Black Don

Black Don’s cafe is on an older street with large trees running down the block. Black Don is sitting at a table outside, drinking an espresso, and has a glass of chilled lemon water with a napkin around it. Bone holds the Don’s extended hand, a formal greeting, but then the Don leans close and grabs Bone’s hand with both of his hands, hugs him, and warmly looks into his eyes. Bone sits down across from him.

‘Ejo, how is your Mom doing?’

‘She’s working a lot in Oakland, you know, I see her every Sunday for dinner.’

‘Hmm, hmm (smoking cigar), so, how are you?’

‘I’m aight.’

‘Yeah (looks at him for a minute)? Right now, you remind me of your father. He was independent too (in Spanish). Hmmph (thinking to himself)!

‘I know, mom tells me all the time.’

‘She does? Because it’s true! The line runs straight — from him to you. That means you always have a place in this family (in Spanish). You understand (puts his hand on the back of Bone’s neck, looks at him in the eyes).

‘Alright, uncle.’

‘Good (releases him)! What else?

‘Can Emilio update my security? Some advertisement got through the firewall today (shows him the phone).’

‘Melio! (frowning)’

A skinny teenager comes out, daps Bone, and takes his phone. He sits down, and brings out his own phone. Presses some buttons, activates an app on his phone, and then places it next to Bones. An Overdrive app starts to blink on Emilio’s phone, and a notification reads ‘master proximity’; he quickly goes back to his home screen, and starts another app. The home screen reads “sync disabled, device clean”. He is a little startled. He hands the phone back to Bone and looks at Black Don.

‘Bone, go get something to eat in the kitchen. Make sure you pay your respects, too (yelling after him)!

‘Ok, uncle.’

‘So? (leans towards Emilio)’

‘There’s was something funny on his phone.’

‘Funny ha ha?’

‘No, like funny strange. I tried to update the family security settings and his phone tried to master sync with my phone.’

‘And.., (smoking cigar, looking into the distance)?’

‘Well, my phone stopped that. It was like, “I ain’t no bitch” (says this in a funny, James Franco voice — looks at Black Don and gets more serious).’

‘So, not hackers then.., military?’

‘Thats whats weird — it’s like, it knew my security already. It knew our defenses were locking onto its server and instead of trying a countermeasure, what most hackers would have tried, it got out before I could ID it.’

‘You keep saying it?’

‘If it’s military, it’s like some kind of scout, just scanning data, which it would have got, but it didn’t scan anything, at least not my data. If it’s a hacker, they would have been jumping servers and wouldn’t have been worried about me finding them — not with the tech they are working with.

‘What are you saying then?’

‘I think it’s a private AI, that appears to be military grade, really intelligent. It doesn’t want us to lock onto its server, because it’s probably not allowed to run the kind of measures that would hide its identity, Turing wouldn’t allow that — kind of like putting a limit on a rich kid’s credit card. So it shut down before that could happen. It must be really fast.., (says this wistfully to himself)’

‘(Smoking) Hmmm, hmmm (turns around and yells). Bone!’

Bone is in the back of the cafe — he is lighting incense and bowing before a Buddha. Bone leaves out the back door, not hearing his uncle.