by Marc Neuffer
This reunion was repeated for both Roger and Dodger. In this reality they were maintenance workers. I guess in the Zee world, that translated to ‘fixers’, though Zee-land had no plumbing or mechanical things. They too had been affected by their experiences.
Noah and I found an unexpected skill in these dimensions. We have the ability here to ghost about. Using our rings, we can walk through walls, avoid barriers and security apparatus. It can be mentally exhausting to maintain that condition for more than an hour, so we rarely use it. Popping out of that state, at the wrong time or place would create serious problems for us. When ‘fly on the wall’ was needed. We were the flies.
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In this virtual reality world, the Upper-Zees were portrayed as the city council; a benign group of elders. Our perception of Satchel was not a static one. Events would self-evolve as we worked the mission. The goal was to pull back the curtains, exposing the elite as self-interested, corrupt officials not worthy of their position or place of power. We were going to let the light in. A word here, a word there, an observation, a shared concern.
The center would grow if properly watered and fertilized. We would be gardeners, not reactive leaders of the Under-Zees; the common man and woman. Nothing in the Zees dimension could kill a Zee, except entropy. If you properly added energy to a system, it could be maintained in perpetuity. The Upper-Zees had been the first created, and had held the high ground ever since. We needed to find the source of their sustenance.
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For six months we spied, dropped information, fomented dissatisfaction with the disparity between upper and lower. The small snowball, rolled down from its inauspicious beginning, was gathering mass and speed.
A few new questions were being asked about reproduction quotas, food supplies, infrastructure breakdowns, expansion. Nothing gets someone’s attention faster than backed up sewer systems and power outages. It was a slow process, an overnight revolt was not our goal, rather a slower pace of expanded realizations, from which the Uppers couldn’t withdraw.
We had a core group of true believers; many had remembered Adam and were surprised to see him again. They’d heard he had led an important expedition over the mountains and not returned. In social gatherings, he hinted at what they had seen and what they had stopped.
We knew the return of Adam, Roger and Dodger would catch the ear of the Uppers. He was called before the Zee council in closed session. Adam had a secret weapon, a human weapon; he could lie. Not the most enduring of human traits, but it was one the Upper-Zees didn’t know was possible in the Lower-Zee psyches. They thought they were the only devious ones.
They bought his story of having searched for, and found, a one-way passage back. He spun a complex story of trial and error, one of which caused the forever-death of the fourth member of his team. The passage had been through an ancient Mintic dimensional-distortion portal, which had only enough life and power to allow transit by the three who had returned. Abby/Traveler had been the fourth Zee. She wasn’t dead, she was happy and healthy, helping raise grandchildren on the real Satchel.
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We had another secret weapon; our rings. With them we could nudge the infrastructure of the Zee’s domain, just enough to cause random-looking failures and short comings. We didn’t have to go out on covert ops, turning valves or salting gas tanks. Noah and I could simply imagine those, and they happened. We couldn’t affect larger, more energy intensive systems, but the little changes we made kept up a social irritation the Upper-Zees couldn’t seem to control.
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After two years of steady degradation we were close to having a self-perpetuating revolt. As with all despotic regimes, we expected them to tighten what had previously appeared to the Under-Zees, as an efficient and smooth administration. While we wanted the Upper-Zees to be brought down, we didn’t want a chaotic overthrow. We still hadn’t revealed that the Uppers were affecting living sentient races in other dimensions for their personal entertainment and social competitions. While we weren’t permitted in the larger halls of the elites, I imagined those competitions being played out, in our universe, as large chess games in which the sentient pieces could be manipulated by whispers from the Zees.
27 Insurgents
Insurgents: persons who take part in a rebellion against the constituted authority, especially in the hope of improving conditions.
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It took us another year to learn how the Zees were easily infiltrating and infecting so many AIs on our side. They weren’t using the Under-Zees. That would have caused an uproar. We found it by a paper chase a month ago.
Adam, through Thomas, had engaged in logistics tracking. In the Zees world, that meant energy flow. Here it meant resource accumulation and movement; water, food, waste streams, material, electrical power. All analogs for the real Zee universe. He and Thomas were looking for anomalies, resource flows that didn’t match expected consumption, out-streams that exceeded recorded inflows. It was accounting forensics and number crunching.
Roger and Dodger, with their counterparts, frequented gatherings, listening for conversational patterns indicating discontent or questioning of authority. Behind the scenes they encouraged both, while remaining, apparently, disengaged.
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One afternoon, I heard Thomas remark, “I think we may have something here,” I looked up from my reading. “The valley behind the Uppers residences has an inordinate amount of power and water usage for agricultural land. The usage has far outstripped the growth over the past two hundred years.”
Years here had no relationship to years in our dimensions. They were simply placeholders in virtual-world conversions. To the Zees, time was a flexible concept. The inference, of two-hundred years, was eons.
Adam had become frustrated. “Well, I hope we finally have something solid. The bits and pieces we have uncovered so far don’t even begin to show any linkage or manipulation we can assign to the Upper’s involvement in the wars back home.”
Thomas pointed his finger. “It’s right here, plain as day. Look at these charts. Someone tried to hide it, but a crack in the data shows a huge increase in water, power and other resources flowing in that have nothing to do with the agricultural designation of this area. Lots of construction and what looks like life support equipment, tagged as medical allocations have gone in and not come back. I’ve been in the hills over-looking that valley area, nothing but groves and grain fields.”
Adam looked at Noah and me, “Think you could do a bit of recon?”
“Yeah, I’m up for it,” I said. Noah nodded his agreement.
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To limit the time, we would have to spend ghosting, we got as close as we could to the area before we ‘fell in’. When in that fugue state, everything was still, except for us. We could move and manipulate things, but all our movement, and the movements we caused, left vapor trails that caught up to things when the motion stopped. We couldn’t be seen. It was if time had stopped for everything but us.
This was going to be a field trip, literally. We were going to search the ag-fields for anything out of place. I looked to Noah, “Ready?”
“Yeah, I’ll start north you take south. Be sure you give yourself enough time to get back before you run out of steam.”
We could talk in those states, but all sound was deadened, muffled; didn’t carry far. Artificial coms wouldn’t work either; no Q-inserts in our heads here. We headed along the ridge points, taking us to our respective descent paths to the valley. Prior to our dropping down we fell into the quantum-ghost effect.
I’d found that by establishing a rhythm to my motions, I gained a longer endurance before I had to come up for air. We planned to locate areas in the valley which would hide us from surveillance for those surfacings, otherwise it would take over a week to survey this area.
I’d been walking for over half an hour, weaving in between the rows of the southern grove; nothing but t
rees and automated pickers. It was almost a pleasant walk.
Why is there a vent hood out here? I’d spotted it through a row of nut trees, camouflaged to mimic a stump, but nature doesn’t make sharp, ninety-degree, elbows. Getting closer, I recognized a slatted and capped ventilation duct. Something below me needed air. I huddled down against a nearby trunk, covering myself with a natural toned canvas.
Coming up from the zone, back to normal time, I could hear a low thrumming sound. I saw the low grass waving from the artificial breeze exiting the vent. Putting my hand in the air stream, I felt a warm and humid flow. Was there a secret hydroponics facility down there? Why hide it underground? Why hide it at all? I fell back to the fugue state and moved on. If there was one vent there would be others. I now knew what I was looking for.
The valley ran for eight kilometers, north and south. At its widest over a kilometer, until the edges met the foothills. By the time I’d made it halfway, my meeting point with Noah, I’d counted one-hundred and twenty-three vent hoods.
Noah was late, well not late, it was just taking him a bit longer than me. I had the easier traverse. His took him through the grain fields, making his reset periods longer simply due to more preparation time, since the vegetation was so low. While my camo screen was for woodlands, his was for green grass. He had to lie down, shake out his camo-cloth and climb underneath before he could emerge. All I had to do was squat down and cover up. For him, the process of getting under cover was longer than our reset time; less than fifteen seconds.
I had expected him to emerge from my front, instead he came from my right, along the tree line. We slipped back into the denser tree farm, emerged and told each other what we’d found. Noah had located similar vents. He’d also found a shed with access to a lit, and well-maintained, stairwell; a door at the bottom.
“Should we go down? Investigate?” I wanted to, but needed to hear Noah’s assessment. His better judgement prevailed. We would return to provide the group with our intel.
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Adam overlaid a transparent grid sheet on a topographic map of the valley, marking vent locations based on our paced measurements. “There must be a huge facility under that valley. Some sort of operation requiring air flow and water. We know the ventilation out-points but not the inflow ports.”
Thomas added, “And, if all that water is going in, it’s got to be going somewhere as an effluent. It may be hard to find if they’ve hidden the thermal bloom of the heat difference from ambient conditions.”
“Well, the entrance we found can’t be the main one. It’s out in the middle of nowhere and too small for anything but a personnel access.”
Noah picked up a red marker and straightedge. Inscribing a line, connecting the center row of ventilation hoods, then extending it southward; a straight line to the backside of the Uppers community center. “There’s your entry point.”
28 Infiltration
Infiltration: the action of entering or gaining access to an organization or place surreptitiously, especially in order to acquire secret information or cause damage.
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Noah whispered, “Hand me the prybar.”
It sounded like a whisper in this quiet and muffled ghosting state. Dodger’s alter ego had provided a scanning tool to check for monitoring devices and alarms. It was the same one he used to look for system malfunctions as part of his job.
None of those systems could detect us while we ghosted, but popping out of that state would register our presence, unless we found some sort of concealment for our resets. To use the scanner, we had to be in the ‘real’; a self-defeating action.
We’d practiced at the ranch, moving from cover to cover, disabling security monitoring devices. We expected cameras, motion detectors, door alarms and pressure pads. Surely the Uppers had this place well surveilled. Under leverage, the door popped open. No hiding the damage to the door jam and lock. There would have been more obvious, eyelevel damage if we’d broken into the card scanner on this side.
The door swung outward, opening to a short hallway, another door at the end. I slipped through while Noah attempted to tidy up the pry marks using an abrasive pad and small paint applicator; the color selector automatically matched the original paint hue.
My pack held several different types of jumpers we would use to neuter alarm system modules. Reaching up, I traced the wires from the door alarm hardware. I needed to find a spot to tie in, a spot that was hidden from view. No go, we would have to locate a node for the system.
We’d entered the facility through the entrance Noah had located in the valley. Our overland approach had taken more than fifteen minutes. We needed to reset soon, somewhere out of sight and sound of the security systems. Tapping Noah’s shoulder, I communicated that we should move on quickly.
The door at the end of the hallway was unlocked, alarmed, but unlocked. Another hall ended in a Tee. We went left. Spending two precious minutes, we located a utility closet. Another minute passed, as we checked for security devices; none. I closed the door. We came up for air. This would become our first waypoint, a place of refuge. Our plan was to find others, along our path, as we dove deeper into this warren of deceit.
On the back wall, I located a conveniently labeled panel: Wing 3 Security. Using our scanner, Noah traced the outline of the metal box. Not alarmed. Removing the cover, a piece of plasti-paper fell out. It was a map of this section of the underground building, marking the location of sensors and monitoring devices. Well, that was easy, as long as it was up to date. I wasn’t sure if anything could actually go out of date here. After all, we were in Zee-land.
I ran my finger down the vertical rows of labeled switches in the panel. We could turn off all the local sensors, but that would probably cause a master alarm to trip. We ghosted again, following the map, looking for a room marked ‘Sector Control’. Hopefully, we could employ our bag of tricks there, to spoof the entire area’s security system.
Ten minutes later we were at the door; another unlocked door. These guys weren’t very good at establishing controlled access for critical areas. No one inside. So far, we hadn’t seen or heard anyone, just one cleaning bot.
To the right, a row of computer stations curved away from one wall. Power distribution panels and status monitors lined the opposite wall. Active video schematics, of various systems, hung on the wall above the computer stations: Water, Power, Waste, Nutrient, and something called Engagement. That panel had what looked like thousands of tiny lights, each had a sequenced number below it. All lights were green except a cluster of five red and seven amber.
Noah lay on the floor, half hidden beneath one of the consoles. “Found it.” He held out his hand. From my pack, I dug out a small rectangular box, three wires dangling from it. I passed it to his waiting hand. As he took it, the connectors on the wire ends changed. He had imagined the configuration necessary for melding our spy gear to the entire security system. On the fly modifications, in VR, are a handy thing. Every alarm and monitor were now on a spoofing loop. We relaxed, popping back to the real.
Searching the control station desks we found a more complete map of the facility. We could retrace our steps east, or pick two other destinations. South led to the ‘Main Corridor’, directly to the Upper’s enclave. The northern hallway hooked a left into a kilometers long north-south passage, with doors to three large areas. The southern one was marked ‘Harvest’, the next “Engagement, and the last, three or four kilometers ahead, ‘Recycle’. We were closest to the Engagement sector.
Ghosting again, we passed through the door into a low-ceilinged cavernous room. Left and right, the far ends faded in the distance. Straight ahead, the opposite side looked to be a half kilometer away. The room wasn’t empty. There were thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of clear hemispheres on short pedestals at waist height. Noah walked to the closest one ahead of him. I was eye-scanning, looking for any Zees who might be in the vicinity.
The spy-box we had inserted
into their system was linked to a small repeater tablet. We could monitor the security systems real-time, but the Zees would only see the spoofed version. I would have to shift to the real before I could use it.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Noah’s movement, coming back to me. Touching my arm, he led us to a small door next to the entrance; another utility closet. Once inside, we fell back to reality.
“Sarah, there are babies in those units. Zee babies, and it’s not your typical nursery. They’re harnessed by wires and tubes, connecting them to something. This is an evil place, Sarah.”
“What do you think is going on here?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ll bet it has to do with how they infect AIs on our side. We always wondered how they could infect so many at the same time. We know it couldn’t be the Uppers, there aren’t enough of them. The Lowers wouldn’t participate in this sort of thing. The Uppers are using infants as hardware. I saw skull caps on their heads. Brain probes used to control them.”
My stomach started to flip. I took a deep breath to relax the nausea reflex, then another. I wished for a gun, something to kill those monsters; the Uppers. I knew where to find them. A hand weapon appeared, falling, clattering as it hit the floor. Noah snatched it up as I was reaching for it.
“No, Sarah, not that way.” He reached back, tucking it into his pack.
29 Insurrection
Insurrection: an outbreak against authority. A rebellion by oppressed classes resulting in a major change. A sometimes-chaotic political shift and realignment of allegiances.
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We’d recorded our visit to the Zee underground. Only the parts of our trip, when we weren’t ghosting, had been captured. That was enough.
Adam and Thomas were reviewing the video. I’d gone to take a long hot shower. I couldn’t carry the stink of that place any longer. I needed some alone time.