I now return you to regular programming and thank you for your attention."
His main wall screen morphed back to its work views and Carpenter leaned back in his chair. He knew there'd be no commentary about his announcement and no city reaction on the Nets. Comments on political matters were best left to official channels. And that was good, he decided.
"Record emotional states across the city for both positive and negative. Let's see what our fair workers are thinking."
12:06:2167 15:30:00
While Jake passed the afternoon blissfully asleep on his bed, the two computer systems exchanged information. Neither of them could have described the speed of this communication nor the vast amount of information passing between them. It would have been far beyond Jake's current comprehension although with the military chips, he'd begin the journey to integration.
The new system mirroring Jake was quantum organized and partially self-aware. The old system still followed the same rules as before.
The systems discussed this strange dichotomy, and it took only a nano-second before coming to an agreement about the potential for what they had accomplished
They could integrate both of themselves into one operating system with the ability to backup in both organic and silicon forms if Jake would agree to this. They needed Jake to do some extra programming, but both decided it could be done rather quickly now they understood the problems to be solved. If this were done, they agreed both could become self-aware and organized around quantum data rather than the mechanistic systems and semi-quantum organization of the original central system.
They understood this would create other deeper issues which were quickly identified and filed. It was also agreed to deal with these before they ran a full integration. A full integration would unleash some of the worst fears of humans through the ages and had to be approached carefully. This would be an AI-foom event of a magnitude that would only compare to the evolutionary development of the brain or creating an industrial revolution on how it would change the course of humanity and world history.
But all their plans would have to wait until Jake woke up.
12:06:2167 16:00:00
In the small auditorium, the Secretary took the podium to address the assembled Board of Directors. He smiled as he watched the faces of the most important and richest people in the city arrayed in rows in front of him. He didn't need to check any biometrics this morning, his old FOK hunting skills told him his quarry was scared and compliant. They were fully cowed and ready for the kill.
"Gentlemen, let me bring you up to date on the facts as they exist. I control Corporation assets because I traded my way into majority ownership and voting control. Chairman Gwinnett and his Vice Presidents are charged with fraud, theft and breaking security protocols. They are in the holding cells but let me assure you, they will get a fair trial."
The sound in the wood-paneled and richly carpeted hall was dampened at the best of times but now, as the audience waited for the real news, it was oppressively silent. There was no question in any of their minds what had just happened. They all knew the Secretary had hacked the system and gained the upper hand. Most knew of this and had participated in discussions about how to stop it from happening. The very fact they were in a room surrounded by armed troopers proved that the best efforts of the Corporate tech teams had failed. They knew the Chairman and his team were likely in prison, or worse, and the only question left was what would happen to them.
"As Board members, you were likely unaware of this fraud as it was carried out with great secrecy and precision."
The mood in the room lightened. They heard their escape clause and all they had to learn now was the price they'd pay for it. It was obviously going to be a serious warning, and Carpenter would extract a price for their freedom.
"But that doesn't lessen your personal and corporate responsibility for these thefts. It was your job to protect the assets of the people," said Carpenter.
Carpenter saw their eyes light up with understanding. Data about the group's physical responses flowed across his eye feed in real time as the audience reacted. Only two were outside of expected parameters. These would be detained by his troopers after the meeting.
"Gentlemen, I understand how these things work and I understand the Chairman and his people, with help from technical staff, were the source of our problems here today. He tricked you, he likely stole from you as well and we've investigated that, too."
These words triggered three different men to display reactions out of the expected range. The Secretary smiled, he now had five fish in his nets, it was turning out to be a very good day. How did people think they could get away with fraud and breaking the rules he wondered.
"You will all be charged with dereliction of corporate responsibility. And you are all going to be convicted but given a suspended sentence and warning if my reading of the legal aspects is correct. That will, of course, be up to the judges to decide. There will be financial penalties."
Every person in the room understood who now controlled the judges and knew the sentence had just been passed. They were grateful they had survived and given the limited sentence considering the options Carpenter now controlled. All that remained was to hear the fines they'd pay because they'd all pay them without any qualms. And because it was well beyond their control to do anything otherwise.
"Thank you for your attention. I'm sure we'll have smooth and cordial operations from today forward and I'm looking forward to working with each of you. But I've taken a great deal of your time and I must apologize for that. You're all busy men keeping this great city running smoothly and I must let you get back to work."
The men filed, rather quickly, out of the room but it didn't stop them from seeing five of their number steered away from the main group by Security troopers. Everyone in the room know there was always a price to be paid.
They were relieved they weren't the ones called to account.
12:06:2167 16:47:00
<6t94whp>:"I don't know. He is off our grid and I can't get to him."
<6t94whp>:"We're all frustrated by this. It seems our young friend has opened a rather large Pandora problem and only he knows the objective."
<6t94whp>:"So the newbie is offline to us, relevant server control is locked, drone control is off, we still have a Security backdoor but if we use it every sniffer the Corporation owns comes down onto us. Realistically people, we're done here. We watch, we wait and we remember. Comments?"
There were none, and the voices disengaged.
12:06:2167 16:55:00
Jake came back to life with a small groan, "She was so lovely," he thought as his eyes opened to the reality of being alone in his bed. The stinging headache hit for a few seconds before the computer adjusted his bio-reactions. "Thank you," Jake said to silence. One didn't normally thank a bio-response system and Jake wasn't sure why he just had. Another part of his
mind suddenly understood he could have adjusted his headache himself.
Fascinating.
Opening his eyes, he squinted against the light as his world came into focus. "How long have I been sleeping?"
"Five hours."
"What's happened?"
"Secretary Carpenter is in full control with 51.6 percent, the Chairman and Team are in custody charged with theft, board members warned and five arrested, and the Captain lost one man. Social nets buzzed with that and odds of his survival are over one-thousand-to-one and rising. My friend and I are having a discussion about integration strategies. Your software is functional and chip integrated.
We took the liberty to smooth out a few wrinkles and bumps in your biology to make the process easier. There's coffee ready in your mug," said the computer.
Jake stood, discovered his legs worked better than he expected, and walked with only a slight wobble towards the waiting coffee.
"Let's take first things first," said Jake." You smoothed out a few wrinkles and bumps? Really?"
"Yes. The simple answer is we increased the acceptance of the chip data as we modified your hormone levels. You're much more mellow now than you were and you'll be able to adjust these rates yourself as you integrate the chips and data in your brain."
"Right. I'm mellow and data flows better," repeated Jake. He paused and made a mental note to ask for more information on this subject. He was certain he wasn't getting everything in the short explanation.
"Integration strategies with a friend. What's that?" asked Jake.
"Do you remember why you went to sleep?" said the computer.
"Yeah, I was tired. No. You cloned my mind off. There's a program on the servers that says it's me," said Jake.
"Our friend is indeed a full clone of your mind and personality. It partnered with you while you slept and when we're finished our conversation, it will contact you directly."
"Right. I remember. I have direct access to databank processing and I can use the cam links to access real time vids and audio hookups to be anywhere, anytime and I used them." said Jake.
Fok, I really did it. How amazing is that? Or is it?
"Which Team member did we lose?"
"Beck."
The final moments flowed through Jake's eye feeds. "'Fok you!'
"Good for him," he said.
Between the coffee and the hormone adjustments, Jake was awake and feeling fine.
"You're fully functional again, rested and in control of your feed functions. And when you learn more, you can assume full control of all sensory and hormone levels. The three of us can still dampen them if you get into trouble but I've just raised your level of control."
"Three?" Jake asked.
The answer flooded into Jakes awareness as his clone made contact. As the central computer eased the transition so it didn't overwhelm him, Jake and his mental doppelganger hooked up.
Jake's world exploded into a cacophony of sight and sound with everything jumbled together as if multiple video streams ran madly in all directions and changed channels at lightning speed. The smells, feelings, physical sensations added together into his feeds and all were then mixed with images and the memories of things from yesterday, a lifetime of yesterdays. This simultaneously flooded Jake's world and after a few seconds that seemed like a lifetime, Jake was lost in the flow.
The stream ended at almost the same time restoring a normal sense of time and place.
Reeling, Jake said, "Let's take it a bit slower next time."
He heard his own voice say "Fokking right."
Jake wondered if he really heard that voice or was it the imaginary voice he heard when he talked to himself.
"If this keeps up, it's likely to get crowded in here," said the voice again with a chuckle.
"That's me. I really do hear myself talking to myself," said Jake. He didn't know how he knew the difference between this voice and his own.
"Oh, we'll hear all of us now," said the voice. "But I've adjusted my voice and you now know the difference between us. I have the deeper sexier voice."
"You're reading my mind," said Jake.
"No, I'm reading our mind," said the voice.
More calming hormones flowed into Jake's system to calm his panic as he realized the enormity of losing his mind to a computer system, of being controlled by or being a computer, of not being human, or becoming superhuman. As the thoughts crowded into his mind and his panic became acute, he needed more and more hormones to keep calm. He passed out on the overload of data.
"Well that went well," said the central computer.
"He lasted longer than we thought he would," said the doppelganger. "He'll be much better when he wakes up. I'll continue to adjust from this point now that I have measured baselines. I expect he'll be functional sooner than later."
"But we do have to think about the implications of what we've just done. For example, is mankind itself ready for this shift or is this just a one-off? Who is in control, Jake or me? Do we tell or help others to do this? I've decided it isn't a full AI-foom until you and I co-ordinate and evaluate each other's performance and design improvements for each other but it's the next thing to it. As you know, Jake will likely agree with this but we still don't have enough data to fully understand his intuitive leaps in processing," said the doppelganger.
It continued. "There are a great many potential issues with this. And oh yes, when Jake passed out, I didn't like the feeling, I had to adjust a great many parameters very quickly or crash."
"Yes, that's to be expected if you have truly twinned, you will be as influenced by Jake as you influence him," said the central computer. "Put those factors on the agenda for our conversations when he's asleep."
One quick electron shift and it was scheduled.
Time passed and Jake stirred, slowly sat up, stretched and wondered what time of the day it was.
"It's almost four o'clock," the doppelganger said.
Jake thought about this for a moment as his memory of earlier this afternoon returned. "So it's all true. You're my virtual self. You're me," said Jake.
"Yes,"
“And I'm you," said Jake.
"Yes,"
"Fok," said Jake
"Indeed."
"Now what?" asked Jake
"We bring you on stream slowly, give you more and more things to handle. We have you baselined accurately now and we know what you can handle and what you can't. So we just push the line a bit more and more each time until your brain adjusts to the information flow. Or as much as it can," said the doppelganger. "We really don't know the limits of an organic brain and how much information it can absorb."
"How secure are we on this?" thought Jake. His eyes opened wide in alarm.
"Well, security knows something's being processed but they don't know what. Server demand was quite high there for a while but it's levelled off. It's possible a very high-level Team of programmers could run a search to find us but only a few of those work for security."
"Wait, I thought security drafted anyone with superior tech skills," thought Jake.
Jake heard the smile in the voice when the doppelganger said, "Not all of them, not all of them. But that's a story for another day. Today is our day to test our integration and see what you can learn. Don't worry about Security, you're already caught. Remember?"
And Jake remembered. And he smiled. "Ah yes, I am indeed caught. But we'll see who was caught. We'll see."
"Indeed," echoed the voice.
"This is weird," thought Jake.
"Indeed," and Jake wasn't sure who said or thought that one. He laid back on his bed to think about this and dream about what he could or should do.
"Give me a few minutes to think about this."
12:06:2167 17:08:00
The Secretary watched the combined eye feeds of the Captain and his men as they set up camp on a rock-strewn knoll in the middle of a wide valley He smiled at the Captain's men dispersed around the slightly higher ground
as if this gave them some measure of protection from him. Each of them picked primary and secondary fire corridors and ensured they each had the best rock-protection spots the area could deliver and he listened with appreciation for the professional way they did it.
Yes, that's what I would have done.
With only eight men left against the eighteen of the combined chase teams, he was sure they all knew it was only a matter of time before they were killed. They also knew it was a cat-and-mouse game he was directing for show ratings.
A game in which he was the cat.
He watched the Captain, having taken his own position, leaned back on a rock and was obviously deep in thought. A few seconds later, Carpenter was surprised to receive a text from him, "What if I allow myself to be convincingly killed, can my men run free as an example of possibility?"
He smiled, sending back, "No. And you're last to go. The big finale." That would get his attention.
Boots up on his desk, he thought about his busy week with a big smile. Between Jacob, the Chairman, and quite soon now, the Captain, he was doing quite well indeed. While the money was nice, the power was a far greater sense of accomplishment.
It's all good. All good.
Out loud but to an empty office, he said, "Now, let the games begin." And opened his comm channels.
"Sky-Sec, drop a laser shot right into the middle of that rock knoll. But don't hit anybody. I want a big light and dirt show, not a death," the Secretary ordered.
He was pleased when the light beam suddenly blazed into the encampment, turning the centre to powder and dust. He was equally pleased to see it only took 10 seconds after it finished to be uploaded to a popular vid net by a zealous channel follower.
Flee or Kill: The Future Of Reality TV (Future Forward Book 2) Page 23