Free Command by Sierra Cartwright Page A

have to be well worth it. “If we could sell the required sensors and write all the code, Molly would be extraordinary and perform with fewer technical issues.”
    “I get it,” she said. She stopped and folded her arms across her chest.
    Part of him was tuned in professionally. Part of him couldn’t help but notice her against the view, fading light and gentle snow.
    Aria continued, “If I record my favorite television show, that’s done through my cable or satellite subscription service.”
    “And none of that factors in the human element.” With a nod, he refocused. “It needs to be easy to set up, intuitive to work with. For example, if you have six kids, being on the last gallon of milk could be an emergency. But if you’re single, a pint might be enough. Molly, or Michael, can’t know that.”
    “Unless the system learns as it goes. You have to add your brand of artificial intelligence to it. Well, maybe not your offbeat humor, but the ability to adapt. If the computer is smart enough, it can learn that you typically arrive home at five o’clock every day and it can have the house at a perfect temperature when you arrive. Of course, you could override that. Maybe it sends out an alert to remind you if you’re not home by six. People who want to program the system can. Those who don’t can allow her to learn their habits. And there can always be an option to change anything at any point. People who start using it will fall in love and wonder how they managed without it.”
    She returned to the lab table and propped one hip on the top of the stool. “Start small and inexpensive, enough to be disruptive. Enough for consumers to demand the cable system talk to Molly. Make her personal, somewhat customizable. Imagine a commercial, ‘Say hello to Molly’ and Molly responding to them, making their lives easier in a number of ways. Damn, Grant, she can start your dishwasher, inform you when your kids come home from school, maybe even feed your pets and keep track of whether you paid your credit card bill. I mentioned she could run the dishwasher, didn’t I?”
    “Spoken like someone who forgets to do that?”
    She shrugged. “Every day.”
    “We’ve got a million issues here, Aria. Security. Privacy.”
    “So what? None of those challenges are insurmountable. We provide a central hub. Stores and businesses can opt in, for a fee. They’re difficult, but even you know that if you have an idea and an objective, you can find a solution. You’ve got the best minds in the universe at your disposal.”
    “I see why Julien likes you. You don’t stop in the face of challenges.”
    “If you’ve had this idea, someone else will, too. Do we want to be first? Or a do we want to be a latecomer?”
    “Do we want to be involved at all?”
    “You could keep it to yourself,” she agreed. “That’s always the big question, isn’t it? What project, what things are worth the investment and yield the biggest payoff?”
    Most companies would run an expensive analysis on the potential, but Julien didn’t operate that way. Analysis paralysis, he’d proclaim. And he’d add that some companies needed to pull their heads out of their asses and move. His anxiousness to keep moving forward was one of the reasons he’d yet to take Bonds public. Even though the company was growing every year, he ran it by instinct and had little desire to listen to any expert analysis. It earned him some bad write-ups in the financial press, but also the respect of his employees. And besides, Julien had filters on everything he read so that he never saw anything negative about himself.
    Aria rolled her shoulders and sat up straight.
    “I’ve kept you working too long.” Weren’t his work habits something Julien complained about? It had not been his intention. He’d thought he’d show her the house then let her get settled in, maybe have a shower and change out of her travel clothes. Instead they’d seamlessly flowed from tour to