Tom heard the horn on Rick's vintage red Jaguar XKE honk outside at the same time his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. The text from Rick appeared on the bathroom mirror. Below it, a video feed triggered by motion sensors showed the front of the house where Rick was parked.

Tom checked his hair one more time and took a step back, making sure he exuded the right combination of fashionable and relaxed that would be appropriate for a bonfire.

"I'm sure both Vanessa and Mandy will think you're very handsome," Sandra teased at the open door behind Tom.

He brushed past her. Sandra followed in her blue sundress.

The Swifts each grabbed sunglasses off a table by the door as they exited. These weren't ordinary sunglasses. For one, they automatically adjusted their level of tint and polarity for maximum protection from the sun. However, their coolest feature was the cutting edge augmented reality technology.

"Shotgun," Tom called as they approached the vehicle.

"Are you really going to make your girlfriend sit in the back?" Sandra asked Rick with an arched eyebrow.

"Normally I wouldn't," Rick began hesitantly. "But the only way I can fit two people in the back is if they're . . . petite. Tom's too chubby."

Sandra rolled her eyes. "Fine, I guess I'll accept the compliment."

Tom punched Rick's shoulder as he slid into the passenger seat. "Diplomatic. Nice."

"So, we're picking up Vanessa at the intern apartments?" Rick asked as he shifted into first gear.

Tom winced at the grinding noise from the old car's transmission.

"Yeah, she said she wanted to come when I told her about it this afternoon," Sandra answered, sweeping her flowing blond hair into a ponytail for the ride in the convertible.

Vanessa was the only intern who had taken Vanessa and Tom up on the invitation. Most of the ones in the program were college age and had decided to hit the clubs and bars of the rapidly gentrifying downtown Central Hills rather than hang out with high schoolers on a beach. The others were so technically savvy that their social life was stunted, and they felt uncomfortable mingling with new people at an unstructured party.

Sandra texted Vanessa as they pulled up.

"You probably don't have to do that," Tom told her. "I'm sure she heard this junkyard reject from two miles away."

Rick softly backhanded Tom in the chest. "Don't talk that way about my baby."

"I thought I was your baby?" Sandra jokingly pouted from the backseat.

"Sorry honey, she's been with me longer." Rick ran a loving hand over the leather dashboard.

"If you really loved her, you'd fix whatever's making it sound like a garbage disposal," Tom retorted.

"I'm sorry this isn't one of your hydro-electric fusion 16 gigawatt solar nuclear supercars. Sometimes, you just can't beat a classic."

Before Tom could respond, the front door to the complex opened, and Vanessa walked out. Tom forgot what he was going to say. She was wearing an athletic tank top and running shorts that showed off her trim figure and mile-long legs.

Sandra whacked the back of Tom's head. "Shut your mouth before a bug flies in," she whispered. "Hey Vanessa! You look great!"

"Thanks," Vanessa said as she walked up to the car. "I didn't really pack for parties, so this was all I had."

"It's perfect," Sandra replied. "Rick, this is Vanessa."

Rick nodded and Vanessa waved back. She slid in next to Sandra.

"Let's go!" Rick shouted as he turned the music up and shot out of the parking lot.

Tom was grateful for the throbbing beat and roar of the wind which made conversation impossible. He had never been great at small talk.

Because it was a Monday evening, the beach wasn't very crowded. They easily found a spot to park.

"Whoo, nothing like a summer night when school's out!" Rick hollered as he jumped out and grabbed the bag full of their beach gear out of the trunk.

"It's beautiful," Vanessa said with a smile filling her face. "We don't have beaches like this back east."

"Yeah, Laguna Pequena is the best beach around," Tom responded. "C'mon, the bonfire is this way."

Tom led Vanessa toward the concrete fire pit where he and his friends always congregated. Tom could see there was a decent crowd already there. As they approached, Vanessa stumbled in the soft sand. Tom caught her before she fell, but it caused him to drop to his knees. He was uncomfortably aware of her body's closeness. Tom helped her to her feet.

"What a way to make an entrance," Vanessa muttered to Tom, her face beet red. She held on to Tom's shoulder as they walked the last dozen yards.

"Yo Tom-Tom, introduce me to your hot lady friend!" Dan Coster bellowed as he bounded over to greet them. Mandy's cousin looked like he had been transported through a time warp from the 80s. Dan had long, curly black hair that was shaved on the sides of his head to form a mullet, and he wore a neon-green tank top and red shorts.

"Hey, this is Vanessa. She just started as an intern today."

Dan flashed her a wide smile. "Hey, just let me know if you need me to rub some sunscreen on those legs of yours."

Vanessa looked at the rapidly setting sun. "Thanks," she said flatly. "But I think I'll be ok."

"Suit yourself. Hey Rick-man!" Dan trotted off to say hello to Rick and Sandra.

Tom looked over to see Mandy staring daggers at Vanessa. He realized she still had her hand on her shoulder. He hoped she hadn't seen him holding Vanessa earlier, but the look on her face told him she had.

Women. Quantum mechanics is more predictable.

Tom introduced Vanessa to Mandy and a few of his other friends. Mandy was polite enough, but even Tom could tell that Vanessa's reception was a bit frigid. He stared into the fire, his glasses adjusting so he could watch the flames steadily eating away at the logs without hurting his eyes.

"Do you know what you're going to be working on during your internship?" Rick asked Vanessa as he sat down next to the fire.

"Model creation and prompt engineering for text-to-video generative AI."

Rick chuckled. "Yeah, I know a few of those words."

Vanessa tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Are you familiar with generative AI programs like ChatGPT?"

Rick nodded. "Yeah, I used it to write my essays last year."

Sandra poked him in the ribs. "You are the laziest guy I know."

"I'm not lazy," Rick protested. "I'm efficient."

"Well, that's just it," Vanessa said. "It is efficient. Generative AI is exactly what it sounds like. It's artificial intelligence that can generate things that look like human creations. We already have programs like DALL-E that can create realistic looking images. The end goal of what I'm working on is for someone to be able to create a full-length high-quality movie just by typing in what they want it to look like."

"Hold on," Mandy interrupted with a frown. "You're actually trying to get rid of artists?"

"I'm not trying to get rid of artists," Vanessa said calmly. "I'm trying to create more of them."

"If anyone can make a movie just by typing, that devalues all the work that people do. They're going to lose a lot of jobs."

Vanessa shook her head. "No. If people still want to watch fully human movies, they can. When CGI started to become a thing, it let us create worlds and scenes for film that would have taken a lot more time and money. Now, we have the option for both CGI and traditional effects. Some people prefer one or the other, but that's their choice as consumers to make."

"But if it's made by a computer, it's no longer art."

Vanessa nervously cracked her fingers. She was obviously uncomfortable arguing with Mandy, but she didn't seem willing to back down. "My mom runs a computer animation studio. When she first started it back in the day, computer animation was still really new. She got a lot of pushback from traditional animators who didn't think it was art because you didn't have to be able to sketch on a pad and paper to make something visually appealing. But look at what computer animation can do now. When you watch a Pixar movie, like the first 10 minutes of Up, can you really say that's not art?"

"I've seen the mom from The Incredibles," Dan chimed in. "I can tell you that she is poetry in motion."

Mandy shot Dan a look that could kill then turned her attention back to Vanessa. "This isn't like that; AI is an unfair shortcut.

Vanessa shook her head. "Back in the day, artists used to have to make their own paint and pigments and dyes by hand. Is it an unfair shortcut that they can just buy paint from a store now? AI is a tool that artists can use."

"It's not a tool if it creates everything by itself."

"You have to craft the prompts and prune the results so that it's generating exactly what you want. You still have to make sure it satisfies all the technical requirements for good art. Now, anyone can have a vision in their head and then use this tool to bring it to reality without having to go to school for ten years or have millions of dollars in the bank. Isn't that a good thing? Expanding access to art creation?"

Tom could tell things were getting tense. He stepped in between the two girls with his hands up.

"You've both made some very good points, can we agree to disagree?"

Mandy folded her arms across her chest. "What do you think Tom? Do you think AI is going too far?"

Tom stuttered. "We have to be careful, but generative AI holds some very interesting . . . um . . . ."

Mandy threw up her hands. "Of course you side with her; computers can do no wrong!"

She stormed off. Tom stood there feeling the weight of everyone's gaze on him.

"Eesh!" Dan grimaced. "Tom-Tom, you need to spend less time in a lab and more time with real babes. Not everyone is as naturally talented as I am."

He pulled an acoustic guitar out of the case lying behind him on the sand. "Anyway, here's Wonderwall."

Vanessa wiped something from her face and turned to Tom. "I should get going. I can get an Uber."

"Uh, okay, thanks for coming."

Sandra flicked his ear and turned to Vanessa. "Don't be silly, we'll take you back. Come on Rick."

The four of them walked back to the car.

"I'm sorry for breaking up the party so early," Vanessa's voice cracked.

"You didn't; Dan's music did," Rick replied. "Thanks for giving us an excuse to get out of there before he starts doing the stuff he wrote himself."

The drive home was silent. Rick had put the top up, so it was possible to hold a conversation, but no one knew how to break the awkward silence until Vanessa brought up the flashbang from earlier.

"I meant to ask you about that after Sandra texted me. Is everyone alright?" Rick queried.

"Yes, I'm fine," Sandra replied. "Vanessa?"

"Yeah, it was just scary. What do you guys think happened?"

Rick looked at Tom. Tom shook his head slightly. He would talk to Rick later but didn't want to scare Vanessa.

"I'm sure it was just someone playing a prank," Tom said reassuringly. "Some of the workers think messing with me is funny."

"It wasn't a very funny prank," Vanessa said.

Sandra scoffed. "Something you learn early on in life is that really smart people have really weird senses of humor."

"I'm just glad no one was trying to actually hurt us," Vanessa said. "And those guys were there to help us."

"Guys?" Rick asked.

"Some government people here doing an inspection," Tom answered.

"Rick," Sandra said thoughtfully.

Rick groaned. "Here comes a stupid question," he whispered to Tom.

"If I were actually in danger, would you take a bullet for me?"

Rick rolled his eyes. "Uh, sure."

"I'm not really sure that's possible," Tom pointed out. "They move faster than the speed of sound, so getting in front of one is pretty hard."

They pulled back into Vanessa's parking lot.

"You want to meet at the cafeteria for lunch tomorrow?" Sandra asked Vanessa.

Vanessa smiled and said yes. She waved goodbye and turned to walk to her apartment. She froze.

"Guys?" she asked, fear in her voice. "I thought I turned my lights off."

Tom stared up at the window she was pointed to. Although the blinds were closed, he could see the light bleeding through from inside the room. As he was looking, a large shadow crossed in front of the blinds. The light turned off.