Code of Silence

Code of Silence - Chapter 19

The trip to London for the AI conference had definitely been worthwhile, and something of an eye-opener. I had no idea that we'd see Theo there, particularly with such a high profile, and I'd certainly not expected to see anything like the breakthroughs he seemed to have made with Vvox. I had a message from Khan confirming that he'd caught up with Theo too, and had found him to be in good spirits. Alex had also sent another message of encouragement to Theo, and suggested catching up when he felt he was ready to do so. He'd replied, and appeared to be keen: he had suggested we go over to see him at his parents' house.

I was in two minds now about the voice project we were developing to help my dad. We'd worked hard on the voice synthesis prototype, but having had further discussions, Alex and I agreed that it seemed like a pretty low tech solution now that we knew what Theo had created. Alex, being a little less obsessed with it all, encouraged me to stick with it and ignore any possible distractions – technology was always being rapidly developed to supersede previous versions, and it was normal with these sorts of things to expect at some point that our work might feel a little dated, despite the fact that it wasn't even complete yet. In the end, I resigned myself to this and we continued with the work. I was keen to visit Dad again during the term break, and hoped to get him to try it out, anything to help him get back to some sense of normality as his body adjusted and slowly showed further signs of recovery.

I suggested we go over to Theo's house one lunchtime. Theo had said not to bring anything, as his mother and sister were in London so he'd order delivery pizza for lunch, and we could just catch up and hang out. I thought it would be useful for Theo to get back to some sort of normality too, perhaps even start attending some of the courses he'd missed so much of recently. And both Alex and I were desperately keen to find out more about his incredible new Vvox technology and what his plans were for it.

Alex drove over to my place. I saw the car pull up through the tangled venetian blinds and grabbed my stuff on the way out.

"Hi," said Alex, as I slammed the door and slumped into the passenger seat.

"You know where he lives then?" I said, straining to bundle my rucksack onto the back seat.

"No, but this does," Alex said, tapping at the smartphone mounted on the dashboard.

We knew roughly where we were headed but used the satnav anyway. Around half an hour later we arrived at the village that was home to Theo's parents' sprawling country house, and pulled up close to one of the large red-brick gate pillars at the entrance to the property. Theo's disembodied voice echoed from a wall-mounted intercom as the wrought iron gates juddered, then moved slowly inwards, granting us access to a long stretch of gravel driveway.

Theo greeted us at the imposing double front door, ushering us in to the impressive hallway before closing and locking it again. It was a stunning home. I looked around, admiring the tasteful luxury, before following Theo into a huge brightly lit kitchen-dining area overlooking a patio and extensive gardens. We perched on bar stools at a large central island. Theo seemed perfectly at ease, perhaps bolstered by the success of the AI conference and now getting temporarily used to life with his father incarcerated in Russia.

"So, how're you doing?" I said, placing my phone carefully on the immaculately polished marble work surface.

Theo managed a smile while responding. "Yeah, okay thanks. Feeling a lot better about things. Obviously still worried about my dad, but we know it'll take time to resolve this mess. It's all a bit crap, really."

"I just can't imagine what you're all going through," Alex said. "If we can help at all ..."

"Thanks," said Theo, as he looked away, attention diverted to the pizza delivery menu in front of him.