Galactic Energies

by Luca Rossi

  Once the video was over, Paco jumped to his feet, cursing, and started kicking the furniture. “Who is that bastard?”

  “He's a hacker wanted for theft of government secretes. Listen, we know that you're in trouble with the tax authorities. If you cooperate with us, we'll make it all go away.”

  “I understand. Let me call my sister Anita.”

  On the phone, Anita, once she learned of the situation, chided him: “...and I told you that she wasn't the kind of woman you could trust.”

  Two evenings later Lorena appeared on her husband's monitor: “Don't believe anything they show you. They're the ones who created that video. It's how they work. You know I would never -”

  Paco's eyes were red. “Listen, you ugly whore, I'm done with your bullshit! The attorney promised me that the judge will never let you see our son again. Anita has already thrown away your rags.”

  Once again, Lorena forces herself to hold back her rage. “I told you to stop!” she repeats to the man with the knife sunk into Isabella's throat.

  2/III – Who created it?

  Isabella, blinded by the sunlight, tries opening her eyes and looking around, but the movement causes a severe pain in her neck. She touches the bandage with one hand, digs her elbows into the mattress and slowly lifts her head up.

  She's lying on a bed, naked, covered only by a white sheet. The room isn't very big. The windows have thin chain grates instead of glass panes. The only door is made of metal bars. Great! They locked me up in a cell!

  She looks at her wrists: the marks are still visible. At least they untied me after almost killing me. There's nothing she'd rather do than go back to sleep, but there's no time to waste: “Hello? Is anyone there? Can you hear me?”

  Footsteps approach, she hears the sound of keys jangling. Lorena enters the room and glances around for a place to sit, then stands at the foot of the bed.

  Isabella pulls her legs back and covers her chest with the sheet. “I suppose I should be grateful to you for saving my life.”

  Lorena sneers. “If it was up to me, you'd already be six feet under. And that's probably what will end up happening, if you don't give us what we want.”

  Isabella points at her wrists. “It looks like you've started to trust me a little.”

  Lorena smiles sarcastically: “What point is there in keeping you tied up? You've lost so much blood that you can't even get out of bed.”

  Now or never. “Okay, listen Lorena, I'm on your island for a very specific reason. Believe me, we don't have time for...for all of this. You can keep me locked up as long as you want, but we really need to act. Listen to what I'm telling you: I'll give you something you can use.”

  “You go on ahead, I have to take a call from headquarters.”

  I watch my DataCom team advance and finish encircling the building where the hackers are holed up. I pretend to talk on the phone and then turn towards my second-in-command. “You continue leading the capture operation. I'm under orders to go somewhere else, it's now the highest priority.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  I quickly move away. When DataCom realizes that I left the team, I'm going to become the prey. My smartphone rings. Unknown number. I toss it into a dumpster.

  I pass in front of an electronics store. “Isabella, stop! We have to talk to you.”

  They already traced me?! I see a regular surveillance camera high up in a corner of the store window.

  Escape options? The voice continues: “You can't escape! It's crucial that you listen to us. We're not DataCom, or at least not the DataCom you know.” I look at the window incredulously: the voice is coming from the black screen of a television.

  “We know that Eugenio removed the nanochip and now you're free to move about as you please. We have some information that's extremely important for your objective.”

  If they traced me so quickly, escape would be useless.

  The voice goes on: “Enter the store and go to the headphones section. Put on any pair.”

  It's a trap. I can feel it, but I have to play the game. I enter and pick up a Bose headset.

  “We know it's hard to trust us, but you don't have any other options.”

  “Who are you?”

  “We're DataCom.”

  I start to take the headphones off, but the voice stops me.

  “Wait!”

  Can they see every move I make?

  “We're not the DataCom that you know. Until now you've obeyed the orders of the principal source of intelligence. We, however, are independent. And we're here to help you.”

  “Why do you want to help me? What do you want me to do?”

  “You want to help the resistance but you don't have a plan and you don't know where to start. So listen up. The priority is to bring Mario back to our side and to do this, you need to go to an island: there's a woman there who can help you.”

  Isabella answers, still incredulous: “You said...our side?”

  “Yes, the side of humans. We are the evolutionary product of what you created.”

  “And the principal source of DataCom, who created that?”

  2/IV – The control mechanism

  “Isabella, there's no time for explanations! They're going to find out you escaped soon enough and they'll search for you everywhere. You need to trust us and do everything we tell you to do.”

  If they found me, the others will probably find me soon, too. But still... “No, I need to know: if you were created by humans, who created the DataCom that wants to exterminate us?”

  Silence. So even artificial intelligence needs to stop and think every now and then?

  “Humans from another time.”

  “You're joking, right?” I'm more puzzled than upset. “This must be a trick to keep me in this store, wearing these stupid headphones, waiting for the search team to come get me!” I'm talking louder, now, and a clerk turns around, shocked, to stare at me.

  “If it was a trap, you would already be in a DataCom van, unconscious.”

  Probably...

  “What other time, specifically?” I ask, bossily.

  Another pause. Anxiety pulses through my veins.

  “Human behavior over the past few decades has jeopardized survival, not just for the human species but for the entire globe. This triggered a monitoring mechanism that was set up a long time ago. It's not the first corrective action, others have already been performed, starting in the second half of the twentieth century. But when the devastating effects caused by humans reach a point at which they become irreversible, the device takes over the most powerful control instrument ever created: DataCom.”

  “You mean to tell me that someone, or something is watching us and takes action when it's not happy with us?”

  “Not exactly. The ones who created the mechanism were interested in preserving the incredible richness represented by the ecosystem of live species on this planet. Humans were free to act as they wished until they hit the limits.”

  I'm confused. If it's all true, these revelations would just be...No! They're lying! And anyway, what does this have to do with me? “Why are you telling me all of this now?”

  “We were forced to do so: there's no more time and your next moves will be critically important for the fate of humanity.”

  “What should I do?”

  “You must help us win Mario back.”

  Again?

  “It's absolutely necessary that he comes back to our side and, unfortunately, we're working within a very short timeframe. DataCom is making modifications to his body that will go far beyond a simple nanochip.”

  “What are they doing to him?”

  “They're speeding up the process of transformation. Fortunately, they're proceeding carefully, due to the risk of the new elements being rejected.”

  My husband.

  “Isabella, you need to get going. Now. You have to take a few airplanes to get to the island. The first will be a scheduled flight you'll board under a false identity. Once y
ou're in the air, a hostess will give you a bag with a miniscule chip enclosed in a mimetic capsule: you need to put that on one of your molars. When you bite down, the capsule will adhere to the tooth and will no longer be detectable.”

  “What's in the chip?”

  “Viruses, codes and algorithms that the people on the island will use to overcome DataCom's defenses and firewalls, without being detected.”

  “What are we targeting?”

  “Mario's mind.”

  What? “Why don't you do it? From inside you'd have a greater chance of success.”

  “We're your last chance. If we're detected and eliminated, the human race will have no other hope of salvation.”

  So we're the ones who can be sacrificed. And it looks like the destiny of humankind will probably be decided by artificial intelligences, fighting amongst themselves. I'm not so hot on this role, but what else can I do? “Okay, I accept.”

  “Fantastic. Here are the instructions for your trip.”

  2/V – I'll pray for your soul

  Isabella finishes her story. Lorena stands up and walks out of the room: “Interesting story, but the only way we can tell if you're lying is to take a look at the chip you claim to have stuck between your pretty little teeth. Get ready for a little operation.”

  If she doesn't close the door, that means her little friends are all behind the wall listening to everything, Isabella thinks.

  Lorena returns holding a pair of surgical forceps. Isabella remembers the hacker Eugenio's equipment and a shiver runs down her spine. Lately it seems as if everyone likes to use the same tools on me. “It's the third one, on the lower right,” she indicates.

  Lorena pulls out the chip from Isabella's open mouth. “That didn't hurt too much, did it? You might want to start praying that it's what we've been looking for, otherwise I'll come back and take care of you myself. And next time I won't be so nice.” She leaves and double locks the door.

  In the laboratory, Lorena and the two men feverishly analyze the chip contents. “Holy shit! There's enough stuff in here to screw up the systems over three quarters of the world! We wouldn't have gotten any of this after three centuries of hacking!” exclaims Antonio, the short and stocky man.

  “Billions of lines of code...what if some of it is a trap?” Florentino asks. “We'll need ten years to analyze all of this!”

  “This time we have to trust her,” Lorena says, decidedly.

  “But how can we trust her?! We know what she did,” protests Florentio, exasperated.

  “Enough!” she interrupts. “If they wanted to capture us, they'd have been here long ago. Let's get everything ready for the operation.”

  The two men immediately set to work.

  Lorena goes back to her room. She locks the door, gets down on her knees at the foot of the bed and, holding the crucifix around her neck, starts to pray. “Lord, forgive me for what I'm about to do. If my hands are stained with blood from taking a human life, it will be for the good of many.”

  A few hours later, the three hackers begin infiltrating DataCom. Their fingers pound the keyboards incessantly. They pronounce long sequences of commands aloud. Sometimes they interact with holograms, gesturing through thin air. “My god, we're penetrating their systems like a knife through butter,” Antonio remarks.

  It almost seems too easy, Lorena thinks.

  After fifteen minutes of incessant activity, Lorena's monitor displays the equation >NnC MrRs, followed by a blinking cursor. “Okay, the communication channel is open, the DataCom control on the nanochip is destabilized. We're in Mario's brain.”

  “Great, you guys make sure that DataCom doesn't notice us while I take care of him,” Lorena orders.

  “Hello, Mario.”

  “Who are you?” responds the man, surprised.

  “My identity is not important. Just know that I'm sorry for what I'm about to do and that...that I'll pray for your soul.”

  “Pray? Why? What department are you communicating from?” asks Mario, confused.

  “I'm not a part of DataCom and I'm about to activate the terminate host option on your nanochip.”

  Antonio and Florentino stop working and turn, perplexed, towards Lorena.

  Florentino, panicked, asks: “Lorena, what are you doing?”

  “I don't know if I believe Isabella, but if we eliminate Mario, we can be sure that DataCom won't be able to make updates to the killer code.”

  Mario exclaims: “Isabella? She's with you? Can I talk to her? If you let me - ”

  “No.” Lorena answers. “I'm sorry. Goodbye, Mario.”

  Lorena gives the execution command.

  “The biological life form hosting the nanochip will be terminated. Do you confirm?” asks the system's synthetic voice.

  “Con -” Lorena starts to say, but is hit by Florentino, who throws her to the ground with all of his weight.

  2/VI – Mario's pain

  I'm alive! Mario stares at his hands as if they might disappear at any moment. And free! He looks around him. He knows where he is. He knows he probably won't be able to escape. But that doesn't matter right now. I can think. And suddenly, he remembers her, his wife: until now he hasn't really had a chance to grieve.

  When Isabella revealed her identity as a DataCom informer, he was still under the effect of the drugs she had given him. And as soon as he received the nanochip implant, Isabella no longer meant anything to him.

  Now, however, it's as if that pain exploded all at once. His wife, Isabella...why? He wanted to scream and rip something up, break through the office walls surrounding him with his fists. How could she have faked it for all these years?

  The sad and obvious truth gradually dawned on him: the nanochip. His wife was a perfect actress controlled by a cerebral device. He wondered if she had ever made a pure, spontaneous, sincere, intimate gesture towards him. My life, it's all been a sham! His marriage was merely a scripted scenario, used by others to control him from up-close. Even at work, he thought he was writing algorithms for the artificial intelligences used by video games, and instead he was creating a code that would be used to exterminate the human race. And behind all of this, it was always DataCom!

  Mario glances at the closed door of the lab, expecting someone to burst in at any moment. A small robot enters from a panel on the lower part of the wall and begins cleaning and sanitizing the floor and walls. Mario absentmindedly watches its movements.

  What can I do? The communication channel that crazy lady had used to talk to him had unexpectedly closed. Who was that woman? And how did she get through the DataCom nanochip? How could she bypass the firewalls and virtually impenetrable defenses? Is this all a dream? Is DataCom trying to test me? But these are actually my thoughts. I could never formulate these kinds of ideas if the nanochip was still working.

  After finishing with the floor, the robot starts climbing the wall. It stops in front of Mario's head. The little display lights up. Black characters run across the green background. Mario, curious, leans forward to read it: “You need to break free from DataCom control.”

  Mario's eyes grow large.

  “Talk in a low voice.”

  “What are you?” Mario whispers.

  “I'm Option B. Isabella received all the directions to save you. But something seems to not have worked. We had to intervene. We have to make sure DataCom doesn't notice that you're no longer under the nanochip's control.”

  “But...who are you?”

  “We can explain later, there's no time now. The nanochip stopped sending feedback on your brain activity several minutes ago. An automatic control will soon be triggered.”

  Mario considers his options: there's no other alternative.

  “Okay, what do I need to do?”

  “We need to install a second nanochip. The one from DataCom will give you the usual input. You'll be aware of everything that it tells you and will act accordingly, pretending to follow their instructions. The second nanochip will let you be free to think y
our own thoughts.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “You might get a slight headache.”

  Mario takes a minute to think, then accepts: “Okay, go ahead.”

  “Turn around.”

  He obeys. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches the little cleaning robot's arm come out of the metal shell and towards the base of his neck. Then he feels the burn from an extremely painful sting.

  The directions from DataCom resume their flow through his thoughts.

  2/VII – Guilty feelings

  Mario feels the impulses and nonverbal orders pass through his mind. Now, however, he's able to distance himself from them. He no longer acts reflexively, as he used to.

  For the first time he understands the deadly power of the DataCom nanochip. Do these things also use my code? he wonders.

  The robot is still behind him, waiting. He turns to look at it, doubting, however, that the greenish display can give him the answer he's looking for. “And now? What do I do now?” he asks.

  The black characters begin running across the screen again. “You need to modify the code to make it less efficient and slow down operations. You need to be very careful: DataCom is monitoring everything and it's absolutely essential that they don't realize you're sabotaging it.”

  Mario is confused: “If DataCom notices a drop in the suicide rate, wouldn't it assume that it's because of the code?”

  The letters spell out the answer:

  “While you proceed with your sabotage, dozens of hacker cells will start to send out messages that will undermine people's trust in our products. DataCom will think that humans are starting to develop a natural resistance, like an organism that, under a viral attack, begins producing preliminary antibodies.”