by Simon Archer
I had the sensation of falling. I felt heavy. I was no longer connected to any sort of conductor, and it caused the electrical energy I was traveling in to press in on itself. There was absolutely no light, not even sparks from other systems running. I’d never seen a black hole inside a processor before, so I paid attention to any changes as I fell.
I started to see an orange glow below me. The closer I got, the brighter it got. Soon I saw the outline of what looked like a web. It became clear to me just before I was on it: I was going to land on a neuro-net. A neuro-net mimics the human nervous system in its use of nerve-shaped webbing to send impulses out into the body and mind of a CG. This was the most perfect place I could’ve landed because it not only gave me access to all of Ellie’s systems but would allow me to test them remotely from where I was. All I’d have to do is send out diagnostics tests and moles, and they would use Ellie’s own neuro-net to find their desired location, collect information, and then return to me.
I quickly molded my energy around the nearest neuron-head so I wouldn’t disrupt the other impulses in her system. They would simply pass through me and continue on their path. I organized my diagnostics and sent out the first batch of moles. The purpose of these was to map her system. When they returned, I could see where her connectivity posts and firewalls were.
Next, I tested her firewalls. I repeatedly sent larger impulses. These were larger because they needed to bring back more visual data. I needed to see any disruptions like holes or cracks. This slowed the return of the pulses considerably compared to the location ones. With the additional time between return pulses, I sent file-checkers and power-output monitors. These were to make sure her files were being stored appropriately and that there wasn’t an unknown energy drain on her system that could cause her to glitch.
The neuro-net was glowing brighter with each pulse I sent, which was a sign of good health. Soon it was so bright that a human eye wouldn’t have been able to look at it without being damaged. The pulses themselves were getting brighter as well.
The information I was receiving, over and over again, was showing perfect system health. I decided to do a hardware diagnostic set. These were even bigger pulses than the ones I was continually using for her firewall tests, and much slower. Again, the information I received back was showing no signs of defect.
Then I saw what I had been looking for. One of my firewall return pulses was slightly gray. When it reached me, I examined it to see what the disruption was. The data showed me that there was pressure being put on the firewall protecting Ellie’s system from anything that would connect to her hotspot signal without permission.
A second pulse came back, this one darker. The pressure was increasing. I waited the millisecond it would take for all my diagnostic pulses to return before detaching myself from my place on the net and sending myself down the neuronal path that the information had come from.
When I got to the last neuronal head facing Ellie’s hotspot firewall, I reattached so I could observe what was happening. It was the largest, most complex firewall design that I’d ever seen, and it stretched, unending in all directions. Firewalls normally glow bright, royal blue, but this one was more of a navy color and bore very little light. Because it was designed for her hotspot, the neuro-net next to it that was used for sending and receiving information from it, was massive. A normal firewall would only have a fraction of the neuronal connections that were facing this wall.
Suddenly the wall bowed inward directly in front of me. I saw the fibers around where the pressure came from rip and repair themselves instantly while the wall straightened again. It had been like someone had thrown a ball at the other side of a curtain. A second later, it happened again. This time I saw the damage to the individual fibers had increased. They were able to repair themselves, but it took just a fraction of a second longer than the first time.
All the neuronal heads in line with the firewall were darkening, including the one that I was attached to. Ellie’s system knew something wasn’t right and was withdrawing information away from her protective barrier. It was an automatic process designed to limit data loss as quickly as possible if something were to breach the wall.
The firewall bowed in again, even more forcefully. The fibers tore so severely I could see through to the other side. It was like looking through a threadbare sheet. They repaired themselves once again. Whatever was trying to break through the wall was powerful, and I had no doubt it would succeed with the progress it had already made.
All the neuron-heads suddenly went black, and I saw the wall push in again. This time I watched the fibers holding it together snap, one after another. As a hole opened in the wall, a giant, puke-green electrical pulse started oozing through. Soon it had made it completely through the wall and was latched on to the backside, facing me.
This was the nastiest virus I’d ever seen. It was carrying a countless number of empty file storage banks and was so big it covered three-times more surface area of Ellie’s firewall. It was more than any other I’d seen.
The virus started spreading impulses across the firewall, attaching itself deeper and deeper. It needed to stabilize before it could start sucking data out of the net. With the rate that it was moving, it would be set nearly immediately. I slowly started releasing myself from the neuro-head I was attached to. If I got sucked in by the virus, there would be an empty shell of a cat girl stuck on Clark’s bed for a very long time. I hadn’t considered a virus because nobody had ever been able to build one that could come anywhere close to breaching a CG firewall.
Once I was detached, I started withdrawing into the net. The process was much slower than getting there because Ellie had pulled all the electricity out of this part of her net. I watched the virus start emitting tube-like devices toward the net. They would eventually attach to each neuronal head that was closest to the firewall and start retrieving data. I wasn’t far enough away yet to avoid being sucked in.
More and more virus-tubes were forming and heading straight for the net. The first batch was almost touching. I retreated as fast as I could, but it still wasn’t fast enough. I started analyzing alternative courses of action under the assumption that I would end up inside that dark, ugly, evil thing. I didn’t have access to all of my data processing capabilities. They were back with my body.
So, I searched the information I had gleaned while running diagnostics from Ellie’s core and found nothing of use. I had no way of getting out of the virus once I was in it unless someone extracted me. The problem with that was I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was hidden. There’s a good chance no one would ever know I was inside the virus.
I saw the first tube open its end like an awful alien mouth, preparing to attach. As it went to clamp down, it was pulled back slightly, and the tube-end shrunk. Then, again, it opened and moved forward to attach. This time it was pulled back a little farther.
I looked up at the body of the virus. It had hundreds-of-thousands of tubes stretching out towards the net and new ones forming rapidly. They were all waiting to hack whatever information they could suck up. I saw one particularly large tube take form. When it did, it pulled from the virus material around it, which shortened all of the other tubes. I focused on another tube that had started to form. The same thing happened. As it stretched out, it took from the material other tubes had used.
Soon all of the tubes started shortening at a rate that made the virus appear to be retracting on itself. I saw another tube start to form, and it lifted the outside edge of the virus off the firewall just enough so that I got a split-second to look underneath. There were markings in circle patterns all over the bottom. Those markings signified that this virus was designed to enter a system through a standard connection, not a hotspot.
The reason the virus was retracting was that its main goal was to extract as much data as possible. To do that, it would automatically try to connect to all available neuro-heads. Behind a hotspot firewall, there were at least fifty-times more
neuro-heads than a standard firewall. The virus simply wasn’t big enough. It was pulling itself apart by creating too many tubes, none of which would reach a connection.
The neuro-net started to glow again. It gained brightness in an instant. I saw a net-wide electrical pulse rushing toward the virus with me in its path. It was a defensive maneuver sent by Ellie’s operations systems. I anchored myself around the nearest neuro-head and braced for impact. A pulse like that would collect any other pulse it comes across in order to add to its own power. It was looking for as much power as it could get to assault the virus with. Unless I was secured enough, I would become part of the collection and be distributed across the surface of the firewall after the attack.
I kept wrapping electrical connections around the neuro-head up until the very last moment. I felt the energy of the net-pulse flow over me. It stopped trying to collect me almost immediately when I wouldn’t flow right away. The point was to conserve energy, not waste it trying to pick up more.
The pulse passed me and made it to the edge of the neuro-net. Once there, it hurled itself across the gap and slammed into the firewall, splintering the virus into a million pieces as it did. Electricity was arcing everywhere, trying to ground. It spread along the firewall and back into the net in all directions until it finally dissipated.
After the electricity had spread and was out of sight, the neuro-net returned to its normal, bright orange, and the firewall started glowing bright blue. Everything showed perfect.
I detached myself and sped back to Ellie’s central processor. I had discovered why she was glitching and losing memory and needed to get back to Clark to tell him how I think we could fix it. I propelled myself up off of the neuro-net, using it as a sort of trampoline to get back to Ellie’s port wiring. From there, I crossed the HDMI cable and took notice of my shattered wire once again as I entered my own body.
I reengaged my systems as fast as I could, which only took a moment. I opened my eyes and reached behind me to unplug the HDMI cable. Once I got it off of my connection, I grabbed for Ellie’s and removed it. I turned and threw the cable to Clark, who was still sitting in the lounger.
“Hide this! Fast!” I yelled in a whisper.
Clark caught the cable and instantly tucked it under the bed.
“Now sit back up like we’ve been chatting the afternoon away,” I told him.
He sat up and leaned back into the lounger. His body looked relaxed enough, but his eyes revealed how alarmed he was. He was looking from me to Ellie and back like he was waiting for one of us to blow up.
“So, once the tail of the whip swings around, if you pull back, it will slice instead of grab,” I said loudly.
Clark’s look changed to one of confusion. “What?” he asked with a scowl.
I opened my eyes wide and looked directly into his. Then I rolled my eyes sideways in an attempt to tell him that the sudden, random conversation was for Ellie’s ears. She was just coming out of her latest glitch, and I’d had an idea. I just didn’t have time to explain it to Clark first. Thankfully, he understood because this was not a chance we’d get again.
“Oh,” he started off slowly before he forced out, “So that is how you’d inflict that kind of damage without getting tangled up if you didn’t want to.”
“It’s just an option,” I said and turned to look behind me. Ellie was blinking her eyes. Her system was functioning after the glitch. Now was my opportunity.
“The other option is to split the tail of your whip and add an extension,” I said, even louder, making certain Ellie heard me clearly.
Clark settled a little further in his chair. “Is that allowed? I’d think everyone would be doing it if it was,” he said.
“I doubt it is as well, but once the match is started, what are they going to do? They sure aren’t going to call it and disappoint their fat-bank-account spectators,” I replied.
I turned back to Ellie. She moved to sit next to me. I felt sad for her. I knew she had absolutely no idea how she’d ended up there. The last twenty minutes had just been erased.
“Do you think there would be a big stink about an unknown extension being put inside the tail of Clark’s whip before the next match?” I asked Ellie.
“I do not have that information,” Ellie answered.
“Well, in this case, we need it. How about you do an update and see if you can find the information we need?” I told Ellie as Clark shifted in his chair nervously.
“Yes, Kennedi,” Ellie said an instant before her eyes went blank. This time she was updating instead of glitching. A split second later, she was back to normal.
“There was no specific information contained in the update I just received regarding weapon guidelines for the Platform,” she told us.
I put my hand on hers, which I had learned comforted her. “Thank you for looking for us. How are you feeling now that you’ve updated?” I asked.
“I feel normal, thank you,” Ellie answered.
“We will be losing the light soon,” I said to her. “Will you please head out to the tarp, and we will meet you there? We need to get Clark some more practice before nightfall.”
“Absolutely,” Ellie said as she got up and headed to the ladder. A minute later, she was out of the barn, and I looked at Clark.
“You were absolutely perfect!” I exclaimed quietly, hopping over onto his lap. “Thank you! You just gave us a big advantage!”
28
Kennedi had just gone from deadly serious to weird and then from weird to happy-in-my-lap in a matter of a minute. I’d never seen her like that, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I sure as hell would’ve liked to know what the fuck was going on. She saw it on my face after she hugged my neck.
She leaned back and smiled at me. At least I knew she wasn’t hurt. Cutting her open to plug in the cable was an experience I’d prefer not to repeat.
“I’ll tell you everything, but I’ll have to do it fast,” she said before I actually had the chance to ask.
“It sure as fuck would be good to be let in on the title to the play,” I said, feigning grumpiness with her.
Her smile just got bigger. “I found the glitch. It’s Omnicorp!” she squealed. I wasn’t yet keen on the reason she was so happy.
“How is it Omnicorp when we made sure they couldn’t update her? Well, until just now,” I said, waving my arm at the bed where Ellie had just been sitting.
Kennedi’s face came down a notch on the excitement scale, and she said, “Because we weren’t letting her connect to wifi to update, Omnicorp tried sending updates through her hotspot. There are two problems with that. One is that hotspots aren’t designed for updates and two, there is a huge firewall that’s never been able to be hacked to keep them from being successful. Omnicorp knows this!”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. This was starting to feel like pulling information out of Sally. I opened my eyes and asked, “Then why would they send an update that they knew wouldn’t get through?”
“Because they weren’t trying to update her. They were trying to ram a virus through the firewall. I just happened to see the update through a tear in the firewall. The virus is designed to take information, not bring it. I saw the thing. It was nasty, and it did indeed get through the wall.”
Kennedi paused for a second to make sure I was tracking with what she was telling me. I nodded at her to continue.
“Remember at dinner with the Lindys when Ellie said that she never uploaded information? She said that because she wasn’t,” Kennedi hurriedly told me. “A virus was doing the uploading. Omnicorp is now attaching a virus to their updates, so they can take the information they want without even the CG knowing about it!”
“So all this time, Omnicorp has been getting information from her?” I asked while running through the last couple of days in my mind to see if anything unsavory would’ve been lost.
“No, she hasn’t,” Kennedy said. “We weren’t letting her connect to update so the virus coul
dn’t get in. So, instead, they tried to send it through her hotspot connection so they could shove the virus through. It got through, but the virus isn’t big enough to connect to the massive neuro-net that feeds into a hotspot. So, the virus started over-extending itself, and that gave Ellie’s natural virus protection systems time to kick it. She sent a pulse that obliterated it!”
Kennedi looked so enthusiastic as she recounted what she had seen. While it sounded like a movie, I was a little astonished at the story she was telling because she had only been unresponsive for about thirty seconds.
“Okay, so the virus is gone. Why is she losing memory, though?” I asked.
“A pulse that large, like the one being used to destroy that virus, is not naturally occurring in Ellie’s system. She has to create it. She pulls power from all different programs and processes to create it. She is using power from her most-recent files to add to it. The files get vaporized when that happens. And, because the pulse is exactly the same size every time, she loses the exact number of files every time,” Kennedi explained rapidly.
“She’s frying her own memory, twenty-minutes at a time in order to keep those assholes out of her head?” I restated in my own terms.
“Yes, exactly!” Kennedi exclaimed.
Her excitement still wasn’t clear to me. She’d just found out Ellie was literally being invaded and damaging herself to protect herself, but here she was all smiles and fucking rainbows.
“Why the hell are you so happy about it?” I asked, feeling a little irritated.
“Because tomorrow night, we will have proof that Omnicorp is data-mining illegally!” Kennedi hopped off my lap and yelled, clapping her hands together. When she stopped clapping, she continued, “The conversation we had in front of her about illegally modifying your whip? That conversation will be taken back to Omnicorp by a virus that entered when I told Ellie update. There is no way they are going to let you go into that match with a doctored weapon. When they ask you about it, you’ll know they received the information, and I have it recorded that the information shouldn’t have left this room.”