A light drizzle began to fall, and the warmth of the day descended to an evening chill. This seemed an ideal opportunity to further test my new cloak. Made from a light midnight-blue weave, its woolen warp had been interspersed with filaments impregnated with artificial intelligence. Our Boffins had come up with the idea and I’d chosen a cloak design for the experimental garment. So far it had stretched its length to my requirements, kept me warm or cool depending on my needs and now it appeared to be keeping out the rain. The future of our fashion house depended on this prototype and as heir to the family business and Marketing Manager I had high hopes.
I walked at pace between the puddles of light, as fast as my high heels would allow. The theatre crowd dispersed to parking buildings and taxis, heading to the suburbs, but I loved the heartbeat and bustle of downtown and headed toward my inner city apartment.
As the drizzle turned to steady rain, I realised my foolishness. I was alone in the centre of the city, at almost midnight, without even an umbrella to protect me against the rain or to defend myself. My cloak rustled and tightened around my neck in response to my rapidly beating heart. I slowed my steps and took several deep breaths, calming my panic. The night seemed to close in around me. From the side of my vision a figure streaked by, and I jumped with fright. A young man, ragged and odourous skidded to a stop in front of me; hand raised, a knife at the ready, pointed and dangerous.
“Got some money, Miss?” His sneer revealed crooked teeth and his voice quavered.
“I’m sorry, truly. I don’t carry money.”
“A rich bitch like you must have some cash.” He pointed at my clutch bag and I held it out. While he searched, he kept the knife aimed at me, the streetlight bouncing off its blade as his hands twisted deep, poking and scrambling in my bag. “Nothing,” He spat and threw it aside and then swung the knife. It struck my cloak but slid off. The cloak had become a hard shell around me. He stabbed at me. The knife-point dipped, the fabric yielded, but the blade didn’t penetrate.
My heart pounded. My stupidity had landed me in danger. I had no idea what to do next and wished deeply I was home in my apartment, safe from the violence of vagrant children.
An indigo mist enveloped me, swirling, blocking out my attacker. Strobes of light pierced the darkness. I swirled, cartwheeling through thick, dark air. I shut my eyes to ease the nausea and swallowed the bile rising in my throat. Seconds later and I was standing in the centre of my lounge, my cloak rustling as if to shake off the raindrops.
I’d switched from the city pavements to safety… in seconds.
My mind whirled and settled on the only explanation. This AI impregnated cloak had transported me. While this development amazed me, I doubted it was a benefit you could openly market. Imagine the chaos if everyone wearing a similar prototype cloak could do this? Then again, it would eliminate the scarcity of taxis when you needed one.
Three years ago, I’d been happily studying for a degree in Art History, deep in the fashions and edicts of society when, by a cruel twist of fate, my brother Simon, heir to the family’s fashion house, had been killed. He crashed his plane into a mountainside in a whiteout.
The mantel passed to me. I switched my studies to Finance and Marketing and I now help my parents run their empire. It isn’t as bad as I’d expected. I’ve always loved clothes and as long as I’m involved in the experimentation of design and cloth, I’m happy. We hope this latest project will drag the firm out of the post-covid slump and ignite the public’s fire for fashion. However, a cloth that carries you places might be a step too far. Heaven knows what mischief people might get up to in garments made with this AI cloth! Could the Boffins dumb it down?
The next morning found me at my parent’s apartment, bringing Mother up to date with what the cloak could do. Well, most of what it could do, but not all.
“Do you like the handle of the cloth?” Mother asked.
“Yes, it changes all the time, depending on the temperature, plus I wore it to a cocktail party the other night. People admired it, and touched it constantly. It became almost iridescent by the end of the evening. The light seemed to dance on the top of the folds and it swayed as I moved. I swear it purred.” She raised her eyebrows. “Truly, Mother, it has a mind of its own. It rustles and whispers to me. The collar creeps up my neck if there’s a chill in the air.”
“But do you like wearing it?”
“I do, very much. When I hang it in the wardrobe it sighs on the hanger and when I open the door it rustles at me.”
Mother chuckled and held out her hand. “Let me try it on.”
I slipped the cloak off my shoulders and put it around hers. It slipped to the floor. I picked it up and again placed it over Mother’s shoulders. Again, it slid off.
“Here let me do it,” she said and retrieved it. Immediately the cloak became rigid, like a sheet of canvas. “Funny thing, It certainly doesn’t want me to wear it.”
I grasped the stiff garment by a corner, and it softened and draped once more. I hung it over the back of the sofa and watched it slip and puddle in a heap beside the cushions.
“Funny little thing,” Mother said and stroked the fabric, as if it were a cat. “It’s like a pet. Perhaps we could market it as a cloak that loves you?”
“It’s waterproof too,” I said. “I tested it in the rain. The fabric would make great travel blankets, suitable for all conditions and not as bulky as sleeping bags.”
“No, Jess. Blankets and rugs are boring. Unless you’re offering our clients a magic carpet I can’t see them being interested.”
I took a deep breath. “Funny you should say that, Mother. Just like a magic carpet—it transported me last night.”
Mother’s eyebrows rose, her head tilted and she waited for me to explain. Before I’d even finished her eyes sparkled, she grinned and clasped her hands together under her chin, as if enchanted with my tale.
“If only your brother had had a cape like this when he crashed. He might have been able to reach safety before he froze to death.” Her eyes filled and I wrapped my arms around her. Our grief seemed to suck all the air out of the room. We pulled apart with shuddering breaths.
“Enough melancholy let’s talk about your discovery. I think your fear triggered the cloak to transport you to safety. Perhaps we could market an executive model that does this? We’ll need to ask the scientists, at this morning’s meeting, to modify the artificial intelligence.”
I wondered how the vagrant felt when I disappeared and if he’d told his story to anyone. Who would believe him? The idea of criminals using our cloaks didn’t appeal. Perhaps we wouldn’t be able to save the business after all.
She beckoned, “Come on, darling, we’ve a meeting to attend and a marketing plan to work out for this new fabric. I think I might get a coat made up. How much did they weave for the experiment?”
I followed her out into the passage and we stood waiting by the lift. “One bolt of midnight blue; originally forty yards, or just over thirty-something metres, there’s heaps left.”
The transportation ability posed a hurdle, but we’d surmounted bigger problems before. For the present, we now had a saleable product and could proceed with a production line in various hues. We just needed to decide on a garment and a catchy sales gimmick.
“Cloaks aren’t that fashionable,” Mother said as we descended.
“We will make them fashionable,” I replied. The lift doors opened and we headed across the foyer, raising a hand to the security guard at the desk, who picked up his phone and made a call.
“A cloak that cares? Friendly fabric? What about ‘livable and loveable’?”
We stood waiting for our car to arrive at the front of the building.
“We need to hint at the AI content without actually saying so,” I said, convinced this tactic would work. We slid onto the backseat and closed the divider so the chauffeur couldn’t hear. “It’s new, it’s innovative, and it’s totally amazing. This cloak has bonded with me. I feel it’s a companion that can read my mind.”
“It probably can,” Mother said, concern etching a thread of worry on her brow. “I hope we haven’t opened Pandora’s Box with this discovery.”
We travelled in silence, broken when Mother said, “This fabric will save our business. We’ll have a jump on the market, before others can research and copy it. We can’t stop our competitors buying our cloth and pulling it to pieces to find the A.I. thread, but even a three-year head-start will be wonderful.”
The memory of the space-jump the night before skittered my thoughts and as the words floated back together my brain caught the combination it had been chasing. “We could advertise our garments as having ‘a thinking thread’ that personalises your garment to fit your desires.”
“Never mind desire, darling. That’s a bit over the top. Just ‘a thinking thread’ will be enough. The personal experiences of each purchaser will make them spread the word.” She patted my arm. “You’re such a clever girl.”
We both knew I wasn’t the clever one. The ability to transport will be very useful. The first bolt of fabric will need to be under lock and key, solely for family use and we’ll keep tweaking thread mutations until the ‘jumping gene’ is eliminated. This thinking thread could be smarter than all of us.
A shiver of excitement, possibly fear, tingled my spine. I contemplated the future of this thinking thread and the places we could take it. Or where it might take you, my inner voice cautioned. Around my shoulders the cloak moved, hugging me, inching up my neck in soft caresses, soothing my worries, rustling and murmuring almost-words.
My published books can be viewed here: https://www.amazon.com/author/derynpittar