Many Bags Look Alike…
If you’re an America West flyer, that short guy in the seat next to you, the one whose halting speech indicates he might have had one too many preflight cocktails, might be something more (or less) than he seems. It might be the robotic head of author Philip K. Dick, whose novels have been made into the likes of Blade Runner and Total Recall.
According to this NYT article (signup required, but I believe it’s in the “free zone”):
Last year an admiring doctoral student and evident computer whiz, David Hanson, built a life-size facsimile of Mr. Dick, using the latest artificial intelligence technology, robotics and a skinlike substance he calls “frubber.” The android, which looked just like the author and was able to conduct rudimentary conversations about Mr. Dick’s work and ideas, was at the cutting edge of robotic technology, able to make eye contact and believable facial expressions.
Hanson has been showing the robot at Comic conventions, and had just gotten a deal to tour with it as a promotion for an upcoming Warner Brothers movie about the author.
Flying on America West last December, Hanson had checked the robot’s body as baggage, but preferred to carry the head (packed in a rollaboard) on the plane with him. In a scramble to deplane, he somehow left the head aboard the plane, and it hasn’t been seen since.
I’ve done the same thing, losing two (cheap) Palm pilots and a couple of books. Both Palms were left in the backs of first class seats; the second one had a $20 bill and my business card with a note to please use the money to forward the Palm to me. Whoever found it (could have been a cleaning crew, could have been a Microsoft exec on the next flight) kept both the Palm AND the money.
My guess is that Dick’s head (wonder if that will get this post routed through NSA sniffers) is in an attic somewhere, and on Saturday nights sits in the center of a circle of candles while a select cult of his worshippers dances naked and ecstatically about.
Or maybe, more mundanely, someone picked the rollaboard off of a carousel, took it home and threw it in the closet without opening it, not needing the suit inside until the next conference he attends. His 3-year-old at some point will open the suitcase, have a conversation with the author, and be changed in ways that confound his parents and the child psychiatrist they hire as a result.
