by Joseph Rhea
Nervous applause came from some of the onlookers. They had obviously never seen a powerchair like his before. With all the recent medical advances there were very few people confined to wheelchairs anymore—at least in developed countries. His powerchair was a little old fashioned, but in the three years since his near-fatal car crash, it had made his life almost bearable. Almost.
“You’re lucky,” he remembered his fiancée, Maya, telling him after he woke from a month-long coma.
“You call this lucky?” he said bitterly, pointing to his apparently useless legs.
“They repaired the damage to your head and face while you were unconscious. There’s not a single scar left.”
“They said I have permanent brain damage,” he reminded her.
“Only a small part of your brain was affected.”
“Yeah—just the small part that controls my legs. I had a soccer scholarship. What am I going to do now?”
“You were run over by a truck, Alek,” she said. “It could’ve been much worse.”
“Worse than being told that they can’t do anything for you? That you will never kick a ball again? Never walk again?”
“There’s stem-cell therapy and cybernetic—”
“They use stem-cells to regrow nerves and cybernetics to replace limbs—neither does me any good.”
“You’re alive,” she said.
“Am I?” he remembered yelling at her—repeatedly. She had no response. A few weeks after the hospital released him, he stopped answering her calls. A month later, she stopped calling.
“Sorry I wasn’t in earlier,” Cheryl said, bringing him back to the present. “My stupid car wouldn’t start this morning.”
“That figures,” he said, shaking his head. “And I suppose you have no idea who Stacy is, do you?” When she looked confused, he added. “Never mind, and thanks for cleaning up the mess for me, Cheryl.”
“No problem. Let me go get you another coffee. Just try to keep this one on the table, okay?” she added with a polite smile.
As she turned and walked away, he ran his hands underneath his table. As expected, he found a small lump on the side where Stacy had been standing. He pried it off the table and examined it.
It was a Piggyback module all right—originally designed to allow two people to share one interface signal. They also allowed one person to eavesdrop on another if you knew how to modify them. Very few did, of course, which confirmed that Stacy wasn’t just some hacker working for Klaxon—Stacy was Klaxon.
He smacked the top of the table. What an idiot—falling for the girl with the see-through top. How the hell was he going to explain this? He stuffed the module into his backpack and then saw a familiar face on the TV screen up in the corner. He signaled his watch to turn up his personal sound.
“It was one year ago today that the genetically-engineered virus broke through its quarantine in Utah’s Salt Lake Biomedical Research Facility,” the reporter said, “killing over 9,000 people in the first few hours. The CDC admits that while authorities have been able to contain the microscopic machines that carry the plague, they have not yet found a way to destroy them.
“The research lab’s parent company, Cyberdrome—the Nevada-based ‘Think Tank’ well-known for its pioneering work in nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and other next-generation fields—has never admitted direct responsibility for either the outbreak or the deaths. Speaking from the company’s Groom Lake headquarters, Cyberdrome’s Chief Administrator, Rebecca Leconte, told us that founder, Dr. Mathew Grey, was still hard at work finding a cure for the plague, and therefore unavailable for comment.”
Alek flicked off the sound. He didn’t need to hear any more about the sins of his father. He had enough problems of his own to deal with. He was about to leave when something on the screen grabbed his attention. He fished the Piggyback module from his backpack and stared at it numbly. Etched into the side of the device he saw an oval containing a stylized bird whose wings enclosed a small globe. The image of his father on the television bore the exact same symbol below his name. It was the logo for his company—Cyberdrome.
TWO
An intense, pure-white flash hit Maya without warning and she felt every cell in her body explode. Just as abruptly, the pain ended and she found herself floating in a black void. I’m dead, she murmured to herself.
Finally, light and substance returned as some sort of door opened before her. Staring through someone else’s eyes, she saw a brown-skinned woman in a white uniform looking down at her.
“Rise and shine, sweetie,” the woman said as she helped Maya to a sitting position. “Do you know who I am?” she asked.
For a moment, Maya didn’t know the answer, although the woman’s face looked familiar. When she looked down and saw her blue, circuit-laced bodysuit, the fog in her head began to clear. “Angela, right?” she said. At the woman’s nod, she added, “I’m fine, Doctor.” She tried to stand up but fell backward onto the interface chamber.
“Give yourself a minute,” Angela said, holding her arm. “You were scheduled for eight hours, but came out after only two. Is anything wrong?”
“I was only there for two hours?” Maya asked. She remembered being in the simulation for most of a day and night.
Angela patted her on the shoulder as she looked at a display on the wall. “I keep telling you people to slow down, but do any of you listen to me?”
Maya’s memories began to flow back into her consciousness, like water pouring into a bowl. She had been connected to an Earth-based simulation where virtual time passed ten-times faster than normal. That’s why she remembered spending a whole day on the planet after just two hours. She felt a bit more in control and even managed to stand on her own. “I think I’m all right now.”
“Are you sure?” The doctor looked at the readings on the bio-display above her chamber. “Perhaps the upload didn’t have time to complete—”
“The upload worked,” Maya interrupted. “I remember everything now. Twenty hours of memories—they’re all there.” When Angela looked at her suspiciously, she added. “Really, Angela, I’m fine.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, young lady. So, why did you come out early?”
“The investors’ tour,” Maya said as she tried to edge herself toward the door. The last thing she needed was for the doctor to confine her there for observation. “Dr. Grey asked me to handle it for him.”
“I thought they cancelled that,” Angela said as she escorted Maya to the exit, holding her elbow as they walked. Suddenly, the door slid open and a middle-aged man came running through, almost crashing right into them.
“Apologies,” he said. “I saw that a chamber had become available and I didn’t want someone else to beat me to it.”
Angela sighed. “It’s ready to go, Dr. Lyman.” When the man stepped past them and climbed into Maya’s chamber, she whispered, “It’s been like this all week. People literally fighting for more time in the simulations.”
Maya nodded. “Well, that’s why they’re building the new chambers, right? I bet you can’t wait for those to be finished?”
“If they think I’m going to supervise another 42 people…” Angela’s voice drifted off as she looked down at her datapad. “Wait a minute. Did you say that Grey asked you to come back?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You’re telling me that you spoke to Mathew Grey in person?”
“Well, not in person. I was down on a planet and he was in the local Survey Vessel. Why?”
She still looked confused. “Could he have been speaking to you from here?”
Maya shook her head. “Absolutely not. I was in a Level-10 interface and we spoke together—it wasn’t a recorded message. Why are you asking me all of this?”
Angela looked up. “Well, according to my logs, Mathew Grey is not currently interfaced.”
It took a moment for the doctor’s words to sink in. “That’s not possible.”
At that moment, an a
larm went off and a message came across the intercom. “Code Seven Alert. All employees return to your duty stations. This is not a drill.”
Maya stared blankly at the doctor for several seconds as the words sunk in. Code Seven meant something was wrong inside the simulations. She turned and rushed out the door.
She took the elevator up three levels, transferred to another tube, and finally reached the main control level. After submitting a fingertip scan, she passed through two thick steel doors and stepped into a brightly lit, circular room filled with about a dozen people. In the center, a meter-wide transparent column rose out of a circular console and nearly touched the two-story high domed ceiling. It looked like a high-tech aquarium filled with glowing green water, except that the water was actually DNA-based liquid memory.
Rebecca Leconte, a middle-aged woman with white hair and a youthful figure, stood near the tower looking up at something Maya couldn’t see. Maya adjusted her contacts to the room’s frequency and a large floating angelfish appeared in the air in front of Rebecca. The fish was talking.
“So you see, Rebecca, there really is nothing for you to be concerned with.”
“Kill that damn alarm!” Rebecca yelled. When the alarm died, she turned back to the floating fish. “We currently have over forty people in direct neural interface in this facility, Ceejer. I need to know exactly what kind of threat we’re up against. If you can’t tell me, I’m going to order their retrieval at once.”
The angelfish wiggled its fins, as if agitated. “As I have already stated, Rebecca, my defenses are more than adequate to handle this situation. I have already ordered my Sentinels in to capture the rogue entity. If it cannot be contained, it will be deleted, I assure you.”
As Maya watched from just inside the door, she saw the fish morph into a large hairless cat. Whatever its shape, the holographic image was a representation of C.J.E.R.—the Cyberdrome Jurisdictional Enforcement Routine. It was the program ultimately responsible for monitoring all life forms inside Cyberdrome’s many simulations, both digital and biological.
“I think I’m going to start the retrieval anyway,” Rebecca said, “just to be safe.”
The cat sat down on the tower’s console and licked one of its front paws. “Need I remind you that disconnection from a direct neural interface operating at the current speed requires at least thirty-three minutes?”
A young technician named Brad spoke up. “We can do an emergency disconnect, can’t we?”
The cat turned toward the young man. “Thirty-three minutes is the minimum estimated time it takes to retrieve all neuroprobes from the subjects. Disconnection before neuroprobes are removed will result in a twenty-nine percent chance of brain damage.”
The cat turned back toward Rebecca. “Time in my world is passing substantially faster than in yours and I expect my Sentinels will have the intruder captured long before you could even begin disconnection.” The cat paused and stared off to the side for a moment before continuing. “In fact, my Sentinels are now entering the memory sector containing the intruder. Please stand by while I monitor.”
The cat dissolved into a swarm of particles and then disappeared.
Rebecca turned to Brad. “God, I hate talking to that thing. Why does it have to change into all of those ridiculous creatures?”
“Ceejer was never given an Avatar of its own,” Brad replied. “It’s a supervisor program, so it shouldn’t need one. We think it might have something to do with the fact that it’s the first supervisor-class ALife grown in liquid memory.” Rebecca stood there glaring at him, and he quickly changed his answer. “What I meant to say, ma’am, is that we don’t really know why it does that.”
Rebecca turned and looked into the green tower. “Can we at least get a visual of the intruder?” she asked.
The poor guy looked embarrassed and Maya knew the reason. Leconte was formerly a clinical psychologist, hired just a few months ago to oversee the Human Interface Project, but then promoted to Chief Administrator when Mathew began working full time in the simulations. She was a bright woman, but simply didn’t understand all the complexities of Cyberdrome’s simulations yet.
Brad cleared his throat. “Ma’am, the intruder program isn’t inside the environments. It’s in the Core.” He paused a moment, probably hoping someone else would continue the explanation. When no one offered, he continued. “The Core’s essentially where the guts of the programs that run the individual environments are located. Even though it’s also a three-dimensional construct, we can’t get a visual of it because our rendering engines are set up exclusively for the environments. If you give us a few hours, we can—”
“You’re telling me this intruder’s in the very heart of our system,” Rebecca interrupted, “and we are leaving its defense entirely up to a bunch of programs?” She looked at him sternly. “Do you consider this a wise decision, Bradley?”
Brad looked like he was going to pass out, and swallowed hard before answering her. “The Sentinels are the best programs we have to patrol that region of memory. They’re actually human-based, artificial life forms, taken directly from the simulations. They are specially trained to defend the Core and have human-like adaptability; they should have no problem handling the intruder, whatever it is.”
Rebecca intently examined each of the young faces in the room, one at a time. Maybe she was looking for someone to yell at, or perhaps she was simply lost in thought. Before she turned far enough around to see Maya, she said, “All right, tell Benness to begin preparation for emergency disconnection, but tell her to hold for my signal. I’ll give these Sentinels exactly five minutes to do their job. If they fail, we’ll get our people out the hard way.”
Maya backed up to the rear wall and began chewing on her fingernails. Like everyone else in the room, she knew the hazards of emergency disconnection. Glancing up at the tower, she whispered, “Please don’t fail.”
o o o
Inside Cyberdrome’s Core, a circular pattern on the floor lifted slightly and rotated twelve degrees clockwise. The disk then folded in half, the back rising up to expose the glowing memory circuitry behind it. The half-disk stopped at an angle of exactly sixty degrees to the horizontal and locked into position.
An iris appeared in the center of the raised section, exposing a glowing reddish surface that undulated like a mixture of oil and water. Then a silver, wedge-shaped vehicle pushed itself through the surface and entered normal cyberspace.
Sentinel Javid Rho slowed his Tracer to a stop, hovering above the ground on a bed of magnetic energy. After scanning local memory for signs of activity, he sent the ‘all clear’ signal, and moved his ship away from the Circuit Gate opening. A moment later, thirty-one Tracers began passing through the Gate in single file, each taking position behind his ship in a perfect delta formation.
As the Circuit Gate disk reversed its program and resealed itself back into the ground, Javid began a long-range scan of the sector. He detected nothing unusual, but then initiated a visual scan and noticed deformations to the ground near him. He looked toward the horizon and saw the trail extending off into the distance. The intruder would not be difficult to track after all.
Javid was the leader of the Sentinel unit, as evidenced by his blue skin and bald head. All of the other members of his unit were still Green, although several were soon due for Yellow promotions. He could still remember his first day as a Green, so full of ambition routines he thought he would overflow a buffer. Now that he was older, he had replaced those motivational routines with a database full of experiences—experiences he would now be testing.
Somewhere in the group behind him, he knew that his soon-to-be mate, Elsala, sat quietly in her Tracer, waiting for his instructions. She was still a Green, but her code was a perfect match to his. Their offspring would flourish as Sentinels, and Cyberdrome would benefit greatly.
A movement in the distance caught his eye and he focused on the horizon. The haze of rendered cyberspace made it difficult to l
ocate the source. He launched a pursuit-class reconnaissance probe and moments later, it located the intruder and transmitted an image.
It was a massive routine, consisting of a curved-metallic body held up by eight jointed legs. There was some sort of brain case attached to the back of the intruder’s head, and it was enormous—easily large enough to hold a full exabyte of code. It was either the smartest program he had ever observed, or more likely, a container vessel of some sort.
As the probe circled at a distance, it transmitted the intruder’s location and trajectory, but was unable to determine its offensive and defensive capabilities. Javid ordered the probe in for a closer inspection. Moments later, the probe abruptly stopped transmitting. Apparently, the intruder was well armed.
Following standard procedure, Javid transmitted the probe’s information to his unit, and then ordered the Sentinels to divide themselves into sixteen groups of two. An automated matching program paired up the individuals, based on their combined strengths and weaknesses. When the others had left to assume their positions, Javid was surprised to see who had been selected as his partner.
“Elsala, tell me that you did not cheat.”
Elsala smiled at him through the short-range visual connection. Her teeth were iridescent against her emerald skin and her rust-colored hair was always a wild tangle. “Javid Rho, you of all Sentinels should know that a Green like me has no control over system-level processes. I say that this is one more sign that we were meant for each other.”
He smiled back. Their union would certainly be interesting, and Cyberdrome would indeed benefit greatly.
A display on his dashboard told him that the other Sentinels were almost in place. He and Elsala assumed their positions, and he sent the final instructions to close the circle.
As his Tracer moved forward, Javid glanced down at his hands. He still had faint memories of his life before becoming a Sentinel—having tan-colored skin and living a life of blissful ignorance in one of the Earth simulations. It was not his blue skin that bothered him, of course—it was the responsibility that the color represented. Thirty-one lives were now under his leadership. Was he truly ready to lead them into battle?