short pudgy guy, in the smart sports jacket and open toed slippers exuded casual. His tone was strangely non-committal. He was sizing Billy up. It reminded Billy of the small talk before his last job interview. Mr. Pink was probing, looking for some detail. He was asking specific, yet irrelevant questions. He listened intently and made note of pertinent details in a scratchpad in front of him. “How much do you know about NSOP, Billy?” “Don’t you know? It’s New Society Observation Program. It helps in the identification of Prob-Psychos. I only know what learned in high school.” Billy was born after the success of New Society. NSOP was now common knowledge. Didn’t this guy ever go to school? They teach NSOP in 8th grade. How can it be that this fatty did not know about NSOP. Mr. Pink shook his head. “What a brain wash job. You should have read 1984 before it was outlawed. It amazes me how NSOP controls our lives and yet so few people care about it. Let me tell you kid, you have no idea what life’s like without NSOP.” Billy shrugged. Mr. Pink was an antsop. Billy’s dad was an antsop. How could they think NSOP was bad? How can people live in a society filled with unstable psychopaths? They said that crime dropped by 96% after New Society. How can one argue with that? These oldies were just ancients who romanticized about the past. There was no arguing with them. Mr. Pink caught Billy rolling his eyes. An NSOP believer, coming to see him to beat NSOP. There’s irony for you. Mr. Pink saw them everywhere. Multitudes of hypocrites who praised the system as long as they were not on the receiving end. Poor commoners who placed so much faith in the system and its ability to identify prob-psychos, yet yearned to beat it as soon as they were caught in its statistical web. The brains of their generation were wired differently with years of propaganda. They would never listen to reason. “Mr. Pink is not your real name. Is it?”

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“No kidding. How did you guess, Sherlock?” To Mr. Pink, sarcasm came easily. As far as he knew, Mr. Pink was the only person on the planet who despised NSOP. He believed in it once. He used to be one of the fanatic statistical psychologists who worked tirelessly at NSOC, analyzing data, matching patterns, weaving a careful statistical web to catch psychopathic tendencies. It was him who killed Julia. Damn NSOP. After her death, he had wowed to help innocent souls from the wrath of NSOP. “Kid its better for both of us if you do not know my real name. It takes skill to stay hidden from the all seeing eye of NSOP. The treatment will be far more affective and painless if you know little about me.” “Treatment? Isn’t that a little over the top? I mean don’t you just have to hack into NSOP and just change a few bits of information. Don’t you think calling it treatment is a little borderline pretentious?” Billy made no attempt to hide his contempt for Mr. Pink, a low life antsop hacker, who profited from the misery of poor commoners. All Mr. Pink could do was smile. The kid had no idea how intelligent NSOP was and the delicate work it would take to tweak his psych profile to drop his CPBP below the all important threshold of 58.73%. Five eight seven three, the four digits that once defined his life. He could try to reason with the kid. Tell him how New Society created a new generation of data mining engine. Tell him about project MALINTENT and how it catapulted the world into an Orwellian surveillance society. Tell him how strategically placed RFID scanners were constantly tracking activity of citizens going about their ordinary, everyday life. How NSOP absorbed data from databases, street cameras, payment gateways, shopping cart sensors, satellite imagery, radio waves, communication channels, network chatter and correlated terabytes of data to match psych patterns with statistical models that statistical psychologists like him had painstakingly created to filter out abnormal behavior and assign a CPBP value to each and every living human on the planet. Two hundred city blocks of massively parallel data processing grid with its brute processing power coupled with one of the most sophisticated AI every built was not an ordinary opponent and hacking it was much more than changing just a few bits of information. “Lets get to business shall we. How much can you pay? I see that you have just over six thousands credits in your back account and only three hundred and six credits in your credit limit. I can see that death of Jaws has had quite an effect on your… shall we say, social life. If you want your life back, it’s going to cost you.” Hurrying this along was a good strategy. Every second increased his exposure to Billy. Billy was unimpressed. Mr. Pink must have purchased all this information from NSOP. This two bit hack was making such a show but in the end he was just an impostor trying to hustle him. “How much do you want?” “Money is not particularly important. Its more important that you are commited to getting your life back. I am not sure what you think Billy. Let me make it very clear that this is not going to be easy. Your life is full of markers that tag you as a prob-psycho. Your mom

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died when you were five. Your father is wealthy but seems you are not the center of his attention. You were never in a steady relationship. Your grades, through all your academic career have never been lower than 3.9. Most importantly, all your pets died within three months. And then there is the ace in the hole, death of Jaws. From what I can gather, Jaws holding you together. With her death, your CPBP went up by 17 points.” Billy was not prepared for this. His mind refused to believe what he had just heard. Mr. Pink had just recited his life. That cannot be possible. How can he know all this. This can’t be right. “How do you know all this?” “Look around you. What do you see? All this high end equipment is plugged into the world of electronics. Privacy is dead my boy. I can read your life like an open book”. “How did you find me? Who sold you my name?” “You think I bought your name.” Billy could see the mirth on Mr. Pink’s chubby face. “Come on kid. I expected you would be a little smarter by now. Maybe you do not understand your predicament. Let me tell you how your life is going to play out. You are flagged as a very high risk prob-psycho. Every time you will come in contact with any living soul, red flags will go up. Three incidents have already been noted in your file in the last four days. The moment your CPBP crosses 92%, you will be arrested and put in a state asylum. Do you understand what I am saying?” Billy understood but it did not register. Jaws died on Sunday, only five days ago. How can his life fall apart so fast. He did not believe he was hearing. But Mr. Pink was right about everything so far. This guy knew what he was talking about. All he could do was nod, silently. “So, what’s it gonna be Billy? How much do you want your old life back?” “What will I have to do?” Mr. Pink saw something in his face. Billy had that determination in his eyes. “Ok Billy. But if you want to come out of this, you will follow my instructions to the letter. Are you ready?” “Yes.” There was hesitation in his voice. The voice tone analyzer registered anxiety. That was normal. “There is only one way to come out of this. You will have to commit suicide.” Billy chuckled. “Let get this straight. You want me to die to get my life back. You are loosing me doc.” Mr. Pink’s patience was wearing thin. Billy could distinctly detect the effort of restraint in Mr. Pink’s voice. “You will have to try to commit suicide. None of that cry for help, half

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ass attempt to grab attention. You will have to make a serious effort to kill yourself. I’ll help you. But if you do it half heartedly and NSOP is not convinced, you are screwed.” Billy took one deep breath. Then another. “I want my life back. Is there any other way?” Mr. Pink shook his head. “Sorry kid. In all my experience doing this, for your situation, this is the only option.” --Billy woke up in a hospital bed. Consciousness brought a sharp pang of pain in his ribs and right leg. Later, the nurse told him how lucky he was. He had tried to kill himself by jumping off the bridge. Luckily, a couple driving by had seen him and called the ambulance in time. One of his lungs was punctured, his legs had compound fracture and both his elbows were badly bruised. He would live. It was finally over. Mr. Pink had planned this in meticulous detail. Mr. Pink got one of his clients to throw a dinner party and invite a certain couple with a particularly benevolent psych profile. Billy’s jump from the bridge had been timed perfectly. The location of the bridge was strategically chosen too. The ambulance took just minutes to get to the scene of the accident. Billy was free. --Penny saw Billy come into the coffee shop as she was mopping. It was almost closing time. Penny did not remember Billy. She had forgotten about their last meeting, her panic and the prob-psycho flash. To her, Billy was just another normal customer. He looked cute. Billy, ordered a tall café-ou-le and paid cash. This time, the light turned solid green. Billy stuck a conversation with the pretty barista while she steamed the milk. They had a lot in common. She was going to a friend’s house party after closing. She invited Billy. They left the store together. --As officer Reynolds had prepared his dinner at home. The mushroom soup in the steel flask was scalding hot. He got a plastic bowl from the pantry for the soup. As he took the first sip of his delicious soup, the NSOP terminal lit up. Crime Alert : 187 (Murder) Deceased – Penny Largo

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Murderer - Bill McHill Details – Penny largo has been stabbed in the chest by Bill McHill. Subject has a history of psychopathic tendencies however had been recently evaluated as medium risk for psychopathic behavior. Subject is not making any attempts to flee the scene. Recommendation – Alert local law enforcement and arrest Bill McHill. Nearest law enforcement officer – Sgt. J. T. Elliot (Patrolman, NYPD) Estimated response time – 9.1 minutes Nearest psychiatrist – Dr. H. Elliott (MD) Estimated response time – 29 minutes

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