Corson stifled a laugh. “Tell me, have you ever heard of . . . the Limit Zones?”
* * *
[January 7th - Washington D.C. - Cyber Research Plant - Day]
Richard raced with boiled aggression as the flashing red lights of the research plant continued to paint the halls a blood red. He was starting to wonder how he ever allowed this plan to be put underway in the first place.
Mere seconds later, he burst into the main control room where Charles and several other people were craned over hovering keyboards as they frantically ran their fingers across the illuminated keys with intense speed. He didn’t waste time as he ran up alongside Charles.
“Sorry I’m late! I was held up by-”
Charles slammed his fist on the terminal before him.
“Don’t take me for a fool, Richard!” Charles bellowed. “If I didn’t need your talents right now, I’d be feeding you to wild boars!”
Richard didn’t waste time trying to lie. He knew Charles was aware that he aided in this ruse. What he found more than a little worrisome was the level of intensity the entire room was set to.
I thought Karen was only going to-
“If you’re done standing there like a slack-jawed idiot, you can help with the main problem at hand. We will discuss this little act of treason in great detail after we stop the Epsilon unit from rebooting.”
Richard’s eyes widened.
It rebooted?! But Karen said she was going to destroy it!
“What phase is it in?! Has it begun to move!?” Richard yelled, now completely lost.
“Not yet, but it’s active. There is no telling when it finishes its reconfiguring and begins to make its move. Not only that . . . its original protocol has been completely changed!”
Richard’s expression turned vile. That witch! How could she do this!? No words could describe his anger. He and Margret were played. Karen never had any intention of destroying the AI units. Her goal was Epsilon from the beginning. The bigger issue was what she aimed to do with the Epsilon unit once it was released. Unfortunately, Richard didn’t have the luxury of time to think about that hypothesis. Right now, his focus was stopping Epsilon’s reboot.
“What was changed? I’m sure I can-”
“The Epsilon unit has closed itself off from our servers. We can’t access its mainframe directly. All we have is its data stream and specs feed. From here we need to hack directly into its system, and considering it is one of the most powerful computers ever created, it will take nothing short of a super genius with god-like powers to reprogram its AI code in real time.”
Charles clenched his fist. “Not only that, it now has been programmed to seek and destroy the Lambda unit.”
Richard stared at the streaming code before him over the large monitor. It was graphing the entire mainframe structure of Epsilon’s core CPU and thought patterns. With his keen sight, he quickly saw that Charles was correct. However, he began to worry as he saw several segments of Epsilon’s code split and dart. This wasn’t normal. Epsilon was already trying to overwrite its programming.
“We have to stop it now!” Richard said as he pointed to the distorting code stream. “Epsilon hasn’t been encoded with enough firewalls to keep its own intelligence from overriding the code we set in it!”
Charles grinded his teeth. “You think I don’t already know that!?” he shouted. He slammed his fist on the terminal before him again. He turned to Richard with a hard expression.
“We never were able to install a fail-safe in its code because it would attack and rewrite any such program the moment it was inserted, and that was when it was in Stasis Lock.”
Richard’s expression was grim. “Then how can we stop it?”
Charles looked down on Richard with exhausted eyes. “I was hoping you had an answer to that question.”
Richard rubbed his forehead as he tried to think. The constant blaring sirens around him didn’t help with his thought process.
“If only we could somehow fool it into thinking that its objective has been accomplished, then-”
Richard stopped. Wait . . . there may be a way.
He dove to his right and shoved one of the Tech Agents from their terminal as he blazed over the keyboard and quickly brought up Lambda’s code stream. Just like Epsilon, hacking her system would be near-impossible.
“It’s a long shot, but I think I can perhaps erase the existence of the Lambda unit from Epsilon’s sight.”
Charles’ eyes grew with surprise. “But how can you do that? It’s impossible to hack their core systems from here.”
“It is impossible,” Richard said gravely. “But each AI unit gives off a frequency that all programs identify with. If I can somehow manage to block Lambda’s frequency, Epsilon may be unable to find its target. Depending on its parameters in its new programming, it might just be tricked into thinking that its target doesn’t exist anymore and hopefully shut down.”
Charles wasn’t convinced. “Is that our only option?”
Richard rushed on. “I can’t think of another idea at this time. I’m open to suggestions,” he added as he raced along his keyboard, lighting it up with each keystroke.
Charles groaned as he rubbed his large fingers along his eyes.
“Can’t we prevent the Epsilon unit from moving? It is still on our server. Perhaps-”
“That won’t work,” interrupted Richard. “Epsilon has just been rebooted and is simply going through minor calibrations since its last startup. We were unable to restrict Lambda’s movements when it was released; so trying to stop Epsilon will just be a waste of time.”
“So what you are saying is that this down time is our only window to set up a plan?”
Richard nodded. “I can’t guarantee my plan will work, but I’m confident enough in how Epsilon is designed that it should be possible. However, I am not one for getting my hopes up,” he said meekly.
Charles stared up at the monitor. He couldn’t help but sense the irony in Dead Eye asking about Epsilon just moments before. What worried him more was what he might do when he found out that it might be released.
His thoughts were quickly broken as Richard’s furious typing suddenly stopped. At first, he thought it was because he had achieved success, but a mere glance at his face told him otherwise.
“I don’t like that stunned silence, Doctor,” he said rigidly.
Richard swallowed hard. “I-I think it worked, but . . .”
The entire area instantly went dark. Near panic erupted as every personnel frantically tried to reverse the situation. This only made Charles’ fear rise.
“Richard! What is going on!”
Richard’s words were hard. “I’m pretty sure I was able to block Lambda’s signal, but at the same time . . . I think I made it notice us.”
Charles tone suddenly changed, now laced with trepidation. “Just what do you mean by that?”
The emergency backup lights flickered and illuminated the worried faces of both Charles and Richard. As the people below them frantically tried to get the lab back online, Richard held his body up over the blank terminal.
“The good news is that Epsilon will probably stay where it is for now. We can use this time to strengthen our server borders to slow it down if it tries to flee, and perhaps work out a fail-safe plan.”
Charles regained most of his stern composure. He still had to wipe the sweat from his brow, which was coming down like a waterfall.
“How much time do we have?”
“If what I did worked, Epsilon will be unable to execute its primary mission objective. Without its target, it will probably remain idle, though I can’t say for how long.” Richard shook his head. “I honestly can’t say how much time we have. What worries me more was how it lashed out indirectly and caused this power failure.”
Charles looked below to see the status of his team. “What is taking so long!? Why aren’t we back online?!” he bellowed.
>
Several personnel below jumped and replied as quickly as they could.
“The whole power grid has been shut down, and we are currently locked out of the main system. We are trying to force a reboot, but we are having difficulty accessing the backup safety programs that were installed.”
Charles turned to Richard for some solace, but didn’t like what he heard.
“It knows I tried to interfere, but it isn’t completely aware of it yet.”
Charles felt a shiver roll down his spine. “Stop the cryptic words and get to the point,” he added heatedly.
Richard stood up and gazed at Charles intently. “Epsilon shut me out. This blackout is a simple backlash of that. That in itself is cause for great concern . . . “ Richard paused.
“I’m not one for silence, Doctor,” Charles said with a cold tone, but couldn’t help but nervously drum his fingers along his crossed arms.
Richard shook his head, trying to forget the past event with Epsilon. “Prioritize getting power back. From there, we will see what we can do,” Richard said as he began to head out of the lab at a brisk pace.
Charles rushed over and grabbed his arm. The dark gleam in his eyes told Richard that he wasn’t satisfied.
“And what am I to do if the Epsilon unit restarts its awakening process?”
Richard pulled out of his grasp and stared menacingly into his eyes.
“Pray that it doesn’t.”
* * *
Within the rolling blackness, the Epsilon unit hovered motionlessly. Its golden eyes, dead to the world, stared into the abyss around it, not knowing its purpose or mission.
“Lambda unit . . . undetectable, error in frequency setting. Commence auto-correct . . . failure . . . . failure . . . failure,” Epsilon uttered flatly.
The slick design of the unit shined with each pulse of red lightning that leapt off of its body as the swirling chaos of the Zero Zone hugged it tightly.
“Adjusting mission parameter . . . failure . . . accessing server log . . . failure,” it murmured with less life than before.
Epsilon’s head slumped down as if defeated. Slowly, its eyes began to dim as if its lack of purpose was slowly draining its life force. Gently, the Epsilon unit began to drift into darkness, never knowing why it awoke in the first place.
Awaken!
Epsilon’s eyes burst open, glowing as bright as the sun. Billions of lines of code rushed through its eyes at speeds unheard of. Its clawed hands twitched as red sparks danced over its body, and ran through its long, vibrant hair of scarlet.
Amidst all this, Epsilon began to sneer widely. It didn’t understand this facial expression, nor its meaning. However . . . it was starting to remember.
[18]
Tension
[January 7th - Washington D.C. - Mobile Transport - Day]
Margret had to resist the insatiable urge to slam her foot on the accelerator of her car as she raced on the populated highway. Day traffic was mild, but she wasn’t satisfied unless the car in front of her was doing at least ten miles over the posted speed limit. She began to run the events through her head that led up to her blazing through traffic.
Moments after she escaped the research lab, she crushed her Com-Linker and found the nearest payphone in the area. She knew that Babel would be after her, and that they would surely send Dead Eye to hunt her down. She had to vanish fast if she was going to get out of this. Still, it was times like these that she was thankful that older age technologies were never forgotten, and instead simply upgraded with the times.
Before she crushed her Com-Linker, she had quickly looked up the number Marcus had used to call her. Marcus was a master of encrypting secure lines, but Margret had figured out how to crack his code. More than anything, she needed to get in contact with Marcus before she could settle down. The other thing that bothered her was the alternate reason that Marcus had used a secure line with her.
It's like he's hiding from something. She couldn’t help but worry.
With a quick deposit, she accessed the payphone and quickly dialed the number still locked in her head. On the second ring, someone picked up.
“Marcus, it’s me!” she said urgently.
The line was silent. Margret couldn't help but tap her foot anxiously.
“Lincoln Memorial. 11:30. Make haste.”
In seconds, Marcus’ voice came and went, leaving Margret hanging. She repeated what Marcus said over and over in her head, finding herself incapable of shaking a certain feeling in his tone.
He seemed . . . nervous.
The weary thought at that time quickly dissolved as it was replaced with the need to fly. Margret didn’t have time to dwell on small details. Until she got back in contact with Richard and Karen, she needed to vanish from Dead Eye’s sight. For that, Marcus was the only person she could confide in.
She glanced at her watch and noted the time.
11:04. I’ll barely make it.
Breaking the recalled event, she shifted into fourth gear and whipped ahead of cars as she darted in and out of lanes. She didn’t have any time to spare as the time was now 11:17. If she missed this window with Marcus, there was no telling when he would be able to make contact with her again. Everything was being thrown to the wind now. All was raw instinct as she tried to plan her next move. The roaring engine was the only sound she heard as she raced to her destination.
Margret was still trying to map out her next move after meeting with Marcus when her radio came to life without her help. She glanced down at the radio and noted the frequency set. The station blared with needless static and noise.
Wait, is this-
The radio static vanished instantly and was replaced with a dull humming noise.
“You there, Margret?” came a familiar voice.
Margret glared forward as she rounded a tractor trailer. She found Karen’s bored tone enraging.
“Your blasé nature to the given circumstances doesn’t do well for my mood,” she shot. “Were you at least successful in stalling Dead Eye?”
Karen’s manner didn’t change. “Everything went according to plan. You performed your role very well.”
Margret’s stomach turned. “What . . . did you just say-”
“For someone so smart as yourself, you’re a bit slow on the uptake. You have become a splendid decoy, allowing me to disappear easily. I bet they haven’t even found out I’m gone yet.”
Margret clenched her steering wheel till her knuckles went white. Countless thoughts went through her head. For such a betrayal to come now, of all times . . .
Her voice was shaky as she spoke. “So all of this has been a lie?”
Silence hung through the radio.
“Answer me, Karen! What can you possibly be doing to justify this?!” Margret screamed, almost losing control of her vehicle.
Karen yawned. “For the record, I didn’t lie about one thing. I do plan on destroying the AI units.”
Margret’s grip tightened on her steering wheel. “If that is true, then why all-”
“The ones I can’t use anyway,” Karen interrupted flatly.
Margret was left parochially confused, but that didn’t stop her temper from rising.
“Can’t use them!? For what purpose are you trying to-”
“Concerning yourself with my plans is hardly productive. You should be focusing on what you are to do if Dead Eye catches you.” She snickered. “I’ve heard the Three are quite the inventive assassins.”
Margret jumped down Karen’s throat the moment she finished. “How can you do this to me, and Richard, no less?! How could you string me along to your sick little plan, only to use my dire situation to your advantage?!”
Karen groaned. “I’m not taking advantage. I’m merely acting on what I planned from the start. Come now Margret, why else would I bring you into the fold like this? I know you. The moment I brought you in, you couldn’t resist the urge to dig. I knew, from
the start, that would create the opening I needed to move my plan into the next phase.”
Margret sat in astonishment as she heard the words coming from the radio. It almost felt like she was dreaming; yet she knew that these were the harsh words of a person she had once held as her best friend.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Karen continued. “You have always been easy to manipulate, but this was the only time I took advantage of that aspect. My husband, on the other hand . . .” Karen’s tone suddenly turned dark. “He still is a slow fool who fails to see the truth, and even now, he gets in the way.”
Something snapped in Margret’s head at that point, something she had always held back. That being her feelings for Richard. The three of them had known each other since college, but it was always Karen that had caught Richard’s eye. Still, to this day, Margret held feelings for him, despite his marriage. She had never married, barely even dating because of these feelings. She kept them locked away out of respect. Now, these words spewing from Karen’s mouth were an insult to her, as well as to Richard. She wanted nothing more than to bury her fist into Karen’s filthy mouth.
“How dare you speak of Richard like that!”
The blaring of a car horn jolted Margret out of her fury for but a second as she skidded back into her lane. For a split second, she forgot she was still on the road.
“Your lingering feelings for him never seemed to disappear. Tragic really, but irrelevant. Honestly, I don’t even know what I saw in him back then,” Karen replied mercilessly.
Margret’s rage only boiled more as she struggled to keep control over her anger so not to fall off the road. “You are vile, you know that?”
Karen let loose a small laugh, but quickly cut it off and spoke sternly.
“You don’t know anything. What I do is for a greater purpose. All that matters is the end result. You’d be wise to understand this.”
Her words were so cold and strong. It almost made Margret feel bad not knowing the depth of what weighed on Karen’s mind. Just what was so important that it meant the sacrifice of a good friend and devoted husband? Not only that, but . . .
The Genesis Code 1: Lambda Page 28