Altered Reality

by Eliza Green

  ‘No. I want to keep the details of this particular trip out of my circle of friends’—Bill used one hand to make inverted commas in the air—‘I don’t want to leave a trail of people behind who can identify us.’

  ‘Once the manifest is altered, can’t we just use one of the regular spacecrafts to take us there?’

  Bill shook his head. ‘Too dangerous. It’s likely that one of the ground officers would recognise me. I travel a lot. If we’re already on the manifest, we just have to turn up for fast-track boarding to the spacecraft, no registration first at the transfer terminal. Once we’re on board, we’ll have to stay under the radar for fourteen days. It’s a big enough place, so it shouldn’t be a problem.’

  Laura nodded, her mouth a tight line. ‘Leave the pilot search with me and I’ll see what I can find out. I know a young man in the ESC who might be able to help us find someone with a red flag or a reason to be pissed off with the World Government.’

  ‘Fine. And lie to them about why you need the information. Call me as soon as you have an update.’

  Bill disconnected the call without waiting for Laura’s reply. He tossed the DPad and communication devices into his bag, removed a soft cloth and set about wiping the room clean of fingerprints. He stayed in the room for another thirty minutes and then left to catch the next bullet train back to London. While he waited at the station for the next train he called his contact in Russia to arrange the business with the identity chips.

  Chapter 10

  ‘And goodbye to you too,’ Laura muttered at the blank DPad screen. She removed the communication device from the back of her DPad and placed both items behind a removable panel in the wall. She gave the disused room on Level Two one final check to make sure she hadn’t disturbed anything and opened the door a crack. Spotting a roving camera patrolling the large open space at the far end of the corridor, she waited for it to disappear before she left.

  She crept along the unpatrolled corridor and at the end, peeked around the corner. A distinct hum told her the camera was close by. When the hum reduced in volume, she darted across the open space and through a door opposite that led into the Energy Creation rooms. She found a free cubicle, undressed and changed into her exercise gear. Then she jumped on one of the treadmills.

  Once she was hooked up to the machine and jogging along a wooded path somewhere in France, Laura gave more thought to the trip to Exilon 5. She felt excited to be going to the planet—it had been her ambition for as long as she could remember—but she worried that her enthusiasm might be clouding her judgement about the risks involved in attaining her goal in such an ‘unofficial’ way. And she wasn’t sure she could trust Bill’s judgement either: in the short time she had known him, she had seen him be impulsive—and more than a little impatient. Yet surely he wouldn’t have suggested they made the trip unless he was confident they could pull it off.

  The visit to Exilon 5 would only be temporary, but she didn’t care. The huge doses of Vitamin D and Actigen she had to take on Earth were doing nothing for her melancholy; she craved the sweet, unfiltered air and the natural sunlight of the new planet. Today, just the thought of travelling to Exilon 5 was making her naturally euphoric, but before she could go, there were a couple of things she needed to sort out.

  Back at her workstation a short time later, Laura concentrated on sourcing a pilot to take them to the passenger ship. Ideally, the pilot would have to be someone with a grudge against the World Government—a conscientious employee would never risk their career to help out a couple of strangers and do something illegal—yet they needed to be familiar with protocols and know the right channels to access. They also needed to have their own spacecraft and be willing to deliver Bill and Laura to the passenger ship without questioning their motives.

  Laura had already developed a relationship with someone who could possibly help with the search. Six weeks ago, she had discovered a teenage boy wandering the halls of the ESC alone and curiosity had got the better of her. He was young—too young for this place—so she stopped to ask him who he was and what he was doing there. His name was Callum Preston, he told her, he was the son of a Level Two employee, and he was attending an ESC training programme designed especially for teenagers and run by Daphne Gilchrist. When Gilchrist appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and failed to comment on a young boy talking to a Level Five employee, Laura sensed there was something special about Callum Preston. Her uncharacteristic behaviour made more sense when Laura found out that the teenager had signed himself up for an advanced aptitude test and delivered a perfect score. The genius kid had something Gilchrist wanted.

  Callum had worn a grey ESC uniform that was too big for his tall, gangly frame. He showed an obvious interest in Laura’s Level Five status when he rattled off a string of questions about her job, and over time, they had become friendly on the occasions when they bumped into each other. She had discovered that Callum was a computer genius—that he could see inside the programming, ‘read the zeros and ones’, as he put it—and that he had a healthy disregard for Daphne Gilchrist: ‘That old battleaxe?’ he’d said. ‘She thinks the sun shines out of my arse.’

  Now, after her conversation with Bill, Laura had a need for Callum’s skills and deliberately sought him out that morning. Cornering him in an area of the ESC building where the roving cameras were light, she kept their conversation brief.

  ‘Do you know where the empty rooms on Level Two are?’ she asked him.

  ‘I think so. Corridor F?’

  Laura nodded. ‘Meet me there in an hour. I’ve a mission for you that I think you’ll like.’

  An hour later, Laura headed for the Energy Creation Room on Level Two. She changed into her running gear, slipped out the frosted-glass back door into the open area and ran across to the corridor, listening out for the roving cameras. She kept her eyes to the ground and headed towards the disused room from where she had previously called Bill. At first, she hadn’t noticed that Callum was waiting for her outside.

  ‘You didn’t say which room,’ he mumbled as he stuffed a giant replicated chocolate muffin into his mouth.

  Laura’s eyes widened as she pushed him through the second door from the end, closed it and turned to look at him. She kept a hand on his bony chest. ‘Did anyone see you?’

  Callum shook his head.

  ‘Please be more careful. We’re not supposed to be here.’ She removed her hand. ‘What access have the ESC given you for your training programme?’

  Callum spoke with his mouth full: ‘I can see Level One information. Very basic stuff. Not very interesting. But when they aren’t looking, I hack Level Two for something else to do.’

  Laura raised a single brow. ‘Do they know you’re doing that?’

  He swallowed the last of the muffin and shook his head. ‘I mask my trail. Only others who know how to do what I do would even bother checking the activity.’ He wiped a few crumbs from his mouth.

  ‘What about the sentient programmes? Are they not monitoring your activity?’

  Callum rolled his eyes. ‘The problem is everybody relies on the programmes to tell them things. So here’s the thing—fool the programmes and you can do what the hell you want.’

  ‘Anything?’ Laura said quietly. ‘How does that work?’

  ‘Well, I show them what I want them to see and then I do something else entirely. Even though they’re intelligent, they still operate within parameters. They’re restricted by their base code. Manipulate that and you can pretty much run the entire system. It’s complicated though, and the sentients sometime figure out what you’re trying to do before you’ve got full access.’

  ‘Is this all theory or have you tried it already?’

  ‘I’ve done it on the Light Box at home. I programmed an avatar with complex emotions and tried to see if I could fool its programme.’

  ‘And did you?’ Laura said, her eyes wide with interest.

  ‘Almost. It caught me on the last pass. I had to make up some excus
e that I was running diagnostics or something. The sentient learns each time you make a mistake. It becomes sharper. If you admit you’re trying to fool it, it’ll watch everything you do like a hawk. So you have to learn not to make any mistakes.’

  ‘Okay, I need you to listen to me’—she grabbed hold of Callum’s sleeve—‘and this conversation is strictly between us.’

  Callum nodded.

  Laura let go of his sleeve. ‘I need you to do a couple of things for me. Are you up for it?’

  Callum nodded again, then swallowed hard.

  ‘The first thing is to check the World Government employee list. I’m looking for a pilot to go on a special trip, so preferably someone who is up for some undercover work. Look for issues on their employment record—dismissals, rogue behaviour—that kind of stuff. Can you do that?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Shit, for a minute I thought you were going to give me a challenge. When do you want it?’

  ‘As soon as you can. Could you fit it in tomorrow during your morning training session? Then we could meet again here at three in the afternoon.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ said Callum cockily. ‘Sounds easy enough.’

  Laura gave him a stern look. ‘Please Callum. What you’re about to do is extremely dangerous—life and death. Don’t ever forget that.’

  Callum’s mouth tightened as the seriousness of the situation hit him. Laura smiled inwardly—if he was scared, it would increase his chances of survival. She didn’t bother to reassure him.

  ‘We’d better leave separately,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want us to be seen together for the rest of today. See you tomorrow at three—and good luck.’ It surprised her how easily she had learned to be devious.

  Chapter 11

  The following morning, Laura watched Callum Preston and a group of five teenagers head in the direction of the ESC training programme. She wondered who each of the kids were and, more importantly, why Daphne Gilchrist was singling them out for attention. As far as Laura was aware, no ESC training programme for non-employees had been announced publicly, so her suspicions were raised—particularly as she now knew the World Government was involved in other things the public knew nothing about.

  At 3pm sharp, Laura was waiting for Callum in the disused room on Level Two. He bounded into the room right on time, but crashed straight into her. Laura staggered backwards and hit her arm on the table behind her.

  ‘Shit, sorry,’ Callum said quickly. ‘I didn’t think you’d be here already. I was trying to avoid the camera outside.’

  She straightened up trying to ignore the pain in her arm. She rubbed it and grimaced.

  ‘Sorry,’ Callum repeated as a flush of red coloured his cheeks. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry,’ she said, waving her good hand at him. ‘It’s just a bruise. Did you find what I asked you to?’

  ‘Easily enough,’ Callum said, confidently.

  ‘How did you get into computers anyway?’ she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

  ‘Ever heard of H. Edward Roberts?’

  Laura shook her head.

  ‘He was known as the “father of the personal computer”. Everything we have now stems from design in one era—the twentieth century.’

  ‘You’re quite young to know that.’ She smiled. ‘Kids your age are more into virtual tech.’

  ‘Well, here’s the thing. Virtual tech is interesting and all, but you can’t do very much with it other than interact, insert a bit of programming here or there, that sort of thing. What I like is the architecture behind computer programming. If you know how to get in there, you have full control.’ Callum produced a DPad from underneath his baggy ESC jacket. He handed it to Laura.

  ‘If anyone asks, you’re doing a project for your training programme,’ Laura said, turning the DPad round to face her. She quickly ran her index finger down a list of names that Callum had downloaded. ‘Please tell me you covered your tracks?’ she asked, glancing up at him.

  He gave her a look that implied her question was unnecessary. ‘I wrote a short programme to disguise the content of the download. The computer thinks I was looking at the training schedule for the coming week. If anyone bothers to check, my timetable should pop up.’

  Laura went through the downloaded material in more detail. It was a list of former World Government employees, the dates they stopped work for the government and the reasons for their dismissal. There were thousands of names, all people whose work contracts had been terminated within the last six months. She was surprised the list was so long. ‘How do I narrow the search?’

  Callum peered over her shoulder. ‘What are you looking for exactly?’

  ‘Recently fired pilots, or those with a healthy grudge against the government will do.’

  Callum took the DPad from her and with a few finger strokes, considerably narrowed the list. ‘There you go,’ he said, handing it back. Only ten names remained.

  ‘You’re pretty good at this,’ Laura said, smiling. Her own knowledge of DPads, other than the basics, was poor enough.

  ‘Narrowing a search is easy. There’s so much more to computers than interfaces and digital files. The data on one of these’—he pointed to the DPad—‘can be manipulated easily because it’s being sent from a remote location. Changing the original information into something else is where the real challenge lies because the sentient programmes control that part of it. But we can learn how to predict the behaviour of sentient programmes because they’re all modelled on us. We thrive on, and are defined by, patterns in our behaviour. The sentient programmes operate the same way. No matter how intelligent they seem to be, there’s always a pattern. We’ve been using programmes like this for years. It’s how the National Security Agency operated in the twenty-first century when it used semi-sentient programmes to scan emails and phone conversations.’

  As Laura listened to this little speech, she had to keep reminding herself that Callum was just a teenager, and an impressive one at that. She checked the ten names on the list, most of whom had been fired for mundane enough reasons. Career change was top of the list. But she wasn’t looking for just anyone. She needed someone with a grievance against their employer and likely to have no objection to getting involved in something illegal.

  One name stood out—there was no reason given for the pilot’s change of employment. Laura clicked on the link. The description said: Jenny Waterston. Grade 4 pilot. Date of birth: 02-11-2088 (75 yrs old). Twenty years service. Last employer: World Government subsidiary, Calypso Couriers. The pilot’s age and experience probably explained why she had been fired. Chances were her termination was not by mutual agreement. A smile formed on Laura’s lips.

  ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ Callum asked, peering over her shoulder.

  Laura realised she had gone quiet. ‘Oh, yes! This is exactly it.’ Then she thought of something else—a possible solution to another problem. ‘You said before that you could fool a sentient into thinking it’s looking at something else entirely.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s quite simple really. You just—’

  Laura put her hand up. ‘Don’t bother. I’m a user, not a programmer. The details are lost on me. I need you to do one other thing for me, if you’re up for it—strictly confidential, of course.’

  The cocky teenager pretended none of it interested him, but the look on his face told Laura a different story. ‘I suppose—if I’ve nothing better to do,’ he said.

  ‘In a few days, my mother is going to take a turn for the worse.’

  Callum’s eyes bugged.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to hurt her,’ Laura quickly added. ‘It’s just a trick.’

  He visibly relaxed. ‘Oh, I see. Okay!’ he said, and laughed nervously.

  ‘Very soon I’ll be requesting time off to look after her, but the truth is, I’ll be somewhere else entirely. I need you to make it seem as if my mother’s injury is genuine, and
to verify that I’m with her. I don’t want them sending someone out to her apartment only to see her moving about. Think you can do that for me?’

  Callum thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Great! How long will you need to set it up?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Not long—a day or two. But I’ll need details, like a start date for the injury and an end date for your time off.’

  Laura knew that sort of detail would be hard to pin down. She’d need to speak to Bill first. She arranged to meet Callum again at the end of the week, by which time she’d have more information for him.

  She sent Callum out of the room first and waited to hear him enter the back door of the Energy Creation room before she left herself. She crept along the dark corridor and listened out for the distinctive low hum of the roving cameras. When she couldn’t hear anything, she stepped out of Corridor F and walked towards the same door. Suddenly she spotted a shiny orb in her peripheral vision, hovering, watching her.

  Shit.

  She tried to wipe the look of guilt off her face and exchange it for one of innocent naïvety. The shimmery golden orb moved from its stationary location and came towards her.

  ‘Attention! You in the running gear,’ its artificial voice clanged out. ‘You have been seen in this area a number of times. Explain yourself.’

  Laura swallowed loudly and made big eyes at the camera. ‘I needed a walk. The Energy Creation room has been a little busy lately. I was feeling a little more claustrophobic than normal. Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘You have been significantly active in this area during the past week.’

  ‘I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Sometimes I need a change of scenery. I’ve no control over how I’m going to feel on any given day.’ Laura’s heart hammered loudly in her chest. She could feel a bead of sweat trickling down her back.

  ‘An intern called Callum Preston has also been flagged in this area. Do you know him?’