by Andrew Ives
Somewhere in Arizona, a sterile, whiter than white, dust-free research lab accidentally (as with most discoveries) stumbled across a new allotrope of the silicon they had been using unquestioned for fifty years.
This newly-found allotrope possessed properties hitherto unthought of. It could be formed cheaply (and later refined through nanotechnology) to the absolute purity imperative to chip manufacture.
Circuits could be stamped into it with connections only a few nanometres wide. This region of width was until now disregarded as electrical resistance increases proportionally as width decreases, in a manner rendering any size reduction unfeasible, and therefore circuits were limited to the size at which they had remained for forty years.
Slight improvements were made in chip speed by better arrangement of the circuits on the silicon slice, but this had reached an optimum level in the late nineteen nineties.
Until Silicon2 that is. Silicon2 enabled chips to improve a thousandfold. New claims were being made every month. Computers came and computers went with nobody buying. Buyers waited to see what the next month would bring before committing themselves.
This one-upmanship continued for fifteen years with all the major players losing profits throughout, deciding to call a truce at the SYC 70000.
They felt they had reached an acceptable level of processor performance and as no massive improvement was foreseeable in the near future, they would be cutting their own throats continuing in this way.
The SYC 70000 would become the standard chip for the next generation of processors and in turn, computers. Laptops and PCs of every type started selling again.
Everyone bought one and development came to a standstill. Software industries grew around the new standard and everyone was content.
Computer manufacturers recouped their massive losses, Silicon2 became the success it always promised to be, the industry thrived and jobs were created in ailing economies.
The 70010 and 70020 were finished, but shelved for later release when the market declined, even though they were better than current technology.
They were more expensive than the 70000, having been manufactured from a newly-discovered silicon-yttrium compound which dissipated heat keeping the chips cool.
These would be snapped up by the secret services and anyone else who needed to have the upper hand over the average user. It was through these channels that Psi would acquire their '020s.
Bad News
At the private hospital, Sedgwick and his sombre colleague left, abandoning their unfortunate airman patient.
Together they reached for the rear door-handle of the black saloon laid on for them both; the older gentleman beckoning Sedgwick to take the other, more dangerous, door on the traffic side. Sedgwick obeyed, disgruntled though he was, did so, and climbed in.
The MoD man whispered a destination to the driver and away they went. Amongst the gloom inside, the only visible lights were red illuminated numbers, which winked onto 7:14. A cheery radio announcer was immediately silenced by the driver.
The dark, blue-grey clouds above reflected the atmosphere between the two passengers. They had a three-hour journey ahead of them through crawling traffic, and neither relished the fact; Sedgwick less so.
"You let us down again, Steve. The whole department was relying on you. We thought 'This time. This time it'll work,' but yet again you never delivered."
Sedgwick could see he was in for a long ride by the way his critic slowed with derision at the end of the sentence. He was going to feel the smallest, he had ever felt. He had had similar talking-tos before. Three times before, with each the exasperation growing in his superior. Could he slimily wangle his way out again and earn another final, final chance? He sincerely hoped so, but his doubt grew with the old man's every word.
"You know we're going to have to cover up this unfortunate series of events another time. How many times do you think we can get away with your mistakes before the media get hold of it, eh? Four? Five? I understand things don't always go to plan, but you really take the biscuit.", the anger was well-controlled in the old man's voice. He was obviously well-versed in this field. Many such conversations over the years had served him well.
Sedgwick found himself nearly answering, at the last moment rightly deciding not to.
"That poor young chap they're turning off right now, is all down to you... and the three others before him. You run Psi. Psi's mistakes are your mistakes."
Sedgwick gulped, knowing he was hearing the truth. The older man felt his advantage and wanted to complete this unenviable task before any resistance was shown.
"We're going to have to say our young pilot went missing on routine exercises over some hostile territory." He paused before continuing.
"Much more of this and people are going to start wondering why we aren't getting them back from our enemies, where our missing have gone. Tangled webs and all that. How can we tell their families that the missing really died in the way they did? Answer me that!"
Sedgwick shrunk into his suit. It was unusual for him to be castigated like this. He felt like hitting the old man until he shut up, hard and often. Somehow he managed to contain the urge while the old man further twisted the knife.
"We can't, can we? That's why we can't afford to let you or Psi have any more chances. We're going to disband Psi from the end of this week, and you and the rest of your motley crew can consider yourself redundant." The old man rushed out his sentence before Sedgwick had a chance to interrupt. Dumbstruck as he was, his recovery was not long in coming.
"What? That's it? No more PsiNapse? You're going to back out after all the time, money and effort that's gone into it?" Sedgwick pleaded, rather clutching at straws.
"Oh no, Steve. PsiNapse will continue. Just under a different name - somewhere else, with someone more capable in charge. It's you and Psi that we no longer need."
"We're going to take all the salvageable stuff, and cart it all off to some other, less embarrassing company." The old man was beginning to relish his bad news as it took its toll on Sedgwick, a man he had disliked intensely since soon after first meeting him. Sedgwick's cocky and overconfident attitude to everything in one so inadequately experienced or educated had irked him from the outset and it was a sight to behold to see him snivelling in desperation. It always confounded him just how Sedgwick had ever been chosen for such a job.
"What about me? What about the others? You can't just sack us all, just like that... we could blow the whistle on everything..." Sedgwick grinned, stooping to blackmail with instantly renewed energy.
"Ah, your true colours are showing now, Steve." The MoD man smiled a wry smile. Sedgwick was indeed a predictable snake.
"You will be well provided for, if that's what you mean. We're giving you a quarter of a million for you to allocate among your workforce as you see fit. You can take a hundred to keep you quiet, but the remaining one-fifty should go to those that worked on the most sensitive stuff. That should keep a few tongues still."
"A measly hundred? You can barely get a decent car with that these days! How can you be certain I won't blow the whistle anyway?" Steve jeered, feeling the impetus finally going his way.
"You won't," came the confident threat.
"Even you wouldn't be that daft!" thought the wily, wizened civil servant, slowly turning towards his window, away from Sedgwick, smirking youthfully at the predicament he had left his odious companion in.
Sedgwick similarly peered out through his own window, squinting to see through the residue of city grime. The ominous meaning behind the last remark as clouded as his view.
A Dark Day Dawns
A volley of electronic beeps hailed another Monday morning. A bleary-eyed woman silenced it with a nearby wave of the hand. She reluctantly opened her eyes, squinted at the clock and closed them both again. Morning so soon.
Another long day awaited at Psi Industries' Research and Development centre. Another day of immense concentration and eyestrain to endure. Ha
rdware-level programming and digital logic were her trade and generally they were enjoyable enough - but not recently.
Ever since the PsiNapse project was commissioned.
Initially it went well, but since the first failure, and the ensuing string of failures, life really had become intolerable. Not only for her, but the team as a whole. Everyone wanted it over and done with.
Karen Masterson was an academic, graduating in Computer Science and Microelectronics with honours from the local and leading university. She then read for an M.A. in Theoretical Computing, with a thesis on computer security and espionage.
She intended to pursue a career in precisely this field, working for the secret service on their computer security which was all too frequently compromised by teenage hackers. During the last fifteen or so years, while computer technology was improving in leaps and bounds, defence computers amongst others were often susceptible to attack. Small-time hackers could keep up with technology far quicker than large-scale corporations. This enabled hackers, often with far superior computing power to waltz through defences of these and any major corporation.
Credit cards, banks, space and aeronautics companies, telephone and communications companies, satellite television channels, video game companies... the list is endless - all were regularly being "burgled" by electronic intruders. All were losing revenue in some way or another from these intrusions and obviously all were eager to prevent this illegitimate entry by any means possible. Computer security was the trade to be in, and Karen was hoping her expertise would be widely sought after.
Unfortunately for her, just as she was studying for her finals, the once-rocky computer industry steadied. The impact of Silicon2 had taken its toll on the small fry manufacturers and the Power War's ferocity waned. Only the real giants remained. These giants called a truce to their processor battles; A new standard was created; the burgled companies found the hackers' advantages soon disappear and along with them, Karen's job opportunities. Even with her knowledge and qualifications, she found herself surplus to requirements in a world riddled with mass unemployment - so much for computer board governments.
In this day and age, with unemployment approaching thirty-eight per cent, she was lucky to get any job - especially in computing and electronics. The pay was good, for the time being, but she really was suffering the work to pay the bills. It was only for the time being though - she had other irons in the fire.
It was with this nagging concern in mind that she sat down to breakfast and the rest of her usual weekday routine.
She turned the radio on, as she always did. No point in putting any television on, she would have to leave soon. Radio was marginally better in the morning. The same cheery DJ reminded her it was 7:20am and she had forty minutes until work, before playing his CD.
She slid up the window's LCD translucency control and wrinkled her nose at the dismal view. The growling saxophone mirrored her pessimistic mood for the state of the weather outside.
Day had broken, but it was difficult to tell that from the stormclouds outside her window. November was continuing in its wintery ways.
She slurped some ice cold milk from her spoon. The yellow-tinged, black and blue storm clouds rumbled and the radio crackled. The motorcycle ride to work would again be a treacherous one.
The music which she was beginning to mildly enjoy came to an end. Curtailed and interrupted as always by the DJ, to bring on some pundit from one of the Netpapers. "Is VR in danger of dying out? Crowds are flocking back to cinemas and..." Karen reduced him to a whisper. His energetic sensationalism instantly bored her this time of the morning and she was soon thankful that it did.
As her spoon hit the bowl, muffled shouting could just be heard outside.
The source was a good four hundred feet below and although these city suburbs were deathly silent at this time of morning, it was surprisingly still loud and vigorous enough to attract her attention.
Soon after came the more audible beeping of a vehicle alarm. She put down her near-empty bowl with a clink. Her eager dog immediately scurried towards it and gratefully licked at the dregs of milk. Karen hurried to the window and using the small red-tinted binoculars she kept on the windowsill, peered downwards.
Through the grotty air she could just identify a gang of teenagers driving away a luxurious German, Alcodrive four-seater with all hazard lights flashing, being chased frantically by the middle-aged owner. The scruffy perpetrators pushed back the roof and waved mockingly back at the hapless dupe.
She was relieved to confirm it was not her beloved Venom, already suspecting it couldn't have been. (It was unlikely there would be any shouting had it been.) She was further gladdened to find it was a car she could only dream of owning, being taken from a far wealthier and more deserving victim.
A van beeped its horn as it swiftly followed the stolen car. The accomplice obviously alerted the thieves to the owner's whereabouts and now forced the irate man out of its way as it darted by, creating a buffer between the villains and any would-be pursuers. In the unlikely event of the police arriving, the van could hamper their progress enough for the criminals to escape. It was choreographed and planned to perfection. Organized car crime was one of today's few growth industries.
Crime was rife in the city. Poverty ever on the increase.
But Karen was fortunate to live in the suburbs of a rarity nowadays - a prosperous city.
Out in the suburbs crime was still commonplace, but not endemic. She lived in a modern skyrise block of three hundred and fifty, minimum-rent, minimum-luxury apartments.
Her's was near the top. Seven-hundred feet above ground level. Massive overpopulation had been further heightened by the exodus from less prosperous regions, necessitating the building of such high, skyrise, tower blocks. On stormy days like this, Karen's flat was immediately below the cloud ceiling. When there was a storm, she was in the thick of it.
A flyover met the building and surrounding car park at three-hundred feet up, and it was here that the theft had just taken place, and here that her Venom was parked.
Karen tweaked the radio's volume dial to off and left the window in better spirits. She rubbed her dog's forehead and left the room taking her black crash helmet and leathers from the hall cupboard.
* * *
Soldering On
"OWWWWWWW!!!!" cried Karen, abruptly silencing her short yell by plunging her burnt forefinger into her mouth. She sucked on the revoltingly metallic-tasting scald in an attempt to dampen the pain.
Again the lurking menace of the soldering iron had struck her.
It was an unfortunate fact of her work that no matter how accomplished one becomes at wielding a soldering iron, its heat and its conducted heat, forever looms like a shark waiting to bite. The tattered plasters on Karen's other finger bore testimony to this truth. It was the peripheral heat, as was so often the case, that caught her out in this instance. The wire she was holding had quickly and insidiously conducted the heat along its length, abruptly becoming unbearable.
Fortunately the connection had taken and cooled. Karen put the iron back on its melted stand and drank from her tepid Maxpax chocolate. The sweet liquid washing away the foul tinny taste.
She stared at small black characters on the bright grey screen before her. Indecipherable mnemonics mixed with numbers in a complexity unimaginable to a layman. Even accomplished programmers squint with awe when confronted by bug-ridden code of such intricacy and complexity.
The title bar at the top read "ArrayRecog15.7" reminding her of the numerous previous incarnations of this particularly stubborn piece of source code.
Karen's job at Psi was hardware-software liaison co-ordinator between herself, the project leader, the hardware designer and his team, three software developers and indirectly their underlings.
She was situated on the second floor of Psi, the lab, along with the project leader, Dr. Eric Harvey, his hardware designer and three software developers.
Above them were the m
edical and neurological specialists whom rarely interfered as most of their groundwork was already complete.
Below, on the ground floor and the basement were the main body of workers - the electricians that rebuilt the prototypes, etched PCBs, designed custom chips and generally made the whole machinery more reliable and robust. There were even more programmers there that blew ROMs and optimised tiny bits of code to maximise speed. These too were rarely seen unless some problem arose.
Karen pondered the tangled mess of chips and wires that lay on her workbench, wondering where her next move could be made.
Trouble Brewing
The door slammed and Sedgwick stormed in, angrily waving aside one of the software developers. Karen swivelled round on her chair.
"Tell me later!" he snapped and disappeared into his office, slamming a second door behind him.
Her bemused colleague looked towards her and she shrugged. Dr. Eric Harvey and his technical assistant Robert Gifford revolved on their squeaky chairs and faced her from their bench opposite. Gifford twiddled a cotton bud in his hand as they spoke.
"I'd keep away from him for a while. He had a face like a clenched fist." Gifford smiled as his remark came out, visibly unworried by their governor's grievances.
Sedgwick was hardly well-liked by any of them: At one time or another all three had been niggled by him over their work, and none of them particularly appreciated his approach or attitude towards them.
"I fear his worry may concern us all. I've never seen him quite that angry before. I know our trials haven't been going so well and that patience is running out with Psi as a whole. I would say that he's just had a roasting from head office telling him - and us - to get our collective fingers out."
Eric was surprisingly observant for someone who had hardly looked up from his monitor. As he was in his early forties, appreciably older than both Karen and Bob, they respected his concern for the seriousness it warranted.