by Dan Marshall
Troyka scratched his head, pondering Adam’s suggestion. He replied, “Well, it’s possible, I suppose, but not the most likely answer. Occam’s Razor suggests the least convoluted explanation is likely the most plausible. I know it’s hard to think of yourself as someone with a compromised mind, but I’d like you to consider that at least part of these dreams, visions, whatever they are, may be rooted in physiological damage to your brain caused by the Lightcap, Cloud, or both. I am sorry to have to say that, of course, because I may be partially responsible.”
“No, I know the most reasonable assumption is that I’ve lost, or am losing, my mind. I know it sounds ridiculous, but there’s more to it. I don’t know how I know,” Adam said, embarrassed to resort to emotional pleas since his logic had failed him, “but I need you to trust me. I’d never heard the name Mnemosyne before that dream, I know that for a fact. It didn’t even register with me, not until I looked it up on the mesh.”
“Well,” Pavel said, “if you really feel that way, what do you think it means? Mnemosyne, a name on a piece of paper slipped into your pocket during a dream. Your dream about company named Ensyn, memos and boxes of paperwork that may or may not exist. Then a phrase, ‘ms = no enemy’, which you think refers to Sera for no reason at all, etched into a windowsill but gone the next day. Visions? Hallucinations? Prophecy? This is the real world, not some loony cult or vid node drama,” said Pavel. His voice raised a little by the end, his breath grabbed in gulps. He turned around in his chair, grabbed his notetab and said, “I can’t believe I’m even entertaining this thought. Preposterous.” His fingers flew over the keys. “See? No luck with Mnemosyne as the passkey. LaMont’s datafile remains encrypted.”
Adam hung his head and said, “I know. I already tried it. Spent hours just sitting here trying different things, anything that came to mind. I looked up everything I could find on LaMont. I tried his ex-wife’s name, kid’s name, alma mater, nicknames, pretty much any mesh trace of him I could find. Nothing. Hey, let’s try ‘ms = no enemy’, or ‘Ensyn memo’, some variations of those.”
The sounds of spring-loaded keys bounced against walls as they tried all the permutations they could conceive of the letters—different capitalizations, arrangements, character substitutions, but it was no use. LaMont’s datafile would not open. For all they knew the passkey was a hundred characters long, random and impossible to guess. Pavel turned and said, “See? I hate to break it to you, Adam, but the dreams and things you saw weren’t real. They didn’t actually happen. Just because you see a random assortment of let—” Pavel stopped short and a perplexed look spread across his face as he poked his finger against the air as if spelling something out. He continued: “Letters. They’re all the same letters, just in different arrangement. It would appear,” his eyes jumped to Adam, “there is an anagrammatic aspect to your visions, something we were not aware of until now. The mind is powerful, but I don’t think this can be attributed to randomness. If what you say is correct, and that’s a very big ‘if’, then a misfire from LaMont could come across as scrambled. An unintended side effect. Hmm.” He paused. “I might owe you an apology.”
Adam took in what Pavel said and contrasted it with what he knew of LaMont, his family life, the schools he attended, the kinds of things that might inspire or drive him. There was a moment when everything fell into place, his memory brought into sharp focus by an article titled “Titans of Capitalism” he had read about LaMont’s meteoric rise to the upper echelons of business, following and surpassing the footsteps of his father and the generations before him.
“I have an idea,” Adam said, spinning around to face his notetab. Pavel watched curiously as the younger man’s fingers slowly tapped against the keyboard. “Our conversation about what motivates people like LaMont got me thinking, along with an article about his family being leaders of capitalism. Titans. Mnemosyne was a Titan too, but none of the variations of her name worked. There was a part of the article that described LaMont’s family as ‘belonging to money’. Let me see . . . ” His hands finished their slow dance across the keyboard and then stopped, one finger held perilously above the enter key. He held his breath, then pushed down against the plastic, its click echoing against the walls. His eyes rose to meet Pavel’s, a smile on his face. “Got it! ‘Money’s Men’ was the passkey. He could’ve chosen something more difficult to guess. His hubris was his undoing.”
Pavel’s eyes were bright, elated, as his notetab screen was filled with the information contained in LaMont’s datafile, sent from the decrypted file on Adam’s machine. “Adam,” he said, “there are terabytes of data here. Who knows what it contains? It could be useless, or it could have the schematics of the Lightcap control unit itself. This should keep us busy for some time.” Pavel pressed his lips together and wheeled around to look at Adam. “There are also, ah, implications about what this means—your receiving the anagrams, I mean. There might be more information in your head, whispers of LaMont’s wandering mind sent across the mesh to yours. More importantly, I now agree with you that we need to obtain Sera. The things she might know could prove to be invaluable.”
When Dej and Aria came over after work that night, Adam and Pavel shared the contents of the decrypted datafile with them, explaining how they had happened upon the passkey. The couple up to then had not been pleased by the idea of rescuing Velim, unconvinced as they were that she was trustworthy or worth saving. When Adam told them his theory of how he knew LaMont’s passkey, and that he had never seen Sera without a Lightcap, they agreed to help rescue her.
“We are now twice as likely to succeed,” Pavel joked. “Of course, the likelihood was only a fraction of a percent before.”
We’re still statistically screwed, Adam thought wryly.
The quartet spent the next several days wading through LaMont’s data. He was a digital hoarder who would have had stacks of papers to the ceiling had he not been born in the electronic age. While the enormous amount of information may have proved useful if they had had time to sort through it all, for now it just made their task daunting, all the more because they didn’t dare sending the data over the mesh, even encrypted, for fear of interception along the way. Fortunately, between Pavel and Adam, along with Aria and Dej in the evenings, they were able to find some useful information. There were login credentials for the Adaptech and Metra Corp networks, blueprints, meeting notes, helicopter schedules, Lightcap schematics, and a lot of source code.
Aria found some information on the JMR-Heavy choppers used by Metra Corp. They’d been purchased at a bargain price from the US government, which divested itself of much of its former military might as a last-ditch effort to avert bankruptcy while losing several States around the borders. The United States subsequently sold additional land rights to Cascadia and Metra Corp, then lacked the manpower and force required to quash the secession of several of the Southern cities to the Confederacy. This military clearance sale worked out well for Metra Corp, netting the Corporation several acquisitions to bolster its air, land, and sea fleets, necessary for protecting the border and its domestic interests, at least that was the story from the media.
The choppers used for the daily trip between the two skyscrapers had several cargo holds, just as Pavel said, and Aria also found files to confirm that the flight plan never took them above five thousand feet—along with the schedules of the guards and pilots. Even more helpful were the diagrams for the Lightcap, complete specs for the outside measurements, with some information about the internal components such as the mesh radio and neural interfaces. LaMont’s datafile allowed Pavel, Adam, Dej, and Aria to start planning.
Four runs each day carried supplies back and forth between the Adaptech and Metra Corp headquarters. Aria and Dej would go over in the passenger hold during the first run, along with the rest of the v6 team. The second run, the lightest, would allow Adam and Pavel to go over in a relatively empty cargo hold, but it wouldn’t get them there until two hours after the first run—two hours du
ring which Dej and Aria would have to hope not to be discovered while figuring out just what had been happening for the past year.
The Lightcap Adam took from Hana proved to be a worthy challenge for Pavel. The old man spent over a day trying to figure out how to open it, his micro-spudger poking along hidden seams until he found the proper sequence to release the internal clamps. The plastic halves of the Lightcap’s front bubble separated with a click. “Eureka!” Pavel cried, his fist struck against the air, a boyish grin on his face. Dej was excited to do a complete code dump of the device, to start looking for potential weaknesses or hidden functions. More things to keep them busy.
Several days later, Dej said he had an announcement to make. He seemed to be trying to suppress a grin or keep a secret. The others turned their attention to him. “So, I’ve been looking through the Lightcap code, working with the Doc on some of the hardware, and I think we might have found something really big,” he said, nodding to Pavel.
The old man jumped up as if on cue. He said, “Right, so I found the radio module that allows the Lightcap to connect to the mesh and receive commands. More importantly, after I found it, Dej here found a way to shut it down.”
Dej’s smile flashed brilliantly against the dim light of the room, seeming brighter than the lamp. Pavel looked as if he wanted to high five himself or give himself a few hearty pats on the back. Adam, glad to see his friends joyful, regretted having to break their reverie of self congratulation, but he had to ask one question.
“That’s really great guys, but doesn’t the Lightcap just make them go into a docile mode or follow pre-defined commands in the event of a connection loss? I’m not trying to take away your moment of glory, but won’t it just mean a bunch of office workers just sitting there, or at worst writing code?”
Pavel jerked his thumb at Dej, who clapped his hands together and said, “Adam, so glad you asked!” He had clearly walked right into a set up, a way to allow them to draw out their presentation and build suspense. Dej continued: “The Doc was a huge help. As you said, what’s the point of shutting down the mesh link if they’re just going to zone out or follow some sort of commands given in advance? So we looked at different sections of code, and it seems there are different emotion calls that are made. The AI software translates that to physical areas in the brain, which are then agitated by the Lightcap to induce the desired response.
“I’m fairly certain I isolated the call for utter panic. Sheer emotional mayhem. We’re going to hit them twice. Send the command to make them all lose their minds, hopefully causing complete chaos, and then send another command to disable the mesh radio. I think the device will still control the worker in chaos, going off the last order received. The effect will last as long as the device is worn. It’s not ready yet. Maybe in another day or two,” Dej concluded, hands in his pockets. He seemed to glow with pride at his success.
The group felt renewed vigor and exchanged hugs as Aria and Dej left for the night. After their departure, Adam and Pavel retired to their respective rooms. Adam lay awake and stared at the ceiling, his thoughts halfway across the city with Adaptech, and then beyond the outskirts of New Metra City to the larger headquarters of Metra Corp. Would LaMont even be at the headquarters when they attacked? They wanted to move quickly, but they had just started to scratch the surface of the information contained in the datafile. Adam felt a deep, anxious pressure against his chest that they wouldn’t be returning, that this was surely a suicide mission, the last bad decision he’d ever make. Maybe he’d get lucky and live to make more, but that didn’t seem likely. They were going into the headquarters for the two most powerful companies in the Region. The last thought Adam had before drifting off to restless sleep was that this may be one of the last times he’d ever dream.
Adam awoke the next morning with the weight gone from his chest, replaced by an exhaustion that had seeped into his bones. He struggled sluggishly against an unseen current from the moment he swung his legs out of bed. He couldn’t remember dreaming during the night. Figures, thought Adam, noting that it was almost noon.
Pavel made Adam a breakfast of powdered eggs, smoked protein sticks, and coffee that gave a jolt along with a headache. The eggs looked like white folded cheesecloth, with no yolks, of near uniform consistency. The coffee offered Adam a vague aftertaste of burnt sand. However, the food woke him up, even if only a little. Pavel apologized, as he had at almost every meal, for the poor quality of the food. “I’m sorry, Adam. You know I can’t venture too far from the house. The corner market isn’t exactly overflowing with selections. You wouldn’t believe how expensive it is, too. I won’t tell you, because it would just make you angry.”
“It’s fine, Pavel. Thank you for the food,” Adam said, as he had several times before. The food really was terrible, but it was better than some alternatives. Such as starving.
That afternoon, several hours passed in silence, Pavel hunched over the Lightcap formerly worn by Hana while Adam sorted through the mountains of information in LaMont’s datafile. He found there was just as much, if not more, random junk as there was useful data. The man had digital receipts for dry cleaning from five years before, a hotel receipt from a year and a half prior, file after file of unimportant data. Despite the hunt for digital needles in virtual haystacks, Adam did find useful information.
It appeared to Adam that the Brain Sync acquisition was just for show, a formality, a way to add to the Adaptech balance sheet and increase its clout in the world market. He found notes going back over a decade showing LaMont had an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Brain Sync, and access to its confidential intellectual property. At the very least, LaMont had someone on the inside. He found files suggesting the Mind Drive v5 had incorporated elements of Lightcap tech, specifically the components which helped to create a sense of docility, making the wearer more open to suggestion and less likely to experience intense emotions, even suppressing the capacity for self-reflection. The files explained a great deal, especially why no one seemed to mind that things kept getting worse. Between the mesh vid nodes, the lack of personal connections in daily life, and the high adoption rate of Mind Drive v5, people were too entertained to think and too preoccupied to care.
Adam found additional information suggesting LaMont had controlled Doctor Velim for quite some time. Daily log files going back more than five years, observations on his attempts to break her spirit while she wasn’t wearing the Lightcap, which led to lower inhibitions during future Lightcap sessions. Adam was horrified to learn that after several years of almost daily use Sera Velim now sat quietly, awaiting commands, even when she wasn’t wearing the Lightcap. LaMont noted Velim did occasionally resist commands against her personal moral code, such that he found her unreliable. LaMont had forced Velim to wear the Lightcap nonstop for the past ten months.
As Adam read through hundreds of pages of LaMont’s notes, he found one recurring theme: LaMont trusted no one. Adam had sometimes thought he himself suffered from paranoia, a byproduct of an overly analytical mind and a tendency to see every potential point of failure or weakness in a given system. LaMont made Adam appear a careless exhibitionist. There were dozens of pages of rants—long, rambling pieces casting nearly every person within his social and professional circles as a potential spy or saboteur, including Adam. He found pages of data about himself; LaMont had compiled dossiers on each member of the programming team.
Adam came across a file simply labeled DT. Damen! thought Adam, immediately opening it. The file started out with the same background and biographical data the other dossiers contained. About three months into the project LaMont started making notes suggesting Damen was the subject of several tests, both physical and psychological. Nothing gave any specifics on what tests had been performed. Vague notes from LaMont indicated recovery times, brain inflammation, and cognitive abilities while carrying out different types of tasks. Adam could see clearly they were a team of lab rats, but it appeared Damen was chosen to be teste
d more thoroughly than the others. There were repeated references to Damen’s young age, enough that Adam believed it was one of the main reasons Damen had been selected as a test subject over other people on the team. The last entry in the file was from the day Damen disappeared, input by LaMont. A single line read, “Terminated.”
Adam passed the rest of the afternoon and early evening searching through the datafile, trying to find information about the types of tests performed on Damen and whether or not anyone else on the team had been subjected to similar testing. Despite Adam’s efforts, nothing indicated what had been done to Damen. Eventually, Adam found a file for Dej, which he also immediately opened. It was the same as all the other biographical information on the rest of the team. Two things stood out. One brief notation read, “Secret messages”. Another read, “Physical test: see RH”. Adam needed to know more. He set out to find the file for RH, which he assumed was the dossier for Rosaria “Aria” Hines.
Just then, the front door erupted in a series of booms—three fast, two slow, the secret knock they created. Pavel lifted himself from the chair, took four steps across the room, and stopped to look through the door’s peephole. He looked at Adam, his expression unreadable, and opened the door. Aria nearly jumped through. The sudden movement caused Adam to flinch. Her eyes and nose were red and inflamed. She had clearly been crying. Pavel closed the door quickly behind her, concern on her face.
Adam couldn’t contain his impatience and asked, “Where’s Dej?”
Aria shot him an angry look, her eyes full of pain, and replied, “He’s gone. Same as Damen, although they at least had the foresight to have a message waiting for us when we got back from our Lightcap shift. The story this time is he was transferred to a new Adaptech field office in the Confederacy to head up a project for the next-gen autonomous car. Total bullshit. He would have said something to me—or at least to one of us. Right?” She turned pleading eyes at Pavel, who nodded his head sympathetically. She looked at Adam, who wasn’t sure what to say. He couldn’t remove the nagging idea things weren’t as bad as they seemed to be. He didn’t want it to be true, and the past several days had been a process of not only learning but persuading himself it was all as bad as it seemed. As a result, though he wanted to believe Dej was committed to doing what was right, there was also a part of Adam that felt a little envy at the idea of being able to get away, to start over, his slate wiped clean.