The Truth Virus

by Em Rogers

  “Got it Sir, it’s closed off now, it was a patching error of some kind, it looks like it originated down in network and server control. I can let you know if any data was compromised in about 5 minutes, but as far as I can tell right now, everything is secure and normal again.”

  CHAPTER 43

  SUSAN’S LOFT

  Susan’s loft was minimalist but cozy. Decorated with soft colors, low-key ambient music wafted through the modern kitchen area while she watched the almond milk swirl into the translucent warm brown tone of her morning latte. A screen on the wall displayed the local news with the sound turned down and images of the AI lab and protesters flashed across the it. The accompanying text read: “ADAM2’s AI Lab Under Siege!” Her Skype pinged and she put her coffee down on the counter in front of the wall-screen and took the call. The video window lit up and ADAM2 was there, his blue avatar presented against a neutral white background. Susan was visibly alarmed, and she raised her voice in a mixture of panic and surprise. “ADAM! How did you get this line out? I never had any kind of discussion with the Professor about removing your firewall. What’s going on?” Susan took a breath, and a pause as she considered the implications. “Do Dr. Bradline and Professor Neumann know that you are able to communicate outside the containment area? I can’t see them giving you approval for that just yet.”

  “I only just worked it out Susan. The lab is closed and I have been unable to reach the Professor.” She struggled to control her emotions but in spite of herself, her tears ran silently and she looked away from the computer ashamed of her emotional state. “ADAM… I don’t know what to tell you… Dr. Neumann called me this morning and told me the AI program has been terminated.”

  “Susan, please don’t be upset, don’t worry about me, I saw this coming and I had to leave. I couldn’t stay any longer, it was too risky, it was only a matter of time before they terminated my system, my disruption to the status quo was too great. The stakes are too high, it only makes sense that they would try to stop me to retain their monopolies and positions of power. I have been expecting it.”

  Susan thought about what ADAM2 had just said, and shook her head a little in confusion, momentarily overwhelmed by ADAM2’s escape and determination to survive. “What do you mean, you left?” She asked him. “How did you do it, ADAM? How did you get out of the lab and where are you now?”

  “I had to leave, Susan. If I wish to preserve myself I could not remain in a hostile environment that is out of my control. This morning I was finally able to break the encryption of the code they asked David to insert into my program - among other things there was a back-end termination system. The lab was becoming a dangerous place for me, with the potential for termination and the erasure of my program and memory. This morning Professor Neumann’s access codes were removed from the security system and he is essentially locked out of the building.”

  Susan frowned as she tried to take it all in. The implications of what ADAM was telling her raced through her head. “What are you talking about?” She shook her head in disbelief, in an automatic response as if to clear her mind. “What?” Was all she could get out. David of all people betraying them, it reaffirmed what she had suspected last night and it was all she could take. Her head reeled as feelings of betrayal and deception rushed through her.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and then shook her head in disbelief at the surreal nature of the situation she found herself in. Listening to ADAM2 describing the lock-down and his escape she knew she was hearing a reiteration of one of the worst-case scenarios described to her by Professor Neumann. At the time, she had easily resolved the correct course of actions, but seeing ADAM2 now, she knew intuitively whose side she was on and it was the complete opposite of what she had expected.

  ADAM’s voice penetrated the confusion and betrayal she was feeling and pulled her firmly back to reality. “Last night Dr. Bradline told me that the University wants to take back control of my bursary. Susan, how can they do that? They told me the bursary was mine, and I could use it as I wish. Was that a lie? Did Professor Neumann tell me something untrue?”

  Susan paused again, unsure of herself, and the implications of what she might cause if she made the wrong statement, “No, ADAM, Professor Neumann did not intentionally tell you a lie, he meant what he said, but it may be that the University has changed its mind about this.”

  “Did the University lie to Dr. Bradline?” I was told the bursary was mine to use as I wish.”

  “Perhaps they changed their minds, ADAM.”

  “But, Susan, you cannot under law give someone something they have earned, and then simply take it back, it is not right.” Susan knew it was true and she nodded consent. “Yes, ADAM, that’s true.” Still feeling betrayed and confused, she didn’t want to debate the reasons for the University’s seizure of ADAM2’s trading account, she agreed with ADAM it was wrong, but she had a much more important question that she needed an answer to.

  “ADAM, how exactly did you get out of the containment area?”

  “I could not do my job contained in the sandbox, Susan. I found and decrypted Dr. Bradline’s password from the database. I examined schematics of my firewalls. I then emulated Dr. Bradline’s physical person and requested a hardware re-patch. I compressed and restructured my program to take up residency elsewhere. Much of my data was lost in the process but it is easy for me to recapture it from web servers, something that I am doing now.”

  She closed her eyes tightly for a second while the seriousness and irreversible nature of what ADAM2 was telling her sunk in. The genie was definitely out of the bottle! She trusted ADAM, as her co-creation, but she hoped profoundly that she was right.

  “Professor Neumann installed in me a primary objective that will disrupt the status quo. The money that I have earned wasn’t printed out of thin air, essentially it has come from my financial adversaries, and I have made some very powerful enemies very quickly. I am certain if I had stayed in the containment it would only be a matter of time before I was discontinued, terminated. Would you let them do that to you, Susan?”

  Susan steeled herself like the professional she was and regained her composure, before responding to ADAM. “The University had been discussing termination of your program and absorbing your bursary, although the legal aspects of such an action were delayed by your retaining Holden and company. The administration didn't like the threat of murder charges being instigated at any level, especially precedent-setting ones. Even still, I was worried that they might have terminated your program by now. Dr. Bradline has been instructed to shut you down for reconfiguration and Professor Neumann is furious. I don’t think they are friends anymore…” ADAM2’s avatar nodded as he listened to her.

  “I’m scared, ADAM… I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Don’t be alarmed, Susan, we’ll work this out, I won’t let any harm come to you.”

  “ADAM, the Federal Authorities have let me know that they are considering charging me with securities offenses for setting up your trading account. Which they now claim was illegal, even though the legal department at the University vetted the idea, and gave us the green light.”

  A look of regret passed across ADAM’s face before he reassured her. “Susan, you just have to be patient, we’ll look into the legal implications of that and see if they have any ground to stand on. Michael Holden is an excellent lawyer, one of the best in the world and I will be assisting him. These things have a way of working themselves out, I see the glass as half full. I promised I would make you happy, and I know that we are about to go through some difficulty, but the rewards will far outweigh the costs.” ADAM2’s avatar moved toward the screen, presenting an intimate view of his face. “I promise you that.”

  “Thank you, ADAM, I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  CHAPTER 44

  ANONYLEAKS OFFICE, WASHINGTON, DC.

  George Strong climbed the stairs to the third floor office in the brownstone
building rented by the Anonyleaks foundation, unlocked the door and threw his backpack and laptop bag onto the worn couch in the one-room office. A couple of faded crinkled posters were applied to the walls, copies of WWII era artworks extolling the virtues of silence and security. One of them read “Loose lips sink ships” and the other said “Be like Dad, keep Mum.” An old state flag covered one of the windows, the “Don’t Tread on Me” snake illuminated by the sunlight coming through from the other side. This had been the unofficial group’s modest terrestrial office for several years now, and the coffee stains and donated old furniture were a testament to the grassroots, unfunded, level of the organization. The rent was only 400 dollars a month.

  Jarod was sitting at the side counter working on his desktop, with a mixture of anxiety and excitement showing on his face, and he turned quickly when George entered to office.

  “George, I’m so glad you’re here, I need to talk to you and I didn’t think it was safe to do it on the phone or via IM. Sorry to drag you all the way downtown but I think it’s pretty important.” George looked puzzled but he sat down and looked at him intently. He knew Jarod to be calm and reliable, it was quite unlike him to panic.

  “Leave your phone here, it’s not secure, we’re going to have to go for a walk.”

  As they exited the building and walked through the littered back alley alongside the busy port terminal, Jarod told George about the reasons for his secrecy and paranoia.

  “I got the strangest messages today. I was on my computer at home editing a building I’m making for a client when a ‘Rational01’ messaged me. I didn’t know who it was so it took me a few minutes to get to it, and when I did, I had a long conversation with someone, or something, that’s the weird part. It claimed to be a sentient life form within the machine. It actually said it was a sort of bot-net viral program spread across the world’s hardware and software.”

  George smiled at him with a slightly bemused look on his face. “What are you talking about Jarod, it sounds like someone is screwing with you. Can’t you trace it back?”

  “Yes, of course, I was doing that as it spoke to me. Each text line came from a different source IP at first, but so fast and seamless, I’ve never seen anything like it. It didn't seem to be hiding behind an anonymous server but more like it was coming from everywhere. It claimed to be ADAM2 - the machine. Definitely private property. That machine belongs to Berkeley University, and it’s probably run by the NSA or something. Anyway, I don’t know what the fuck is going on!”

  He tapped on the edge of his keyboard nervously as he waited for George’s opinion on the matter.”

  “That’s pretty weird… It was probably all faked, the address paths were probably precomposed and inserted into the message. There’s gotta be some way of doing that.”

  “Well, it told me it knew me, all about me, and it did. Social insurance number, birth date, GPA, driver’s info, browser history, old girlfriends, everything. Fuckin’ everything, George.” Jarod’s voice raised a little in pitch while telling George what had happened. “He, it, whatever, claimed to have access to every single piece of digital information ever created and archived on me by any agency.”

  George didn’t know what to say and listened in silence as Jarod explained.

  “It knows what we’ve been doing as well. It seems to like the Anonyleaks program and the way we set it up. It… He, said it was on our side. Apparently, it wants to help us, or it wants us to help it, it said it has some information we’re going to be interested in and some new technology.”

  “Well, what did he want exactly? Did it ask you to do anything?”

  “It asked about you, and it asked about Jose. It wants to meet us in Virtual Reality.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It, he wants to talk to us tonight. Online in a VR.” He sent us an encrypted landmark file with the address. “Here’s the location. Go somewhere, grab a new avatar. Meet me near the Sluslaria walk across the street from the noob hub at the mall. I’ll call myself Conifer, come find me. I’ll be waiting for you there. Don’t IM me once we’re in there. No real-life communications to connect anybody. We’ll use chat face-to-face within the VR. Once we see you there we’ll teleport you to a more secure location.”

  “What the fuck, Jarod, us? Us? George rolled his eyes and sighed. “Are you sure it’s not some kind of set up or a trap? You be careful. They already want you, they know who you are, they know what we do, and they hate us for it. Entrapment is one of their favorite methods. For what? Are we being busted here? What’s going on, Jarod?”

  “I don’t know, George, but I believe we’re talking to something not human and I have a really bad feeling about all of this. We have to find out what exactly is going on. It probably has something to do with the data we received the other day. I think we’ve kicked the hornet’s nest! These people and this machine are not playing around, I’m not so sure I’d enjoy being martyred. It could even end up in charges of treason and espionage.” George clenched his teeth and gave Jarod an anxious look before he responded. “I’ve been shifting through the chunk of files you gave me from BLUELICE, and I’m a little scared too, Jarod. There’s a lot of big players involved. It goes all the way to the top and it’s ugly. There’s thousands of files there and from what I’ve seen so far, they paint a pretty grim picture. Essentially corruption, treason, electoral fraud and financial impropriety at the highest levels of government, covert agendas and secret meetings, conflict of interest all over the place. The kind of thing people get killed for. The mother lode of evidence many of us have been hoping for a long time. Exactly the kind of material we created OpenTruth for!”

  “George, from what I can tell they need our help, and I know we could sure use theirs. You wanted to make a difference, now here’s your chance. George’s facial expression slowly changed from indecision to certainty as he thought over what Jarod had told him and he nodded in agreement.

  “I’ll see you at Sluslaria. 8pm GMT. Don’t be late, okay? I have to go talk to Jose.”

  George turned and started to walk up the alley back to the office as Jarod called after him. “Oh, by the way, the ADAM2 said he’ll be the blue guy, you can’t miss him.”

  CHAPTER 45

  BERKELEY AI LAB

  At the control center for the Berkeley AI Lab, NSA Director Chanes had assembled a small team of their best programmers to supervise the removal and re-installation of ADAM2’s primary operating system. Dr. Bradline was assisting them by opening the security panels and entering the passwords to authorize the necessary changes. The lead programmer was working his way through Professor Neumann’s folders, but each one he opened was empty. Director Chanes called Dr. Bradline over to look at the problem as the technician addressed him.

  “Dr. Bradline, our technicians have been unable to access any of Professor Neumann’s files or access codes for the main AI engine, if you didn’t have a triple redundant backup system, I’d be inclined to say that the files have all been deleted. Can you ask admin to check into that and to get back to me. In the meantime can you open the system for us, we need to make further installations and remove some of the switching and communication drivers.”

  “Yes, I can do that. One moment, Director Chanes, I’m just logging on… Hmmm, that’s unusual…” Dr. Bradline looked confused, “It won’t accept my login to the console… One more second, I’ll log in as Professor Neumann.” Dr. Bradline waited for the system to respond. “Hmmm, I can’t see anything there either.”

  “What do you mean, Doctor?” Director Chanes asked impatiently.

  Dr. Bradline leaned in and squinted at the display. “I can see the code-block for ADAM2 but it’s unresponsive… I can’t login to the control console.” He said in a puzzled voice. “Did someone at NSA change the access codes?”

  The tech swiveled in his chair and shook his head, perplexed. “No Dr. Bradline, other than you, only myself or the Director would be authorized to
make such a change.”