She recalled Dr. Yukawa’s advice; she needed to save her memories in case the NIA caught up with her. He had also told her that Geppetto’s original purpose had been to copy a mind. Perhaps it still had that ability? If Geppetto could copy a mind, it could copy her memories.
‘Uncle Jesse, is it possible?’
< Not by the looks of it. Can’t see any mem-copying options in Geppetto. But like Dr. Yukawa said, Geppetto is still integratin’ with your neurals, so that option might not be available just yet. >
‘How long before you know for sure?’
< There’s at least another thirty per cent of Geppetto left to sink in. It might be two or more days before I can access the whole kit and caboodle. >
‘Ma doesn’t have that long,’ Sky said. She would have to find another way. ‘Are there any memory services in the area?’
Uncle Jesse located a well-regarded memory storage company named Amnesia Inc.
‘Can we trust them?’ she asked.
< Better than most, takin’ into account your dwindlin’ funds. Their pitch is “We see nothing, hear nothing, remember everything”. >
They would have to do.
Sky followed Uncle Jesse’s directions to the Amnesia store. It was located within a domed market. Once inside the dome, she unscrewed her helmet and was relieved to hear the mundane sounds of human life; footsteps, chattering, the thrum of air filters.
She made her way past the busy consumers, mostly miners, and was soon reclining on a seat at the Amnesia store, with the mem-tech checking whether her neurals were compatible with their storage programs.
‘Looks like you’ve had some recent trauma,’ the tech said. The scan of Sky’s neurals throbbed red like the muscles of a flayed animal.
‘A little heartache, that’s all,’ Sky replied.
The tech shrugged. ‘None of my business, I guess. But we’ve got a special on mem-wipes, if you’re interested; twenty per cent discount this week—thirty per cent if you’re a subscriber to the VOL Defense Fund.’
‘No, thanks,’ Sky said. ‘Some trauma is worth remembering.’
The man chuckled. ‘Ain’t that the truth?’
The assessment flashed complete. The tech groaned.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sky asked.
‘Your brain is stacked, missy,’ he whistled. ‘Gee whizz, what I’d do for neurals like these.’
‘Are you saying you can’t copy my memories?’
‘I’m saying you need a bigger drill, and I don’t have one. The head store in Shackleton handles advanced work. It’s on the upper levels, so it’ll cost you another zero, at least.’
Sky had no desire to return to Shackleton, not while everyone was looking for her. She sensed that the mem-tech was telling the truth, but he was holding something back.
She had Geppetto twist his arm a little.
‘I’m doing myself out of a finder’s fee here,’ he scratched his head, ‘but you do have other options if you want to save your memories.’
‘Really?’
‘Telepathy, for instance. If you’re linked brain-to-brain, anyone in your network can access your memories, regardless of security features, more or less. That’s assuming you can find a telepath you can trust.’
‘Actually, I’m looking for a more secure option.’
The man shrugged. ‘How about mind-dubbing?’
Mind-dubbing. Just like the late cartel boss, Som Razer. A copy of her mind, locked away somewhere, with nothing to do but run around inside itself. Sky shuddered at the thought of it. If she were a copy, she would not want to be locked up by her original in a digital limbo, or stuck inside a tin-can android, or find herself housed in the body of another human who’d had their mind reformatted to make room.
Still… if that was her only option…
‘Buuuuut,’ the tech continued, ‘dubbing is even more expensive than the advanced drill, and you still need to go to Shackleton for the procedure.’
Just my luck, Sky thought. Uncle Jesse, I don’t suppose Geppetto’s showing any mind-dubbing features yet?
< None that I can see, ma’am. >
Sky was running out of options and time. If she could not save her memories, she would have to do it the old-fashioned way; record herself on camera and relay everything she had experienced since the Tellinii hack on Detroit. She could store the recording online and cue it for transmission to news organizations on a date and time of her choosing. Oral testimony was not nearly as convincing as physical memory, but it was better than nothing. No matter what happened to her, at least the truth would get out in some form.
A click-clacking interrupted her thought process. A security bot stood outside the store accompanied by three androids.
‘Sorry for the interruption,’ said one of the androids, turning to Sky. ‘We are cross-checking company scanners and have noticed your brain signals are not registered either as an employee, contractor, or visitor to Copernicus mining facility. Would you agree to a neural scan to verify your identity?’
‘No.’
There was a pause. ‘A condition of entry to Copernicus mining facility is that you provide proof of identity and state your business. You should have seen the physical and/or digital signs on the way into town.’
Sky had, but she had chosen to ignore them.
The android said, ‘As you have no proof of identity, I will have to ask you to accompany us to the security station.’
Sky attempted to manipulate them using Geppetto, but she hit a wall.
Are they blocking me?
< No ma’am, it looks like Geppetto can’t hack artificial systems. Maybe once it integrates it’ll have that option, but I can’t say for sure. Right now, it only works with biological brains. >
Sky decided to comply with the android’s request.
The mechanical security team escorted her through the airlock and into the dusty street. Sky weighed her options. Her swarm, in the form of a miner’s toolkit, indicated that the mining facility had only a smattering of cameras. It appeared that the town relied on neural scanning for security (much like Earth). This may have been because the perpetual dust haze that hung over the town made it hard for cameras to identify and track individuals, but Sky could not be sure.
Now or never.
Her toolkit expanded into an open swarm and sucker-punched the three androids with a single strike. They flew in separate directions, hitting the ground in an explosion of dust. The swarm flipped the insectoid bot on its back, where it struggled to right itself.
One android lay immobile. The other two—though horizontal—fired taser spikes from their wrists.
Sky’s swarm blocked the projectiles and she retreated down a narrow street. She pushed past the occasional miner, doing her best to avoid the areas in which the swarm had detected camera signals, highlighted red in her vision.
She arrived at a T-intersection. Ahead of her was forest of girders that supported the conveyor belts above. She spotted security bots and androids approaching from both her left and right. Sky ducked out of sight, her back to a girder.
Android guards almost collided at the intersection.
‘She’s here somewhere,’ one of them said. They spun around, scanning for the intruder. When they found nothing, they spread out.
With the androids gone, Sky’s head peered out from behind her swarm. She had engaged its cloaking mechanism, rendering it invisible. Her head appeared to float without a body.
She looked up at the conveyor belts. She began to climb, enveloped in her swarm like a babe in its womb. She soon reached the top where the conveyor belts thudded like giant metronomes.
Tonnes of processed minerals—some as fine as sand, others formed into pellets—dropped down a tube, then into containers bound for the graystalk and offworld.
The maya information on some containers indicated they were headed for Earth. Despite the private travel embargo, Earth-Apollo trade had continued, probably more out of necessity for Earth than Apollo.
/>
An approaching container was labelled Earth shipment 531A.
< I’m not saying my calculations aren’t accurate, ma’am, > Uncle Jesse said, < but I reckon there are safer options. >
‘I agree,’ came a voice. It was Dr. Yukawa, floating in mid-air with his exoskeleton. ‘And you cannot make such a dangerous journey without leaving a copy of your memories, or at least a visual recording. You’re risking many more lives than just yours and your mother’s. If you try to save her and fail, we will lose Geppetto. Too many lives have been sacrificed already, and too many more are at stake.’
Sky was unmoved. ‘There’s always someone pulling the political strings; always been that way and always will be, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change that.’
‘No, you’re wrong; you can change it.’
Earth shipment 531A was only a couple of containers away.
Dr. Yukawa shook his head. ‘You needn’t go to Earth. Once Geppetto integrates, you could cure your mother from here with a hack.’
‘And you think the NIA would just let her go? The only victim to be cured, free to live out her life?’
‘Even if you could get to your mother, once they realize she is missing they will find you and kill you both. You will have gained nothing.’
‘I can handle them.’
‘Ha!’ Yukawa scoffed, ‘You can handle the average swarm agent, perhaps, but have you thought about facing Geppetto-wielders?’
‘There’s more than one?’ The question sounded naïve, even to Sky, but until now she had not considered any Geppetto-wielders other than Tester.
‘Twelve in all; the six security council members—the federators—plus their six heads of neurosecurity, the directors.’
Sky wished she hadn’t asked.
‘Geppetto has only partly integrated into your neurals,’ he warned her. ‘You have only begun to realize its potential. If you waited a few days for the program to settle, you could use it to fulfil its original purpose; you could copy your own mind. Your stacked neurals will be no obstacle for Geppetto. You could leave your mind-copy with an Apollan insurer and instruct them to release the data to the public if you do not return within a certain timeframe. That way, whatever happens to you, the VOL will learn the truth.’
‘My mother doesn’t have days.’
‘Geppetto is too important for you to risk—’
‘They take,’ Sky spat. ‘They take my freedom to choose; they take my mind.’ Her cloaked swarm rose around her, crashing like waves against windswept cliffs.
The girders shuddered as processed minerals hurtled through the tubes above. Down below, the android guards still ran around with neither fatigue nor success, but it would only be a matter of time before they found her.
‘I won’t get another chance,’ she said.
Dr. Yukawa’s exoskeleton whirred as he hovered around her. ‘I barely lasted a few hours on my own; while you, a half-baked novice, think you can penetrate Earth’s defenses undetected and escape with your mother?’
‘What’s the alternative? Sacrifice her to protect your legacy? You’re already dead, what does it matter?’
‘It matters to those who live on, to those who may fall victim to Geppetto.’
Her chest heaved, hot as a furnace. ‘Those who live on will not bring my mother back. Those who live on will live for themselves and their own. There’s one thing I’ve learned from all this: the world is full of leeches, feeding off each other the first chance they get. Life exploiting life. I won’t let anyone feed off me or mine ever again.’
‘You are making a terrible mistake, Sky Marion,’ Dr. Yukawa shook his head. ‘It is likely to cost you, and everyone else.’
An avalanche of unprocessed lunar rock dropped into Earth Shipment 531A, raising its own cloud of regolith. It was under the cover of this cloud that Sky, wrapped in her swarm, leapt into the container.
The remaining minerals fell on her with the thundering of an avalanche.
PART IV
Neuro
Chapter 14
Wiper
14:1
It was pitch black in the cargo container. Sky was pinned down despite her swarm. She had entered with the last of the minerals, but when the container door shut, the world squeezed her. She had no room to stretch her legs and adjusting her position was nigh impossible.
Every time the container shuddered, she feared it would open up and a troupe of androids would be waiting for her. Though she could not see outside, Uncle Jesse provided estimates and expected milestones on her journey, which accorded with the container’s movements, more or less.
Sky felt the weight of rock lift a little, and Uncle Jesse calculated they were in space.
She made sure that Geppetto was still hiding her mind from scanners. She kept checking as the journey progressed; if any scanners picked her up, even for a moment, she would be done for.
Though the journey was physically gruelling, the worst part of it was having the time to think. The painful events of recent days resurfaced. She could not shake the image of her father’s ship exploding. She tried to sleep, and when she succeeded, she fell in and out of nightmares.
Uncle Jesse told her it was trauma.
‘How long until this fucking thing lands?’ Sky asked.
< About ten more hours, ma’am. >
Sky turned her mind to Geppetto. She watched with morbid curiosity as the program coiled itself around her neurals, finding a home, settling deeper with every passing moment. It was like a parasite, but one that served her, for now at least. Would Geppetto change her? Had it already? She was carrying the most intrusive technology since scanners and programming, and the more Geppetto claimed her, the more uneasy she felt.
She called for Geppetto’s creator, Dr. Yukawa. He was quick to respond. He appeared, sitting cross-legged, and looking quite comfortable. With her muscles cramping, she envied his ability to do so. No sooner had Yukawa arrived than he began listing all the reasons why it had been unwise for her to return to Earth.
Sky cut him off. ‘You said Geppetto was not originally a mind-control program. You said you created it to copy minds?’
‘Yes.’ He seemed eager to engage, like a genie who hated being inside his bottle. ‘I was experimenting with methods to transfer consciousness from brain-to-brain, or brain-to-computer, to extend the life of the human mind—’
‘Neural alchemy,’ Sky said.
‘Yes, and like others before me, I failed. Sadly, the mind cannot be decoupled from the brain any more than flavor from a meal. But like flavor, the mind can be copied, or at least simulated. This mind-copy can be reorganized digitally in the form of an artificial intelligence, which can be installed into a new brain.’
He was referring to the technology that allowed the late Som Razer to wake inside his backup bodies, and what allowed Dr. Yukawa himself to appear before her.
‘You invented mind-dubbing?’
‘Not quite, but I did stumble upon a unique method to transfer the mind-copy. Your garden-variety dubbing requires the host brain be extensively reprogrammed, physically rewired, to accommodate the incoming mind; as a hand puppet is tailored to the operator’s hand. I developed a way to tap into a host brain and install a mind-copy without any need for programming; just as a string puppet can be operated by a hand of any size or shape.’ His enthusiasm waned. ‘It was this hacking element of my research that caught the authorities’ attention, and their funding.’
Sky felt her own mind contorting to understand it all. Just when she thought she had grasped it, she found herself having to replay Yukawa’s words. ‘So Geppetto has the ability to copy a mind from one brain and overlay that copy onto another brain?’
Dr. Yukawa’s lips pursed in annoyance. ‘If you prefer an imprecise and oversimplified explanation, that one would suffice.’
Sky found the mechanics of Geppetto both ingenious and insidious. It was like creating a mask of one person’s face and then forcing someone else wear it.
It reminded her of the Thalia and Melpomene—the laughing comedy mask and the sorrowful tragedy mask—which stood as the universal symbol for drama and theatre. The ancient Greek actors who wore the masks would play out these emotions, much like the brains of Geppetto’s victims.
‘So the Tellinii virus is essentially a copy of a suicidal mind?’ Sky said.
‘Exactly,’ Yukawa’s eyebrows shot up, as if he were pleasantly surprised by her deduction, ‘albeit a suicidal mind which has the volume turned up. Its presence tricks the victim’s neurons to engage in an electrochemical process that mirrors the suicidal mind.’
The thought of this process occurring inside her mother’s brain made Sky nauseous.
Imagine if Earth had employed Geppetto for more benevolent purposes, Sky wondered. Imagine if, instead of a suicidal mind, Earth had created a virus of a joyous mind? Or a loving mind? What a difference that would make to humanity.
Dr. Yukawa continued, ‘Geppetto can also create viruses in the same way. It is able to copy a mind or an aspect of a personality, transfer that copy into another brain and make it reproduce. This creative element of Geppetto is the most data intensive, which is why it is one of the last aspects to integrate, and why you do not have access to it yet. Having said that, I am pleased with the progress of Geppetto’s integration into your neurals. There has been very little resistance. It almost fits you like a glove.’
Sky could feel a headache coming on, either from the weight of tonnes of processed minerals or the present discussion with Yukawa. ‘You’ve explained how Geppetto can hack and create viruses, but what about manipulation? How was I able to make that NIA agent jump off the caterpillar?’
‘It is the same process. Geppetto merely overlayed a copy of your own mind onto the agent, and updated that copy at such a rate that it appeared to you as if you were inside his mind in real-time.’
Sky was beginning to understand the entity that had nestled inside her brain. Geppetto was not just one program, it was many. It copied minds, it hacked minds, and it infected minds. It was a suite of manipulative tools.
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