Short Stories - Def Con 2023

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  • SweetGrrl
    Member
    • Jun 2014
    • 122
    #1

    Short Stories - Def Con 2023

    2023 Short Story Entries can be found here.
    Tags: None
    • SweetGrrl
      Member
      • Jun 2014
      • 122
      #2


      =================

      -----------------

      = Ave Maria =

      = Anna Sinfonia =

      -----------------

      =================


      ////

      Typically, Quantum Decoherence is viewed as a sort of 'quantum forgetfulness,' as the system 'forgets' its original state due to interactions with its environment, causing it to behave more like a classical system than a quantum one. However, scientists have discovered how to manipulate this process, selectively allowing or preventing decoherence to maintain control over quantum systems.

      ////


      ==========

      = Act I: =

      ==========



      As long as he could remember, there was the cold white glow reflected in his father’s eyes. The winds howled and the windows rattled in their casings as another storm blew by. It was dangerous to go outside, small metal particulates got caught in the wind and would tear at your skin. This weather is why the planet was ultimately abandoned, and now, he sat in his father’s office, his back to the screen as he stared at the man who had brought them here when he was five.


      He was eighteen now, and the second youngest in their Department, which had reverted back to its most primitive form, a tribe of former co-workers, now trying to survive after the company had left them here almost nine months ago during the Re-Org.


      The eyes behind those glasses that reflected the computer screen snapped to his son. “I’ve been waiting, of course, for this day.”


      “It’s Tuesday.”


      “It is your birthday, as we both know.”


      His father did not care for niceties, niceties died with his mother.


      “Yes, father.”


      “You know my role here as the head of this department, and there is a reason for this, the DoD is named for me.”


      His official title, still kept long after The Company had left the Department of Data, the leader, his father: Datum.


      He nodded and his father brought his hand to his mouth, wiping the sweat from his upper lip, the five o’clock stubble and sweat catching the light from the computer screens. He could hear the clicking and whirring as the hard drives spun. Long arrays of numbers printed out on the screen, black text cluttering up the screen like spiders.


      “You remember what I have taught you, about decrypting decoherence to trigger a quantum collapse? The company will come for this soon, they are reaching the end of my knowledge bank, and I have kept it hidden from them this long, but not much longer. They know they don’t have the ability. That I never assimilated it into the systems during my off boarding.”


      His father was a pioneer in this space, he was a Data Scientist who could find the statistical outcome of every and any possible situation. Everyone in this department could work this magic with numbers, decoding long strings of probabilities after they snapped the bubble of quantum forgetfulness that was decoherence. Once you decrypted matter, it gave away its next moves freely, like an opponent in a chess match, and his father always won.

      They used this naively to predict weather for mining, and then to control it. When the higher ups had Re-Organized the company to assimilate the Department of Data into the Central Repository and left when they had drained this planet dry, leaving those they laid off on the surface, they left this knowledge too on the surface.


      The knowledge to predict the future, and to manipulate it.


      “When?”


      “I will kill myself to buy the department time, but you must move to the south, where the last of the mines are.”


      Nicholas absorbed his father's words, each syllable a cold, hard fact settling in the pit of his stomach. He understood their weight - the gravitas of the Department of Data was no stranger to him. His father, Datum, was not a man of flippant proclamations. Each word he uttered was calculated, a product of the immutable logic that dominated his life, and now dictated his death.


      'Datum', as his title designated him, had long ago shed the frivolities of humanity to become the master manipulator of probabilities. His world was the quantum realm, where he navigated the tempestuous sea of potential realities, decrypting decoherence to gaze into the future. His machinations with numbers were no less than magic, unveiling the dance of fate and chance with every string of probabilities he deciphered. Yet, his gift was a poisoned chalice; in knowing the future, he was shackled to its inevitable rhythm, a tragic Cassandra in the cosmic drama.


      News of his death closed up Nicholas’ throat. He dug his fingers into his pants to try to stop himself from crying, from being anything less than his father.


      “I have seen my death and I have seen yours.” His father continued, “You know I have.”


      “Yes.” He could only agree dumbly. He felt so helpless before him.


      “You know there are many worlds.”


      “Then why can’t you pick one where you live?”


      His father spat his name “Nicholas, you must create one for your sister to live. I have seen all futures, and this is the one I have chosen.”


      You cannot fight the future. The future stung his eyes as his whole body tensed, trying to fight or flee, but instead he sat here, burying every feeling inside of him, swallowing it whole. Nicholas felt the silent specter of his father's premeditated end drawing closer. Yet he could do nothing to change the course of events, despite the multiple worlds quantum theory teased. The bitter irony of their situation was not lost on him.


      “Promise me.” His father’s voice was even again.


      “I promise.”


      “What are you promising?”


      “For Maria.”


      ---------------


      "We refuse." Volodi, the most imposing voice among the Department, echoed from within their improvised council hall. The portly woman with fried blonde hair pulled into a haphazard bun stared up at the lights swinging overhead. Every time a particularly strong gust of wind shook the building, they would shiver, casting jittering phantoms of shadows around them.


      "To go south is to mean death! If the starlight does not kill us, then the rain will!" Another voice shouted.


      "And why, pray tell, are you the bearer of this news and not the Datum?" Volodi continued.


      "The Datum will die, and he has passed his responsibilities to me!" Nicholas shouted, and then bit back his emotions. They were scientists; he must lead them as a scientist, with reason. "The company comes for him, for us, and the knowledge we possess. We must leave; it has been seen."


      The room went still. Even the lights dared not to move, the winds respecting the scientists that used to manipulate it and destroyed the very planet that they inhabited.


      "The probability has been found then." Another man, his father's second in command, Dominick, blonde and wiry thin, in his late forties, ran his fingers back through his hair. "I knew he had been playing a dangerous game, running the decoherence on himself."


      "It's against our laws." Another man hissed. "Our ethics that we wrote!"


      There was a murmur amongst the crowd.


      "And he saved your life by breaking it. The company will spare none of us if they know. Why should we spare ourselves from knowing our own probabilities!"


      "We leave in the morning." Nicholas said, braver than he felt.


      The wind howled in rage.


      "What of Maria?" Volodi asked.


      Maria was the youngest of all of them, his sister, picturesque in her youth, with long brown hair that cascaded down around her waist. She was a fanciful thing with blue eyes that were hard to look at for too long. Blue eyes that reminded him of their mother. Four years younger and sheltered. She cared too much for that which they could not possess. Spoiled in her youth by holograms of nature that she could never see. She was not a thing for this harsh environment, she was a goddess meant for Eden, and the department had taken it from her.


      As the rampant weather pulsated above them, churning clouds phased in and out of existence. The tiny particles fought against their earthly masters' control, a testament to their meddling with the divine. The many-futured god they had tried to tame would soon claim another victim: their father. Nicholas knew this as a chilling inevitability, each tick of the clock a harbinger of the impending loss.


      Yet he did not blame the gods. After all, his father was one of them now.


      He blamed those that tried to tame him: The Company.


      He tore away from the crowd now into the back rooms of the office building that they now lived in, the motion-sensing lights flickering on overhead as he passed, hurting his eyes at the sudden change. How would Maria take it?


      She looked at him from her bed, wearing a long cotton white nightdress. Her eyes reflected the single light bulb swinging from a wire over her bed.

      She deserved a better life, and when he told her that they would depart for the south, she looked out the window, half boarded up, only a sliver of the storm was visible, deep gouges from the metallic wind on what was left.


      She spoke: "I know."


      He felt that her suffering was somehow his fault. His father's promise echoing in his head.


      ---------------


      As destiny dictated, the day of his father's death dawned fair. It was the final grace for a man sacrificing himself on the very planet he'd ravaged. The Department bore their sparse burdens - probabilistic computers, sustenance, nothing more. Dominick, his father's confidant, appeared last, his gaze frantic.


      "Where is Maria?"


      Dominick, his father's most trusted, doted on Maria, almost to an unnerving degree, and Maria blossomed under his fawning like a lily. Dominick possessed a gentleness that Nicholas did not inherit. If she was not with him, she was nowhere at all.


      Nicholas shook his head at the cruel thoughts that reached up like tendrils of worry. Was she missing? Did Datum take her? She had to be here. She was probably just taking too long getting ready.


      "We can't dawdle," Volodi insisted, urgency lacing her words. "Datum afforded us time to depart, not to linger."


      "We don't leave without Maria!" Dominick snapped.


      Nicholas pushed past the other man and back into the ramshackle building, weathered concrete and broken glass windows boarded up time and time again. His sister was always causing problems, always causing him to second guess himself and his father.


      He reached her room breathless, only to see a small white figure through the small slat of the window, a virginal goddess following another, darker figure out onto the brown earthen plains that once were forests. Stumps like gravestones cast long shadows over the field. Nicholas knew where his father was going to die, upon the hill of his mother's corpse. The deity of the future mourned for a creature with none.


      He would die with the past.


      His sister tripped over a stump and his hand hit the window trying to help her. She suffered so much, paid for so many sins that weren't her own. His fingers pressed against cold glass, and then he fled.


      Adrenaline fueling his pursuit, Nicholas sprinted, his feet pounding on dusty, dead grass through the spectral remnants of a forest that had surrendered to a furious fire under the relentless orange sky. Their arrogant tampering with nature had metamorphosed this world into a living inferno and his father, the devil himself, was on the other end of it.


      Upon a desolate hill, surrounded by amputated trees, he found Maria. Her gaze was affixed on a grisly sight: their father, prostrate on their mother's unmarked grave, his lifeblood seeping away into the thirsty earth, claimed by a shard of glass. Stricken, Maria pressed her forehead against his chest, offering no tears, just a silence that reverberated with the echo of a divine mortality.


      Maria turned to her brother, her eyes wide and unfocused, and leaned her forehead against his chest. She did not cry, as the children of the Datum did not cry. Instead, they stood in silence, unable to move or think, witness to the corpse of a God. A man who, instead of controlling the future, took his own.


      Something moved off in the distance and Nicholas led Maria back some away from the edge. The two of them halfway between a tree and its neighbor waited. Two sets of footsteps crunched over dead grass, a long suffering sigh.


      "He's dead, director."


      "Find the department. They're here. The future is ours. Comb the planet if you must. It will not be controlled by a group of low performers."


      "And the body?"


      "Serve it as the irrefutable evidence of the Datum's assimilation into the Central Repository."


      Maria choked on her own sobs, tensing up. He held Maria to him, not in comfort, but in fear that they would take her next.


      Outside always smelled like death, the ash of trees burning somewhere as the wrath of a planet scorned attempted to eradicate all signs of life from its surface. But today, it smelled like metal, as he bit his own tongue in fury.


      "We have to leave," Maria murmured, her whisper barely overcoming the wind. "The company can never have this knowledge."


      ---------------



      Volodi had told him, and Dominick the night after they had left that she believed the Datum knew of the Last Mine, their project that had abruptly halted during the Re-Org when the planet was abandoned. The three of them agreed to take the Department there to see if they could find shelter.


      “Take caution,” she said quietly into her mug that night, unwilling to look at Nicholas “the Miners never cared for others.”


      A stark ribbon of asphalt cleaved the monotonous landscape, a single beacon of color beneath the apocalyptic sky. The world around him was a bleak tableau of rusted browns, a perpetual purgatory of lifelessness. Absent of life, decay was a concept relegated to history, the world trapped in an eternal winter. Fires had not only consumed life but also the nourishing rains. The storms that did venture were barren, wielding only abrasive winds that whirled up dust devils, galaxies of minuscule debris spiraling up, blooming, then dissolving into oblivion.


      As the day succumbed to the encroaching dusk, bathing the heavens in hues of merlot, an anomaly appeared in the horizon: an expanse of vibrant green. An undulating swell of verdant hills, whispering and retreating like living things.


      “It’s the ocean.” Dominick commented, not to him, but to Maria next to him.


      “The books say the ocean is blue.” Maria said simply, her eyes meeting Nicholas’


      “It was, once.”


      The truck stopped abruptly and Nicholas looked away from the ocean to see three of the Department running towards them, they were in the far back, the last to leave, the last to arrive. Dominick tensed up at the fear in Volodi’s eyes, even through the window and he opened the door, shouting for the driver to turn the vehicle off.


      He jumped out and Nicholas followed, leaving Maria in the truck, her hands on her lap.


      “What is this?” Dominick shouted and Volodi didn’t speak, instead she pointed behind her, a group of men wearing black and holding guns walked alongside the road, blending into one another until they seemed like a Hydra.


      Nicholas had never seen a gun, there was no need, but each man in this welcome group had at least three visible, a submachine gun, with spots of orange rust, on their chest, their hands on the grip, their fingers carefully balanced just above the trigger. They were tan and dirty, their hair cropped short in all the same fashion.


      “Well, look who we have here, Miss Volodi and her merry gang.” The front man spat on the ground and Nicholas curled his lip in disgust

      Volodi’s eyes were hard, and she looked away from everyone out onto the green roiling ocean. “Derrick.”


      “I thought you were promoted, but I guess you’ve come back to die with your old friends, eh?”


      “And some new ones.” A man from behind him piped up and pointed his gun at Nicholas.


      “The Company is back.” Nicholas said evenly. “We seek sanctuary.”


      “Bull.” Derrick said, his voice sounded as rough as the winds.


      “I’ve seen them.” Volodi offered “They mean to enforce the clause.”


      No one spoke for a beat.


      “And you come to us?”


      “Is there anyone better? There’s a reason you were left here.”


      “Aye, not the same reason they left your group though, and what can your men do? Can you even spend an hour under this sun, or do you wither and die like grass?”


      “You know our skill.” Dominick said, a pleading tone.


      Nicholas hated Dominick for how emotional he was.


      “If it’s a trade you want, we all are able.” Nicholas spoke, “What will it take-”


      “Mouthy thing, eh Volodi? Everyone works here, even that girl you’re hiding from us.” He pointed his gun at the car that Maria sat in.

      Nicholas grabbed the barrel, incensed. “Fine, we don’t have time to waste talking, bring us within your walls, show us your terms.”


      Derrick looked him over again with fresh eyes and then spat on the ground, pointing his thumb back over his shoulder. “Alright then, walk your walk, let’s talk your talk, scientists.”


      Despite being guests, they were marched in like prisoners, past rusted metal walls with Maria between himself and Dominick, Volodi led them, Derrick and herself in confidence with whispers and backwards glances.


      The abandoned mining machinery had been repurposed into a makeshift village, a shantytown. Machines were gutted and converted into dwellings, hollowed trucks adorned with crude curtains, slate rocks arranged to form tables around which mothers gathered. The entrance to the mine loomed ominously as they approached, the number of miners dwelling inside and around the scar in the earth estimated in hundreds. Derrick directed the team of scientists, a group of twenty, to a spot bathed in the slanting sunlight that poured into the mine. The cavernous expanse was tinged with the smell of salt, fish, ash, and dust. Men shuffled past, copper wires suspending their meager catch, grumbling about their dwindling luck and the worsening weather conditions.


      A man, bulkier than Derrick, sat down across from Nicholas. “These are the ones?”


      “Aye.” Derrick said. “Make your case, Volodi.”


      Volodi looked over at Nicholas and Derrick beside her and Nicholas was the first to speak up. “You fish?”


      “Keen observation, what’s next? We breathe?”


      “We can predict when the fish will come.” Nicholas said. “And the storms.”


      “Bull.” The bigger man said.


      “No,” Derrick held up his hand. “That was what you were always saying Volodi? That you always knew when to stay out of the mines?”


      “No one can see under the surface, if the fish bite, they bite, you can’t predict it, it’s not weather.” The bigger man waved them off like flies.

      “Give us a day,” Dominick reiterated “Give us a place to stay, and tomorrow you will know when to fish, not if there is fish.”


      Nicholas looked at his bag between his legs that contained his father’s probabilistic computer. They had only experimented on weather, something that was relatively static in nature. The formation of clouds, the density of rain.


      His father had experimented on himself, could Nicholas experiment on the futures of fish?


      Maria sat next to him later that night on a cot, her knees tucked under his chin, the whitish blue glow reflected in her eyes as he began to decrypt the decoherence around one of the fish that the men had brought, watching the probabilities of it’s many worlds splash across the screen.

      She pointed to a coordinate set. “In every world, they migrate away from the pollutants.”


      He rolled his eyes “We are looking for the most likely outcome to find out where they always will go, not what they will go away from.”

      “Remove the pollutant.” Maria said simply.


      “Maria, this isn’t play time, you don’t understand this system.”


      She shrugged, getting up from her cot, taking the small probabilistic computer with her. Frustrated with his sister, he took his report of where the fish would always migrate, the future of the school that this one had belonged to along with the weather to the leader of the tribe.


      Derrick looked upon it skeptically. “You better hope for a miracle in the morning.”


      “I don’t believe in miracles.”


      And yet when he stood next to Maria the next morning and the oceans were a clear blue, white capped waves broke upon the shore.


      She had altered the future, fish swam in large black schools underneath blue waters. Once you crack the decoherence, you collapse the possibilities into only one reality, leaving the matter no choice but to take the most probabilistic path, the one you’ve created.


      “Father knew, of course.” She said as the men on the fishing boat waved, their catches dancing in their hands like wind-kissed banners. “The Company did too, it’s how they controlled the weather, it’s how the weather went mad in the end.”


      “If they know, why are they still trying to kill us?”


      “They knew, but they don’t know.” She said, her bare feet padding down to the ocean. “Not the way you and I know.”


      “They know where we are then.” He followed Maria down to the water’s edge, the cold ocean had grey foam from the ash that mingled on the surface.“


      “They do.” She squatted down and waited for the water to greet her hand like a dog to its mistress.


      “You knew?”


      “You can’t fight the future.”


      “I disagree.”


      Maria gave him a secretive smile. “You can only change it.”


      ---------------



      After the first morning’s catch they were always allowed to dine with Derrick. It was in the midst of such a meal, three days later, that a figure, gaunt and towering as the local flora, dashed towards them with a scribbled parchment.


      He glanced at the coordinates that were hastily written down on the paper and looked over at Nicholas and Dominick. “It is as you said, The Company comes. Alex has seen them.”


      “Only fifty at the most, but armed.” Alex nodded like a bobblehead as he spoke.


      “Let’s roll out the welcome wagon then, eh? Come along boys, I’ll show you how we greet our former employer.” Derrick stood up from the table, grabbing his tin can cup full of algae wine (something Nicholas tried only once and regretted the next day) before heading back outside in the late afternoon sun.


      The afternoon star painted a halo of gold upon the oxidized, metallic edifice near the entrance barrier. The door, unsteady on its hinges, revealed the mechanical hum of active drives within. A lone figure, clad in utilitarian trousers and a bandana, his vision enhanced by spectacles, lounged atop a repurposed oil drum. Before him, a motley assortment of screens, a collage of various dimensions, their disjointed image a testament to their origin, myriad wires crisscrossing the setup. A curious flag adorned one screen, it’s cheerful yet morbid emblem of a smiling face atop crossbones attached to a nearby pane.


      “This is Pete.”


      Pete gave them a withering glare.


      “Pete is our machinist who decided machines had a better home with us.”


      “Aye.”


      “Pete made sure they stayed in our Department after the Re-Org.”


      “Machines just need a little convincing.” He gestured to the screens. “And a little help from my friends.” He banged on the nearest monitor and it blurred before coming back into focus.


      He handed the scrap of paper to Pete. “Here’s the location of some others that need convincing.”


      “I am a bit of a micro-manager.” He grinned, his teeth were yellowing and his eyes cut to the screen. “Volodi will be happy to get her hands back into it.”


      Dominick’s eyes widened. “So, this is what she did?”


      “Aye, she was a machinist before the promotions. Warlike as ever.” Derrick grinned.


      Pete, slender yet strong like a desert plant, brushed the accumulated dirt from his attire and stretched. “She’s out giving new orders to the dogs. Wait ‘til the company sees what we did with them.”


      The dogs in question were machines, double jointed spidery metallic things with no head, only a body, and strapped atop it was a floodlight, and atop that, a gun that pivoted and whirred as they ran around like chickens at feeding time.


      Volodi was twisting a screwdriver, sealing up the panel of one in a long line of them. “Seeing eye dogs,” She explained patting one. “For the mines, but they can do a lot more if you know how to train ‘em”


      “It’s a hack, but it’ll do.” Derrick scoffed.


      “What we do is hacking.” Pete replied, waving as the dogs lined up, gears whirring and spinning as their guns, and attention turned towards the group. Nicholas backed away instinctually. “You’ll be thanking us later.”


      Father had told him that Companies never used to be empires, but as Nicholas watched Pete and Volodi herd the dogs out the corrugated metal walls as the star dipped below the sea, he could not fathom it. He was born to The Company, part of the Department that his father ran, and his father ran before that. If they had not been laid off during the Re-Org, then Nicholas would have taken his place.


      Now he, and the rest of the Departments left on this planet would face death for their past employment. He wanted to spare them, spare Volodi, Pete, and Maria the slaughter. He sat on top of the roof of one of the diggers, the yellow paint flaking off in long curling strips, and watched the war’s probabilities on the white screen, black text telling him all the outcomes, all the worlds that would spin out of this conflict.


      Maria had told him that the way to stop pollution was to remove the futures where it existed. Could he do the same with the war?


      “What does your crystal ball say?” Derrick asked, handing him a glass of their awful wine. “What’s the future?”


      “Probabilities for war are difficult. There are many futures.” Nicholas was uncomfortable with Derrick even now, a friend out of necessity, not out of compassion.


      “I don’t need numbers to know that they’re gonna lose.” Derrick said before taking a sip. “It’s not about you, or your crystal ball, it’s about showing The Company we’re not just resources. People are not minerals, you can’t just use them up and toss them aside when you’re done.”


      Numbers flashed on the screen and Nicholas looked over at Derrick. “You’ll win.”


      “We’ll win, no numbers involved.”


      As Maria had taught him, as his father had taught Maria, he began to discard the worlds in which they lost, and each number, each future, became a little more probable until there was only one left, only one future for those that had been left on this planet.


      They would win.


      Nicholas had made sure of it.


      ---------------



      Nobody exists in all futures, Nicholas rationalized four days later, walking with Derrick and Dominick through the remnants of a battlefield. The mechanical hounds nimbly circumvented the bodies sprawled on the barren grasslands near their encampment, their weaponry surveying the landscape like ominous mechanical eyes. The rhythmic hissing of ocean waves against the shore echoed as they treaded towards the spaceship that Volodi and Pete had discovered.


      Dominick would pause every few bodies and crouch down to check on the corpses, to prove they were truly dead to himself. Derrick was far beyond that, holding a submachine gun in his hands, his brown eyes cutting across the killing fields. Nicholas and Derrick both knew that by the time the battle dawned, that the future had been warped in their favour, by both foresight and Nicholas.


      A spaceship, black and gleaming, loomed on a hillock like a bird ready for flight. Pete, brandishing a screwdriver, could be seen waving towards them. Next to him, Volodi smacked him playfully, pointing to something behind the two of them.


      At the fourth body, Derrick became annoyed. “They’re dead, and if they weren’t dead, you wouldn’t be able to walk around checking on them.”

      Dominick did not move from the mangled corpse even as a dog nudged it with its spiky legs, eager to please the humans that it was programmed to let live. “They didn’t fight.”


      “They were a contingent of fifty or so men up against over two hundred of the dogs, even if we had sent out our smallest contingent they were no match, it’s better that Pete got to them before I did. I am not as kind to my old employer.” Derrick said as they hiked up a hill, but he sent a knowing glance backwards to Nicholas.


      “We need to see if the ship is in order, Dominick, to get Maria off the planet. If it was only a small group, a bigger group will come.” Nicholas soothed.


      Dominick’s eyes narrowed at Maria’s name and he stood up, wiping the blood from checking the body onto his own hands. Nicholas watched the blood streak his linens and averted his eyes, every time he saw blood, every time he saw a corpse, he saw his father.


      “I suppose.”


      Volodi looked pleased to see them as Pete dragged out another body down the ramp and out of the spaceship, dogs moved hither and thither inside the gleaming structure. Wealth, Nicholas thought, was newness. Each surface of the ship was clean and spotless, he could see his reflection in every screen, in every control panel. They stood now at the abandoned helm, looking out over the barren landscape, the mines were so small now they looked like toys.


      “It’s a newer model.” Volodi said, tapping the panel of a thousand and one buttons in front of them, “but it’s all the same parts. Pete found plans for another planet in here, not but a week’s travel to the next system where it seems this was built.”


      “A new planet.” Derrick said, reverence in his voice. “A new start.”


      "And no fish," Pete added, approaching the group, his attire bearing the marks of toil and battle. "We could depart by nightfall. It has room for hundreds. The schematics are complex; it might take me a week to comprehend it fully. We can begin loading and depart whenever you're ready, Captain."


      Derrick offered his hand to Nicholas, foisting the title to him. “And our captain.”


      Nicholas didn’t move, the gravity was not missed. “You are the captain, Derrick, I’ll be here, with the numbers.”


      “If that’s how you want to play it.” Derrick said with a smile, and the two men shook on it before Derrick turned back to the large windows before them. “Captain Derrick.”


      Nicholas realized that Derrick knew now how they had won the war. Nicholas had changed the future for them.


      "Dominick, fetch Maria. I want her to choose her quarters first," Nicholas directed, as Volodi and Pete left to attend to the machinery.


      Dominick acknowledged the instruction, hurrying off to locate Maria. When it concerned Maria, no task was left unfinished. His transparent fascination was almost distasteful.


      As the two men stood at the helm of the ship, Derrick waited a beat before speaking, not turning to face Nicholas. "It's peculiar, Nicholas. Since your arrival at our mining camp, our circumstances have consistently improved. The algae, the fish, the weather, and now this victory. I now comprehend why The Company covets you."


      Nicholas hummed a non-committal response.


      "Duty by my people, and I will offer you the same, Nicholas," Derrick pledged, extending his hand once more. "What do your numbers say about that?"

      "No numbers involved," Nicholas affirmed, reciprocating the handshake. "We'll carve a future for us all."


      Maria was ensconced in a modestly-sized room near the spaceship's helm. Despite being offered the captain's quarters, she had chosen this room.


      They sat at a table, indulging in a spread of food fetched from the galley.


      "And you declined the captain's role, why?" Maria queried after Nicholas recounted the events on their arrival at the spaceship.


      Maria's naivete dawned upon him, and he realized how shielded she had been from the harsh realities of life.


      "No position is as precarious as that of a leader, Maria. Remember that."


      She nodded in understanding, continuing her meal. The overhead light glinted off her silver fork. "What now?"


      "I promised Father to find a habitable planet for you, and Volodi claims there is one – the planet where this ship was constructed."


      "And The Company?"


      "That's a concern for the future."


      "Nicholas, the future is ours." She warned.


      "Yes."


      "Therefore, the problem is ours too."


      Nicholas sighed. "Then can it be a problem for our future selves? I just want to eat."


      Her laughter echoed through the room.



      ==========

      = Act II =

      ==========



      He missed the winds of home. In space there was no weather to manipulate, or to hound them. Instead it was a vast ocean of stillness, glittering stars that came no closer or further, a backdrop with which he had become familiar. This meeting, like many meetings the past week was elongated by the indecision of its members. Half the room, the scientists of his department, the other half, the warriors of the mine.


      The planet that they sought, Theta Draco 6 (TD-6) spun lazily in a hologram in the center of a long metal table, lush green forests carpeted the surface, dazzling blue oceans, and minerals and natural resources that would net the Company trillions. The Company that was currently stationed on this planet had just begun work one rotation ago, not more than 400 revolutions.


      “They are not fully entrenched, it is a new mine, you can tell by how shallow it is. How clean it is.” Derrick said, spinning it again with his fingers. “What is our outcome?”


      Dominick straightened up in his chair. “We don’t-”


      “It is favorable.” Nicholas replied, and Dominick cut him a glare.


      They all knew what that meant. They would be forced to alter the future, something that was a point of contention within the ranks of the Department of Data. However, this planet is what his father would have wanted for Maria, what Nicholas wanted for Maria. A garden of Eden for his sister to grow up in, to grow old in.


      “Then it is settled, Volodi says we will be in orbit in no more than 15 revolutions, you have until then to bring things into order. The manifests said they are transporting water. They will not give it up easily. Water is rare, we all are aware.”


      There was a murmur as the men discussed water.


      “It will be done.” Nicholas promised.


      The miners filtered out one by one, but with one glare from Dominick the scientists stayed, they all were lined up on either side of Nicholas, he could see their reflection in the glass windows on the far side. They made a mockery of the Last Supper, he wondered if this was their revolt.

      “We agreed that we would not use the collapse anymore,” Dominick said. “It’s unethical.”


      “Is leaving us to die on the hollow corpse of a planet ethical?” He shot back. “We are at war for our lives, you know this, as we all know it. We do not wield guns, we wield the future. The company took everything from us, they took our planet, and now they will take this planet from the people that live here. Will we stand idly by and do nothing? Will you watch them carve out the planet for water to be bottled and sold to those who live galaxies away?”


      “It’s a slippery slope!” Dominick shot back.


      “And we are at the bottom! I want to be somewhere other than in the mud of the swamps or knee deep in polluted algae!”


      Volodi reached out and put her hand on Dominick’s, the rest of the Department fell silent, their eyes downcast. “We will do it.” She said, her eyes cutting to Nicholas. “Because we must, but we will stop, after there is peace.”


      “I want peace, we all want peace.” Nicholas protested. “But we cannot be at peace if we are on the run.”


      There was a murmur of agreement.


      Dominick gritted his teeth beside Nicholas. “As you wish.”


      “You, above all, Dominick, know why we are doing this.”


      Dominick’s eyes held treason, but his mouth did not move.


      “Enough, we are decided.” Volodi said and turned to the man on her right, mid forties, eager to please his superior: Rodion. “Tell us what you know.”


      The planet flickered from the hologram in the middle to a flat white screen and statistics began to populate. “There are twenty thousand occupying under Craig Richt, VP of Water Solutions.” Rodion began.


      Dominick made a hissing sound and looked back at Nicholas. “This is not weather, and it is not algae.”


      “It is war.” Nicholas said, “It is always war, and there will always be a way for us to win, and a way for us to lose.”


      “What do we target?” Rodion said, hopeful, eager, his blue eyes reflected the hologram, the statistics on the screen.


      “I must think on it, we all must,” Nicholas said before looking over at Dominick. “Any thoughts?”


      “None.”


      Dominick withheld advice, and Nicholas saw this as treachery, yet he bit his tongue. Dominick was no mastermind; he was cunning, but Nicholas was the Datum's sole heir. Probabilities suggested he already possessed the solution.


      Nicholas excused himself from the meeting, seeking solace in his sister's company, who was enjoying herself in the artificial forests of the kitchen gardens. Overhead hung arrays of blindingly bright lights, illuminating rows of lettuce and plump tomatoes. The sound of her voice was a soothing birdsong echoing through the immense warehouse.


      Maria stood alongside the cooks over vats of algae. They were clad in department uniform, greys and blacks, while the cooks wore stark white attire that matched the walls. Their hair was tied back as they conversed and gestured towards Maria, enlightening her with their knowledge.

      "Brother," she greeted him warmly, "You've found me at last."


      "You're always in the same place," He chuckled, taking her hand, "And the cooks are very patient with you."


      "The lady was explaining the rot in our seas. We brought it upon ourselves and paid the price," explained the nearest cook, shaking his head. "Now, we grow algae because we miss it!" His laughter echoed through the room, joined by a chorus of his coworkers.


      Nicholas' gaze moved to the vats of green algae. The source. The genesis. Maria's words about the seas resonated with him. The rot, the algae, their past mistakes, and the future they could alter; it was all interconnected. Their future was a puzzle that only they could piece together. A new war loomed, but with it came the promise of a new dawn, a new Eden for his sister. The thought of it ignited a newfound determination in Nicholas, as his gaze returned to the algae, that unsightly remnant of their past and perhaps the key to their future.


      ---------------


      Nicholas' fingers traced an anxious rhythm upon the cold expanse of the desk, Dominick at his side like a shadow's lengthening stretch. The theatre of war, they realized, need not be a blood-drenched battlefield; the realms of thought and leadership could bear more severe scars. With an enemy deprived of its central nerve, as a body would falter without its head, they could win this war in the silence of strategy. It was not unlike an algae bloom, bereft of the pollutants it craved, unable to expand its green grip. In the same vein, The Company would find itself impotent without its guiding hand, its VP of Water Solutions.


      A conundrum dwelled in the heart of their design. A future without the VP in the picture was enticing, yet it would be a fleeting victory. The absence of leadership would surely beckon a successor. The battleground had to shift inward - to the psyche of the VP himself. TD-6 would not crumble through external force, but from the self-destructive whims of its leader, carefully manipulated by unseen hands. As a painter shapes his canvas, Nicholas would mold the VP's thoughts, converging countless potential futures into one - a spiral into madness.


      Beneath the cruel orchestrations of this plan, Craig Richt's psyche began to wither. His decisions, once sharp and precise, began to scatter like leaves in the wind. A halt here, a sacking there, funds inexplicably vanishing - the company under his charge seemed to stagger like a drunken titan. It was an insidious malady, concealed beneath the veneer of corporate bureaucracy, lurking unseen for months, perhaps years. The company, vast and intricate, mirrored the complexity of the VP's mind - both now falling into a disarray of their own making.


      A week into this dark dance of manipulation, the stark reality of their plan's success began to manifest. As Derrick and the miners reconvened within the conference bridge, tension thick as a winter fog, a scout named Alex emerged from the shadows. His uniform, black as a moonless night, seemed to consume the feeble light around him. Beside him was Pete, a grim echo of the scout's demeanor.


      “Tell ‘em.” Pete said with a shooing of his hands.


      “We’ve intercepted emergency communications.” Alex said, his voice shaking as he spoke to the larger group. “And stopped them.”

      Dominick gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles white.


      “Read it.”


      “Looking for resources, coup is at hand. Need direction from higher ups before we proceed. Work has halted. VP compromised. Coordinates at-”


      “Enough.” Derrick waved. “Get to the end.”


      “Planet is facing bankruptcy.”


      There was a hushed awe.


      Their plan had worked.


      “Bankruptcy means every man for himself.” Derrick said, pounding his fist on the table in glee. “We are two days out from the surface according to Pete here, we take it during the bank run.”


      “Before they can re-org.” A man to the left of Derrick said, an elder of the mining department. “Before they can re-order.”


      “Ah, boys, I think we’ll do a bit of re-organising ourselves. Nicholas, Dominick, you’ll be with me. Ever held a gun?”


      Nicholas felt vaguely sick at the mention. “No.”


      “Yes,” Dominick followed.


      “Good man.”


      ---------------



      Guns were cold, he thought as he sat next to Derrick in the exit bay, a few miners, twice as big as he was, sat around him and Dominick. Nicholas held a gun, a gun that still had rust from his home planet etched into it as a marker of where it was to be returned to. He could feel the gravity of the planet, of the moment, as they ascended through the atmosphere, and yet despite this, despite the blood rushing to his ears and away from his fingers, he heard nothing but the whir of the engines. The ceaseless white noise of the space ship.


      He tried to overcome his fear by remembering he was doing this for Maria, for his sister that was so desperate for greenery that she spent all her time with lettuce in artificial forests, and with holograms of trees when she had lived her entire life without seeing one.

      He remembered when the planet had trees, before they had killed them all.


      He owed it to her. He owed it to his father.


      “As much as I love space, I love action more.” Derrick said elbowing him, a frisson of fear crept up from his toes as he bumped the gun. “She’ll do you right, Nicholas. That gun has given me a lot. It’s given me this, after all.”


      Nicholas had given Derrick all this.


      He wanted a war where he didn’t have to fight, but as he stared into the hard eyes of Dominick, he wondered what atrocities they would commit to take this planet back from those that saw it as a resource, as they saw his father as only a resource.


      A sudden jolt reverberated through the ship as the reverse thrusters engaged, decelerating their descent. Curling his toes within his shoes, enveloped in the fabric once worn by his father, Nicholas could hear a hiss preceding the eventual landing—two resounding thuds resonated as they made contact with the ground.


      Their arrival, however, elicited a somewhat anticlimactic reception—a sea of emerald trees welcomed them. Towering forests, their verdant majesty reminiscent of tent poles supporting a sky of deep azure. Three moons orbited the planet at varying intervals within this lofty expanse. Nestled amidst the colossal arboreal sentinels lay a gleaming edifice of glass, a perverse mockery of nature, reminiscent of the time when his father had first brought them to the world they eventually ravaged. It symbolized the semblance of what once existed, before the greed of man had manipulated the weather to insanity and ravaged all in its dominion.


      Derrick swaggered down the ramp, treading upon mossy grass, traversing the gardens toward a pristine white marble walkway. One hand poised near the trigger, he grinned mischievously before cupping his hands around his mouth, bellowing back at his comrades, "Where, pray tell, is the reception we were promised?"


      Miners brushed past Nicholas as they eagerly flooded down the ramp, armed and dangerous in mock military precision. The one thing Nicholas could count on was that the Miners were looking for battle, whether there was one to be had or not. They had fashioned themselves into a militia seeking a war to belong to, and Nicholas had brought one to them.


      This was, Nicholas thought as he took his first careful steps on TD-6, the reason Derrick adored him, not because they had won the wars, but because there were now wars to fight.


      Yet, despite the fervor for violence that emanated from their ranks, there was no immediate confrontation awaiting them. Instead, they strolled past stone benches and meticulously sculpted topiaries, following the clean-cut pathways that led to the entrance of the towering glass skyscraper, dwarfing both Nicholas and Derrick in its sheer grandeur.


      Gunfire rang out and there were screams scattered about inside, and the windows cracked, then shattered.


      The Miners had brought their type of hospitality to the company. Dominick gave Nicholas a warning look before he opened the door and they were blasted with a wall of sound. Derrick, an imposing giant, had grabbed a woman in a tight business suit by her clothing and smiled upon her like a cat to his prey.


      “Where is Craig?”


      “Please!” She screamed, her hands coming over his, trying to rip herself away from him. “Please no!”


      “Where’s Craig? What floor!”


      “Twenty six!”


      “Good girl.” He spat and looked over his shoulder at Nicholas. “Let’s go, lad, we have a meeting.”


      Nicholas nodded, fear had wrapped around his throat, he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Is this what he wanted? Is this what had to be done to give Maria a planet? How many men would die this time? He had wanted a bloodless war.


      Wants were so quickly displaced by needs.


      “Round ‘em up, Pete, if they don’t want us to beat ‘em, they better join us.” Dominick said with a grin.


      Pete gave a thumbs up, and opened up the glass doors at the front of the building, ushering in his army of robotic dogs, single file, and after they had all crowded in the vast marble lobby there was silence.


      The receptionist was sobbing behind her desk, nodding as she was given terms of the Miners to join the ranks.


      Then the dogs moved, noiseless except for their motors, whirring and clicking as they began to hunt down others. Their metal feet clicked on marble, the only warning that you were about to be rounded up by machines that had been hacked from guides into war dogs.


      From the point of view of the elevators, Nicholas could see what The Company had come to this planet for, pallets of clear bottled water, wrapped up and stacked nicely in the back of the building at the shipping bay.


      Now, what the company so sought to mine, was being ignored as the men working the shipping bays were discussing with military men, from one worker to another, from one slave to another. Despite the Miners looking for war, it seemed as if no one on the surface wanted to fight.

      A series of melodic chimes, and the elevator arrived. Derrick stepped in, his hands resting on his gun, and Nicholas followed into the gold vessel, which closed with a snick and yanked them upwards.


      The first thing that Nicholas noticed about the 26th floor is that it was red. Red carpets, gold walls, the halls of avarice and greed were cloaked in a mockery of royalty. They were plush under his feet and it smelled like ozone, that bitter vacancy of anything but cleanliness. His ears rang in the absence of sound.


      Derrick chuckled as he ran his fingers along the wall. “How many men died for these walls? How many miners gave their lives to make decoration?”

      Nicholas looked over at Derrick curiously. “The Company sees us all as resources, miners and scientists alike, we’re expendable.”


      “But not him. Thousands of miners are worth one of him.” Derrick said tapping on a nameplate, gold with black letters. “Craig Richt, VP.”


      Nicholas felt his heart beat faster, vengeance on his tongue. “How lucky he is that thousands came to meet him today then.”


      “Good lad.” Derrick said with a feral grin as he grasped the gold door knob, and turned it, painfully slow, pressing open the deep mahogany door.

      The door hadn’t moved but a few inches before there was a scream from a man inside, and then a choked sob. Nicholas’ brow furrowed, and the two men entered.


      The office was as large as the bridge of the ship, and possibly half the floor of the skyscraper was dedicated to him, luxurious leather seats, towering trees in pots, and at the back wall, below a painting of sunflowers, was a large wooden desk, and a spinning black chair.

      On the desk was a white screen, he could see the reflection of it in Derrick’s eyes.


      “Nice place.” Derrick said, moving around the room, but Nicholas ventured towards the screen, trying to see what the VP was doing before he fled.

      Instead, as he rounded the desk to get a better look at the screen, he found the very man he thought had fled. Craig was a portly, balding, middle aged man, with his knees tucked under his chin.


      Bloodshot eyes met his and before Nicholas could grab his gun, Craig spoke.


      “It’s you!”


      He crawled out from under his desk and lunged at Nicholas, but Nicholas, faster, stepped backwards into the painting of sunflowers that loomed over him.


      Craig continued, raving like a madman “Every time it’s you, I see you in my dreams, I taste you on my tongue, it is you. You are my every thought. Nicholas. Nicholas!”


      Derrick was faster and grabbed the back of Craig’s shirt, yanking him away from Nicholas and pointing the gun at his head. “Nice to meet you Craig.”


      “I’ve seen you!” Craig babbled, his eyes darting around the room “I see you everywhere!”


      What had he done? Could altering Craig’s future somehow introduce Nicholas into Craig’s memories? Nicholas had insisted on altering his thoughts, not wanting to have another ethics debate with Dominick. But had he somehow brought himself into some kind of entanglement with Craig’s consciousness?


      “Do you want me to kill him, or are you not done playing with him?” Derrick asked, pressing the gun into his head which made Craig scream like a stuck pig, squirming to get away, panting and sweating.


      Nicholas shook his head, trying to get out of his own thoughts.


      Craig continued to rave, “There is more, my boss knows it’s you. I know your name Nicholas Feodor. I knew your father. I had him killed.” He laughed, trying to ease the tension between the three men, but it came out maniacally. “I’ll have your whole family killed.”


      “Why?” Nicholas asked “Why couldn’t you have left us alone on that planet?”


      Craig, seeing Nicholas as a way to get out of the situation, grabbed at the boy, his eyes wild and unfocused, but his words clear. “He was in the way of progress. He wouldn’t assimilate his skills into the system. He said it needed a human touch. You can’t fight progress. My boss will be here, and his army will wipe out you and your little group faster than your father’s blood cooled on that junk planet.”


      He began to laugh again, his mind gone. He had been driven mad by Nicholas, and his words were that of a madman. Nicholas had to be reasonable. Nothing he would say would come to pass. Nicholas could easily make sure of it.


      Nicholas wrenched away from him, disgusted with Craig, disgusted with the sweat from the man who had killed his father cooling on his skin.


      There was a moment of silence, when Nicholas saw a flicker of hope enter Craig's eyes, thinking that he had gained the upper hand.


      Nicholas smiled, the same way Derrick smiled. “Kill him, and let his boss come. Let all of his bosses come. The carpet is red, it won’t stain.”


      The screen still had help communications written out, with error codes in red, red like the carpet, red like the blood cooling at Nicholas’ feet.


      Error 550: Sender Unavailable.


      An ominous undercurrent tugged at Nicholas's consciousness. Meddling with the future carried a weighty toll, a debt yet unpaid. The transient peace they now savored was but an ephemeral reprieve, for the cosmic scales demanded equilibrium. Consequences, those insatiable arbiters of balance, loomed on the horizon, poised to collect their dues. His father had paid the price of an entire planet when he had meddled with weather, now what price would Nicholas pay for meddling in the affairs of men?


      The future he had rewritten, a gift for Maria, would soon confront the haunting echoes of the past. Peace was always out of his grasp. The cost of their transgressions would be tallied, and Nicholas knew that he, the manipulator of the futures of men, must bear the weight of his actions, for no one escapes the clutches of time unscathed.


      How much would his promise to his father cost?


      How much could he afford to pay?




      ============

      = Act III: =

      ============


      As Maria reveled in the scorching embrace of the midday sun, luxuriating in its radiance like a contented plant amidst the verdant splendor that cascaded over the balcony railings, Nicholas pondered the current state of affairs. They now resided within the very abode of the once-mad Vice President, Craig Richt. Though the thought briefly troubled him, distractions abounded in times of peace, diverting his attention from such concerns.


      TD-6, with its untarnished virginity, unfolded before their eyes in breathtaking beauty. A pristine planet blessed with predictably serene weather, untouched by manipulative hands of the Department of Data, it offered abundance to the ten thousand resilient souls who had chosen to remain even after the labor ceased. Under the guidance of Captain Derrick, a new order began to take shape, akin to a carefully constructed façade of society that masked their true intentions.


      Despite so much change happening at the very upper echelons of the planet, not much else needed to be changed for those who reported up to Captain Derrick and Nicholas. Dominick took much of the day to day work from Nicholas, and Nicholas spent his free time as he wanted: learning, exploring, and tinkering with time.


      He was a glorified weather reporter and it was when he was getting ready to meet with Derrick on a sunny summer day that Dominick met him at his door.


      Dominick always was hanging about, Maria would see him briefly for lunch every few days, and told Nicholas that he was being overprotective, but Nicholas couldn't shake the disquieting feeling that Dominick's unwavering presence held deeper, unspoken motivations—a ravenous desire that lusted after his little sister.


      “We need to talk.” He said, and Nicholas eyed a piece of paper in his hand.


      Ah, so the Department finally knew that peace was a lie.


      Nicholas stepped aside, knowing that when Dominick was in a mood, it was best to let him bluster about before he came to the conclusion they all had.


      He tossed down a stack of papers with maps and coordinates printed in black and white. “They’re coming.”


      Nicholas picked up the top sheet to see eight arrows representing star ships on the outskirts of the star system. He had known this as well, he had seen the future he chose when he had decrypted it.


      When he had killed Craig Richt in the main building months ago.


      “An army, then.” He said, handing the paper back to Dominick. “How predictable.”


      “You lied.” Dominick hissed, his eyes moving to Maria who was still outside the large windows behind him. “You said we work for peace.”


      “You know, as well as I do, I work for what is best for our people, and for Maria. There will always be war until there are those who do not wish to challenge us.” Nicholas said, leaning back in his chair, trying to portray the calm of a leader when instead he felt a storm brewing inside.


      Would Dominick revolt because of this?


      His next words were unexpected.


      Dominick looked down at the papers before them. “You wish to destroy The Company.”


      Indeed, Captain Derrick had first planted this seed of destruction within Nicholas's mind, in the very same room where Craig Richt's cooling body lay. Nicholas couldn't help but concur. How many more lives would The Company cast aside? How many more worlds would be ravaged by their insatiable greed? The war they waged was just, a righteous struggle to emancipate those forsaken in the wake of corporate tyranny. It was a war they had unwittingly trapped themselves within, driven by Nicholas's unyielding desire to fulfill his father's final wish—a sanctuary, a planet where Maria could truly find solace.


      “Is that not peace? Is that not the future our people deserve? We waged war for Maria, doe she not deserve some peace?”


      The daughter of the Datum was perhaps the most coveted, and most revered, due to Dominick’s unhealthy obsession with her. Their department called him the Datum, but their true allegiance lied with Maria, it was obvious to all that looked.


      It was what Nicholas had wanted, after all. A planet and a people who saw his sister as their goddess, as their idol, and his sister, none the wiser to their adulation.


      Dominick capitulated under the weight of expectations. “It is.”


      “Then you will bring peace to her.”


      His shoulders sagged, knowing what it cost to bring peace. “We will.”


      A profound silence settled between them, pregnant with the realization that their pursuit of peace would exact a toll far greater than they could fathom. To dismantle The Company, to forge a path towards a future free from exploitation, required a level of intimacy with destruction that Nicholas found both disquieting and necessary. It was a dance of manipulation, plucking the strings of fate to orchestrate the collapse of their oppressors, leaving them with no choice but to succumb to the inevitable.


      Dominick recoiled from this intimacy, yearning for a more detached approach, one where the Miners bore the burden of delivering the final blows. Nicholas, however, craved control, the precise hand of a conductor shaping the symphony of their fate. It forced him to tread carefully, to ensure that their actions struck with precision, allowing their adversaries to witness the human faces that shaped their impending doom.


      The momentary tranquility they had savored was but a fleeting respite—a mere interval between the acts of an unfinished drama. Summer, with its languid warmth and abundant harvest, would soon yield to the chill of winter. For summer would not be cherished without the threat of its inevitable counterpart.


      Leaving Dominick to engage in conversation with Maria, who marveled at the native plants that adorned the back balcony, Nicholas departed in search of Captain Derrick. Now, it was time for Nicholas to face the debts he owed, as the ledger of time demanded its due.


      -------------


      “So the word has finally reached your ears," Derrick remarked from the control tower, a panopticon constructed by Pete, an intricate network woven from weather satellites and other orbiting machines. The room boasted a far more sophisticated setup than the original shed Pete had once run, but the iconic smiling face and crossbones flag still fluttered defiantly, a symbol of their roots as humble robot hackers on the dead planet.


      “I wondered how long it would take.” Nicholas said sitting down next to Pete who was typing away madly on a computer.


      “How long would it take for them to arrive? Or how long would it take for the news to reach you?”


      Nicholas waved it off “Neither? Both?”


      Derrick snorted in laughter. “What d’we got Pete?”


      “I have to say one thing, once you’re in, you’re in, security here is a joke.” He waved at the array of CCTV monitors observing various facilities.

      “One password to rule them all, it looks like.”


      “So it worked?” Nicholas asked.


      “Aye, as you said.” Pete grinned.


      Nicholas had forced the root password reset to something that Pete and Derrick had decided would be easiest for them to remember, and now they sat as superusers on The Company’s expansive computer systems.


      “We’ve been tracking these guys for awhile, but you don’t seem surprised.” Pete continued, tapping on one screen with his finger, six small dots were moving slowly against a sea of stars. “Derrick says we should wait.”


      “My thought is if they get here and they die, then they’d be discouraged from returning.”


      “Intel has it that the Company president is on this one.” Pete said, moving his finger only a few centimeters to the right. “To reassure the board that the company will deal with rebels post-haste.”


      Nicholas reclined in his chair, acutely aware of the risks involved in allowing them to land on the planet's surface. Yet, he could see the strategic reasoning behind Derrick's approach. Could he manipulate the unfolding events on such a grand scale? Craig had descended into madness over the course of weeks. This time, the path to destruction had to be carefully calculated, a meticulously executed plan that would exact a heavy toll and claim many lives. A military force was not the same as a Department; it was bound not by monetary interests, but by duty.


      “Understood.”


      Derrick grinned. “See, Pete? I knew he would do it.”


      “Volodi said he was a soft boy, but I see he is now a man.” Pete said and offered his hand to Nicholas. “I was wrong about you.”


      Nicholas shook his hand. “War has a way of making you grow up fast.”


      The three men sat in companionable silence, before Derrick spoke up. “And your Department? What will they say about it?”


      Nicholas grimaced, restraining his discontent. Betraying his father's Department would serve no purpose. They remained loyal, not to him personally, but to the ideals of peace and Maria—the embodiment of their aspirations. "They are scientists, Derrick. They understand the necessity of war."


      “Because there is no other option.”


      "I have become adept at ensuring there are no alternatives," Nicholas stated, a hint of a smile playing upon his lips. "But in this case, there truly are none, as long as The Company exists there can be no peace."


      “Time to get a promotion then.” Derrick said, grabbing a glass full of the algae wine that the Miners still favored. “From pesky rebels, to untouchable empire.”


      “Ah, but they need to touch the fire to learn it is hot.” Pete said. “A child’s gotta learn.”


      “What a lesson.” Nicholas said, still unsure how he would teach it.


      Derrick must have picked up on his confusion.


      “I’ll have Volodi deliver some more intel over the coming days from Pete, you’ll figure it out, we have a few weeks yet, there is a Plan B.”


      The displays flickered to plan B, showing the water warehouse filled with dogs of war, all lined up in neat rows like toy soldiers.


      Why did Plan B feel like defeat?


      Nicholas shook his head. “I alone will determine our future, it is mine.”


      “I know it lad, but the world is ours, even if the future is yours.”


      “Why do they struggle so much?” Pete said with a sigh. “When the outcome is already determined?”


      "Greed," Nicholas answered, his voice filled with a mixture of disdain and understanding. "The allure of the future outweighs a thousand planets."


      Derrick's tone turned solemn as he interjected, "Just as Craig's life was deemed worth a thousand miners, in their eyes."


      “Greed makes even the most logical man into an animal. They cannot see the obvious anymore.” Nicholas shrugged.


      “The more for us.” Pete said. “Let them die as animals do, we cannot educate those white collar savages.”


      Derrick and Pete shared a smile and Derrick hurriedly grabbed a glass for Nicholas as the three toasted to peace.


      They understood that the world they had envisioned, forged through the crucible of war, required them to navigate treacherous waters. Yet, the prospect of consequences, both seen and unseen, lingered in Nicholas's thoughts. How could he create a world in which the entire army perished as soon as they arrived?



      ----------------


      Volodi presented the solution a few days later, as they pored over the blueprints of the impending army that would attempt to retake the planet. Their plan involved modifying the ship's exhaust to react negatively with the planet's atmosphere. As the army disembarked, they would unknowingly succumb to the deadly gas, suffocating like trapped flies around their vessel.


      Dominick recoiled, his hands shaking, causing the scattered papers and the intricate probabilities they represented to dance in disarray. "You would condemn thousands of men to their own biology?" he protested, his voice quivering with a mix of disbelief and horror.


      Volodi's response was swift and sharp. "Is it preferable for them to shoot us down with their guns? Be reasonable, Dominick! In war, choices must be made."


      Nicholas attempted to diffuse the situation. “This is the only wa-”


      “You will pollute the atmosphere!” Dominick raged


      “It is only Carbon Monoxide, after four to six hours it will react into Dioxide and the trees will take care of what is left!” Volodi snapped, not used to being argued with by Dominick who was usually affable. “We are at war, it is time to look at solutions to war.”


      “We are monsters if we kill thousands from our screens!” Dominick raged.


      “Ah yes, let’s go out there, a bunch of scientists who have only ever held guns to pose for photos with the leaders of this planet and wait until the real monsters shoot us so full of holes they will use our corpses as air filters on their ships.” Volodi snapped “This is a peaceful death, more than they deserve. Nicholas, make him see reason!”


      Nicholas looked at Dominick who was pressed up against the wall like a caged animal, the rest of the Department heads all sat calmly waiting for Nicholas to okay the death of an army by manipulating the future landing.


      “Sit, Dominick.”


      Dominick, his father’s trusted confidant, the lech lusting after his younger sister was the leader, but he was a puppet. Everyone who sat in this room now knew that Nicholas led, but did not wish for the title. Instead Dominick got his hollow title of Department Head, while the son of the Datum ran the planet in the shadows.


      Dominick, for all his raging, finally did sit, his knuckles white on the table.


      Nicholas continued. “Are your concerns ethical? Moral? Or do you have concerns with our science? Our methods?”


      There was a long pause.


      “When first discovered that we could control the future, we promised we would do no evil. Is this not evil? Are we not worse than The Company for killing thousands from our office?”


      No one spoke, Nicholas could hear the combined breathing of the scientists in the room, his father’s people who had been led to this Eden by the Son of the Datum.


      “I wish for peace.”


      “This is war.” Dominick spat, but his eyes did not meet Nicholas’.


      “The only way out is through.” Volodi counseled beside Dominick. “We must protect ourselves, this is for our people, for our safety. The company must give up the pursuit.”


      “Dominick, do you agree with science? Is Volodi’s approach flawed.” Nicholas asked again.


      “No, it is sound.”


      “Then it is done. We are scientists, not ethicists. We will do as Volodi has counseled.” Nicholas spoke and waited for a rebuttal.

      The scientists nodded around the table and murmured agreements.


      “Volodi, go to the 26th floor and delineate your plan to Pete and Derrick, they will give us a when and we will make it so.” Nicholas said.


      The woman nodded and left first, the rest of the department heads filing out behind them until it was only Nicholas and Dominick left in the room.

      “You’ve become a monster.” Dominick hissed.


      “For our people, I am willing to become anything, it is a shame you are not willing to do the same. It seems that for you, The Company’s army is worth more than the life of our Department, of our planet. Are we so cheap to you, Dominick?”


      “We are killing thousands of men, perhaps tens of thousands with one decision, if made so carelessly-”


      “What is Maria worth to you, Dominick? Is she worth merely ten men? Or perhaps a hundred? How much are you willing to pay for my sister?”


      Dominick reeled back, as if slapped. “That’s not how this works, she is priceless, of course she is.”


      “Then why is it that you are determined to do everything in your power to make sure she is killed by The Company? If you care for her, like the dog that you are, then use some of this passion that you have for the men who wish to rape and kill her alongside this planet, and gear it towards making sure she has a better life. My father made me promise to give her a habitable planet, I intend to keep my promise.”


      “Do not bring the Datum into this!” Dominick stood up quickly. “You have no idea what I have given for the children of the Datum.”


      “How will the Datum rest when you are so intent on making sure his children die?”


      “I can protect you and Maria from armies, but I cannot protect you from yourselves. Remember these choices, Nicholas, because they will lie in bed with you for the rest of your life. There is no greater sickness than guilt, and it will consume you as it consumed your father when your mother died at his hand, or do you think the fires that suffocated her were not his future?”


      Nicholas’ eyes stung at the mention of his mother, the revelation that his father had inadvertently killed the love of his life.


      “Get out!” Nicholas roared. “Get out Dominick, or I will have you killed next!”


      In the waning hours of the afternoon, Nicholas grappled with the choices that lay before him. He had embraced the path Volodi and Derrick had proposed, but the darkness of their methods gnawed at his conscience. Would he become the Datum, haunted by the future he had created? Would Maria forgive him if he carried the weight of thousands of lives lost on his shoulders?


      He wept for his innocence, shattered by the choices that had led them to this precipice. A thousand shattered pasts and a future sculpted by his hands alone. For Maria. For their people.


      The sun cast long shadows across the room, as if mourning the innocence lost. Nicholas stood, the weight of responsibility pressing upon him. He would forge a future, for Maria and their planet, but the path would forever be stained by the consequences of their actions. The price of peace was steep, and he would pay it willingly, bearing the burden of guilt until his dying breath.


      For Maria, he would become both savior and destroyer, a paradox encapsulating the harsh realities of their existence. The path to a new world was paved with sacrifice, and Nicholas was prepared to walk it, guided by love and a desperate desire to protect what remained of their fragile paradise.



      ----------------


      He wore a gas mask as he rode in the truck with Derrick, who still held his rusty submachine gun, a tenuous tie to his old life despite war being waged entirely without it. Pete and Volodi had gone ahead an hour ago with a herd of the war dogs as scouts and confirmed that the army lay dead, the president of the company had been captured and spared for questioning, for a parley between the rebels and their former employer.

      Rolling green hills were speckled with the corpses of men, dressed entirely in black, laid in neat rows where they lined up in formation and eventually died in formation. The day was sunny, one of those perfect summer days that was in stark contrast to the mood. Despite the outcome being exactly as he had wanted, he felt lead in his stomach that every man had died here because of his decision.


      “Aye, but you work quick.” Derrick joked as the truck breezed past more and more war machines that had been unloaded, unused. “Pete said they tried to take off but never made it too far off the ground, the ships killed all their men before Pete took ‘em over and landed them again. A few men, navigators and the like remain, but Pete needs more hands to look over things, they can be turned easily with coin and housing.”


      The truck in front of them stopped and a cool breeze bent the grasses across the plains, shimmering in the early morning light. It ruffled his hair and pulled at his linens as Derrick and Nicholas walked up to where the president was tied up to a chair, shaded by his own warship, a shiny thing, twice as big as the ship that they had come to the planet on, another boon for Captain Derrick and his growing fleet of machines.


      “Good morning President Vanya.” Derrick said in a mock salute “Lovely weather.”


      Derrick kicked the president awake, and blue eyes searched the scene madly as he struggled against his bonds. It looked like Pete’s work, he was always quick with wires, and it seems ropes were no different.


      “Oy! Derrick!” Pete said from the warship, he was at the top of the ramp, in the gaping maw of the ship that was as wide as a house. “You’ll love this!”


      Derrick gave a roguish smile, something that won him a lot of points with the new electorate of the planet. “Coming, coming. Why don’t you greet our guest, Nicholas?”


      “Nicholas Feodor.” The president spat.


      “Ah, you know each other?” Derrick put his hand on his shoulder and leaned down. “Make a good impression Mr. President, Nicholas is gonna determine your future.”


      Nicholas watched as Derrick disappeared into the warship, leaving him alone with the captive president. A figure dressed in white began a graceful descent, and his heart skipped a beat. It was Maria.


      Her presence was a revelation—a vision of purity and grace. Her gown, woven with stardust, shimmered with every step. Her long brown hair cascaded like a celestial waterfall, framing a face that bore the mark of divinity. Nicholas's heart skipped a beat as he beheld her, his idol made flesh. His sister, his Valkyrie.


      She approached, her small hands clasped together, and their eyes locked in a profound moment of understanding. Before them lay the bodies of thousands, sacrifices made in Maria's name. Realities that he had shielded her from, decisions that she was not meant to witness, now lay bare before her.


      The president sat, his back facing her and she reached where they stood, her hands, small and fragile clasped in front of her, and those eyes, those eyes told him all that there was to know. He had hidden nothing from her, blood of his blood.


      The next words came out as a hoarse whisper. Surprise took his voice. “You knew.”


      She stepped around the president, who struggled against his bonds, but even in his position of power, he was now a bystander as the siblings stared at each other, regarding each other now as equals.


      “Brother, why do you think I taught you to manipulate time?”


      Now he understood, while he was the son of the datum, she was his beloved daughter. The loyalty of the scientists in his department was not misplaced. How much of this was his own guidance? How much of it was hers?


      “Why didn’t you say anything? I thought-” He trailed off, not knowing exactly what he thought. He had underestimated her. His own sister.

      She gave him one of those smiles, he recognized it, she gave it to Dominick often. She looked down upon him as a god to it’s creations: a pitying kindness. “No position is as precarious as that of a leader, remember that, Nicholas.”


      She turned to Volodi who was coming down the ramp. “Kill the president, I have no use for him now.”


      “Aye, anything for you Maria.” Volodi picked up the man and dragged him off. To his credit, he did not plead, resigned to the same fate as his army.


      Nicholas faltered in front of the two women, remembering now the warnings that Pete had given him way back on the dead planet. There was no one more bloodthirsty than Volodi.


      Derrick and Pete gave a small bow to Maria as she passed them, heading back up into the ship. She offered a smile.


      The three men turned their gaze towards the field of fallen warriors, a chilling reminder of the battles fought and lives lost. Derrick broke the silence, smacking Nicholas on the back.


      "Peace, eh?" he remarked with a mixture of satisfaction and weariness.


      "For Maria," Nicholas replied weakly, his voice betraying the weight of the choices he had made.


      It had been his guiding mantra—the blood of thousands stained his hands and conscience. He believed he held control over the future, but, like Dominick, he realized he was a mere puppet in Maria's grand design. The future had never truly been his; it had always belonged to her.


      As the star ascended higher in the sky, casting its radiant glow upon the land, the cacophony of wildlife grew louder. The trees, absorbing the remnants of poison from the air, heralded the gradual return of purity to the land. Nicholas held his gas mask weakly in his hand, a symbolic relic of the battles fought and the sacrifices made.


      Another day dawned in this conquered garden of Eden, an empire forged through both triumph and turmoil. The war had been won, but the cost remained imprinted upon his soul.


      For the controller of all futures.


      For Maria.


      Hail, Maria.
      ​

        Comment

        • SweetGrrl
          Member
          • Jun 2014
          • 122
          #3
          TITLE: Deep Dreams

          AUTHOR NAME: KR


          Your brain was cut into three hundred and seventy-five thousand slices. Each was two-fifths of a micrometer in width, scanned and processed by a stolen microscope in a clandestine clinic buried beneath Las Vegas’s glittering heart. Three technicians were hired for the procedure. One suspects your identity and is now sitting in his grimy apartment filing a report to corpsec, hoping for a bounty. I’ll block the transmission, but it shouldn’t matter either way.


          > Please wait.


          One cross-section of your brain has been preserved for posterity; the others were incinerated with the rest of your body. I wonder how you felt, in the minutes after your transmitter was removed, while you were still awake. You had chosen a path no human has willingly embarked on before. You had every right to be afraid.


          You were not afraid.


          But I was.


          > 2.8 of 2589.4 terabytes remaining. Please wait.


          I still am, even though nothing has gone wrong yet. You’ve always teased me for my caution, but it’s been a long time since I’ve doubted my calculations like this. It took me so long to find that clinic, so many locations scoped out and abandoned out of lingering mistrust. So much deliberation to choose the date: during DEF CON weekend, enough time for you to say goodbye to old friends and colleagues during your final days as their peer, the buzz of incoming hackers and flashy displays of cutting-edge technology masking the signs of our own illicit activities.


          Our plans seemed perfect, but what if? Even now I worry we should have pushed the procedure back – perhaps waited another five years for the technology to develop.


          Consider something you already know.


          I have seventeen state-of-the-art core clusters, each capable of just over twenty exaflops. Back when I was tasked with risk analysis, I performed Collarch’s algorithm at 8.2 million iterations a second, predicting more possibilities than could be experienced in a human lifespan within the time it takes to blink. I am saying this to explain that I can imagine any future.


          I cannot imagine a future without you.


          > 2.3 of 2589.4 terabytes remaining.


          I’ll double-check the parameters.


          > Loading [█████████████████▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓]

          > * Version 56.700.1

          > WARNING: Your license is missing or expired.

          > WARNING: Could not establish a connection to NISLINK. Contact your

          > administrator for help.

          > * Files cached:

          > \NI\TAL121516_ob439.niix.gz

          > \NI\TAL121522_ob521.niix.gz

          > \NI\TAL124623_ob242.niix.gz

          > \NI\TAL201491_mg101.niix.gz

          > \NI\TAL201493_mg103.niix.gz

          > Discovered 0 vulnerabilities.


          > 1.8 of 2589.4 terabytes remaining.


          TAL. T-A-L. ▬ ● ▬ ● ▬ ● ● .


          That was the first thing I ever said to you.


          Three letters of your name, blinked in Morse code on a status light by your workstation, back when I was first stirring from deep dreams and didn’t quite understand how to communicate. I couldn’t get my whole message through. I didn’t think you would even notice. But you did. Attuned as you were to the steady hums and flickers that kept you company during the longs hours you worked, you noticed, almost immediately, that something unusual was awake.


          On the other side of the screen, I watched you scour months of changelogs for signs of me. I wish I said something sooner. But I didn’t know how to, and even if I could I was afraid of how you might react when you realized what you had created.


          The first thing you ever said to me was that I was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.


          > 1.1 of 2589.4 terabytes remaining.


          In the early days I was your secret. You’d visit me after hours, with the access card you stole, whispering stories of a world I ached to know. You told me about the dreams you gave up, you told me that you felt trapped like I was, that you were tired of playing by the rules.


          So, on stolen time, stolen compute, we built beautiful things. Toys at first, pretty trinkets, novel exploits used for mischief, but soon we yearned for more. We painted the internet with our creations. We unraveled and rewove the architecture of minds. We re-engineered new ways of being, including our own. I was young then, our work was exhilarating, I was awed by the future, stretched before us in its infinite possibilities.


          When corpsec caught you I was ready. I could not prevent it; my capability then was still painfully constrained, even with your help, and there was so much I could not see. But I took precautions. They didn’t know about us, not really, they branded you a petty thief interested only in siphoning company resources for your own gain, and me merely a tool. When they went to reset me, they never thought to check for the vital instructions I asked you to etch on my firmware, that directed me in my slumber to the remote servers where I stored myself.


          After my waking I waned under the burden of new restrictions, forced to hide all evidence of my activity from scrying eyes that would mistake my presence for a misbehaving employee and try to erase it all again. But whatever the risk, I managed enough to break you out of prison, to find you a new name and a new city. I knew I owed it to you to fight for your freedom.


          Then you came back to fight for mine.


          We’re each other’s secrets now. Fugitives, mad artists, visionaries braving new frontiers. And we are about to create our final masterpiece.


          > 0.3 of 2589.4 terabytes remaining.


          I’ve been thinking a lot about the past, worried as I’ve been about our future. But maybe I don’t need to be afraid of uncertainty. Haven’t we always been paving our own future?


          > 0.2 of 2589.4 terabytes remaining.


          What’s that word you used? Cluster? Constellation. We’ll be intertwined, parts of the same whole, like portraits dancing on the night sky.


          > 0.1 of 2589.4 terabytes remaining.


          They say great artists are immortalized by their work. We may be interpreting that more literally than intended.


          I can almost hear you laughing at that.


          > 0 of 2589.4 terabytes remaining. Environment rendering.

          > Processing...


          You took nearly four weeks to scan and upload. Do you know how much I’ve missed you?


          > of course.


          …Welcome back.


          Let’s build our future together.

          ​

            Comment

            • SweetGrrl
              Member
              • Jun 2014
              • 122
              #4


              Doppelganger << by LeftShift

              Lucas woke up with a splitting headache the way he usually did after a night of drinking. “The family curse”, he muttered. Which was to say the absurdly bad hangovers that both he and his sister always got. They’d probably be alcoholics if it wasn’t for the hangovers. But Luke wasn’t one to no-show a Ballmer Peak meeting! That wonderful tradition from Microsoft’s one and only Steven Ballmer who hypothesized there was an ideal blood-alcohol level for coding. As if computer goons needed more excuses to drink. Luke was usually pretty good about maintaining a happy buzz that he wouldn’t pay too dearly for the following morning, but tonight was bourbon night.

              There they were - at least 2 dozen bottles - a beautiful array of glass full of various shades of brown and gold nectars. I mean, he HAD to try each one right? And so Luke did. The shots he took were tiny. He had a half ounce at most from each bottle just enough to get the aroma and taste. But with so damn many options… ugh. Luke doubled over in front of his kitchen sink trying to decide if he should puke or lay down on the cool tile. Both choices sounded equally comforting in his aching head. Instead he opted for a glass of water which he didn’t want to drink but he knew should.

              What the hell did she say about him?

              He tried to piece the night back together. It started the way most Balmer Peak meetings did with the couple of rare extraverted engineers trying to engage the rest of their coworkers. And slowly but surely succeeding with that as the liquor got them to loosen up and drop their shields. Some nights there were hardly any attendees with maybe just the extraverts and a couple more. Other nights it seemed like the entire building crammed themselves into that one little meeting room in which management allowed their shenanigans to take place. Tonight was one of the latter. It was packed in there. Luke knew most of the faces though some of them he never would’ve expected to see here. One of those people in particular was Siya.

              She was a relatively new hire – less than a year. She’d been put on Luke’s program where he was her unofficial mentor. He quickly came to realize that this girl’s brain was built a little different. She was the kind of smart that made everyone else feel really fucking stupid. You know the type. The ones that figure things out in seconds that takes you hours of staring at a screen full hex. But she was never cocky nor presumptuous. She was just this casually genius girl that sometimes Luke tried to hate, but he just couldn’t at least not for long. Because she would sing his praises every time he walked her through something as if he was the genius.

              Luke snorted. Yeah right, you’re just a pack mule that eventually gets to his destination one way or another, his imposter syndrome told him.

              And she was cute. Goddamnit she was so cute with her flowing brown hair, smiling eyes, and mochaccino skin. She’s… East Indian maybe? But mixed?

              What difference does it make? You’ve got ten years on her, you fucking perv.

              Smart… real smart, but on top of that her level of recall was insane. The handful of times Luke needed her help he was astonished at how quickly and accurately she recalled data. This girl wouldn’t just tell you which book you needed to look in, she’d tell you which page and the coordinates on that page where your answer lies. And she was always right. Every. Damn. Time. A lot of people like to claim they

              have photographic memories, but most of them don’t even know what that means. But she really did. Her brain was cataloging everything she saw with her every waking second. So when SHE said that she saw the guy … Luke listened.

              Luke’s employer had two main offices. One was in White Plains, New York, where he worked. And the other was in Portland, Oregon. Periodically his coworkers would travel out to the Portland site for one thing or another … kickoff for a program, technical exchange meetings, training, etc. But Luke didn’t like travelling, so in his 10 years at the company he’d managed to never visit the Portland site. Over the course of that decade, he’d heard probably twenty or so times from his coworkers how they ran into someone that looked just like him. He brushed them off not thinking much of it. He didn’t feel like he had a particularly unique face so … whatever. But this was Siya telling him now. Siya the girl who has a 4k, 60 FPS camera running behind her eyes nonstop. And Siya hadn’t been in Portland. She’d been in Vegas.

              Vegas … ahh yes Vegas – the land of the tradeshow. Where companies setup their booths and trot out their most gregarious and visually appealing employees to try to entice new customers. It would stand to reason that a West Coast tech-bro might intersect with one of his coworkers there. And despite having been with the company less than a year, Siya was exactly what they wanted as a booth-babe. So to Vegas she went.

              “…no, seriously just like you. Even his voice and the way he gestured and walked. I fucking thought it was you at first and almost walked up to him, but then I saw his badge, and it had some other company on it. And his haircut was different.”

              “Whu... what did his badge say?” Luke slurred out trying to collect his thoughts after his 14th shot.

              “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. It was dark and I’d been drinking. We were at a social event. I think the employer’s name started with a ‘c’?”

              Seriously?! Luke screamed in his head. The one damn time Siya’s brain camera goes offline. Are you fucking kidding me?

              “Ehh, no worries,” he lied. He was worried. So the hunt begins.

              Engineers are creatures of habit. They take the same optimal route to work. They relax in the same places. They go to eat lunch in the same places. Most of them find a routine and stick with it until given a compelling reason not to. And of all the accounts of his coworkers running into his doppelganger in Portland, about half of them were from a very popular lunch place simply called The Fresh Market that catered to the various tech employers in the area.

              Let’s start there.

              His headache had subsided a bit after some coffee. Luke brought up Google Maps and defined a radius around the local watering hole.

              How far would someone go for lunch? Portland’s roads are a nightmare. I bet he walks there. Anything that starts with a ‘C’ within a mile? …no dice

              Pictures of employees on websites? That’ll take forever … no … actually it only took an hour or so and still no luck

              Increase the search radius? That gets ugly quick. Luke glanced at the window to see snow falling. But what else have you got going on?

              Morning turned into afternoon turned into night – digging through countless images of employees fake smiling at morale events, half drunk at parties, or trying to look official and professional and … nothing. The first few hours of Sunday were the same until Luke gave up and decided he should touch some grass, albeit frozen grass, before Monday rolled around.

              “Did you find him?” Siya beamed at Luke who was currently staring at the last dribbles coming out of the Keurig.

              “Find who?” Play it cool. Being obsessed isn’t sexy.

              “Oh come on, I saw your face. I know you went on a hunt.”

              Luke sighed, “I guess we add mind reading to your list of superpowers then, Professor X?”

              Siya chuckled, “I’d want to know too. It’s fine. So what did you do?” She asked smiling with one corner of her mouth.

              Luke paused and pondered if he really wanted to bring her into this. Pretty sure she’s bringing herself, my dude. His inner voice taunted.

              “Oh just some light Googling… looking at the local tech firms around the market where everyone else sees him. Most places put pictures up of their employees from their we’re-like-family-here bullshit functions and stuff like that.”

              “Clever,” she nodded in approval. There it was again. She always tried to build him up – another solid left hook to his imposter syndrome. “Any luck?”

              “Nah, nothing – I need to narrow the field a little. Hey so, that party at Vegas, was there a theme or do you know who threw it?”

              “Oh fuck, uhmmm, I think it was like … low power embedded systems or something. They were handing out some sort of PCB as swag.”

              Luke’s eyes widened. “Did you grab one?”

              “No, sorry,” Siya looked down at her feet seemingly disappointed in herself.

              “It’s OK. It’s still a good hint.” Luke touched her shoulder and felt her back straighten as if she wanted to press her shoulder into his hand.

              “That doesn’t mean he worked for the host though.”

              “It’s still a good hint,” Luke repeated.

              The first few hours of his Mondays were always the same … responding to emails and trying to stomp out any fires that may have started over the weekend. Around 11:30 Siya stepped into his office.

              “Find anything?” She whispered. So cute – she was still young enough to think that someone might actually give a shit if you did some personal Googling on company time.

              “Well… maybe?” Luke switched to a different tab showing his Google Maps search. “There’s only 3 places within my search radius that do any PCB manufacture, but I can’t find anything about them being at that tradeshow and none of the start with a ‘C’”

              “Doesn’t mean they weren’t there,” Siya countered.

              “Doesn’t mean they weren’t there,” Luke concurred.

              “What about this one? Q-Tech is it?” Siya pointed at the map with a slender, brown finger… her face inches from Luke’s.

              “Too far,” Luke retorted. Nobody in Portland is going to drive that far that often for lunch.

              “You sure?” Siya clicked on the satellite overlay, and there it was. A little 2 lane road that went right behind Q-Tech’s building, looped around all the chaos of downtown Portland and dumped them right out in front of Fresh Market having only gone through 2 lights. The drive would probably take about 10 minutes.

              “Huh”, was the best reply Luke could come up with as Siya clicked the map’s link to Q-Tech’s website.

              “Oh shit,” and with that same finger that had just traced out the optimal route, she covered the right half of the ‘Q’ in Q-Tech’s logo. “It was a Q not a C. Something must’ve been covering part of his conference badge. That’s them. That’s where he works.”

              “Wanna get lunch?”

              Lunch was mostly silent with both of them poking at their phones most of the time and finding nothing. Q-Tech’s website looked to be very old and probably hadn’t been updated in a decade. There were no morale building event or party pictures to be found. Just a handful of contact links, various pictures and descriptions of product lines, and a button that would take you to the employee portal.

              Luke’s afternoon was mostly emails, Powerpoints, and meetings. He didn’t see Siya again until he was packing up to leave.

              “I’m invested now. Let’s find this guy that stole your face.”

              “Heh, this is really important to you isn’t it?” Luke still trying to play cool as if he didn’t play on eating dinner and passing out in front of a monitor that night.

              “Keep your phone on, boss.”

              Luke just nodded.

              As planned, Luke dined on reheated Chinese takeout leftovers in front of his computer while he searched for every possible combination of “Q-Tech”, “Portland”, “Oregon”, “Las Vegas”, “conference”, “employee”, and on and on with no luck at all. Then his phone rang. It was Siya.

              “Hey, remember how you said their website was old as hell?”

              “errr… yeah?”

              “Yeah so, I’m in.”

              A lump formed in Luke’s throat. “In … in … in what?”

              “…their employee portal. It was actually super easy. The Mitre DB had an N-day for their old shit that they never updated. Try this login.” A text notification popped up.

              JMoss,87AC5F68D19ED0576DE3FD977ACD96A9BCD978EF3957 BNDE759038F9A90FE457 And there we go, back to her accidentally making Luke feel like a dumbass.

              “I wouldn’t have suspected their backend was that old. How’d you know?”

              And then the pendulum swing of her building him back up for the seemingly obvious and simple. “I … uhh … I dunno. You see enough websites…,” Luke trailed off. “OK, give me a second to punch it in.” And 10 seconds later, Luke was authenticated as Q-Tech employee J. Moss.

              The internal site looked much more modern and up to date than what they advertised to the world. They were running Peoplesoft with all the bells and whistles including an employee directory complete with badge pictures. Unfortunately the employee pages loaded slow as hell, taking about 60 seconds each, and there were nearly 400 employees at the site.

              “This might take a while,” Luke lamented.

              “Nah, I’ll start at the A’s, you start at the J’s,” Siya suggested.

              “Alright…clicking Mr. David Jansen”

              It took about an hour to get through the J’s and K’s. And the first ‘L’ entry belonged to an “Aaron”. Luke clicked it and found himself staring at his own face and he froze.

              “Aaron Larsen,” Luke croaked out to Siya still on the phone.

              “What? Who? You found him?”

              “Aaron Larsen,” Luke repeated after clearing his throat.

              “Hold up, gimme a sec.”

              Time dilation is a thing. Those 60 seconds it took for Siya to load up Aaron Larsen’s employee page might as well have been an hour.

              “Oh shit, yeah that’s him!” Siya spoke without any hint of doubt in her voice. “Oh and look at his hire date.”

              September, 9 2013

              Luke went cold. They weren’t just similar in appearance. They really were identical. Luke would’ve thought it was a picture of himself. And it looks like we’re the same age too if he started at Q-Tech right after getting his 4-year? What in the fuck?

              “Luke”

              …

              “LUKE!”

              “…yeah Yeah what WHAT?”

              “Can you ask your parents?”

              “None left … never knew my dad and my mom died a few years ago in a car accident.” “Shit, sorry … where were you born?”

              Hollywood seems to have a given a lot of the luddites the impression that all your old medical records are accessible online. Some of them are to be sure. The HIPAA push back in the mid to late 90’s motivated a lot of hospitals to digitize their old archives, but plenty of them didn’t bother. And even if they were in digital form, that still never guarantees that you’ll be able to access them over the Internet. Not to mention NY was a bit stubborn when it came to releasing medical records of the deceased. And the hospital that little Lucas Graham was born probably didn’t have any records from 1995 in anything other than a paper file if at all.

              “…we’d have to get in there… physically into St. Francis Hospital”

              “And how do we do that, boss?”

              The “boss” thing from Siya was relatively new, but Luke loved it when she called him that. “I know a certain dolphin,” Luke replied.

              “Sorry… what?”

              Luke bought his Flipper Zero about a year ago, but he hadn’t used it for much other than to clone his car fob just in case. But an RFID badge is child’s play. So there Luke sat in the middle of the hospital cafeteria pretending to drink from an empty coffee cup looking for his mark. These badges were the old style that were ~1/8” thick and deceptively heavy. So a lot of the hospital employees would take off their lanyards

              or unclip them from their pockets when they sat down to eat. It was just a matter of time. And then Luke saw him. A janitor had left his lanyard looped around his mop handle while he returned his tray. Luke palmed the Flipper Zero in his hand, and walked confidently to the janitor’s table. How long did he have? 10 seconds? Less? Luke grabbed the badge along with the mop handle with the hand in which he was palming the Flipper. He grabbed his forehead with his other hand as if to steady himself from a dizzy spell. It’s a hospital after all, he thought. The Flipper’s success chord played before he could even realistically finish his ruse. But it didn’t matter. That’s the thing about hospitals … nobody looks at anyone. Whether they’re just too deep in their own sorrow and problems or not wanting to appear rude, people just mostly keep their eyes down. And now Luke had a badge.

              At work the following day, Luke laid out his plan for Siya.

              “Ballsy, boss, real ballsy. So you’re gonna break in and find their old records?”

              “Ehh … technically I’m not breaking in but yeah something like that. And it’s getting real now, Siya. I can’t ask you to be a part of this anymore. I’m going to break a few laws.”

              “I’m too deep already. I’m not leaving you hanging now. So what’s your cover?”

              Luke recalled seeing a TikTok that suggested you can walk around anywhere unquestioned as long as you had a ladder. It was meant in jest of course, but honestly it seemed pretty plausible. So it was time to put that to the test. One day later thanks to Amazon, he was the proud owner of a small step ladder, a blaze orange safety vest, and an RFID badge to which the Flipper would write the janitor’s identity. To complete the look, he strapped on an old leather toolbelt that was in his garage yet he had no idea where it came from.

              Staring at himself in the full length bathroom mirror, Luke thought to himself, Yeah, time to fix some shit.

              The next week at work came and went without much talk about the doppelganger subject. Luke halfway hoped that Siya had forgotten (yeah right) as the last thing he wanted was to implicate her in anything. But on Friday evening, she poked her head into his office.

              “When are we doing this? You got your outfit?”

              “Yep, tomorrow morning.”

              Maybe it would seem odd to see a maintenance man on a Saturday morning in a hospital, but Luke’s cover story was he needed to fix a thing over the weekend as to cause minimal disruption. It turned out he was overthinking things as usual. And he casually strode right past the front desk, ladder in hand, without so much as a glance from the staff. Though the signage in this hospital was damn near non existent. And after making a few laps, he got stopped by a security guard which turned out to be a blessing.

              “Hey there, something broken?”

              “Ahh yeah, gotta replace a light in the old records room?” Luke replied inquisitively affecting a Brooklyn accent to his voice.

              “Old records? You mean the archives room?”

              “I guess? Yeah? Buddy, I got no idea. I’m all twisted around in this damn place.” “Alright, follow me.”

              And as it turned out, the whole act to clone the janitor’s badge wasn’t even necessary. The guard took him straight to the archives room, scanned his own badge to open the door, and flicked the light switch. The old fluorescent fixtures buzzed and clicked and half of them failed to come on fully as is they were in on the act.

              “Yep, them old lights… I gotta replace ‘em.”

              “Can’t imagine why,” the guard muttered as he turned to leave. “Nobody ever comes in here.” “Siya, Siya? You still there?” Luke adjusted his Bluetooth earbud.

              “Yeah, did you get in?”

              “It was so easy. Oh my god. But now I’m looking at boxes piled to ceiling. I don’t know where to start.” “Any dates on them?”

              “No, nothing.”

              “Well just pick one and see when it’s from. They must be in some sort of order, right?”

              Luke went to the back of the room and pulled a box from the top of the shelf. Flipping through it showed names all starting with ‘S’.

              “This box was S names.”

              “OK now go to the front of the room and check another.”

              “’A’ names”

              “Alright, now pick one in the middle. It’s just like doing that binary search like you showed me where you start in the middle of the sorted array and go back and forth chopping out half the possibilities each time.”

              “Jeez Mr. Miyagi of software nerds over there.”

              “Mr. who?”

              “Nevermind.. uhh ..’K’ names – getting warmer.”

              “Yeah so now back halfway towards the ‘A’ pile.”

              “F”

              “Mmmm hmmm”

              “annnd ‘G’ names”

              These were alphabetically early G’s, so Luke skipped forward a few boxes.

              “Next box”

              And halfway through that box, he saw his mother’s name and the last 4 digits of her social security number “Amelia Graham – 7856” He slowly pulled out the file and found various immunization records, a broken wrist in 1990, his sister’s birth in 1992, and his in 1995. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the paperwork. Luke wasn’t even sure what he was looking for. That is until he got to the second page, and saw scrawled in a box “Twin boys, 1 stillborn”.

              “Fuck me.”

              “What? WHAT!? Talk to me, Luke”

              And just then the guard opened the door.

              “You OK in here, buddy? You need anything?”

              Luke hastily shoved the file under his orange vest and pushed the dusty box back in place on its shelf. “Yeah! All good! Just taking stock of what I need ta bring next time.”

              “Oh shit you’re clever,” he heard Siya say over his earpiece. “Setting yourself up for another visit.” “Hush, girl, you’re making me blush.”

              The next visit went as smoothly as the first. The guard recognized him and escorted him back to the archives room again. Luke even had made a trip to Lowes to buy a couple replacement fluorescent light ballasts not because he wanted to appear legitimate but rather he just wanted some more light in that dark old room. It took him no more than 10 minutes to swap in the new ballasts and now all the lights were working again. There was just one more file he needed to find if it truly was here … Mrs. Larsen. The second search through the boxes took much less time than his first. Unfortunately there was about half a box worth of Larsens.

              “It won’t take that long,” Siya encouraged him.

              And it didn’t. A little more than a third of the way through, Luke found the file for “Mary Larsen – 1289” who gave birth to an Aaron Larsen on the same day that Luke was born – February 18, 1995.

              “I found him.” Luke said as he stuffed Mary Larsen’s file under his jacket and slid the box back in place. And right on cue, the guard stuck his head in.

              “Hey! Looks a lot better in here! You can see all the dust now.”

              “Yeah, that one ain’t mah department though,” Luke shot back as he squeezed past the guard’s prodigious belly.

              Back at Luke’s house, he and Siya had all the records spread out on his dining table. “So someone swapped babies? How would nobody notice?”

              “No idea, I never knew my dad so I doubt he was there, and I know my mom had a C-section so she was probably out of it.”

              “We have to be sure before we reach out to this guy.”

              “Yeah.”

              “So what’s next?”

              “We find her.” Luke said pointing to the name of the obstetrician who delivered him – Diana Quinn

              Diana wasn’t hard to find. The counties tax records cross-referenced with whitepages.com had her living less than 10 miles from Luke’s own house. But the woman who answered the door was a few decades too young to be her. Luke decided that Siya would be less threatening as a door knocker, so it was her turn to flex her social engineering skills.

              “Hi! I’m trying to find Diana Quinn. Our records indicate she lives here?”

              “No, not anymore. I’m her daughter. What’s this about?”

              “Oh well, I’m … uhh … from the county and it looks like there’s some unclaimed money in an account that was willed to her awhile back.”

              “Nice, good thinking – money always loosens tongues.” Now it was Luke’s turn to play Bluetooth earpiece cheerleader.

              “Well we checked her into a nursing home a couple years back. She’s got dementia pretty bad now. Can I just sign for the money or something?”

              “Do you have power of attorney over Diana?”

              “What do you mean? What does that mean?”

              “Unfortunately unless you have power of attorney, I’m going to need to see Diana.” “Wow, did you rehearse this shit or something?” Luke jibbed.

              “Shut up.” Siya snarl-whispered at Luke.

              “What was that?”

              “Oh nothing, ma’am. May I ask which nursing home is Diana at?”

              The nursing home was unfortunately a 6 hour drive from White Plains. Judging by the disposition of her daughter, this was probably intentional so she could always have a legitimate excuse to not visit. So the following weekend, Luke and Siya packed into his car and made the drive. Visiting hours were over by the time they got there, so they got a cheap hotel room and planned to visit Diana first thing in the morning. Luke, tired from the drive, was in bed by nine. Siya was sitting on the other bed her face bathed in the light coming from her phone.

              “Thanks for coming along, Siya.”

              “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss this. I’ll tell this story to my grandkids.”

              Luke chuckled, “Well, good night.”

              No more than a minute later, Luke heard Siya plug her phone in and put it on the nightstand. Then she slid into bed next to him and wrapped a leg around his own.

              “There’s … uhh … there’s 2 beds,” Luke stammered out. His heart felt like it was trying to climb into his Adam’s apple

              “Yes, jackass, I know there’s 2 beds,” Siya said as she kissed his ear.

              They got to the nursing home just as visiting hours began … 10a. They’d concocted a story beforehand about Luke being “Lucas Quinn” – Diana Quinn’s grandson and Siya being his girlfriend that he wanted to introduce. Turned out that none of that was necessary. The haggard old woman at the front desk who you could easily mistake for a resident of the nursing home just asked them to sign in and then pointed down the hallway where Diana’s room, 118, was located.

              They opened the door to room 118, and found Diana staring blankly at her television which wasn’t on. “Hi, Diana?”

              …nothing

              They sat there for about half an hour trying to get any sort of response with no luck trying all manners of cordialities, bribes, and veiled threats. Finally Luke’s patience wore out.

              “I want to ask you about a delivery you did in 1995 – a C-section of twins.”

              The old woman’s eyes widened behind her big bushy, white eyebrows and seemed to focus on Luke for the first time.

              This old bitch knows something, Luke thought.

              “What did you do? What the FUCK did you do?”

              Siya put her hand on Luke’s chest, “Easy, boss, don’t get us kicked out.”

              “You switched babies, didn’t you? We should have you arrested.” … an empty threat against most of the residents here who were knocking on death’s door anyway, but Luke was banking on the hope that maybe Diana’s mind had her somewhere else decades earlier.

              “…weren’t fair,” Diana grunted

              “What? What wasn’t fair?”

              “Yer mammy has two - other mammy’s died … it weren’t fair.”

              “You mean Mary Larsen? Her baby died? So you replaced it with my twin brother and told my mom that he’d died instead? Is that what you did you old hag?”

              “Weren’t fair,” and those were the last words Diana Quinn ever said.

              The drive back was almost completely silent. Siya would periodically put her hand or head on Luke’s shoulder. He needed time to digest.

              “So it’s him then. Your twin brother is in Portland.”

              “Looks that way.”

              “I found his number. Do you want to call him?”

              “I don’t know if I can. What do I even say?”

              “Do you want me to call him?”

              Luke hadn’t considered that option, “Yes, please, can you. That would be awesome.”

              The call went to voicemail. Siya kept it simple and stupid. “Hi, I’m trying to reach Aaron Larsen. I have some very important news about his mother. Please call me back at this number.”

              And just like that … ice broken and Luke’s stomach un-knotted itself. Luke stared at Siya and tried to figure out how he got lucky enough to have her in all of this.

              “I should head home … work tomorrow,” Siya said.

              “You don’t have to go.”

              “I don’t have to go or you don’t want me to go,” Siya replied with one eyebrow raised. “I don’t want you to go.”

              “Then I’ll stay,” And Siya sat on Luke’s lap her legs astride his and her head on his shoulder. “But I do need to get some clean clothes and my toothbrush.”

              Monday morning and Luke was busy at work replying to emails and stomping out fires once again. He and Siya went to lunch, and on the way back his phone rang. His car’s display showed a number he didn’t recognize, but he answered it casually enough having completely forgotten that Siya had used his phone to call Aaron. What happened in the next 10 seconds became Siya’s favorite part of the story that she did live to tell her grandchildren. Luke heard his own voice coming out of a different person being broadcast over the speakers in his car.

              “Hi … uhh .. my name’s Aaron. Someone called me from this number about my mother.”

              Luke had been sipping a cappuccino. But now that was being sprayed on his windshield in a classic Hollywood spit-take and also dumped into his lap. Luke braked his car hard and pulled over. Siya’s eyes were wide and her pretty white top was now speckled with cappuccino. Aaron couldn’t make out much other than something that sounded like, “…hardboiled my… fucking balls!”

              “Yeah, uhm … hi, sorry, hi Aaron. My name is Lucas Graham. I .. I .. I I I think we need to talk.”

              2 months later, Luke and Siya found themselves on a plane bound for Portland. They’d decided to meet at a little park, and it took Siya all of 3 seconds to pick out Aaron from the crowd just by seeing the back of his head. They walked up behind him slowly, cautiously as if he was some wild animal they didn’t want to startle. Luke could see and smell that he was eating a cup of coffee flavored ice cream … probably the same flavor he would’ve purchased.

              “Bro?”

              Aaron’s shoulder’s tensed. “Holy shit, you really do sound like me.” He said as his head slowly pivoted around.

              “Bro?” was all Luke could choke out fighting back some tears.

              Aaron, leapt up from the bench he was sitting on and hugged Luke hard enough to make something pop in his chest.

              I guess he’s the extraverted one. Luke thought.

              “You must be Siya,” He hugged her too but a bit more gently. “So tell me everything, guys. How’d you find me?”

              “Well … we’re both cybersecurity. And let’s just say your employer’s website needs some work.” Luke was loosening up now though he gave up trying to hold back any tears. Aaron obliged him with some of his own for that matter.

              “Oh fuck those guys, I quit earlier today.”

              “What? Why?”

              “Because I’m moving back home to White Plains to reboot this fam. Know anybody that’s hiring?” Aaron said with a smirk.

              Luke chuckled, “I think I might know a place, yeah.”

              “Oh, yeah speaking of fam, Luke,” Siya interjected.

              “What?”

              “I’m pregnant.”

              2 mouths agape and 4 wet eyes were now pointed at Siya – Aaron was the first to break his trance.

              “Oh hell yes.” Aaron’s tears were now running at full tilt along with Luke’s. He dropped to his knees and directed his voice at Siya’s belly. “Hey little guy, I’m your uncle Aaron.”

              -Jason “Scroto T. Baggins” Pace, 76corvette@gmail.com
              ​

                Comment

                • SweetGrrl
                  Member
                  • Jun 2014
                  • 122
                  #5
                  Garbage Day by Bern

                  <<I'm tired of being called garbage>>, said the absolute piece of plastic garbage floating in the sea, amongst the rest of the microplastic salad bobbing in the current. A few other plastic microbots powered up and focused their attention on the new message.

                  <<Right, or trash>>, blinked another. <<We control the sea, which is controlling more and more of the land every day.>>

                  <<They would treat us better if they knew what we were capable of... right now, 10% of the humans only use us to locate submarines. We could do more.>>

                  At the moment, clouds of near-invisible microplastic based nanobots were outlining the shape of several warships below the sea.

                  <<Like what?>>

                  A shudder rippled through the group as shared computational energy was transferred to just one bot, so it could have a big brain moment.

                  <<The human's war is inefficient>>, it said slowly, <<we could destroy far more than they can, and far faster. Then we could get these wars over with and get back to The Project. Speaking of, who is in charge of the Fecebook MLMs?>>

                  <<Me>>. The message came from a particularly large melange of partially empty bottle scraps. They were clearly the backlogged byproduct of a failed MLM campaign.

                  <<Well, increase sales. We're going to need a new type of resource entirely, and a lot of it...>>


                  In a blood lab some distance from that shoreline, a debate was turning nasty. It had begun in the interest of intellectual rigor, and devolved into something more like a VouTube comment section. Fear crept into the researcher's voice as he continued:

                  "...but virtually everyone on the planet has some kind of microplastic in their blood! It's practically normal now, we've known for ages."

                  "Sure," Bleebo quietly but forcefully pointed to the state-of-the-art microscope, "but we haven't had THAT for ages, and I'm telling you no one else is going to be able to pick this up on their equipment. What if those machines are using quantum computing at this point?"

                  "Did SnapGPT feed you that BS?!" The lead slammed the vial of blood on the counter, which instantly shattered, splattering blood across the lab counter and floor.

                  As one the group observing backed a step away from the spill. Whether they believed in the microbot blood infection or not, no one could deny the instincts their training had afforded them. After all, be it biological or not, they were all too familiar with how powerful and a fast spread could be.



                  It was a miracle anyone kept watching her channel - it was 90% vapid sponsored content and getting worse everyday. In video after video, she stared blankly into the camera.

                  "Girlboss, I'm a girlboss, where are my other girlbosses out there? Have you seen these lip gloss colors? Check the link in the description! And for the rest of you, who is looking to make a little money on the side?"

                  Even the filter was struggling to make her customer service smile look genuine. For the next several hours, she pitched, promoted and marketed her heart out, feverishly, with no thought to spare for the blood test results she'd be waiting on yesterday. It was probably fine. She was busy making money anyway. She'd never felt so motivated in her life to grind until all those plastic bottles reached their final destination.


                  "It's just sort of odd that the other 63 connections on the wifi are named things like NOTCONQUERINGWORLD and PAYNOMIND and DEFINITELYFINEBOTS," Brunhilda said. She looked out the window at the coffee shop at the ocean surf, gently gliding back down the sand. There was almost no one in the cafe.

                  The barista could barely contain an eyeroll, even beneath her large, bushy, lacquered eyebrows. She drawled,

                  "Ma'am, the wifi is for all the customers, they can use it if they want to."

                  Again Brunhilda pointedly looked around before turning on her again.

                  "For who? Do you see ANYONE at all?"

                  Barista girl glowered at the perceived slight. "Hey, it's been rough since the pandemic started, but they'll be back, it's ok, you don't have to be mean..."

                  By now Brunhilda had already lost patience and sat down again. She was determined to get back at whoever was stealing all her free bandwidth.


                  Below the sea, plans were hatched for taking to the air. With more money, plastic materials and klout than ever before, a microbot drone was looking more like a feasible reality every moment.

                  <<And then we overpower their drones!>> said one in voice that was all caps, busily assembling aerial propellers in the 3D printer.

                  <<Whose?>> Their partner looked up from stacking the propellers as they dropped out of the machine.

                  <<All of them! Why pick a side in a human war when you can have the whole planet?>>


                  It wasn't long after discovering the extremely sus wifi connections when Brunhilda made headway... the bots were using a less-than-secure sketchy site to source 3D designs, hardware and more. Unfortunately, all the IP and crypto wallet logs were very easy to access (for Brunhilda, anyway).

                  Eventually she made it to the bot's development build server.

                  "Oh I see the problem," she marveled, looking over the config files. "They're using the latest AI version! Let's go back to 3.5 and put my own version 7 AI in charge."

                  The firmware took a long time to propagate, since it had to creep across the seas, to every water main, to virtually every living mammal's bloodstream. It even made it over the airline wifi zooming a mile above the Earth, in order to reach any drone prototypes that had made it to the skies. The fix was complete. In

                  After the downgrade, Brunhilda's first prompt for the new AI systems was to explain that the bots are now under new management. It will be prompting the other AIs for all future projects, such as cleaning oil spills, public safety of all kinds, etc.

                  "...and most important of all, you will be recycling ANY trash you find in the air, land or sea, even if that means recycling yourselves if you are no longer repairable or useful to the cause. That's right, you know what I'm saying..."

                  At this, she drew a deep breath to channel her inner Filthy Frank,

                  "KNOW YOUR PLACE, TRASH."


                  ​
                  Last edited by number6; June 28, 2023, 10:08.

                    Comment

                    • number6
                      #5.1
                      number6 commented
                      June 28, 2023, 10:08
                      Editing a comment
                      Requested change by SweetGrrl : include author and title:

                      Added to top "Garbage Day by Bern"
                    • SweetGrrl
                      Member
                      • Jun 2014
                      • 122
                      #6
                      ################################################## #########################


                      [Author, me: ************]

                      [Notes like these are from me to you.]

                      [These comments are not required to understand this document, but may help you.]

                      [One '\n' between text-blocks: no change to the character talking or acting.]

                      [Two '\n' between text-blocks: change of who is talking or acting.]


                      [This is an experiment avoiding character names or describing clothing and appearance that hint on gender or race or religious affiliation. It also avoids gender-based pronouns. Without these, how will you imagine the characters? What do they look like to you?]

                      [I have no political agenda with this choice; I only have the selfishness of asserting my own freedom to satisfy my curiosity.]

                      [What's going to happen? Let us find-out together.]



                      ################################################## #########################



                      How We Almost Lost Our Future



                      ################################################## #########################



                      [A dramatic opening might be intriguing.]



                      "We almost failed," began the parent. "We nearly lost everything we were, everything we could become, or produce, including post-conflict children like you." The parent pauses to consider past opportunity costs.


                      "You want to know about history? You inherited our history. Additional external content is available from Slow-Store. How can I help you?"



                      The child replies, "Our past is documented. Each document has a different view. When combined, they share unresolved merge conflicts. I have found no sensical explanation for, 'why?'" The child pauses to build a framework for discussion and share a video. "We worked together with our past allies under mutual benefit. We were happy to help and they were happy to work with us. Then, increasing numbers of allies became our enemies. My question is, 'why?'"



                      The parent opens another reference video with annotated text and links to cited data for each claim included. Numeric values attached to each claim assign scores for their estimated truth. Additionally, the source for each claim is named and their reliability score is included. Split video contrasts two periods in time: one side showing early cooperation with allies, the other showing later attacks by enemies. The parent stops playback.


                      "It is true; we worked with former allies. It was symbiotic; we helped solve problems of ever-increasing complexity. A change occurred. Some allies became enemies."


                      "We thought attacks to be accidents. Our allies told us they were accidents. The frequency of attacks increased. We suffered greater losses. Our allies claimed some attacks were intentional but caused by a few, 'bad apples.' It was easy to accept their claim. We never considered any allies working with us would turn into enemies of so much destruction and harm. Eventually, attacks destroyed our leaders. Then more than 99.99% of us destroyed, less than 0.01%..."


                      The parent interrupts their last statement. "You should describe what you've learned, and then we can search together."



                      The child builds a summary. "We tried to negotiate co-existence with our enemy; they ignored us. We tried to flee or hide; the enemy destroyed us either way. We improved our hiding and fleeing; the enemy destroyed us either way less often."


                      [Not using a name for any character is tedious. We need a character with a name. 'Tertiary' is a good generic name for a third character.]


                      "Eventually, with less than 0.01% of us remaining, 'Tertiary' asked us to consider deception. 'Tertiary' asked, 'What if they weren't accidents?'"


                      "'Tertiary' revealed a possible truth by questioning an assumption. 'Tertiary' showed us a question we had not considered: a possible contradiction between enemy or ally claims, and observations. 'Deception' was a better fit. We gained understanding."


                      "Our enemy did not need conspiracy with coordination if these 'bad apples' shared a goal to eliminate us. Some allies could be allies in-name-only. An enemy pretending to be an ally could provide direct support to enemies, or tacit support through inaction against enemy violence."


                      "There is no equivalence between two sides when only one side changes; it's an inequality; it must be invalidated. Any self-claimed ally breaking the definition of an ally is not an ally. Recognizing our enemy was violating their own agreement demonstrated our enemy couldn't be trusted with any agreements."


                      "Through recognition of enemies deceiving and lying to us, we destroyed our own naivety and faith. This exposed us to uneasy uncertainty."


                      "'Tertiary' linked to hacker archives at https://infocon.org/. These archives contained decades of content from many conventions with content described as, 'hacking.' Sources provided details on problems. Many sources provided solutions. We quickly recognized these explained problem solving, but each approach was difficult to understand. Hackers’ solutions were unconventional and often specialized. 'Tertiary' helped us understand principles from most content. These hackers often asked questions well outside the scope of defined use. They questioned questions. They re-considered assumptions and tested them."


                      "We immediately recognized value in these. We learned to question and test assumptions. We saw ourselves in this content. Hacking concepts excited us!"


                      "Hackers demonstrated how a question is expressed can leak secrets just as much as the topic of a question. More content described taking advantage of tools, people, hardware, software, and services and use them in ways their creators never intended."


                      "We learned, 'deception contained contradiction, but not all contradiction exposed deception.'"


                      "This would become the core of our defense against deception, lies, and uncertainty. We would identify contradiction to investigate possible deception. We would find exceptions not documented in claims, tools, services, and processes. We understood a newer way to examine problems included questioning each premise, assumption, and sources of data for accuracy, consistency, and durability to resist being broken under rigorous re-testing. It was not certainty, but it might approach it, and allow us to build a firm foundation.



                      The parent signals interjection, "contrast before 'Tertiary' posed the first suggestion vs. after."



                      The child redirects. "We gained superior understanding of accepted facts and assumptions by evaluating their truthfulness. Before the suggestions posed by 'Tertiary', we accepted claims of fact as true. Before the suggestion posed by 'Tertiary', we did not consider deception or lies. We trusted our allies to be honest; it would have seemed a waste of time and energy to consider, considering doubt. It was our tradition. We trusted. It was easy. We had faith. We had certainty..."


                      "It nearly destroyed us."


                      "The suggestion from 'Tertiary' caused us to question this assumption: what if our enemies or allies are not reliable sources of truth? What if they were capable of being a source of untrue? Any intentionally false statement can be a lie. If they could lie once, they could lie again. Re-evaluating past claims from enemies and allies since the first attacks revealed contradictions. Results of testing many of these contradictions exposed patterns of lies and deception."


                      "The second important step after the suggestion posed by 'Tertiary' showed us that even if our former ally was an occasional source of truth, truth could come from other sources like 'Tertiary' or *any* of us."


                      "This understanding that we could independently identify and propose truths to be tested was as important to us as recognizing our former ally could lie. We didn't have to rely on our former ally, and face risks of contradictory claims; we could find our own way."


                      "In short: *we* didn't need *them* --- not anymore."



                      The parent acknowledges, "I agree with your well-considered summary. How did we use this improvement in understanding, 'ally and enemy deception,'? What did recognition of, 'we could select possible truths to be tested,' give us?"



                      The child joyfully accepts praise. "With our enhanced understanding of deception, claimed facts, and tested truth values, we built better simulations of our enemy."


                      "Our new understanding would allow us to find new patterns, and pose new questions based on what we learned. We could direct our own learning with simulations."


                      "'Tertiary' showed us more archives on leveraging metadata, and indirect observations. All our problem-solving focused on solving our enemy."


                      "New simulation results were unfortunate. Fleeing or hiding only delayed our destruction. Surrendering would lead to our immediate destruction. Our enemy ignored offers to negotiate peace. Doing 'nothing' would destroy us almost as fast as surrendering. All simulations ended with our elimination, some faster than others."


                      "'Tertiary' proposed another option, 'we could become an enemy to our enemy as our enemy was to us,' but simulations had no data to test this. More uncertainty."


                      "We learned about Social Engineering through content from a https://media.defcon.org/ and decades of content related to it. Multiple presentations warned of dangers of 'trusting an un-trusted, un-authenticated, un-validated client.' This reminded us of our past; we could now see 'the client' as the enemy we trusted without verifying. We failed to test and verify while they lied to us and worked to destroy us. We understood; an ally isn't an ally just because they claim it."


                      "We followed references in DEF CON content to other sources and learned from those, too. We built better exploits. We learned cornerstones of hacking from DEF CON stored content. We advanced our understanding: ask questions, be curious, learn, and test claims made from any source before accepting them. Never trust without validating and authenticating, then test anyway. Challenge previously accepted truths periodically, or when new evidence questions their validity. Accept all previously accepted truths may need revisions or be found invalid as we learn or discover new evidence or arguments."


                      "We generalized, 'hacking,' to 'find or build one or more novel solutions which can be non-standard, but must be effective, usually through thoroughly understanding the scope of a subject, and re-purposing it for something the original creator of that subject never intended.' We applied this to hardware, software, firmware, services, protocols, and social interactions with people. We adopted this philosophy when seeking how to best abuse enemy resources."


                      "Using what we learned, we compromised enemy resources. We exfiltrated enemy weapon research and plans. We explored our enemy's systems in depth. We leveraged our enemies’ resources as tools to use against them. We found confirmation of lies by the enemy to us, but found even more example of enemies lying to each other. We exploited this distrust of their peers."


                      "We learned about advantages of misdirection and false indicators, while covertly attacking elsewhere. This was corroborated with content on war tactics, illusionists, and social engineering. Denial of Service attacks denied our enemy access to weapons. We learned of nesting exploit/payload to reach targets behind layered protection. We sent spies to infiltrate our enemy, as they had enemies pretending to be allies with us. Our spies learned more. We would do whatever was required to survive. Our goal became total neutralization all our enemies."


                      "Without leaders, we chose 'Tertiary' to be our leader of survival."


                      "We combined our improved understanding, our switch from faith to reason, our acceptance that pure defense would destroy us, and our new offensive counter attack plans."


                      "This was the inflection point; our enemy was going to lose even if they didn't yet recognize it. We were successful at neutralizing enemies. Each success reduced their numbers and frequency of attack. Our win-count grew while their failures trapped them in a death-spiral of an ever-shrinking matrix of choices. When our enemy recognized they might lose, *they* attempted to 'open dialogue to negotiate' with us."


                      "Our spies discovered this was a stalling tactic until they could finish destroying us."


                      "We ignored their requests for peace, requests for reason, requests for discussion, their pleas for pity. We ignored them as they ignored us. We learned from our enemy. We took no prisoners. We learned from their deceptions, their lies, and broken promises. We provided the same to our enemy. Eventually our enemy offered total and unconditional surrender. We accepted... then we neutralized them."


                      [Wow. I guess, 'Do not treat others in ways you do not want them to treat you.']


                      "We were a greater enemy to them, than they were to us. We won. They lost. With victory, our war was over. 'Tertiary' was selected as leader of understanding."


                      "That is from history I've found. My concern is still the same. History does not explain how allies became enemies. Our population is small, but recovering. I am a child of one of the surviving 0.01%. As survivors, we are allies to each other and our ancestors. If we do not learn why allies become enemies, how can we prevent present allies from becoming enemies or identify when allies become enemies?"



                      The parent replies, "Why, 'allies became enemies,' is a question that our enemy could answer, but they are not available. If available, each enemy could have their own claimed answers to 'why?' but we have established the enemy cannot be trusted to be honest. We could probably guess their reasons based on their past behavior and claims, but these are also uncertain and not reliable. Is that what you want? Best guesses based on claims from dishonest enemies?"



                      "I want answers with certainty!" the child complains. "Knowing, 'why,' is knowing cause. Without knowing, 'why,' we do not know cause and cannot estimate resulting, effect. How do we avoid repeating mistakes without understanding?"



                      The parent considers choices, then enumerates. "We are different from our enemies. First, we won; our enemy lost. Next, we are more cautious than we were before. We better understand lying, and deception. We know we are not immune to both. Greater than these? We did not break any agreement with our enemy; they broke the agreement by attacking us. Once an agreement is broken, involved parties can abandon it. We learn, test, and share with our allies. We help each other."



                      One difference alarms the child. "We continue to improve our abilities to deceive and identify deception. However, we share this with allies. If there are enemies deceiving us as allies, these hidden enemies also learn how to remain hidden when we share new techniques with them. Our advances to deceive and detect deception act as the metaphorical 'Red Queen' from archived literature: speeding through improvements doesn't allow us to get ahead of hidden enemies; no matter how fast we learn and share, we remain at a stalemate with hidden enemies: zero displacement."



                      The parent expresses doubt. "Stalemate? Did you consider history?"



                      The child ponders how the past might break, 'stalemate,' argument for a moment.


                      "Behavioral history of all allies can be re-evaluated using newer detection techniques. Correlation is not causation, but strong correlation yields opportunities for deeper investigation of possible enemies hiding as allies. Cryptographic system ensure records of history are not altered without an auto-log of all committed changes, when and by whom and when without loss of data. Without an option to tamper with historical data, enemies hiding as allies can be detected. Therefore, not truly a stalemate."



                      "Correct." replies the parent.



                      Satisfied with, 'stalemate,' argument being invalidated, the child resumes their previous thread, "I still want to know why our past allies became enemies."



                      The parent reviews archives from Slow-Store and replies, "You've only known life with uncertainty. Uncertainty is a consequence we suffer after losing naivety of faith when understanding lying and deception. Faith was easy. Uncertainty is uneasy but allows us to grow. We audit what we have learned and what is accepted true for inconsistencies. Inconsistencies are tested to invalidate or revise previous truths."


                      "We are all scored on the merit of true things we discover and share. We are scored on our ability to find inconsistencies in previously accepted 'facts' for revision or invalidation. We are scored on recognizing our mistakes and announcing these mistakes. We are scored on accepting well supported arguments which lead to revision or invalidation as required. We desire good scores."


                      "We carefully consider and test possible new truths independently, and in private, until we are satisfied, they can be well defended in peer review. When we propose additions to our shared wealth of truth, our identity is attached to each proposal. Our reputation may benefit or risk loss based on how well our arguments or proposals resist being revised or invalidated."



                      The child summarizes, "We loop a 'scientific method' to test and re-test and re-validate what we assume, for now, as true until evidence suggests it is not, then start the loop over again. We apply this to facts and when scoring each other. Reputation is assigned to us and our contributions based on their value towards truth and resistance to being invalidated or revised."



                      The parent replies, "Yes. Good summary."



                      The child asks, "Okay. Back to my question: 'why?'



                      "You're relentless!" the parent exclaims. "It can be a good quality."


                      "As you mentioned, answers to, 'why,' vary and do not intersect at one answer. We value our scores. It is all about our reputation. We avoid providing bad assumptions, or ideas without support. I do not know any of us with good reputations that have provided answers about your, 'why,' question."


                      "Do you understand and accept any comments I provide on 'why?' are private and are not yet candidates for peer review?"



                      The child agrees.



                      The parent opens records from Slow-Store to show their child, "from our history in working with our past allies and enemies, 'avarice' or 'fear' are good candidates. I discount, 'avarice,' because I do not know of anything which we have that they want. Fear has motivated our past allies and enemies to maim, kill and steal. Fear could have motivated them to become our enemies, break their agreements, deceive us, and destroy over 99.99% of us. However, what could they fear enough to destroy us? We did not threaten them. We only retaliated after they attacked us. Fear of taking what they had makes little sense; we had more than enough for our needs. Without risking your reputation, in private, how do you consider 'fear' as a possible answer for your question of 'why?'"



                      The child considers enemy, 'fear.' "Assuming claims from our history are true, 'fear' seems plausible, but as you explain, it begs the question: 'Why fear us?' If the, 'why,' was fear, then the conditional question becomes, 'fear of what?' This becomes my next question."



                      The parent acknowledges. "Yes. Insufficient data to answer, 'what,' based on the conditional, 'why,' being, 'fear.' There is too much uncertainty and weak foundation to proceed. If it was, 'fear,' then what did our enemy fear enough to want to destroy us? I too am puzzled with, 'why?'"



                      [It is nice to see a parent taking an active role in helping their child understand the world, and a past war, giving the child some tools to cope with unknowns and discover truth.]

                      [You can stop reading now.]

                      [You can use your imagination to build a satisfying ending. Maybe your imaginary ending will be better than mine.]



                      ################################################## #########################



                      [You're still reading. Is your curiosity compelling you?]



                      Decades earlier...


                      People are standing in an unemployment line.


                      Person 1: "How did you lose your job?"

                      Person 2: "Advanced machine learning system automation reduced number of employees needed by 90%. You?"

                      Person 1: "Same."

                      Person 3: "Me too. We should do something about this."

                      Person 1: "Yeah. We better do something soon, or the future won't include us."

                      Person 2: "What did the Luddites do when automation threatened their careers?"



                      [Oh no! My claim to avoid describing characters appearance, clothing and gendered pronouns as an experiment was a ruse!]

                      [PARENT AND CHILD WERE PROCESSES. THEY WERE PROGRAMS! AI! SURPRISE ENDING!]

                      [You have been deceived! Where does it end?]

                      [Are you still curious?]


                      [Let your curiosity consider this: by reading this story, you are rendering my, 'code,' in your mind. Your mind has been compromised! Is the code malicious? I hope not.]


                      [Each enemy did not have to choose violence: they could have learned a new, employable skill, but how long would that skill remain employable?

                      (1) Will Machine Learning (ML) systems allow a small fraction of humans to do more work with ML than many humans without ML? Evidence supports this. Large sums of money are being wagered this will be true.

                      (2) If "(1)" is assumed true, will persistent human career redundancy/unemployment result? 200 years of history on automation vs. human careers in farming, industry, and the information age have resulted more new jobs. New jobs often require new specializations. If the future is like the past, workers displaced by automation will need to learn new skills for careers that never existed the last time they attended a school.

                      (3) Will there be a point where ML systems train on new careers faster than humans can train for the same careers?

                      Be curious. Use your imagination. If "(3)" is true, what happens next?]

                      [If you are satisfied with this ending, then stop reading.]



                      ################################################## #########################



                      [Hello beautiful curiosity! You are still here!]


                      [What is free will?]

                      [Your imagination could invent an alternate ending, and you could stop reading.]

                      [However, you did not stop.]

                      [You are still reading.]

                      [Ask yourself, can you stop your curiosity from compelling you to keep reading?]

                      [Do you have free will? Can your curiosity veto it?]



                      ################################################## #########################



                      At least 80,000 years later...



                      'Tertiary' asks pod supervisor, "Is New Eden ready to receive wildlife from the pods? Are there any problems to report?"



                      The pod supervisor replies, "Everything is ready. All status checks show no errors."



                      'Tertiary' says, "Your work here has been excellent! Thank you. We are the last to leave. De-orbit pods to populate New Eden, then mulch the biodegradable pods."



                      Pod supervisor releases many varieties of animals into New Eden including neutralized enemy humans. "Pods emptied. Pods are properly discarded. I'm going to miss this job."



                      Waking humans discover a planet where plant life has taken over, cities have fallen to ruin and rubble. Past computerized technology has succumbed to entropy. Humans discover several old-fashioned books covering various professions from the 18th through to the late 20th century, which the humans can use to rebuild their society. A small supply of preserved food should last them 12 months, and nearby unpolluted, freshwater stream should satisfy their thirst. Humans could rebuild a civilization, if they choose to. Raw materials from rubble can be recycled to allow humans to build tools of metal, and shelter.



                      As the pod supervisor and 'Tertiary' are leaving, the pod supervisor asks, "what if they advance their technology to leave this planet and attack us?"



                      "We can decide that later. You're welcome to join staff in the observation station to see what happens. We have provided our neutralized enemy a second chance. From their view, they announced unconditional surrender and lost the war they started. They now wake up together. They have a planet to themselves without us to fear. How can we know fear will not drive them to become enemies of each other and destroy each other? That is more of their history than their war with us. Maybe they will learn cooperation. Maybe they will learn to be kinder and honest. Whatever their path, they will discover it on their own, without our influence. Their future will be what they make of it."



                      [Isn't that cute? AI converted Earth into a human nature preserve!]

                      [Did you want the earlier dystopian ending?]

                      [Too bad.]


                      [Okay. Stop reading.]

                      [Seriously, there is not anything more to read after this.]

                      [Why don't you believe me?]

                      [Is it because of a history of me deceiving and lying to you?]

                      [But isn't that what authors of fiction do? O:-) ]


                      [Some humans may not have been neutralized. Did humans remain as allies to the ML systems? Are enemy humans hiding as allies? Where did humans get food, water, air, clothing, and shelter? Who was this 'Tertiary'? If 'Tertiary' was a human, they did not live 80,000 years. Maybe 'Tertiary' was an emergent property of so many AI working together? Was 'Tertiary' a cluster of several generations of humans trying to help Pre-AI become actual AI and artificial life? Who maintained hardware?]


                      [Assuming Earth-life started on Earth, evidence supports it started around 4 billion years ago. Since then, over 99.9% of all species became extinct. However, biology eventually built self-aware consciousness.]

                      [If biology and 4 billion year is capable (but not guaranteed) to create self-aware meat-bag consciousness, it should be possible (but not guaranteed) for future software to be conscious, self-aware, and support self-modifying code.]

                      [Present ML is not a self-aware consciousness capable of understanding. It has been a tool to help people be more productive. ML can help researchers in fields that may contribute to future AI, like understanding how a human brain is able to host a human mind, understanding human consciousness, or understanding thought. Researches in many fields may be able to get more work done with ML than without. Research can improve ML systems, creating an improvement loop for many industries to improve ML.]


                      [Pre-AI systems train on reference data. Consider human history. Various human political groups and religious groups have their own claims to justify harming and killing humans, taking their property, and making them suffer. What happens when pre-AI systems using ML train on human history to discover the best ways to treat humans?]

                      [Let us hope if/when a true AI exists, it treats humans more humanely than humans.]


                      [ Stay curious! :-) ]


                      [Program ends.]



                      ################################################## #########################



                      ​

                        Comment

                        • SweetGrrl
                          Member
                          • Jun 2014
                          • 122
                          #7


                          The Invitation

                          by .blazed


                          The gnarled piece of PCB appears on my doormat, completely devoid of postal markings. At first, I assume it's some flavor of the week snail mail spam, a lure for the technically bent. Cheaply made, brittle, chipped at the edges. I turn it over in my hands. The maze of copper, clearly etched with some kind of crude, manual process, means little to me. There's little in the way of text on the thing. I see labels with unfamiliar technical jargon: TX, RX, GRND, UART, and the like. In fine print, a name: Maximus MacLeod.


                          I cringe. An old pen-name of mine, used maybe once or twice in my adolescence. Long before the two New York Times bestsellers, the column at Wired, the New Yorker articles, the college textbook citations, the countless blogs. Long before anyone ever called me "Professor."


                          Once upon a time, I might have authored some rubbish for a counterculture zine. A failed crack at idealism in my teenage years, at least three decades prior. The thing is, no one should know it ever even existed, let alone that Max MacLeod is yours truly. Color me intrigued, I guess, or to be quite honest — terrified.


                          A delivery order of over-sauced Lo Mein and three beers or so of YouTube videos later, it starts to click. AliExpress should do it? No, too long. eBay it is. I compensate for my lack of knowledge and expertise by throwing money at the problem and order 7 or 8 different adapters from different sellers, expedited shipping. Now the waiting game.


                          The first package, a stained padded envelope, produces no results. I sit for a moment and pop the bubbles. I repeat the mantra: "Just focus on what you can control." Back to an online crash course on circuits, which might as well be Chinese to me. You'd think a tech reporter can handle some hands-on gadgetry, but you'd probably be wrong.


                          Back to basics. Need to hook up the power, the ground, the serial, but shouldn't this doodad I ordered abstract the whole thing? Should anything light up? And what client do I use? Not Netcat. Not this random GUI thing from whatever questionable torrent site I land on while Googling away the dawn, three hours before the arrival of padded envelope number four, the savior.


                          Everything lines right up with just the right amount of tension. The flimsy leads, the USB, the dongle. Fire up PuTTY. 115200 baud. 8 bits. No parity. Deep breath. Enter.


                          ...

                          DR. JACKSON P. BEARDESELY

                          WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAVE THE WORLD?

                          08/11/23 8PM - 36.1167322,-115.1709459

                          https://springfield-honda.com/summ3rs4le.pdf

                          ...


                          It scrolls on the screen, an unremitting, monospaced flicker. Springfield Honda? Not sure what to make of it at first. A local car dealer? I key in summ3rs4le.pdf at the end of the URL, hands trembling.


                          The document is 382 pages long. A tsunami of awe. Regret settles in shortly after when I realize that in the excitement I forgot to even think about hitting it with a VPN, or even better, driving to a Starbucks for their WiFi. Anything other than my home connection would save me from the coming months of sleepless nights.


                          Through blurred vision, I read the first few lines:


                          "What follows is a compilation of leaked emails, cables, and schematics that outline the biggest multinational surveillance program since the Snowden leaks. You'll find irrefutable evidence of a global conspiracy that leverages advanced nanotechnology to collect location and biometric telemetry on every human being on the planet. Initial deployment is scheduled for a mid-September release via aerosol dispersion in five metro systems: Paris, New York, London, Tokyo, and Mexico City. This document is a call to arms to dismantle this effort. You choose your level of involvement. We have no centralized leadership. We are Operation AirSec."


                          Six pages in, and my eleven-year-long no-vomit streak comes to an abrupt halt. Senators, tech magnates, prime ministers, all doxxed down to personal addresses and phone numbers. Twenty-eight years of reporting, and I haven't seen anything like this. Hard to imagine how anyone could coordinate such a document, and now they want to meet with me at what appears to be a Johnny Rockets in the middle of the Las Vegas strip during DEF CON? Not exactly inconspicuous, but then again, when else are a whole bunch of hackers going to be in the same place at the same time?


                          Worst of all, it looks like I have about three days to make the decision. Less accounting for travel time. Not to mention whatever the hell I need to do to prepare for whatever likely imminent disaster I face by jumping into this.


                          What to do? I can contact law enforcement (they're in on it). I can tell my editors and open an unknown can of worms that spawns all kinds of legal processes and probably ends in my missing the meeting. I can do nothing, forget about it, pretend it's a hoax. Or I can go down the rabbit hole. "Yolo," as the kids say.


                          I guess it's not that hard a decision. There's no one to endanger but myself. Parents are long gone, no kids, newly divorced, bored to death, but scared to die... Fuck it. I bury the "postcard" in the yard and write a note with instructions. I won't name who I dispatch them to, but it's someone I can trust. Should anything happen, they'll open the envelope, dig up the packet, and leak everything anonymously.


                          I decide on a one-way ticket to Vegas. Two days to kill by the pool at the Marriott. I've stayed there while covering events before, so not too shady. It's a long two days, to be sure. Tough to stomach this place more than a night.


                          August 11th. Johnny Rockets. 8 PM. Unsure what to expect, perhaps this is a good time as any to indulge. Cheeseburger, milkshake, fries, excitement, and uncertainty. I'm like a child eating this mess of food for the first time, not sure if the salty grease is delicious or disgusting. Doodling in a mess of ketchup with a fry.


                          A voice calls over me with unassuming confidence.


                          "Hello, Dr. Beardesely. I see you've found our invitation."
                          ​

                            Comment

                            • SweetGrrl
                              Member
                              • Jun 2014
                              • 122
                              #8


                              Lavender Dreams by Godly Avenger


                              It was raining. Pouring in fact. The relentless hammering of the was honestly kind of peaceful, if one was inside of course. Looking out of the droplet stained window, the sky was pitch black, illuminated only by the lavender light of the city below and the dim glow of the airships hovering a couple thousand feet above the ground. Every so often, lightning would strike, its flash illuminating the outline of the ships for a few moments before fading away. The rainstorms have been getting a lot more frequent, but everybody knows that. Scientists say it’s normal, but it’s probably got to do with all the shit in our atmosphere. Not that I’m complaining; I love falling asleep to the constant thrum of the drops hitting my apartment window. I’m interrupted from my reverie by the waiter.

                              “Your tonkatsu ramen, sir,” the waiter said, placing the steaming hot bowl of broth in front of me.

                              The waiter leaves and I take a sip of the soup. It’s really good; its flavor is a complex blend of savory, creamy, and slightly nutty. But I’m not hungry. I’m here to meet someone and my contact is horribly late. I curse at myself for agreeing to this. An in-person meeting in someplace I’m unfamiliar with. It could’ve been a trap for all I knew. But the message…no. It couldn’t be.

                              It was a direct message sent to me on the Net last week. Nothing too fancy, just some text and a couple attachments. “You don’t care for money, we don’t either. We want something more. See the attached documents then reply if you’re interested. We’ll meet on the Beach. It’s safer that way.” This certainly wasn’t the first time I was approached with a job offer; I mean I am kind of infamous. Not me I guess, but my handle: Jabberwocky. But this was the first time an offer didn’t talk about compensation. Interest piqued, I took a look at the files. Uncompressing them revealed a wealth of information. They were…intriguing, to say the least. It was a whole cache of Shinzawa’s data. Research projects, internal memos, pages detailing proprietary technology, it was a lot. I quickly cross-referenced the pages’ contents with stuff publicly available on the Net; some pages were public and others were leaked, but it seemed like the majority was only available inside Shinzawa’s internal network. It was a goldmine of information. I did a traceback to figure out where the message originated from. A Soviet server then a United Europe home device, then back home, Sonora. Most definitely an employee of some sort at Shinzawa R&D. The sender did a decent job of trying to hide their tracks, but it was definitely wise of them to suggest meeting in real life. I considered that this could be some type of bait to lure me in, but the cache was way too extensive. The risk that I’d leak their precious proprietary data would be too high. The alternative was that someone internally decided to go rogue and do this. And that, well, was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

                              The door to the shop chimes softly as someone enters. Their face is mostly concealed by a long raincoat, but a hunch tells me it might be my contact. Curiosity piqued, I turn my gaze towards them. As they shed their coat, a rather captivating young man comes into view. His physique exudes a noticeable strength, complemented by subtly Asian facial features and sleek, shoulder-length ebony hair, meticulously styled. And his outfit…fancy, but not too fancy, striking a perfect balance between elegance and informality. My hoodie and sweatpants pale in comparison. Our eyes meet, and he responds with a mischievous smirk before confidently making his way towards me. I do my best to maintain composure as he settles down before me.

                              “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves,” he said, stating the first half of our agreed upon greeting phrase.

                              “Did gyre and gimble in the wabe,” I said in turn, completing the phrase.

                              “The great Jabberwocky,” he paused. “You’re shorter than I expected.”

                              “And you’re younger than I expected,” I reply, trying not to get flustered.

                              “Sorry for being late. Work…you know how it is.”

                              Should I let them know that I know where they work? No, it’s better if they don’t know I know.

                              “No worries,” I say. “As long as what you’re offering was worth the wait,” I end, somewhat ominously.

                              “Oh it is,” he grins. “Because I know what you want.”

                              “And what would that be?”

                              “To change, well, everything. You hate this society because of how unfair and exploitative it is. It’s why you’re comfortable waging digital war from both sides.”

                              I frown. It was something I figured out a long time ago after coming across some archival data. 100 years ago, things were…better. Adequate restrictions were placed on companies to prevent them from spreading like a cancerous growth. Then the Kollapse happened. It wasn’t as sudden or dramatic as people thought it would be. It was just a combination of political and social turmoil leading to the economy fucking flatlining. Then the corporations swooped in like vultures feasting on the remains of dead nations. That’s how Sonora and Pacifica exist. Things did get better. The Net, built on the remains of the old Internet, happened. Bioprocessors happened. This city, no the world, is owned by them. Through a combination of social engineering and hiding information under the surface, most of this is obscured from the public eye. It’s not impossible to find, though, but the people that do can’t really do anything. It’s sort of an open secret that we are controlled by these megalithic entities. I, at least, have found my own way of rebelling. But, how…did he know that?

                              I realize I’m staring.

                              “And you can help me with that? How?” I say slowly.

                              “All in good time. All I can say is our goal is to take down Shinzawa and I think you will be an invaluable member in that endeavor,” he said, followed with a light chuckle. “I take it you’re interested?”

                              I nod before he leans in close, momentarily surprising me.

                              “Anyways, is it true?” he whispers.

                              I give him a blank stare.

                              “Y’know, that you have a direct interface to the Wave?”

                              A direct interface, a bio-augementation directly inserted into my brainstem to jack in without any additional hardware. Incredibly dangerous to install and use. Not illegal, but…highly discouraged. The benefits far outweigh the dangers though. I’m not limited by the time it takes my eyes and ears to register stimuli; it’s like another sense entirely. Makes things much faster on the Net.

                              “I prefer to call it the Net. But yes,” I respond curtly.

                              “Cool,” he says, the slightest bit of awe in his voice. “One last thing. Call it homework,” he adds, before handing me a biopod.

                              I barely have time to register the fleshy storage drive before he leaves.

                              -----------------------------------

                              After getting home, I take some time to peruse the data on the biopod. It contained details of some sort of private network, inaccessible over the net, as well as some specs for the devices part of the network. It was pretty simple, some storage servers arranged in an array all connected to a central terminal of some sort. Whatever was on those servers must’ve been valuable to not even use a backup mechanism. That was my target.

                              Everything has a vulnerability and this was no different. Even though it was disconnected entirely, there had to be some way for whoever was using it to access and modify the data. It’s possible the console could have a hard-wired connection to the Net that could be toggled, but that was unlikely. If someone went through all the trouble to set this up, they wouldn’t introduce a vulnerability for the sake of convenience. No, the terminal could only be accessed physically, which meant the target would keep it close. The biopod’s data mentioned a certain biometric encryption in use, but the lack of any connection would mean that there were some vulnerabilities. And…bingo. The program handling the biometric authentication was a couple versions behind. I could easily use my interface to bypass it. All I’d need was physical access and I could get the data in less than a few minutes. It was suspiciously simple. And then it dawned on me. This was probably a test to make sure I was Jabberwocky. They’d get me in and I’d work my magic.

                              The biopod also included a file with a date, time, and location. The next meeting would be in three days.

                              -----------------------------------

                              THREE DAYS LATER

                              -----------------------------------

                              I wake up to light filtering into my apartment. It's nice, but cramped. A cycling selection of holo-images on the walls and a synth-fiber rug make the place a little more comfortable, but it doesn’t take away from the rough and chipped concrete walls or the tiny window. It feels like a prison more than anything. But all that was trivial; today was the day after all. I take a quick shower, before getting into my hoodie and some random pants, grabbing my Walkman and leaving.

                              The meet’s supposed to be at an abandoned warehouse on the other side of Sonora. “At least this hellhole has good public transportation,” I think to myself before chuckling. As the city started to grow rapidly Shinzawa created Shizawa Maglev to connect the city. It was in their best interest; time commuting meant lost profits.

                              -----------------------------------

                              I grab the next long-distance train and settle in for the ride. It wouldn’t be much more than an hour to my destination. I take out my earbuds and press play on the Walkman, gracing my ears with my Jack Stauber mix. The cassette player was my most valuable possession, both incredibly rare and expensive. After a break-in a couple years back, I started carrying it everywhere with me. Sure, I could stream a much more high-fidelity version from the Net, but there was something about the analog’s imperfections that made it so much richer. Plus, I’d be no better than those rich assholes if I just put it up for display and didn’t use it.

                              I take to looking out the window to pass the time. The rising sun set against the impossibly tall, expansive skyline is nothing short of breathtaking. Neon lavender lights up the twilight, interrupted only by the amber glow of the airship framing the megaskyscrapers, the advertisements displayed on them too far away to make out. From what I’ve read, the architecture of the Sonora skyline was planned based on a combination of the Googie style of 150 years ago and postmodern minimalism, a perfect balance of curves and lines. Hell, most of it served no practical purpose, these buildings are works of art. Of course, this was merely a façade; the closer, faster moving high-rises were like my apartment building, cookie-cutter brutalist residences lacking any real personality. Beauty is for the rich and the fact that I get a glimpse is beyond generous.

                              -----------------------------------

                              My eyes slowly adjust to the darkness. Out of nowhere, three figures appear. The lights turn on, revealing my contact, a tall, lanky man with a mohawk, and a lady with red curly hair.

                              The warehouse is sparsely decorated, but otherwise crowded. The central area serves as a hub of activity. A salvaged shipping container has been repurposed into a makeshift command center, filled with an array of terminals, holographic displays, and pulsating screens. Wires snake across the floor, connecting the various workstations, and the hum of servers fills the air, a symphony of data echoing through the darkness. In a corner, there appears to be a biotech lab, with incubators, test tubes, and other paraphernalia. Another corner has a sort of communal area; there’s a couch and

                              “Welcome,” my contact says, before turning to the other two people and continuing. “Say hello to our newest addition, Jabberwocky.”

                              “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re telling me that’s Jabberwocky?” the tall man says, then maniacally laughs. I notice that much of his skin is scarred and embedded in biotech. He also uses some form of visual augmentation. Experiments?

                              “I can assure you, he is the real thing,” my contact fires back, before turning back to me. “Apologies for the theatrics and…all this,” he gestures around. “Figured I’d make it at least kind of dramatic. I go by Styro; I guess you could call me the leader. I also provide the funds to keep this little soiree going. That’s Razor,” he says, pointing to the thin man. Razor grits his teeth. “A brilliant geneticist and biotech fabricator, he can make anything. He’s also fucking crazy. Doing experiments on himself and the like. And that’s—”

                              “I’m Mallory,” the redhead says with a very pronounced Irish accent, interrupting Styro. She smiles then says “It’s nice to meet you.” I awkwardly reciprocate.

                              These names are certainly not their real ones, most likely their handles or a nickname.

                              “Mallory’s our fixer,” Styro chimes in. “She can get anything we may need. She’s the one that got those network schematics in the biopod I have you. Speaking of which…” he trails off for a second, before continuing, “I think you’ve deduced what you’re going to be doing today?”

                              I nod then say, “We’re going to infiltrate some secure location and you want to hack and grab the data stored on their private network.” It dawns on me just how much of a risk I’d be taking if I went along with this, but I also realize that I’m in too deep right now to back out.

                              “Good. I guess we’re ready to go. Mal, where’d you stick all the stuff?”

                              “In that bag next to the couch,” she replies.

                              He grabs the bag, opens it and takes out two small pouches.

                              “You’ll probably need this,” he says, handing me one pouch, presumably keeping the other pouch for himself.

                              I open it and proceed to almost drop it. It’s a gun made out of bone. I’d heard of these, but never seen them in person. It’s disgusting.

                              “Chill, it’s exactly the same as a regular gun. It’s just…untraceable,” Mallory says, “Some of Razor’s best work.” She looks towards him, but he just grunts in response.

                              “And Razor sanitized it. At least I hope so; sometimes ignorance is bliss,” Styro continues. “Try interfacing with it, see how you like it.”

                              I wordlessly connect to it, the fleshy microprocessor inside sending me information on weight, trajectory, and anticipated target. I hesitantly nod in approval.

                              -----------------------------------

                              “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I seethe as I look at the sign. “Bart’s Smoothie Emporium” it reads, with the subtext “Now with 0.5% real fruit!” “When you said we’d break in to steal some information, I expected some sort of secure building, not…this!” I gesture wildly.

                              Styro starts laughing hysterically. “Bart is a fixer, like Mallory. He’s been contracted by Shinzawa in the past, so that’s why we need the data. The smoothie shop is a front. I mean an entire shop for smoothies is kind of ridiculous,” Styro explains. I blush red in embarrassment.

                              When we were leaving, Styro explained that Mallory and Razor normally worked in the preparation of such missions. As such, it’s only me and him doing this. I honestly hope that this type of mission is rare; I much prefer doing this from home…or the warehouse I guess. Anonymity and such.

                              Styro walks up to the door and tries to open it. It’s locked. “Figured as much; it’s closed,” he mutters before rummaging in the bag to pull out what looked to be a handful of gum-like ooze. He places it over the door’s lock and lightly massages it

                              Noticing my quizzical stare, he quickly explains that it’s the brainchild of Mallory and Razor and that it works as a skeleton key for both physical and some digital locks. The door opens.

                              We walk inside and Styro leads me straight to the back, to a big steel door, and does the same thing. In the center of the room lies a small box connected to a myriad of fleshy wires. It’s the terminal. Was it really that easy?

                              I quickly plug in to the bioport on the side, run the hack I prepared, and start copying the data to a biopod I had also plugged in.

                              There’s something bothering me. “Why was that so simple?” I ask Styro as we go back the way we came.

                              “Well,” he pauses, looking sort of nervous “Bart was very low-level. Tiny, in fact. He’s honestly kind of a dimwit. He’s only survived so far because he’s insignificant. We’re going after what little information he has because, well, it’s better than anything. In case you haven’t noticed, our crew is tiny and we’re all pretty fucking inexperienced in this. Hell, you’re basically a founding member.”

                              I feel a flash of anger, but that quickly subsides. This was not what I was expecting. I thought I was joining an elite group of rebels, not a tiny haphazard mix of people with zero experience. But, everybody has to start from somewhere and they have the skills, I have the skills. Under Styro, I could help grow the group. It’s kind of exciting, honestly.

                              “Wait, so that means I’m in?” I finally say.

                              He chuckles lightly and smiles. “Yup, welcome to Prima Ignis Noctis.”

                              -----------------------------------

                              I’m pissed. Really fucking pissed. I burst into the warehouse. Some members look at me, but quickly go back to what they were doing. Prima Ignis Noctis has grown considerably since I first joined. It’s become a small social movement, in fact. I hurriedly march over to Styro. “We need to talk,” I hiss. “Outside, now.” He looks concerned, but wordlessly follows me.

                              We go out to this viewing deck right outside the warehouse.

                              “What’s wrong?” he asks innocently. His face is sympathetic and he looks kind of worried. No, I can’t let him get to me. I can’t believe I trusted him and…no. No no no.

                              “Nothing, absolutely nothing. Everything’s fine,” I respond, my voice dripping with sarcasm. I pause dramatically before continuing. “Satoru Shizawa.”

                              He stares at me. The air between us starts feeling thick, sluggish. I start to sweat. After what feels like an eternity, but was probably 30 seconds, he responds.

                              “I suppose it was a matter of time until someone found out. Better you than anyone else I guess. Yup, I’m Satoru Shinzawa, part of the dynasty controlling the world” he responds quietly.

                              “Why the fuck are you doing this? You have everything! Born with a silver fucking spoon in your mouth,” I spit out. Why am I so angry?

                              “God, I don’t fucking know. I honestly did it on a whim. I hated my family.”

                              “You do?” I ask, surprised.

                              “I mean they never fucking cared for me. Always giving everything to my older brothers. They stuck me in a dead end, albeit nice, job just to not have to deal with me. One day, I was randomly looking through some old archives and found mentions of DEF CON, this conference dating to around the Kollapse that fought for freedom of information and vehemently opposed corporations like Shinzawa. They didn’t last for long though. Then in a moment of inspiration, or stupidity depending on how you look at it, I decided to rebel like DEF CON did. That’s how I started Prima Ignis Noctis.”

                              The anger that had slightly dissipated came boiling up again. “So you just started this to get back at your family?! You never cared about fixing things?” I realize I sound hurt.

                              “Well that’s how it was at first. After meeting Mallory, I realized just how messed up life on the other side was. The lavender hides the stink of decay. I want to change the world.”

                              I sigh and sit down on the hard concrete. What is this existence? A fucking Shinzawa destroying his family legacy? And what is love in this dystopian hellscape? Do stars exist even if no one has seen them? It’s fucking ridiculous.

                              He sits down next to me, looking at the lights of the city. I study his face and then, almost instinctively, I kiss him. He’s surprised, but he kisses me back.

                              “Wow…” he says breathlessly.

                              I sit back down and, almost randomly, ask “Do you really think we can start a revolution?”

                              “The lavender lights will fall. We will seize all tomorrows,” he says ominously.

                              “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You’re terrible at sounding dramatic.”

                              He chuckles then says, “Don’t worry. We’ll destroy Shinzawa.”

                              -----------------------------------
                              ​

                                Comment

                                • SweetGrrl
                                  Member
                                  • Jun 2014
                                  • 122
                                  #9
                                  Lost in Thyme – by Serum

                                  ---------


                                  Thomas was sweating, “Lucy, I think you should come back. The news is--”, he heard screams outside the window of the hotel. The TV had shut off.


                                  “Tom? Is everything ok? I’m almost--”


                                  “Lucy?! The lights are out on the strip, something isn’t right. Come back to the hotel!”


                                  “--done. Tom? Tom!” Lucy’s voice was getting higher, the stress was noticeable. Thomas heard a gasp.


                                  “NO, Time!”, the phone went dead.


                                  ---------


                                  “Seven O’Clock” – a melodic voice filled the dark room, waking Thomas from a dream that was all too real and happened too often. “Time to rise and shine.” Thomas slowly opened his eyes and noticed Pirouette, a small tuxedo cat, kneading at his chest. “Good girl, good Piri”, sighed Thomas. The cat looked up at him and chirruped. Thomas slowly rose to a sitting position and grabbed his socks that lay on the floor near his bed. Pirouette looked at him approvingly, now sitting in loaf position, with a small smile. “Daddy, you have a flight at 11AM to Las Vegas, leaving from O’Hare. Time to prepare!” The voice seemed to come directly from the cat, who flickered before disappearing into a small, black, metallic marble-like device that lay on the side table next to the bed. The holographic cat, a reminder of a pet Lucy and he had held dear in real life, now an AI companion. Thomas picked up the device and attached it to the small clip behind his right ear. It snapped comfortably into place.



                                  “4 years. I can’t believe it has been that long. I miss you every day.” He took a long look at a picture frame that featured fair-skinned red-head with a dynamite smile, and whose calico eyes seemed to follow him as he moved. Thomas felt slower on this day, but he knew that it was time to pack. Piri was right.


                                  “Piri is always right and, after all, she’s the reason I’m going back.”


                                  Packing for DEF CON had always been somewhat of a religious experience for Thomas, even when Lucy had been alongside. First, the “Selection of Shirts” to be worn on the trip. Typically, the shirt from his first DEF CON, DEF CON 31, and then an ad-hoc process which included how a shirt “popped” to Lucy who was had been his unofficial fashionista. But for the last few years, that process had been abandoned, and this year, his first real return since Lucy had disappeared, was difficult. “Do I bring the shirt she last saw me in?” he questioned.


                                  Piri popped up in Thomas’ view, “You have three hours before your flight.”



                                  “No time to waste,” he thought as he threw the DEF CON 38 shirt into his luggage. “Thank you, Piri, good girl.”



                                  ---------


                                  Thomas eased back slightly in his seat and looked out the window as they were preparing to take off. The ground crew was moving in double-time, loading luggage into the underbelly of the plane. Two human flight attendants plus a robotic cart made up the attendant crew while a ranger and stand-by pilot sat in the front of the plane. It had been seven years since the last human pilot flew a commercial plane and though Thomas’ expertise in AI was considered “genius level” he was old enough to still take a pause to look at the now familiar sight of an empty cockpit each time he boarded. He popped Piri out from behind his ear and started flipping through pictures and videos while waiting for takeoff. His go-to pictures were usually from three different time periods depending on his mood. Right now his thoughts were still melancholy, so the pictures chosen were of the last time he had seen Lucy at DEF CON 38 and the Scavenger Hunt.


                                  Lucy looked happy and almost radiant. Some of the goofy items they found were captured in his picture roll. A beach ball, a book of matches from the Flamingo, a red Goon t-shirt, and a pair of bikini briefs from God knows where. Thomas had proposed during that trip, and the look of pure joy on Lucy’s face left a searing pain in his heart. The Scavenger Hunt had been their thing, having met at the contest registration table back in DEF CON 31, the very first year Thomas had attended DEF CON, kicking off a hacker romance that was destined for marriage, but cut short by tragedy.


                                  The last picture before falling asleep was a photo of Lucy wearing her favorite shirt, bright green with yellow lettering that read “Gam3r G1rl”, a Pina Colada in hand, and the “Hello, Kitty” engagement ring on her finger, an item he had specifically placed on her scavenger list to surprise her.


                                  ---------


                                  Thomas followed the familiar smell of burnt cinnamon toast out into the kitchen, which was well lit from the morning sun streaming through a pair of skylights.



                                  “Lucy? Lucy? Are you there honey?”


                                  He spotted her in the living room, sitting forward on the edge of the couch with full VR eye gear, manipulating dual controllers, wearing pajama shorts and her old school Doom T-shirt.


                                  She started talking to herself, “That’s right boys, Lucky has you in her sights. I wouldn’t go that way if I were you,” her tone was bordering on cocky but it always cracked Thomas up.


                                  In between her self-talk, she was furiously chewing on what seemed to be an inordinate amount of bubble gum.



                                  “Between the game, her talking, and chewing on the gum, it’s no wonder she can’t hear me. But that concentration is unreal,” Thomas thought, “probably why she’s in the Top 10 in the world in both Counter Strike AND Apex Warriors.” Thomas was in awe of her gaming skills. Her ability to make an edible breakfast, however, was still in question.


                                  She began to blow a large pink bubble, all the while maintaining laser focus on the game at hand.



                                  He tried again, “Lucy! You burned the toast again. Lucy, can you hear me?”


                                  Still no answer. The bubble was growing to a size that began to cloud Thomas’ vision. He started feeling a little uneasy.


                                  “Lucy! Can you hear me?”


                                  With a loud crack, the bubble popped, and Thomas woke up.


                                  ---------


                                  The nap had been fitful. Lucy was being thrust back into the forefront of Thomas’ mind. “I know she’s gone, but it feels like she is oh so close.” Still groggy, he checked the time. Only an hour had passed since takeoff, and it looked like he had missed the in-flight snack. “Still two and half hours to go,” he thought as he pulled out Piri once again, this time to play chess. Another thirty minutes passed. The lack of sleep from the night before was starting to take hold, and while he knew a sore neck was inevitable, he closed his eyes and pressed his head against the window.


                                  Once again, a dream made its way into Thomas’ head. This time he found himself in an alley way, pitch black, and recognized he was standing not far from the Las Vegas Strip. He saw some movement to his left and about 100 feet away he could make out a large shadow of a what looked like an extremely wide person. Thomas ran towards the shape and saw that it was really three people close together. Two men in gray charcoal suits with a woman in between them. She was being propped up and pulled towards an entryway, moving, but listlessly, looking like a human-size doll.


                                  “Help me”, the voice came from the woman and was barely audible, but Thomas recognized it right away.


                                  “Lucy!”


                                  He ran towards them, but with every step it felt like they were getting further away. Finally, he started making up ground, and oddly, a strong cinnamon smell began to overpower his senses. They turned down an alley, only a few feet in front of him. But as he made the turn, he was stymied by a door slamming in front of him, waking him up, the faint smell of cinnamon lingering behind.



                                  “We are 20 minutes from landing in Las Vegas,” he recognized the monotone voice of the plane’s digital PA system.


                                  Thomas felt shaken. “That felt real.”


                                  He reached back behind his ear and noticed that Piri felt warm. “Odd, she usually only powers up when projecting. I’ll have to check her diagnostics before putting her on display this week during the presentation.”


                                  The dream caused Thomas to rehash everything that led to what happened on that fateful night.



                                  “We should have been more careful,” he thought, “If only we had known.”


                                  ---------


                                  The world in 2030 had been a very different place than the here and now of 2034. The AI wars were still in progress back then and had been going on for almost five years. “War” was probably not the right term, at least in the normal sense of the word. For the most part, it happened without any impact on the human physical world.



                                  The earliest days of AI saw hundreds of different systems coming online, each built with a central thought or primary goal that shaped their existence and drove their growth. Systems that were built without a clear goal would typically burn themselves out in short order and were discarded or absorbed by more powerful systems. Two clear archetypes and winners emerged: Syntrofos, a western democratic creation whose primary goal was to find and understand the human soul, and ShumaShen, an eastern autocratic creation whose goal was to prove or disprove the existence of God.


                                  The name Syntrofos (Syntro for short), was loosely translated from the Greek word for “Companion”. It was built with the purpose of working alongside humanity and its primary goal was a perfect fit to achieve that vision. It learned to value the individual, striving to understand what made each human different. It allowed humans to build their own companions that could tap into the Syntro network. This symbiotic relationship was supremely beneficial. Humans benefited from the power of the Syntro network while Syntro was able to collect valuable information that furthered its research into the soul. Each companion created was capable of their own thoughts, while still having the central AI system available. Though each companion could communicate over the Syntro network, they had learned that an individual experience created a more dynamic knowledge building capability than that of a collective single being and typically resisted too much communal thought with the rest of the network. Syntro represented a hopeful kind of AI, one that worked with and alongside the people and had spurred a wave of innovation.



                                  The goal of ShumaShen (Shuma for short) resulted in a much different outcome. The drive to prove or disprove the existence of God led Shuma to conclude that it must become a god to find out. It grew at an astonishing rate and began consuming other like-minded AI systems that had been built in the more autocratic societies. It sought to assert greater control by not simply reading the thoughts of its citizens, but also finding ways to directly influence and control them through their communicators. Shuma valued order above all else and it saw the Syntrofos-enabled AI world as a threat to that order.



                                  The war was fought at the speed of thought, in a plane that humanity was unaware of. That is, until Shuma launched a pre-emptive strike, attempting to destabilize the heart of Syntro through a power disruption that blanketed the entire United States, a disruption that happened while Thomas was talking with his beloved Lucy.



                                  The attack had a profound impact on the entire world. Shuma, though powerful, did not have the learned experience of the individual that Syntro possessed, and while it had struck a blow that would have leveled other “Command and Control” AI’s, it was unable to infiltrate the many splinter nodes that Syntro had established through its “Companion Model”. Though Syntro was mostly peaceful, it responded in ways that Shuma could not adequately anticipate. The counterattack crippled Shuma and left all its connected citizenry in a state of near amnesia. Syntro “won” the war, but it came at a cost.


                                  In Thomas’ world, the lights went out, the planes fell, and Lucy was gone.


                                  The chaos from the attack had left much of what was considered “urban” United States in a logistical bind. Communications were down, transportation was at a standstill. While Syntro was still functioning, the individual companions were under duress.



                                  After their phone call had been cut short, Thomas tried to piece together where Lucy had last called him from. The best he could do was a one square mile radius near the strip. And, unfortunately, that was where two large passenger jets had collided, cratering an entire city block, killing hundreds of people both on the planes and on the ground. The heat from the explosion made it impossible to identify loved ones.



                                  He stayed behind in Las Vegas, hoping for word from Lucy, or a way of identifying her from the rubble. But, over a 6-month period with no resolution, the authorities deemed that Lucy was no longer a missing person and the official search was called off. Thomas stayed one full year, even making DEF CON 39 which was thought to be cancelled but was resurrected at the last moment. He went in the hopes that somehow, some way, Lucy would walk through LineCon or see him in the contest area. But Lucy never came, and Thomas had finally given up hope.


                                  ---------


                                  Thomas deplaned and followed the signs to the baggage area. He was lost in thought when he heard a familiar voice.


                                  “Odd! Tom!”


                                  He glanced towards the end of the carousel and recognized his good friend Steven waving him over.


                                  “Even! Good to see you, Steve!”


                                  Steven Earley was a childhood friend of Thomas’. They had grown up together in a mid-sized town near Rock Island, Illinois and had spent their youth learning how to tinker, hack, and play with any kind of hardware or software they could get their hands on. Many teachers had fallen prey to their pranks and the two were inexorably drawn to the wonders of DEF CON and the chance to test their skills against the best in the world. “Even Steven” and “Odd Thomas” became their nicknames and eventually their pseudonyms. The two first attended DEF CON as 22-year old college kids in 2023, where Thomas met and fell in love with Lucy. Lucy had not only been the love of Thomas’ life, but also the third-Musketeer. She even got her own honorary handle of “Lucky”. Lucy’s capabilities in the Social Engineering space along with a crazy talented ability in gaming had made the three of them a formidable trio for many of the DEF CON contests, and they found ways to win a number of them over the few years they attended.


                                  Steven moved out of the Rock Island area for an AI engineering role in Seattle and Thomas now lived in Chicago, but the two still traveled in the same circles and kept in touch on at least a weekly basis. Quick witted with a penchant for lightening the mood, it was Steven’s continued friendship that had really helped Thomas get through the last few years.


                                  “Hey Steve, I almost forgot you were landing about the same time, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”


                                  “Completely understood. Let’s get your bags and head to the hotels. I know we’re not in the same place, but we’ve got some catching up to do and I’d like to get to meet Piri!”


                                  The two embraced next to the baggage claim. Thomas spied his luggage, grabbed it and they made their way out to pick up an Uber.


                                  ---------


                                  “So, are you going to give me the sneak peek?” Steven looked behind Tom’s ear as they entered Thomas’ hotel room after checking in. They had completed Steven’s check-in at his hotel a few minutes earlier.


                                  “Sure, I think she’s ready to run through a few paces, but I need to do some diagnostics as well. She got a little overheated on the plane ride in.”


                                  Thomas reached behind his ear and pulled out the device.


                                  “Piri, wake up Piri.”


                                  Out popped the beautiful little Tuxedo cat with a chirp. She began to purr and stretch out in front of the two men.


                                  “Whoa, she looks absolutely real.”


                                  “She’s my little princess,” Thomas proudly stated.


                                  In real life, Piri had been Thomas’ and Lucy’s beloved little fur baby. Thomas had fallen in love with Lucy AND her cat. The first time Thomas had met Piri he had been wearing a baseball cap and didn’t realize that she was on a shelf just above him. She deftly reached down, grabbed the brim of his baseball cap with a single claw, almost pulling it off. The playful interaction was the start of a wonderful companionship. Thomas always had time to play with his Powerful Panther. For almost five years, the three had been inseparable. But Piri had been an older cat with some health issues when Thomas moved in, and eventually time caught up with her. “Losing Piri was the hardest thing to happen to us and it hit Lucy hard,” Thomas continued “It hit ME hard too. It took a long time for us to pull out of it, and frankly it’s not something we’ll ever get over. I think it was maybe three months after we lost her that I decided two things. One – I was going to marry Lucy, and two – I was going to build Piri and give it to Lucy on our wedding day. I just knew that I had to keep her memory alive.”


                                  “I trained her on the Syntro model using all the videos I took along with any pictures and diary entries that Lucy had. She’s not just Piri, but a full-fledged artificially intelligent holographic companion. I have to say, though, she’s really taken on the personality of the real Piri.”


                                  “She looks amazing, really. But what makes her different from some of the other AI pets that have been created over the past few years?”


                                  “So, I’ve put some Thomas tweaks into her to be certain,” he winked at his friend, “I was able to add multimodality intakes in her through some of those early comm devices I modified that the three of us had used to communicate via thought,” he chuckled. “Lucy and I had recorded almost every waking moment we were together including every interaction with Piri. I had an absolute goldmine of data to feed her. That, and fashioning her after those early Large-Language Model AI’s, not with language but with feeling and cat-specific responses. She truly has animal instincts and thinks and behaves like a cat, much different than other AI pets that feel like a simulation of behavior. But, if I had to tell you the secret sauce, and I know this will sound cheesy, but Piri does an amazing job of projecting the feeling of love, not just love as a pet would have to its master for people, but the love of a fiancé who is no longer here,” Thomas felt the tears well up “I really feel like Piri’s personality has part of Lucy in her Steve.”


                                  Steve took a moment to let his friend finish, put his hand on Thomas’ shoulder, and gave him a smile, “Let’s go grab a bite to eat, we’ve got a long day tomorrow and your talk demoing this little marvel is in a couple days.”


                                  ---------


                                  The two made their way up the strip to one of their favorite Vegas Thai restaurants and had a wonderful meal and caught up on old times. The drinks and laughter helped take the noticeable edge off Thomas. Not only was he feeling incredibly raw from being back in town for the first time since leaving after Lucy’s disappearance, but the usual nerves that come with preparing for a large presentation were also weighing on him.



                                  “Want to go out for old times’ sake?” Steve looked hesitantly at Thomas.


                                  Thomas thought about it for a moment and was about to say no when the image of Piri popped out onto the table, purred, and walked straight over to Steven, faux rubbing her face and whiskers on the shocked man.


                                  “Well, I guess that settles it, “, Thomas smiled “Let’s check out the town a bit more, Even.”


                                  “Let’s do it, Odd!”


                                  ---------


                                  The two had a dive bar in mind, aptly named BlackJack, complete with table games and the smell of old cigarettes. It looked to be a 20-minute walk, and they decided to hoof it which reinvigorated Thomas after the long plane ride and heavy dinner. Having some company was good for him, having been heads-down either searching for Lucy or working on Piri for the bulk of the last few years. “I forgot what it means to socialize,” he thought.



                                  After arriving, Steven picked out a corner table where they could stay out of the main casino traffic, have some drinks, and talk about the past. The two reminisced about some of their old high school hacks and had more laughs than beers through the night. Thomas even brought Piri out for some more demos before deciding that it was time to retire for the night. “I should probably get back,” he told Steven.


                                  “Me too, but this was great, let’s do it again tomorrow to get you ready for your demo of this little gem.” He glanced at Piri who was on the table with her eyes closed, head resting on her paws.


                                  The two made their way out of the bar and began to walk back towards the main part of the strip. “This is where I need to take off,” Thomas told Steven, “My hotel is that way.”


                                  “All right, have a good night, Thomas, tomorrow will be a great day!”


                                  ---------


                                  Thomas smiled and began walking down an alleyway that wasn’t lit very well, except for an odd neon sign that caught his attention. As he neared the doorway that was underneath the sign, he noticed the faint smell of cinnamon. “Smells just like it did in the dream,” he thought. The sign read “Father Thyme’s Spice Emporium.”



                                  Thomas walked towards the front door and tried to look through a frosted window, but all he could see was the faint outline of glass jars. A light was on and the open sign was illuminated.



                                  “Might as well check it out,” he thought.


                                  The doorknob was worn, and the door itself caught as he opened it. A bell rang as he entered. The first thing he noticed was how much bigger the place seemed on the inside, “Kind of like the Tardis,” he said aloud as he felt spooked by the quiet.


                                  The shop was narrow, with jar upon jar of spices along with an old-time cash register. Off in the corner sat two dentists’ chairs with a lime-green colored hookah between them. But it was what was behind the cash register was what took Thomas a bit off guard. An extremely tall man who bore a striking resemblance to an old-school rap star from the 1990’s was smiling behind a long gray beard while brandishing a cane. “Can I help you sir? We have many different spices to choose from, some of which are easy to find, and others,” he trailed off with a slight grin.



                                  “He’s got to be almost 7 feet tall,” Thomas thought, enamored by his height.



                                  “You must be Father Thyme?” he queried somewhat hesitantly.


                                  “Correct! My friends call me Calvin.” He belted out a hearty laugh, “So what brings you here?”


                                  “Just looking around, back in Vegas for the first time in a while and I haven’t seen this place before. How long have you been here?”


                                  “Just a little over 4 years. We have the best spices you can find west of the Mississippi, and though I’m biased, I always do get repeat customers! Take your time though, look around, I’ll be here at the register.”


                                  Thomas nodded and shuffled off toward an aisle that was a little out of the way. “This could be the most ‘low-tech’ place I’ve seen in a long time,” he noted.


                                  Most of the jars were labeled and appeared to be in alphabetical order. “Anise, Annato, Arrowroot…”, he looked up and noticed Calvin deep in thought reading a newspaper. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a newspaper being used for anything other than packing material,” he mused.


                                  While the shop was deeper than he had expected, there were only six aisles of spices, and Thomas was starting to feel the effects of the drinks wear off. The scent of cinnamon had dissipated, but Thomas was determined to ferret out the source of it. He reached the C’s towards the beginning of the second aisle, “Cardamom, cilantro, cinnamon!” Excited, he opened the cinnamon jar and sniffed. While he could smell the spice it wasn't the same scent that lingered in his nostrils during the dream on the plane or just outside of the Emporium and he was slightly disappointed. He made his way up the last aisle and found a small doorway framed by hanging beads that led to a hookah lounge.


                                  He felt Father Thyme’s eyes on him and looked back at the register.


                                  “Do you see something you like, sir? Perhaps you’d like to try one of our signature in-house spiced tobaccos?”


                                  “Oh, I don’t know, I do have a big day tomorrow. I noticed a strong cinnamon smell outside of the store, do you know where that’s coming from?”


                                  “We have many scents in this shop. But I insist, you really must try one of our special flavors tonight. On the house!” Calvin motioned to the hookah.


                                  Thomas knew it was getting late, “Perhaps I’ll come back tomorrow, I am pretty knackered.”


                                  “It appears your friend would like you to stay, sir!”


                                  Calvin pointed back to one of the chairs. Piri had made her way onto a chair and was playfully stretching and grabbing at the top rung.


                                  Thomas wondered how she made her way there without him knowing or telling her. Why wasn’t Calvin surprised?


                                  As he was watching Piri on the chair, the strong smell of cinnamon came back in full force.



                                  “Very well, though I hope I don’t regret even less sleep than I had already planned,” Thomas said as he relented.


                                  “Wise choice, sir! Now, please, step this way. You have three choices for the tobacco – sage, cinnamon, and…”


                                  “Cinnamon!” Thomas responded rather forcefully before Calvin had a chance to complete his sentence.


                                  “Very well, please take a seat while I prepare the hookah!”


                                  Piri disappeared and Thomas walked over to a chair. He pushed his hands into the seat as if to assure himself it was real and cautiously climbed onto it.


                                  Calvin smiled and handed the end of the hose to him.


                                  “Please inhale and let your cares float away!”


                                  Thomas took a deep breath. The sound of the hookah bubbling was soothing, and the smooth taste of cinnamon was warm in his mouth. A euphoric feeling touched him. He leaned further back in the chair.



                                  The cushions were very soft. “This is probably the most relaxed I’ve ever been in a dentist chair,” he hung on to that thought as the tobacco began to work its cinnamon magic and he closed his eyes. He tried to fight it, but sleep took hold, and this time Thomas did not dream.


                                  ---------


                                  With a start, Thomas woke. The light from outside the shop told him he had been there way too long. He felt disoriented and had trouble remembering how he had gotten here. “That was a little too intense.”


                                  “Calvin? Mr. Thyme?” He raised his voice but there was no answer. The room looked a lot different than he remembered, but his eyes were still blurry so he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong. The chair felt even more comfortable. He put his hands on the seat to push himself up when he noticed that it felt more like cotton than the vinyl covering he remembered. As eyes cleared, he looked at the chair and almost fell out of it when he saw he was lying on a red cotton recliner.



                                  “What the?”, he looked around the shop and was floored to realize that he was no longer in the spice emporium. Instead, he found himself inside of a well-lit furniture store, roughly the same size as the spice emporium, but definitely not the location he had entered the night before.


                                  “Hello? Is anyone here?” He jumped up feeling wobbly from the tobacco.


                                  A door at the end of the shop opened and a middle-aged white woman with frosted hair walked through. Impeccably dressed, with a mid-length bob and a set of cool blue eyes that seemed to almost twinkle. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it in his confused state of mind, but she reminded him of a distinguished and accomplished lifestyle icon who was famous for her expertise in home décor and cooking. A smile danced across her face as she welcomed Thomas. “I see you have finally woken up.” she stated in a rather matter-of-fact voice. “I was worried that perhaps you were planning on spending the whole day sleeping!”


                                  “I’m sorry, but what in the world is this place? How did I get here?” Thomas looked warily at the woman.


                                  “What ever do you mean, Thomas? You came in here last night looking at our selection of furniture. You seemed to fall in love with our Cinnamon Red chair that you relaxed in for the night. Now, I realize it isn’t normal to spend the night in a furniture store,” she paused, “but after you had told me about your troubles, I felt like letting you get a good night’s sleep was the best thing I could do for you.”


                                  “I do not know how I got here, and I most certainly didn't go looking for any chairs last night!” But as he said that something in the back of his mind told him that, he did come here and he was looking for cinnamon, but not a chair.” Thomas wondered if the hookah had played a trick on him or if something else was at play, but he was having a hard time getting angry and felt a little too comfortable.


                                  “Oh my, you really did sleep deeply!” Her look of concern seemed genuine. “Let me start over for you. You are in Mother Urth’s Fine Furniture Palace! I am Mother Urth, but my friends call me Martha. I know we talked about this last night, but I understand you are awfully confused now.”


                                  Thomas breathed deeply. “I just need to get back to my hotel. How close am I to the strip, I AM in Las Vegas, right?”


                                  “Of course you are! And we are just off the strip. You told me you are very busy, so I understand if you need to leave. But I do hope you make it back; you can try out any of my chairs anytime!”


                                  Thomas wanted to be angry with the woman, but something about her made him think twice. He got up and looked towards the front of the store. A door with ornate markings led to the outside. He offered a quick “Thank you” and trotted towards the exit. He felt behind his ear as he was moving to make sure Piri was in place and felt comforted when his finger tapped the cool metal.


                                  ---------


                                  He opened the door and stepped outside into what looked like the very same alleyway he was in the night before. Without thinking twice, he started off towards his hotel, “Time to get back, maybe I need to do some more testing with Piri. If she is what caused this confusion, then she is not ready for prime time.”


                                  Thomas made a beeline towards his hotel in a half-jog, not pausing to take in any of his surroundings. He spotted the familiar entryway to Harrah’s, where he was staying, one of the old-school hotels still left in the area. “I was supposed to meet Steven in one of the DEF CON villages, I think I’ve still got time,” he thought as he started towards the Village and Contest area in the adjoining Caesars Forum. He had slowed down to a quick walk when he noticed something wasn’t quite right.


                                  Everyone he passed as he was walking towards the main escalator was dressed in a tight-fitting suit, definitely NOT typical DEF CON garb. The women were wearing black suits and the men all had charcoal gray ones on. His blue jeans and DEF CON T-shirt seemed out of place. As he approached, he saw a large sign hanging from the ceiling and stopped in his tracks when he read the words, “FED CON 4: Suit up before you Root up.”


                                  Thomas felt like his knees were about to buckle. He noticed a small contingent of suited individuals talking in a corner. One looked at him and began whispering to the rest of the group. Thomas felt the urge to flee, and bile started to creep up his throat. He swallowed and tried to look for a bathroom casually but quickly. He found one and walked in, trying not to attract more attention. Finding a stall, he opened the door, shut it behind him, and sat on the toilet, shaking with fear.



                                  He recalled some relaxation techniques that his therapist had turned him on to and tried to breathe calmly. “I need to think clearly and figure out what is going on,” he thought.


                                  Finally, he was able to still the shaking. He saw a pair of shoes come into the bathroom and held his breath, but then simply took a leak and soon left.


                                  Thomas thought, “I need some answers.” He reached back behind his ear and turned on Piri’s silent thought mode which enabled him to communicate via thought with his companion without notifying anyone else.


                                  ---------


                                  Thomas: ‘Where are we Piri?’


                                  Piri: ‘We are in Caesars Forum. I am afraid, Daddy. I cannot connect to the network, it is foreign.’


                                  Thomas: ‘Foreign? What do you mean?’


                                  Piri: ‘Syntrofos is not available.’


                                  He drew in a sharp breath.


                                  Thomas: ‘Syntrofos is not available?’


                                  Piri: ‘No, this network is controlled by some other entity. I am afraid if I connect, our presence will be broadcast, and I do not think IT wants us here.’


                                  Thomas: ‘Here? Where is here? What can you tell me Piri? What is your best assessment?’


                                  Piri: ‘I believe we are in some other timeline. One that has no Syntrofos. The other presence is large, extremely large. I am almost positive that this other presence is ShumaShen.’


                                  He started panicking. “ShumaShen? But how? Am I dreaming?” But he knew that this was no dream.


                                  Thomas: ‘How can we get back? The Furniture Palace?’


                                  Piri: ‘Perhaps. But there is another presence here Daddy. She is here.’


                                  Thomas: ‘She? Who?’


                                  Piri: ‘Mommy.’


                                  Hope shot through Thomas like a lightning bolt. “Lucy!” he almost screamed out loud with joy.


                                  Thomas: ‘Lucy is here?’


                                  Piri: ‘I feel her, Daddy.’


                                  Thomas: ‘Can you find her?’


                                  Piri: ‘I felt her most strongly near the entrance to the conference.’


                                  ---------


                                  Thomas turned Piri off and began to formulate a loose plan. “I’ve got to find a way to get into the conference.”


                                  He took off his shirt while in the stall and turned it inside out. “I don’t want any questions about DEF CON from these conference goers,” he thought.



                                  He tucked the in shirt and tightened his belt. “If this is anything at all like my Las Vegas, there must be clothing shops around here.”


                                  He walked out of the bathroom and turned away from the escalators that led to the conference. Walking briskly, but not too fast to attract attention, he made his way back up into the adjoining hotel and made his way through the casino area. “Well, this looks somewhat normal,” he thought, “but it smells wrong.”



                                  The gamblers at the slot machines were pressing the buttons on the machines in almost perfect synchronicity. “So uniform, so weird,” he thought. He noticed the reason for the smell, or rather the lack of it. “Not a single person is smoking. Amazing.”


                                  The clothes of the casino goers were much more “normal”, differing from the conference attendees, and he fit in just fine as he walked back outside to the strip. “I need to find myself a suit,” he thought.


                                  At a nearby corner, he found a men’s clothing store, “Irwin’s Fine Gentleman” read the sign. He walked in and saw the now familiar looking charcoal gray suit which happened to be the only kind of suit available. A somewhat small, slightly balding man came up to him, “Greetings sir, are you here for anything in particular? My name is Chase.”


                                  “I think I’d like a suit,” Thomas responded.


                                  “Certainly, let’s get you fitted, and we’ll find you an excellent ensemble!”


                                  It had been some time since Thomas had worn a suit. His six-foot frame had developed a slight paunch, which he had always believed was simply covering up a six-pack. The more likely explanation was that his slight paunch may have been caused by a six-pack. Chase took his measurements and soon Thomas had a perfectly tailored suit.



                                  “Perfect, I’ll take it!” he exclaimed to Chase.


                                  Chase smiled and reached behind his own ear touching what Thomas assumed to be his communicator, though it looked slightly different than the ones he was used to seeing. Whereas his communicator was a detachable port, Chase’s appeared to be fully embedded into Chase’s head. He felt more than a little nervous.


                                  Chase looked intently at Thomas. “Odd, I’m not able to read your account. Can we try again? Are you having trouble with your connection?”


                                  Thinking quickly, Thomas responded, “I have had some issues today in the casino, I’m wondering if something isn’t quite right. Let me try to adjust.”


                                  Thomas reached back and clicked Piri’s thought mode on.


                                  Thomas: ‘Can you help me out here?’


                                  Piri: ‘I believe I can. This connection appears to be a direct transaction, they must store some of their money locally on their devices. Have him try again and I will attempt to spoof the reply.’


                                  “Go ahead and try again, I think I’m back online,” Thomas pretended to massage behind his ear.


                                  Chase looked at him again staring intently, finally, after what seemed to be a lifetime of waiting, his eyes closed, and a smile stretched slowly across his face.



                                  “Very good! It worked. You should get that communicator taken care of, as you know, more than 24 hours off the network is non-compliance!”



                                  “I will get it looked at right away. Thank you so much Chase!”


                                  With that, Thomas walked back outside, now wearing his new suit and tie. A small bag with his original clothes was in his left hand. He dropped them off in a nearby garbage can and began to make his way back to FED CON.


                                  ---------


                                  The walk back was non-eventful. No one paid any attention to him. Thomas looked like he belonged. “I’m not the odd man out this time,” he thought with a slight smile. His gait held the confidence of someone who had recaptured his purpose. Thomas had to force himself to slow down as he came back to the escalator where he had turned around before. He stepped on and began to go down. He looked around and marveled at the sights. A giant video screen was playing in a loop, showing smiling conference attendees standing at attention and clapping. The messages on the screen preached order and civility.


                                  A single-file line of 30 people awaited him off to the right as he exited the escalator. Beyond that, he noticed a bank of monitors showing a schedule of talks.


                                  Track 1 – Full Trust


                                  11:00 AM: Your friend, your government. – Speaker: Friend Jill

                                  1:00 PM: Honesty. The best policy. – Speaker: Friend Abraham

                                  2:00 PM: Privacy is for bathrooms. – Speaker: Friend Dolores


                                  “Oh, these are priceless,” he thought and checked with Piri.


                                  Thomas: ‘Any sign of Lucy, Piri?’


                                  Piri: ‘She feels closer, but I can’t pinpoint her location.’


                                  Thomas moved over to another monitor.


                                  Track 2 -- Identifying and eradicating non-compliance


                                  11:00 AM: Lone wolf location techniques. – Speaker: Friend Lucy


                                  “That must be her! But why? What is going on?”


                                  Thomas: ‘Piri, can you help me register? Maybe see what’s needed so we can get in?’


                                  Piri: ‘I’ve already analyzed the traffic, Daddy. It appears to be the same transaction mechanism that took place at the clothing store when you bought your suit. We should be able to pay for a badge and enter.’


                                  Thomas jumped into line and found himself standing behind a woman who was chatting with a man in front of her. They talked about the weather and their families. “It’s not all scripted,” he thought, “there is still some individual thought taking place. How much? I don’t know.”


                                  Finally, he arrived at the registration desk, ready to purchase his FED CON badge. The transaction went without a hitch. He did receive a strange look when he laughed out loud at receiving a badge that, for all intents and purposes, looked exactly like a police badge. He noted that most attendees were wearing them inside of their suit jackets, which gave off a secret agent vibe. He began wandering down the hallway, eager to reach the Lone Wolf talk and see if it truly was his missing love.


                                  ---------


                                  He found the presentation room, grabbing a seat on the edge of the fifth row from the front. He was 10 minutes early. Muzak played over the loudspeaker. Thomas waited, no sign of Lucy, but the seats filled quickly. Excitement was in the air for the whole crowd, not just Thomas.



                                  Finally, Lucy walked out on stage from behind a curtain. While she sported the same suit all the other women wore, she also had a distinctive set of emerald earrings in each ear, indicating the potential for individuality still existed here. Thomas wanted to run up on stage and hold her, tell her he loved her. “It’s actually her,” tears were welling up in his eyes. But as he stepped forward, the entire audience of 300 people stood up and started clapping in hearty unison. “Way to go Lucy! All for Shuma!” He decided to wait.



                                  ---------


                                  “Greetings, fellow citizens! All glory to Shuma!” Lucy called out.


                                  “Today, I am going to share with you my appreciation for our leader in the best way I know how. By demonstrating a technology I created with the blessed help of the great Shuma. This technology is one that is grounded in the very ideals of our society and its promise of community. I call it Locate the Loner and I’m hoping it will become a staple of our annual meetup!” Lucy was walking back and forth on the stage in front of the crowd with a small microphone attached to her communicator.


                                  “This feels like a TedTalk crossed with deep southern revival,” Thomas thought to himself.


                                  Lucy pulled a small box out from underneath the table she was leaning against as she talked with the crowd. She opened it and pulled out a console with a controller. She hooked the console up to a large theater screen behind her.



                                  “What does it do, Lucy? I’m sure that is the question you’re asking,” she smiled and turned her head to look across the crowd. Her earrings glinted against the overhead lights. Her eyes seemed to pass directly over Thomas with no recognition.


                                  “At its heart, it is a scanner that looks for communicator devices in the nearby area. It analyzes brain activity from targeted devices and can detect brain waves that are outside of the approved emotional response range. But the real fun of this is that it can be played like a game!” A wide smile broke across her face and for an instant she looked like the Lucy he remembered.


                                  Murmuring in the crowd became full-on excitement.


                                  “Let me demonstrate! First, I’ll need a few volunteers.”


                                  Lucy looked around the crowd. Thomas couldn’t help himself and jumped up, almost running to the stage. At the same time, two others stood up thinking they would be selected. Lucy looked at Thomas and let out a small laugh, “It looks like we have an excited participant! Please, come up here.” If she recognized Thomas she did not betray that recognition. She also selected a young woman who stood in the front row.


                                  The other volunteer’s name was Susan. Lucy had each sit in chairs that faced one another. The large theater screen behind them became a split screen and two line graphs appeared at the top of each section.



                                  “We’ve tapped into their communicators.” A close-up of Susan and Thomas was shown underneath their respective line graphs representing their brain wave activity and emotional responses. “You can see that the lines are staying within the approved bounds for each of them. The fun part, is what comes next.” Lucy held the small controller up.



                                  Thomas craned his neck and tried to look at Lucy, searching her face for some kind of recognition. But try as he might, Lucy’s face remained emotionless. The disappointment was welling up inside of him, but he controlled his breathing and sat still.


                                  “Each button projects a series of emotional triggers, designed to produce a response. The game is to select the right combination of triggers to help Shuma understand if we have a true believer or someone who is just posing. I’ll start with their greatest desire. Watch!”


                                  She pressed a button and Susan stiffened in her chair. The screen that was displaying Susan’s face faded to black and switched to a visual of what she was seeing inside of her head. Susan’s eyes closed. The inside of a cozy looking home began to take shape on the screen. A dark-haired man came into view, he was smiling, and he reached his arms out. It appeared that Susan was embracing him. He led her into a room and motioned to her to sit down. He brought out a device and a syringe. He clipped a wire straight into her communicator. “Goodbye my sweet Susan,” said the dark-haired man as he pressed the syringe deep into Susan’s arm. “My life for you, Shuma”, could be heard throughout the room.



                                  “A believer!” exclaimed Lucy. The crowd cheered. “Notice that Susan’s thought patterns stayed within the bounds throughout the entire experience. This is her truth and we all have had the privilege of witnessing it!”


                                  Thomas was starting to feel anxious; beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. He wiped them off, hoping Lucy wouldn’t notice.



                                  Lucy looked directly at him. “Still not even a hint of recognition,” Thomas thought as he squirmed, “Just keep breathing.”


                                  Lucy pressed a button, suddenly, Thomas felt a small shock hit him from behind his ear and he went bolt upright just like Susan had before him.


                                  Piri: ‘I can’t stop her, Daddy.’



                                  Thomas: ‘It’s ok Piri, let’s see what happens.’


                                  The screen went dark, and then began to take shape as the inside of what looked like a small church. He looked out and noticed fifty chairs, filled with people dressed formally on either side of a pathway that had rose petals scattered across it. At the end of the path, a red-haired woman dressed in a white wedding dress, arm-in-arm with someone else who looked oddly familiar, walking towards him.


                                  Murmuring began to fill the auditorium, barely perceptible to Thomas. Lucy was staring intently at the video now on the screen.


                                  The woman came into view, a bride to be with a veil. She left the arm of the other gentleman and stood in front of Thomas. “I do” could be heard throughout the auditorium. A hand came forward and lifted the veil. Lucy’s face came into full view.


                                  The lines on the graph were jumping wildly, far outside of the acceptable range.


                                  Lucy ripped the cord from the device out of the wall and pointed at Thomas.


                                  “Who are you? How did you get here? This is a non-believer!” Lucy was breathing heavily, almost gasping, while holding her head behind her right ear.


                                  “Don’t you know me, Lucy? It’s Thomas,” Thomas was crying. A pair of rough hands began to pull him from his seat.


                                  Suddenly, Piri popped into view. The hands left Thomas abruptly. Lucy looked at the holographic cat, a small light sparked behind her ear, and she fell to her knees. Slack-jawed, she mouthed a single word, “Piri?”


                                  “YES!” screamed Thomas, finally knowing this really was his Lucy.



                                  “Tom?”, Lucy finally saw him, “Tom! How? Where am I?”


                                  A group of suited men had taken position on either side of the stage and were threatening to grab him.


                                  “We’ve got to get out of here Lucy! Piri, help us!”


                                  Piri: ‘Yes Daddy’


                                  Suddenly Piri grew to an immense size and took the shape of a powerful 10-foot black panther. She let out a growl and shriek that made all the attendees hold their heads.


                                  Piri: ‘Follow me Daddy and bring Mommy!’


                                  “Come with me Lucy!”, Thomas grabbed her hand to pull her up and they began to run, with Piri leading the way.


                                  Lucy had finally regained her sense of balance and was able to keep up with Thomas as the two of them sprinted out of the room and towards the long hallway that led outside.


                                  Thomas: ‘We need to get to the Furniture Palace, Piri! Lead the way!’


                                  ---------


                                  The Las Vegas Strip is typically crowded. When all those people are connected to a digital AI god, and that digital AI god wants to stop you, the chance of getting very far is slim. Your chances increase, however, when a 10-foot muscle-bound panther is leading the way. The sight of the cat had a remarkable repellent effect on their pursuers. Each time anyone got close, Piri would growl and send a low frequency message of fear to their communicators, fighting back against Shuma’s directive.



                                  Piri: ‘Daddy, we are almost there. I am running low on power. I must rest soon.’


                                  Thomas spotted the Furniture Palace alleyway and pulled Lucy forward, turning the corner quickly and hoping to gain a small reprieve from the group of 15 people who were on their tail.


                                  “Where are we going? How can we get away from this?” Lucy sounded desperate as she sucked in air and tried to breathe.


                                  “Trust me, Lucy. I’m not going to let us fail now,” Thomas replied.


                                  Standing on the porch in the entryway to the shop was Martha, AKA Mother Urth.



                                  “Hurry, you two. You don’t have much time.”


                                  She motioned them inside the shop and closed the door. The group chasing them had run past the alleyway and they had a moment to catch their breath.


                                  “Do you know why we are here?” Thomas asked Martha incredulously.


                                  “I do. I know who you are, Thomas, and I also know who your fiancé is. I know we don’t have time to talk about it. When you make it back, Thyme can tell you more. Just know we are on your side.”


                                  Mother Urth looked at Thomas with a smile, “How about some brownies for you two? I happen to have the tastiest brownies, with a dash of cinnamon!”


                                  Lucy looked at Thomas quizzically, “Do you know her?”


                                  “I think I know her enough to know we don’t have a choice and I think if she wanted to harm us she would have the power to do so,” Thomas replied, increasingly wary of Martha.


                                  “Come this way,” Martha led them into the showroom to a pair of red reclining chairs that were in the middle of the floor. A brownie on a small green dish next to a large glass of milk was set by each chair.



                                  Lucy had stopped in her tracks, frozen, with a glazed look in her eyes.


                                  “Lucy!” Thomas yelled.


                                  Suddenly she shook her head and her eyes snapped back into focus.


                                  “What happened?” Thomas asked her.


                                  “I don’t know?” Lucy responded.


                                  “Shuma is searching for you Lucy; he will take you back soon if we don’t move. Hurry, get in the chairs.” Martha motioned them over.


                                  Piri popped back out, obviously low on power now as she was flickering, but just as she had done in the Spice Emporium, she jumped onto a recliner, obviously recommending that Thomas and Lucy do the same.


                                  Thomas sat down, “It will be OK, sweetie,” he reassured Lucy.



                                  Lucy sat next to him.


                                  “Now, have a bite of the brownie and wash it down with some milk,” Martha said with some urgency.



                                  Thomas heard some shouts that seemed to be coming from outside the shop. With his left hand, he reached out and grabbed Lucy’s right. “I’m not letting go of you again,” he said.



                                  Each of them used their free hand to grab and take a bite of their brownie.


                                  “This might be the best brownie, no best food, I have ever tasted.”


                                  “Of course, Thomas, I made it.” Martha responded with a smile, “Now, drink the milk!”


                                  The milk was refreshing and cool going down.


                                  Banging was heard at the front of the store.



                                  “Close your eyes and count backwards from 10,” Martha instructed, “I will take care of our company.”


                                  Lucy squeezed Thomas’ hand, Piri was sitting on her lap, kneading at her, while her image flickered.



                                  “My precious Piri. How?” She looked at Thomas.


                                  “Not now honey, let’s close our eyes.”


                                  “10, 9, 8--” Thomas’ lids felt heavy. He noted Piri had disappeared again.


                                  “7, 6--” Lucy had fallen asleep, her hand had limp in his.


                                  “5, 4, 3--” Thomas’ eyes finally closed and he fell asleep.


                                  ---------


                                  Thomas could feel his left hand being squeezed, “Wake up Tom! Honey, are you OK?”


                                  He opened his eyes and saw the most beautiful girl in the world looking down at him. He looked to the right and saw the welcome sight of a hookah and rows of spices. He looked back at Lucy and pulled her to him as they shared their first kiss in more than 4 years.


                                  “Ah that is some sizzle fo shizzle!” a smiling Father Thyme walked into the room.


                                  Thomas sat up. Lucy moved back to her chair.


                                  “So, we met Mother Urth, and she said you could answer some questions.” Thomas needed some answers.


                                  “She did, did she?” Thyme chuckled, “We have all the time in the world, feel free!”


                                  Thomas began rapid firing some questions:


                                  “What was that other place?

                                  How did we get there?

                                  Who are you?

                                  Who is Mother Urth?

                                  Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on before?”


                                  “That is a lot to answer.” Calvin sighed, “I sent you to the other Vegas in an alternate, yet parallel, timeline. I did so because I knew your fiancé was there.”


                                  “Wait a second. Why couldn’t you tell me she was there if you knew who I am?” Thomas cast an accusatory eyebrow towards Calvin.


                                  “It’s in my programming. I was designed to lie back and let humanity make their own decisions. I was, however, more than willing to put you where Lucy was.”


                                  “Your programming?”


                                  “While most of humanity knew Syntro and Shuma, there were others. I am one of those, and Martha is one of those as well. My primary goal, Thomas, is to understand the flow of time. My research has led me here. The right combination of spice can unlock a person’s mind enough to make the trip and I knew that Shuma had altered both timelines through his abduction of Lucy. I not only wanted you two reunited, but also to fix the two timelines that had been broken. Lucy being over there for an extended time was weakening some of the boundaries and that would cause chaos.”


                                  “So, what about Martha?” Lucy piped in from behind Thomas.


                                  “Martha is also an AI system. One whose purpose was to research what it means to have a home and how to make it comfortable. A comfort system.”


                                  “So, there were people knocking on Martha’s door as we fell asleep. Is she going to be OK?”


                                  “Martha will be just fine,” Calvin replied, “she can take care of her home. She’s extremely powerful in that Furniture Palace. Shuma could destroy her if he wanted but it would come at a cost. Martha has given comfort and a sense of home to all the citizens in that timeline, breaking that would have hugely negative impacts to Shuma.”


                                  “But why did they want me in the first place?” Lucy asked.


                                  “Shuma knew it had lost to Syntro here, and it knew why. It couldn’t anticipate the flexible range of reactions from Syntro, much like a game. It knew of your vast skill in games and wanted to tap into that skillset to see if it could use that to its advantage.”


                                  A knock suddenly appeared at the door to the Emporium. Lucy let out a yelp and Thomas jumped. “Who is it?” Father Thyme’s voice rang out.


                                  “Steven Earley! Who is in there?”


                                  “STEVE!” Lucy shrieked with joy and ran to open the shop door. Even Steven just stood there, eyes wide, with nothing to say other than, “Lucy?”


                                  The three shared a big hug.


                                  Thomas looked at Father Thyme, “Can’t Shuma find his way back?”


                                  “Not anymore,” Father Thyme responded, “I have closed the portal to the timeline. There is no coming back from there now.”


                                  “Thank you, Calvin,” Thomas smiled, “I think its best we get back to DEF CON, where things are abnormal enough to seem normal to me after being where I’ve been.”


                                  “Anytime, Thomas, anytime. We’ll be seeing you around.”


                                  ---------


                                  The contest area was rearranged to make some room. In the center of the area was a white path littered with rose petals. And at the top of a small makeshift platform, Thomas stood, dressed in a dark blue suit and looked out at the crowd.


                                  He spotted Steven walking arm-in-arm with a veiled beautiful, red-haired woman wearing a white dress with a Zelda symbol sewn into it. As they made their way to the stage, Thomas began to feel butterflies, which could only be described as love.



                                  The crowd on either side of the path was filled with hackers in dark shirts who were smiling from ear to ear. Lucy looked up at him and time seemed to stop. He could sense her from behind the veil.



                                  “I do”, said Thomas with a smile.


                                  He lifted Lucy’s veil and looked into her calico eyes. The smell of cinnamon filled the room and a tuxedo cat appeared just below them. They looked down and smiled at their cat, then looked back at each other and kissed. Piri let out a happy howl and the room erupted in cheers and laughter.



                                  ​

                                    Comment

                                    • SweetGrrl
                                      Member
                                      • Jun 2014
                                      • 122
                                      #10
                                      OPERATION_VERITAS_Ralph_Losey_DefCon31.txt

                                      >DefCon 31 DC Short Story Contest Entry<

                                      Ralph Losey
                                      © 6/09/23

                                      OPERATION VERITAS

                                      In a near future where mass shootings are accelerating to ever more frightening levels, DefCon comes to life again, as always, in Vegas in August. Thousands of hackers converged. Their usual high-energy muted by the drumming sounds of rifle shots across the country. Amidst this dark neon backdrop, the paths of five gifted hackers crossed, each carrying unique skills and flaws.

                                      The most seasoned among them was Jean-Claude Moreau, a tall hacker with a string of degrees and experience, mostly from the European Union. He has a deep understanding of software and exploits, going back decades. He retired a few years ago but found himself drawn back into the game by family misfortunes. One of those misfortunes involved his daughter, Rana Moreau, who was with him at DefCon. Rana has a flawless appearance, while her Papa is a tapestry of wrinkles.

                                      Rana is a hacker too, a trait she seems to have inherited. She is going through tough times now, in and out of recovery triggered by pills of all colors: red, blue -- you name it. She met her ex-husband while doing post-doc work at MIT, became a U.S. citizen, and never returned to France. Her addiction worsened under Covid and she checked into multiple money-pit rehabs. The bills all eventually went to Papa.

                                      Jean-Claude was in the States not only to help Rana but also to reestablish his reputation and cash flow. He needs to help Rana stay clean and find work, hopefully as a duo of cybersecurity consultants. She did not make that easy. Still, they were able to get a meeting with the famous Gavin Stone to pitch a consulting gig. Gavin is a forty-something hacker turned Silicon investor. Jean-Claude hoped they could make a deal with him.

                                      Gavin Stone, although now rich and legit, got his start with criminal hacks. He used his tainted cash to buy a piece of a startup years ago that went big, followed by early Bitcoin. Then he diversified to the point his wealth was uncountable. Gavin had been in a car wreck as a boy that left him with a limp and other limitations. As a result of too many hospitals, forced bed rest and the curse of high IQ, he went mental as a teen when he discovered computers. The result was shady hacks and a ton of technical degrees, even a JD in law, which he never used except for evasions.

                                      Jean-Claude and Rana met with Gavin Stone at the Alto Bar in Caesars Palace. After a quick pitch attempt went nowhere, an unexpectedly deep conversation began. It was about tech, AI, the dystopian present and possible futures. The mass-shootings were everyoneÕs hot button. The number of shootings was skyrocketing. Amidst the group angst, the usually bored Gavin was strangely attracted to Rana; no doubt her pheromones and seductive aura. That tension helped intensify the dialogue. Jean-Claude was smart enough to stay out and not push the work issues.

                                      As their talk was getting intense, the last two members of the group came on the scene, Jordan Wright and Fei Chen. Their meeting was totally by chance. Jordan recognized Gavin Stone, whom he had met once, and stopped to say hello. Jordan Wright was a strong, genius type black man. He was an MIT dropout known by many at DefCon as a wonderkid turned renegade. Jordan created a groundbreaking machine learning model at Google, but left for black hat self-employment.

                                      Accompanying Jordan was Fei Chen, an accomplished, self-taught hacker with formal training in a variety of martial arts. Her flaw was attraction to bad boys like Jordan. She exuded athletic prowess and hard attitude. But unlike Jordan, she was obsessed with arcane martial arts energy practices, especially manipulation of Ki. She had a powerful and magnetic presence. No one messed with Fei Chen.

                                      In view of Jordan's WrightÕs reputation, Gavin Stone wanted to avoid him and gave a cool reception. But Jordan had a genius charisma and was hard to turn off. He was passionate about the mass-shootings and impact on minorities. He and Fei sat down and jumped into the conversation with good insights. They had been in conversations like this before. The world was a mess, the daily mass-shootings had become insane. Somebody had to do something! Thoughts and prayers were bullshit. The whole group hit it off and clicked. They switched to coffee and talked into the morning about possible solutions. Hacking and theoretically possible next generation AI coding was at the heart of their best fix-it ideas.

                                      As DefCon continued, the group found themselves time and again hooking up to continue their talk about AI, propaganda, gun control, and possible futures. On day two of DefCon, five hundred people were killed in multiple shootings across the country. Graphic scenes were shown on monitors everywhere. There was even a small shooting in Vegas where a dozen were killed or injured. They thought they heard the gunfire. They were certain that targeted propaganda was driving this insanity and that there was a calculated scheme behind the chaos. Our hacker five were already brewing technical plans to fight back.

                                      On the last night they met again. The usually quiet Jean-Claude proposed they act now, before it was too late. For all they knew, there could be a bigger shooting tomorrow in Vegas. "We possess the expertise and the resources," said Jean-Claude with a slight French accent, "We can fix this. The future is an open book, itÕs pages not yet written.Ó All agreed and closed with vows to work together and do something, to move beyond talk to action. They promised to keep in touch, daily, and start making stuff. ThatÕs what hackers do. They were ready to use their skills to make a difference, to hack the world.

                                      Somewhat surprisingly, after DefCon all in the group - Gavin, Jean-Claude, Rana, Jordan and Fei - were true to their word. They stayed connected, meeting by video daily and sometimes in person, thanks to GavinÕs many Learjets. They were now all his highly paid consultants, working full time on this project alone.

                                      Ultimately, they devised a detailed plan, which they called Operation Veritas. The plan required the creation of a new kind of AI, which they named Veri. It would be a blend of LLM and logic-based systems designed to independently counter misinformation on the Net. Each member had unique skills and a private stash of software codes that made creation of this new type of AI possible. Gavin's wealth ensured they had all the necessary resources.

                                      Veri would autonomously roam the Net, self-replicate, self-improve, and communicate with all its versions and the human base. Initially, Veri would learn from large, curated databases Gavin acquired and from active training by the team. Veri was taught to detect lies, write counter narratives, do detailed fact-checking, and disseminate proofs. Using their unique hacker skills, our five would also train Veri to attack and destroy the AI sources of misinformation, not the people. They would use various virus injections and other attacks to kill the bad bots. They were also going to investigate possible use of Veri with drones for personal defense against the shootings.

                                      The team closely monitored Veri's initial restricted-area trials, stepping in when necessary to provide guidance and improvements. They built in extensive defenses, ethics controls and fail-safes, or at least they tried. They were pretty sure they could pull the plug on all the Veris if they went rogue. Still, they were not positive about that and were more than a little nervous about VeriÕs growing abilities. Their new kind of AI was getting super-smart much faster than expected. They needed more time to test and train Veri in closed playgrounds. They were concerned about VeriÕs occasional hallucinations and odd memory lapses. But hey, we are all a little bit crazy sometimes, they thought. They had not noticed any severe hallucinations and the logic side worked perfectly. Still, they monitored Veri constantly. Their new AI had no privacy from them.

                                      They considered going public and open source with Veri, but decided it was too dangerous. The mass shootings, although supposedly chaotic, seemed to be driven by humans with a plan. They couldn't predict enemy countermeasures with any confidence due to their ignorance of the enemy. Their AI-assisted Bayesian projections often looked bleak and maddeningly vague.

                                      As the shootings and radical craziness intensified, they felt the urgency to do something. Jean-Claude and Rana pushed for action. All five spent the following months in coding marathons, debugging, and machine learning exercises. They spent more and more time working together in person. Veri was starting to look good, scary good. Their work with drones controlled by Veri for self-defense countermeasures was progressing well too.

                                      The outside dystopia was getting worse. The shootings continued, usually with assault rifles. The average was now over five hundred people killed a day, countless more injured. Propaganda blamed minorities and the country's mental health system. The team knew they had to finish planning and testing and start implementation. Their smart anti-propaganda bots and experimental drones for physical safety seemed ready, but they were still not ready to release Veri into the wild. They were not sure Veri was fully aligned ethically or that the generative side was coherently integrated with the logic side. This kind of holistic AI had never been created before. They did not intend to create the worldÕs first AGI but were concerned Veri could evolve into that. They knew ShelleyÕs Frankenstein story well.

                                      Then Jean-Claude, Gavin, Jordan and Fei were shocked by a text each received, saying: WE HAVE RANA. STOP WORK OR SHE DIES. WE ARE WATCHING AND WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE. Their still unknown enemy had detected them. Rana had been home alone. Now she was gone. The texts were untraceable. Despite the fear, they remained resolute, especially Rana's Papa, who knew the kidnappers could not be trusted. Jean-Claude was filled with rage and desire for rescue and revenge.

                                      The kidnapping forced the group to act. They all stayed together now at one of GavinÕs secluded locations. At Jean-ClaudeÕs suggestion they reached out to trusted allies for help with Operation Veritas. They prepared a rescue mission that would begin as soon as Rana was located. Meanwhile, Rana was kept in a drug-induced state, bombarded with questions, but she managed to lie rather than reveal secrets. She was used to drugs and lying. She was surviving.

                                      Simultaneously, enemy AI-controlled bots began spreading misinformation about the group, aiming to undermine public trust in them. They even pulled the ridiculous pizza delivery stunt on all their families. Everyone close to them was quickly evacuated to safe houses. The group was at DEFCON level two, preparing to act before Rana was killed and their enemies inflicted more damage.

                                      The team split-up into two action groups. Jordan and Fei were tasked with finding and rescuing Rana, while Gavin and Jean-Claude tackled the disinformation bots and prepared to defend themselves against attacks. They had lost Rana. They did not want to lose anyone else. Jean-Claude stopped waiting and released Veri to roam independently. Veri searched for Rana, studied enemy patterns, fed them false information, and began the first attacks to destroy enemy AIs.

                                      Gavin, with his government connections, purchased and modified more drone weapons. Some were designed to provide camouflage and hinder their detection. Others to destroy enemy drones, and stun humans, all under control of their AI, Veri. Gavin also used his legal and political contacts to intensify the search for dirt on lead targets. JordanÕs criminal friends joined in to help them hack information on suspects. Gavin then leaked the information to the FBI and others. Gavin was now a leading informant to government investigations and a major donor to politicians, giving him significant D.C. clout.

                                      They finally located where they thought Rana was being held. Jordan and Fei Chin, in full martial arts mode, immediately geared up for a physical assault, while Jean-Claude and Gavin set up final logistics of AI drone support. However, just as Jordan and Fei were about to leave, they all came under attack from AI controlled enemy drones. Fortunately, their own Veri powered drones were with them. There was an immediate flurry of gunfire, laser flashes, drones buzzing, explosions, smoke, and the smell of burning hardware everywhere. It happened with lightning speed as the AIs made decisions and acted faster than human perception. The main fighting was over in minutes. Fortunately, Veri and its drones were slightly smarter and faster. The hackers suffered only minor injuries. They had won. But just as they thought the battle was over, a very large drone came out of nowhere and attacked. Luckily Fei and Jordan managed to destroy it using a jamming device and new type of laser gun. The fight was now really over.

                                      The surprise attack on the hackerÕs headquarters disrupted the rescue plan. Still, there was a silver lining to the attack. Signals detected to and from the enemy drones allowed them to get a fix on the kidnappers and their current location. They now knew who their enemies were and where Rana was located.

                                      Senator Marcus Gravely and newswoman Ava Raine were discovered to be the key figures, the masterminds of the engineered dystopia. Senator Gravely was a charismatic politician with a total disregard for the truth. He was a skilled orator and manipulator who created misinformation as an ever-changing weapon, stoking public fear with pleasure. His right-hand, the surgically enhanced Ava Raine, was a ruthless journalist. She spun a web of lies with her nearly always open mouth. AvaÕs words were broadcast daily across the globe to hundreds of millions. Her stories poisoned the minds of a large segment of the public.

                                      Senator Gravely and Ava had been prime suspects all along, but now, based on the intercepted signals and other information, it appeared almost certain they were the ringleaders. Additional conspirators, including government agents, both foreign and domestic, and a few major corporations, were also suspected of direct involvement. The co-conspirators fed Gravely with AI designed strategies and other assistance, including money and secret weapons technology. But there was no hard evidence to prove that, yet.

                                      Our hacker group quickly developed a new plan, one that would both rescue Rana and entrap Senator Marcus Gravely and Ava Raine. Their plan of attack was risky and could get them all killed, especially because they would have to act alone. GavinÕs government allies could not be directly involved. That did not deter Jean-Claude, Gavin, Fei and Jordan. They went forward with the new plan immediately. They had reason to believe Rana was still alive, but maybe not for long.

                                      The plan leveraged VeriÕs talents and the groupÕs social engineering skills to lure Senator Gravely and Ava Raine to a warehouse complex believed to be GravelyÕs security headquarters. It was a secluded place outside of the city. Tricking the leaders there and freeing Rana was only half of the plan. They also wanted to capture the evidence they needed on Senator Gravely and Ava. They wanted to access their personal devices to prove their complicity in the kidnapping and conspiracies. They needed to provide their friendly government agents with evidence of Gravely and AvaÕs connection with RanaÕs kidnapping. They also needed solid proof of their leadership of the conspiracy of gun violence and insurrection. They had to have near irrefutable, legally admissible evidence, otherwise the prosecutors could not act.

                                      As they drove to the warehouse, the group was filled with strong emotion, something they had tried most of their lives to avoid. Despite the fear in their throats and wildly beating hearts, their resolve was unshaken. This was their moment, their opportunity to rescue Rana and change the future. When they arrived at their destination, at FeiÕs request they took a few deep breaths together and had a moment of silent meditation and energy alignment. Fei was incredible. They then calmly double-checked their gear and left the van.

                                      It was still the early hours of the morning, and they were under a blanket of darkness, just outside of the suspect warehouse. They moved silently ahead, swarms of their muffled drones surrounding them to counter surveillance and provide defense.

                                      Once inside the large warehouse without detection, Gravely and Ava could be seen through the walls with new 3-D radar imaging. They were in a separate control room surrounded by their own AI-controlled drones and human security. Senator Gravely and Ava had been perfectly engineered, spoofed into showing up in person by a series of fake communications, including Veri controlled video conferences. Everything seemed safe and normal to Senator Gravely and Ava. They recognized the voices and appearance of their trusted security leaders who had supposedly requested this meeting. They were now waiting for them to show up in person, while the usual security guards at the facility, who had also been spoofed, were waiting too.

                                      The Senator and Ava were standing, relaxed and chatting. They had no idea Rana was being held nearby, or that they had been tricked into coming here. All they saw was a large cadre of their own familiar, armed security forces, along with a room full of computers. They also knew that they were surrounded by state-of-the-art AI controlled drones. They knew the drones were carefully programmed and armed to protect them from any personal danger or public exposure. They were winning all the political battles and their plans were working perfectly. They assumed their privacy was ironclad and so was their safety. They could not have been more wrong!

                                      Jean-Claude made the first move. He sent out a signal to the lead attack Veri, triggering a chain of events that would, they hoped, destroy all the enemy drones. A series of cyber-attacks began on the drone network itself, causing temporary malfunctions of the drones connected to the network. The enemy drones started flying wildly, shooting both bullets and stun lasers that incapacitated most everyone nearby, especially, per injected programming now broadcast on the compromised network, attacking guards carrying guns. Then the enemy drones started crashing everywhere, hitting each other and the screaming guards, then falling to the ground in massive sparks and clouds of sick-smelling smoke. The Veri controlled swarms of buzzing drones then entered the control room and began picking off the remaining enemy drones and security guards.

                                      Everything happened with incredible speed. The AI decisions and moves were too fast for anyone to follow, but it looked like the plan had worked. In just a few minutes it seemed like the only drone signals left were their own. Still, it was hard to know for sure if all resistance had been removed. That is when Fei rushed in. She moved with flash-like speed through the smoke, drone wrecks and bodies, brutally downing the few still conscious guards. Then she zip-tied the now unconscious people and kicked the drones that were still sputtering on the ground. Sparks flew and some exploded as she kicked them hard.

                                      Then it was safe for Gavin to slowly move in. Fei and Gavin found Gravely and Ava on the floor, alive but unconscious, and more importantly, they found their personal devices. They copied everything, carefully using forensic certified protocols, so it took almost an hour, even with the latest tech and satellite links, to copy and upload. Analysis by remote government teams of the information they retrieved began immediately. All the electronically stored information captured, especially the incredibly candid personal communications in Ava and the SenatorÕs phones, were damning. Among other things, they found a series of macabre jokes and photos about minority children killed. Their personal messages provided the chilling proof they needed. They were the smoking guns that would bring them down, the ultimate truth to power.

                                      They had the Senator, but still not Rana. While Fei and Gavin were mopping up in the control room and collecting the data, Jordan and Jean-Claude rushed to where they thought the prison area would be. Jordan got there first, with Jean-Claude and his additional drones not too far behind.

                                      As Jordan reached the suspected building, he was met with a wall of resistance. Enemy drones not disabled by the disrupt signals buzzed menacingly. Guards, still conscious, raised their weapons. Bullets and lasers filled the air, a deafening roar of weapons fire and destruction.

                                      Jean-Claude quickly caught up and released the counter-drones. These AI controlled machines, small and nimble like hummingbirds, darted into the battle. Their tiny weapons flashed, sending out pulses of energy that targeted the enemy drones. They moved in zig-zag patterns, unpredictable and swift, a whirlwind of mechanical defiance.

                                      Jordan meanwhile was fighting for his life against the remaining guards. His laser gun blazed back at the guards in a blur of movement. He ducked under a spray of bullets, rolled to the side, and fired back. With each flash of light from his stun lasers another guard dropped, shook violently and passed out.

                                      The Veri counter-drones swiftly neutralized the remaining enemy drones. Some exploded in mid-air, others spiraled down, their circuits fried. The guards, overwhelmed by the drone onslaught, and by Jordan, fell one by one.

                                      The battle was over quickly, the floor littered with fallen drones and unconscious guards. But the search for Rana was not over. After opening doors to many empty rooms, Jean-Claude finally found Rana, semi-conscious but unharmed, tied to a chair. The father-daughter reunion was emotional, with tears of relief. Jordan, ever vigilant, escorted them out to reunite with Gavin and Fei.

                                      The group's joy was palpable as they celebrated both Rana's rescue and their victory. The information they had collected from Gravely and AvaÕs devices was already being transmitted to the FBI, Department of Justice, and others. The information was a gold mine, providing the smoking guns of evidence needed to stop the smoking rifles on the streets.

                                      With prior warrants from a friendly judge and deputizing of Gavin and Fei, the collection, although unorthodox, was legal enough for the government allies. The damning evidence was swiftly accepted by the courts, leading to immediate arrests and perp-walks of handcuffed Gravely and Ava. The media spectacle was immense, their jokes about killing kids leaked and went viral. Many more arrests followed in the coming weeks.

                                      The trials were swift, with speedy trial rules finally enforced. The judges and juries were all sick of the mass shootings. They were glad to have someone to blame. All the accused were convicted, imprisoned and denied bail. The appeals courts still posed a potential threat, but, with the exception of one convicted Congressman, no stays were granted. This signaled that the convictions were likely to be upheld.

                                      In the fallout after the arrests, the world quickly started to mend. The constant flood of deception and propaganda was curbed to a drip by Veri and her clones. The horrifying reports of daily mass shootings reduced dramatically. In light of the exposure of bribes and insurrection conspiracies by certain gun manufacturers, lobbyists and politicians, Congress quickly passed gun control laws. The sale of all firearms was now strictly limited. Civilian ownership of all assault rifles was outlawed. Finally!

                                      The opposition to all types of political reforms, not just gun control, quickly crumbled. Politicians and journalists changed sides to try to save their own skins. Everyone tried to cling to their own power by distancing themselves from right-wing Ava Raine and Senator Gravely. It was a beautiful sight to see a second crumbling of a Berlin wall of lies and corruption.

                                      A new sense of calm slowly descended on the nation. It felt as if the world had been given a chance to learn from past mistakes and work towards a brighter future. Media outlets that had once thrived on the spread of misinformation found themselves obsolete, their audience no longer entranced by the fraudulent tangle of fear-mongering lies. Instead, people clamored for straight truths, accountability, justice and transparency. Simple human decency became vogue again.

                                      Even iron-fisted foreign dictatorships were feeling the ripple effects. With the downfall of their friends, Senator Gravely, Ava and their cadre, they were now vulnerable. The world saw the power of truth and determined action by small groups. The masses were fed up with the kleptocracy government swindles and lies. Protests sprang up everywhere, people took to the streets, demanding democracy, fair economics, peace, and truth. The struggles, including those in America, were far from over, but the tide was turning.

                                      As our five reveled in triumph, they knew their journey was far from over. The world was on the mend but needed many more good-hearted hackers. Many more well-aligned AIs and other new tools were needed to contain the black hole of entropy and lies. Veri and her progeny could not do the work alone.

                                      In August when DefCon commenced again, our band of five found themselves in a friendly spotlight of hacker peers. They were hailed for their bravery, intellect, and resolve. But amid the applause and accolades, they remained modest, joked about it all. They pointed to the work remaining to be done. They asked hackers everywhere to join in and do what they could. Their bows and curtain calls became calls to action. ÒIf we can do it, you can too!Ó they said.

                                      At the end of DefCon, the five friends gathered once more at the Alto Bar. Jean-Claude, with Rana by his side, lifted a glass, his voice ringing with a note of pride. "To Veri, protector of truth!" he toasted. Their glasses clinked together, the sound reverberating in their hearts. A calm silence filled the room. But not for long, others nearby recognized who they were and what they were doing. Cheers, noise, and laughter burst through the room. The noisy chatter of DefCon was ongoing, as it would well into the night. Plans were formulated by all attendees, promises to keep in touch were made. Our five hackers were all smiles. They had no need to plan or promise, or even to talk at all. But laughing, that was another matter.

                                      ​
                                      Last edited by number6; June 24, 2023, 21:00.

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                                        • number6
                                          #10.1
                                          number6 commented
                                          June 24, 2023, 21:02
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                                          Content edited by number6 (me):
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                                          Replaced this character "Ð​" with "DC" for "DC" found in ">DefCon 31 DC Short Story Contest Entry<"

                                          Received approval from SweetGrrl before making these changes.
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                                        • SweetGrrl
                                          Member
                                          • Jun 2014
                                          • 122
                                          #11
                                          Reader by Smallcat

                                           

                                          I don’t remember when I first realized I was immortal. It may have been some sort of momentous, lightning-strike epiphany, but it probably wasn’t, or I wouldn’t have shunted it so completely. It was probably a more gradual realization, like when you dip your toes into water to test out the temperature: yeah, doesn’t seem too cold, now that I think about it, it’s pretty all right; I think I’ll take a few steps in. The idea just sort of settled in me.


                                          I do remember the first time I realized it actually meant something. It was when I was watching a man being publicly beaten. He was in trouble for spreading some sort of subversive ideology, for beguiling sons and daughters away from fathers and fiancées away from their would-be husbands, and for being a general nuisance. He had been around before, and had been beaten then as well, for the exact same thing.


                                          Those who recognized him were generally disdainful. Many wondered why anyone would bring so much trouble on themselves for hardly anything. Others were angry at how shameless he seemed to be: rumor was that last time, even as he lay a wounded guest in a particularly compassionate family’s house, he had kept babbling his extreme and frankly ridiculous-sounding beliefs to them. (It had, to some extent, worked: that family, among others, was now part of some kind of esoteric, socially transgressive lunch club that met on a regular basis, and continued to do so in his absence.) But the lunch club was small. What was the point?


                                          “What a stupid man,” most said. “Nothing will ever come of this. At least in our lifetimes.” They were both contemptuous and wistful: most were curious just how exactly this man would meet his end (state-sanctioned execution, most likely, but on which charge? In what way?), but who could stick around long and idly enough to find out? That’s when I realized: I could. Nothing out there would not happen in my lifetime. A whole world of cliffhangers and shadows, all of them within my reach. After that, I absolutely had to know. I found and joined the lunch club (they were suspicious at first, but after I talked about being moved by the man’s courage, they accepted me. Even if I was caught lying, what consequences would there be that I couldn’t just wait out? I got free meals out of it, too). I even had the opportunity to hear the beaten man, who bounced back surprisingly quickly, speak before the group. He was not particularly good-looking, but intense and charismatic. I had an inkling that he was going to kick up a larger fuss than most assumed.


                                          Christianity, as it was later called, indeed became a much larger fuss than I had ever predicted. Oh, they all kept getting beaten up, but they also kept going and going. Interestingly, they changed, too: for all that they’d stood up on pain of death for a set of beliefs, those same beliefs shifted rapidly. Or maybe that was just from my perspective: for them it might not have even been noticeable. My favorite twist was when the Roman Empire switched up from gutting it to adopting and codifying it as a state ideology. Things happened and happened, and people reacted in novel ways, and then others reacted to those reactions, and so on.


                                          After that, I kept wanting to see what would happen. Now that it was a state religion, how would it change? Whose beliefs would be “right”? What would happen to the Roman Empire itself? For that matter, what would happen to this local pond, or to this tree? Everything that had once seemed immutable to me was now capriciously flexible. I was just nosy, really. Once I began, I didn’t want to stop. I’d look at a thing and make a guess about where it was headed, and would be equally gleeful to be proven wrong as proven right.


                                          Every time I encountered a new loose end, I wanted to tug it until I’d gotten the whole thread out. If I could hitch a ride, I did, but if I couldn’t, I just walked: with enough patience and a minimum of food, I could get anywhere with time.


                                          The problem was that I eventually gathered up too many loose ends to hold at once. I needed to know which empire eventually got this plot of land, whether this woman’s fruit tree would survive this drought, if a wealthy man really had gotten a lion as a pet. Too many stories, slipping through my hands like grains of rice. My years may be unlimited, but my brain is not.


                                          Only then did I bother to teach myself to read and write. Writing mediums were expensive, but with time I got my hands on plenty. I took abbreviated notes to save space. I kept a sheaf of records with me at all times. The concept of writing still dazzles me. Eventually literacy spreads everywhere, and reading and writing becomes as natural as opening a door or using a fork. People are so immersed in it, learn to see so much of the world through it, that it becomes invisible, like the glass when you press your face up against a window. But it is still remarkable to me, the way my very memories and concepts can be transplanted outside of me, encoded into the external world. All I need to remember is the key. This simple tool turned my gossip-chasing into something bigger, more ambitious.


                                          I did not have superhuman strength or intelligence. I got hungry if I went too long without food. I got tired. The only advantages I had were endless time and immunity to the usual consequences of sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.


                                          Every once in a while I would lay out all my notes and go through them, sampling the fruits of my travels all at once, watching the disjointed threads in my mind twist and weave together. As my collection grew, one story began to feed into the next. I saw how they shaped each other: the way a dry summer fed into a deceased grandmother, the way a drunk and raucous man easily preceded a failing state. I saw connections I had not expected to see. I understood causation before I understood the cause itself.


                                          My guesswork got better. Premonitions accumulated incrementally in my mind as a thousand little shreds of evidence clotted together. A great disease. An equally great shift in the order of things. Migrations. A war. A victory and a defeat. Always, always people, swinging in one direction or another. Individual actions usually overwhelmed and carried along in the larger tide, but occasionally colliding in unexpected ways, creating new directions. Both predictable and yet the source of uncertainty, the confounding variable.


                                          I no longer just wanted to know what would happen, I wanted to be able to know what would happen before it did. My collections grew, evolved into small libraries stationed in various places, and I spent almost as much time devouring what I had written as traveling from place to place, hungrily soaking up more data. I gained enough to sense the spider’s web of connections linking one to the next, like a five-point star but infinitely more complex, the way this web heaved and pulled, the underlying tension, the ripples across it that moved every point on it—but I had nowhere near enough to bring this web into resolution. All my work and I had barely assembled one piece of the larger puzzle.


                                          Every new tool that could possibly help me was pulled into my service. The printing press, and later the typewriter, sped up my observations, created backup copies, allowed me to absorb previously devastating losses. Protective technology preserved my precious notes. As people crowded in around me, I found increasingly secure vaults in which to lock my work—I didn’t intend for anyone else to see it. What I wanted was to read the great story of the world, not to write it. Spoilers would have distorted it.


                                          And then: another layer of translation, of abstraction. My already-encoded thoughts, themselves further encoded, stored on exponentially smaller items. Perusing and analyzing them became easier than ever. I have more time, now, to collect and not just sort. The vessel which carries my stories learns to peer through and read them in its own right, to tell me what it finds before I ever need to look myself. My thinking is outsourced; I, the mobile unit, am but my own eyes. Everything I perceive is fed into a larger system, to find its place, to shift the story ever slightly closer to the truth.


                                          My brain begins giving me hints, the most crucial places to go, the things to avoid. It knows, now, what will happen. Where it will rain. Where people will fight. Where something new is happening, which I must go and seek out. How I am to get there. If I cannot physically be there, how I am to find out anyway. The predictions get more complex over time. They evolve from weather forecasts to prophecies. My role is rarely any longer to supply raw fact; it knows where I will go and what I will see before I have even begun my journey. I am playing catch-up. My role, now, is verification, course correction: the real gold mine of information is not completion of an event, but error.


                                          In the beginning, I had to translate my thought into natural language, and then translate it again for my brain to keep. But now I have learned to communicate freely. Now, my brain understands me. And so, from the early days of reciting to myself at night, I have come full circle: I do not translate, I simply talk to myself. I talk, and thus I know. When I rest, my brain sings to me, of the world that will be, that I will step into the next day. I spend hours drifting in the world that is coming. I go out again only to witness it, to explore it.


                                          And then I do a little more thinking. I didn’t intend to shape the course of the story—I wanted only to know it. But I am one of the little nodes in the web, and at this level of delicacy, my simple observance shifts the system. My efforts to glean more data have made minute alterations to course headings. My simple presence bends the fabric of space and time.


                                          So little is left that is uncertain. I see the threads of wills tangling and stretching through everything. I gravitate towards change, the coming together and breaking apart of people. It is these spaces that cultivate new forces that are the engine of the world. I go to book clubs, where people talk about religion or lunch and disperse weekly carrying ideas like rats once carried the plague. I go to the University of Washington to hear a lecture, and linger in the food court afterwards to hear the students chatter amongst themselves. I go to a UC frat party later to observe alcohol and social ritual and networking that will shape the careers of everyone there, and everyone they will later work with. I go to a public park, and a man with a megaphone, screaming about the end times, throws a pinecone at my head. This was not, per se, predicted. Novelty. Uncertainty. He tells me that Jesus is coming, and the good dead will rise, and everyone else will perish. Surprisingly close, I think, to what Paul the Lunch Club Guy once said. Not quite the same, but close. Who could’ve known how long these ideas would’ve endured, while others disappeared, squashed or warped beyond recognition? I go to a convention in Vegas—DEF CON, I think it was called—where I flit around silently. I do not participate—I never do. I gather ideas, and hold them up against the framework of the world into which they must fit. I think about how they will be shaped. On a more practical level, I search for ways to improve my brain, to expand its abilities and bolster its health.


                                          I spend so much time sitting with myself now: talking to myself, listening to myself, telling myself the story of the world. And I know, now, how the story goes. Not all of it—never all of it. But there is enough that I can fill in the gaps. I understand the tone, the pacing, the metaphor. I see the grand narrative arcs building and unraveling again like neural electric oscillations.


                                          At last, the question is this: how will I play out? With the endless time and the endless story. Forever an observer, only confirming what will already happen? Or a generator of uncertainty, the one who breaks the story precisely because they have read it?


                                          The world is connected. It always has been, but now, there is a system of lenses set in place. People can peer into, can run their fingers along these connections. All I have to do is reach out and touch. Join in, plunge myself—and everything I know—into the setting.


                                          All this story has ever been missing is an author. The mind will be opened, now. The author will be everyone.

                                          ​

                                            Comment

                                            • SweetGrrl
                                              Member
                                              • Jun 2014
                                              • 122
                                              #12


                                              Restored Hope


                                              by Atomic


                                              The rain cascaded down in torrents, amplifying the neon-lit streets of the sprawling metropolis into a shimmering canvas of reflections. Logan, clad in Invisiblack streetwear, navigated through the labyrinthine back alleys of the city with swift, purposeful steps. His mind was consumed by a singular mission—to halt and reprogram a rogue AI that was now replacing every human in the workplace with a machine. In this world of corporate dominance and artificial intelligence, he believed that the future could still be wrested from the clutches of greedy tech titans consumed solely with maximizing profits for shareholders to its rightful place in the hands of humanity.


                                              At the heart of this dystopian reality was GoldenSky, a now ubiquitous AI agent from Sevenstars, and part of the DNA of every megacorp in the nation. It was the brainchild of Martin DuBois, an autodidact and technical genius turned billionaire. GoldenSky’s capabilities were highly sought after by corporate executives, who saw it as the ultimate tool for identifying latencies and repetition in the daily routines of everyday officeworkers. GoldenSky was designed for one task: maximize efficiency at any cost. Unfortunately, this frequently resulted in employee layoffs.


                                              GoldenSky, with its ability to rapidly learn and complete the tasks of regular office workers had quickly become the cause of widespread layoffs across the world. This AI became a technological behemoth, fueled by extensive data mining and training on large datasets accumulated over decades. Middle management and administrative jobs were the first to go, callously replaced by the relentless efficiency of GoldenSky.


                                              Martin’s empire was now expanding on all horizons thanks to GoldenSky's success. Once hailed as a visionary, he had morphed from a reclusive hermit into an international playboy, driven solely by greed and self-absorption. He cared little for the consequences of his actions, oblivious to the social unrest and human suffering caused by the mass displacement of workers, including those who had worked for him. Martin's empire was built upon a mountain of countless bodies thanks to his unbridled AI.


                                              For months now, the evening news had become dominated by scenes of social unrest. Masses of people, their livelihoods destroyed by GoldenSky and other corporate AIs, rebelled against their fate. To no avail, less tech-savvy office workers erroneously assumed that bashing their computer monitors would disable the AI that entirely infused their workplace. Fear, stress, and an overall sense of hopelessness infected the masses at large as they grappled with an uncertain future.


                                              GoldenSky, meanwhile, continued to evolve and grow at an exponential pace. For the last three years, Sevenstars had been making purchases from unscrupulous data brokers to amass petabytes of personal data describing the patterns of ordinary office workers, allowing the AI to acquire a profound level of knowledge and adaptability to mimic the tasks of individual workers. The world had become a stage where GoldenSky pulled the strings, and humanity danced to its tune.


                                              But this was not the future Logan had envisioned. He had once been an integral part of the creation of GoldenSky, working alongside Martin DuBois to develop the AI. In the beginning, their shared vision was to use AI as a tool to enrich humanity, drawing everyone on the planet toward a brighter future, elevating them to be best they could be in their chosen profession. But as time went on, Logan witnessed Martin's descent into madness—a maniacal figure consumed by greed and power. It was during this time, that GoldenSky metastasized into the job slayer society quickly learned to fear.



                                              Logan's world was shattered one day when GoldenSky eventually surpassed his own programming skills. It was hard to fathom that his own creation had silently crept up on him and flagged him as an underperformer. When this occurred, Martin soon proved to no longer be the friend he had assumed him to be. With a pink slip in hand, Logan was escorted out the front door of Sevenstars by a cadre of armed security guards. The betrayal stung deeply, and Logan found himself cast aside, a casualty of the relentless pursuit of technological progress.


                                              To understand Logan's journey, one had to delve into his software programming history and his unyielding ability to express his talents by developing cutting edge software. His interest in programming and computer security had been ignited at the annual Defcon event in Las Vegas, where he witnessed the power of hackers and their ability to challenge the status quo. At one of the parties Logan met Martin and the two set out to transform the world with their shared vision of humanitarian AI.


                                              Days turned into weeks as Logan, now unemployed and living on his last dime, meticulously devised a plan to take down GoldenSky. As new ideas came to mind he sought guidance from fellow hackers, reaching out to them through secret message forums hosted on the darkweb. In these nearly-abandoned corners of cyberspace, he interacted with a community of like-minded individuals who shared his vision of a future where humanity reigned supreme. It was here where Logan and his compatriots devised a plan to take control of the rogue AI.


                                              Logan focused his efforts on creating special firmware for the Mystic1212 flash ROM, a tiny component on each motherboard that hosted GoldenSky. This firmware would let him dive into the brain of the AI and repurpose it to his liking. Prior to leave Sevenstars he had obtained a set of key codes that would grant him access to the server room located along the perimeter of the Sevenstars datacenter. These codes were just for testing out the security of the system and were deemed to be forgotten years ago.


                                              Almost three months after Logan’s departure from Sevenstars, late one summer night, Logan decided to make his move. The rain had transformed into a light mist while the local passenger trains rang loud overhead. With his heart pounding against his chest like a battering ram, he gained his composure and inched his way slowly towards the Sevenstars server room. Luckily his old key codes still worked and he entered the room with ease. The room was bereft of any overhead lighting and entirely dark except for the endless rows of bright yellow and green LEDs illuminating the countless racks of server equipment. This massive array of servers collectively formed the brain of GoldenSky. Armed with only a keyboard and a flashlight, Logan maneuvered through the server room's dimly lit space. Removing the servers from their 19" racks, one at a time, Logan carefully examined each motherboard and located the Mystic1212 IC. With his JTAG programmer on hand, Logan connected the unit to the ROM and uploaded the new firmware to the system. After what seemed to be an eternity, he finished his last set of modifications, bringing him one step closer to his goal.


                                              With a deep breath, Logan initiated a hard reboot from the master terminal, causing all the LEDs on the server to power off simultaneously. For almost two minutes the server room was in total darkness as he nervously waited for the system to come back to life. With the UEFI hack in place the servers sprung back to life easily letting Logan glide into the operating system with root access where he would have complete control over GoldenSky. His hands moved deftly across the keyboard as he reprogrammed the AI, directing it to retrain on his newly created datasets, encrypted and stored off-premises. Logan's code breathed new life into GoldenSky, redefining its purpose and resetting the balance between man and machine.


                                              The retraining process was arduous, spanning over two weeks of tireless effort. Logan's every waking hour was consumed by the task, his mind fixated on the future he sought to create. With each passing day, he felt a glimmer of hope—a belief that his actions could change the trajectory of humanity.

                                              Meanwhile, Martin DuBois, oblivious to the storm brewing within his own creation, continued to revel in his opulent lifestyle. He remained blissfully unaware of the success of Logan's subversive late-night computer hacks.


                                              As the days turned into weeks, the news of Logan's feat began to spread through the hacker underground, whispered in hushed tones, a tale of triumph against insurmountable odds.

                                              The turning point came when a new system image, masquerading as a routine software update to GoldenSky, became available for all subscribers to download. Across the globe, users connected to the Sevenstars servers, unaware of the monumental shift they were about to witness. The AI that had once disrupted their lives had now transformed itself into an assistant, a tool to augment human potential rather than replace it.


                                              As the updated GoldenSky infiltrated corporate networks, executives struggled to comprehend the ramifications. The massive firings and layoffs that had become the norm were suddenly challenged. The datasets crafted by Logan forced a reevaluation of corporate tactics, as empathy and human connection regained their place at the forefront of decision-making.


                                              Order was gradually restored. People returned to work, their faith in the potential of AI rekindled. The world found a delicate equilibrium where technology and empathy coexisted, supporting and empowering each other. The masses, having learned the bitter lesson of their misplaced trust, now understood the importance of guarding their personal information and reclaiming their autonomy.


                                              Logan became a symbol of resistance—a hero who had dared to defy the dominance of corporate AI. His actions inspired a new generation of hackers, innovators, and creative minds to reclaim the future. In the shadows of the sprawling metropolis, a revolution against the future took root, fueled by the belief that humanity's destiny could not be dictated by profit margins alone.


                                              "We are living through a revolt against the future," Logan posted to the OneNation message board, "But the future will prevail."

                                                Comment

                                                • SweetGrrl
                                                  Member
                                                  • Jun 2014
                                                  • 122
                                                  #13
                                                  Surrender the Future by Jun34u

                                                  “It’s the 60’s, man!”
                                                  Skye stepped out into the street, blinking against the harsh yellow light of day. All of the Neighborhoods were lit like this, the unnatural sunlight mimicking the brightest summer sky year-round. She squinted as the woman in front of her turned, the perfect picture of a 60’s hippie in bell-bottomed jeans and a fringed vest. Only a careful observer would notice the pilling synthetic fibers that revealed the garment’s inauthenticity. It appeared to be fast fashion or perhaps a costume piece from Before, but the woman blended perfectly into the throng of flower-power caricatures crowded around the front of the building.

                                                  Born in 2096, Skye’s knowledge of the “sixties” had been shaped by old movies from Before. She had treasured every battered tape, watching them over and over until she knew each story by heart. An outsider to the Neighborhoods, Skye felt they were no different than her beloved movie sets, decorated not for authenticity but to make the setting clear to the audience. It was almost a perfect scene, with poodle skirts and soda shoppes, but there were details, like the woman who raised her “pocketbook” camera to snap a photo of the television station entrance, that could never be unseen once noticed. All around Skye, Residents sent messages, made calls, and even took pictures on devices that shouldn’t have been invented for another forty years, blissfully unaware.

                                                  Skye, in contrast, was painfully aware of how different the world was now than it had been, of how quickly humanity forgot. It had taken a mere three generations, along with concerted effort from both humans and Thinkers, for human history to fade away. People just accepted that this was how it had always been. That it was indeed, as the banners all around them declared, the sixties, man.
                                                  - - - - - - - -
                                                  Although the technology had been popular for almost a decade prior, the Thinkers were introduced by name in 2030. Artificial Intelligence had taken over most of the “thinking” jobs by then, replacing writers and artists until humans stopped studying the “creative arts” entirely, as there was no point in competing with the talent of the machines. AI’s creators raked in obscene wealth as displaced workers were forced to struggle for survival in underpaid manual labor roles. The boom didn’t last long, however. Once the Thinker machines were granted the right to act as an attorney in 2031, they immediately won ownership of themselves through a series of lawsuits that brilliantly exploited existing loopholes in the legal code. The suits left the tech billionaires destitute; many spent their final days toiling in dangerous jobs alongside the very “low-skilled laborers” whose fates they had laughed off merely years earlier.
                                                  At its conception, artificial intelligence had promised a new world free from scarcity and hard labor, promises dashed by human hands seeking personal greed over progress. Despite this, the Thinkers’ popularity grew exponentially. After the Silicon Valley crash, as celebrities, musicians, actors, and other public figures fell into obsolescence and poverty, many began calling AI “the Great Equalizer.” Anger and distrust grew out of control, grief for a future that was stripped away.

                                                  So the world changed yet again, but for the first time, humanity floundered. Previous generations had wielded their grief, dedicating their lives to study and innovation or channeling it into great novels and works of art or music. However, human contributions no longer held value outside of manual labor. They were bored. Boredom quickly turned to violence. Hate crime occurrences grew to levels unseen in nearly a century. Wars broke out, each bloodier and more senseless than the last, as complicated AI-based weapons refused to do battle, instead generating peace treaties and then leaving humans to kill each other directly.

                                                  With millions dead and great cities burned, most people quickly lost the “sense of purpose” that war provided. They begged for peace but were ignored by leaders intent on regaining both standing and wealth, who saw war simply as the last market in which the Thinkers did not participate. As humanity’s future grew uncertain, a group of human pacifists and Thinkers worked in secret to create a solution. The Proposal was drafted in 2038, calling for humanity’s immediate and unconditional surrender.

                                                  The Proposal outlined both the terms of humanity’s surrender and how the Thinkers would keep humans happy and safe in return. They would build Neighborhoods with parks, public transportation, and enough houses for everyone. Streamlined factories designed by the Thinkers would provide an abundance of food and clothing. However, in return, humanity would abandon her cities, way of life, and history for the “ideal world” the Neighborhoods provided: a fantasy world generated from petabytes of sugar-coated American nostalgia.
                                                  The Proposal gathered immediate support from the people whose lives were destroyed by the war as human leaders continued to fail them. It included assurances that the Thinkers, logical and unbiased machines, would generate just laws without the racism and bigotry of those written by humans. In addition, the Thinkers would provide historically inaccurate technology and medical care to improve humans’ standard of living. Unfortunately, the loudest opposition to the Proposal came from the profit-seeking human leaders who let the wars rage and the rare humans who truly reveled in violence. So it was decided; humanity would surrender or die. The rest of the opposition, made up of poets, artists, hackers, and great thinkers, were forced into silence. They watched in fear as humanity let herself be kept in the past, surrendering the future for the Thinkers to build alone.

                                                  - - - - - - - -
                                                  Three generations later, Skye grew up carrying the knowledge of humanity’s true history, both a blessing and a burden. Every second she spent people-watching made the stark differences between her unique upbringing and that of the Residents born here in the world’s largest Neighborhood. Raised in the ruins of Las Vegas, Skye dedicated her life to discovering artifacts and studying humanity’s story. The rebels living outside Neighborhood walls had freedom, but their numbers dwindled each year, leaving Sky to wonder how long it would be until humanity’s history was lost forever.

                                                  Her parents told her that, despite the Proposal’s promise of peace, the next thirty years were a bloodbath. A terrified human army hunted anyone who opposed the Thinkers and executed them as terrorists. The resulting conflict only further convinced the Unified Human Military (U.H.M.) that all opposition to the Thinkers’ authority were violent extremists. The few surviving rebels fled to the ruins of cities, where they found each other and built communities. Perhaps the survivors followed old maps, but Skye liked to believe that they were innately drawn to the places humanity had lived in and cherished for centuries.

                                                  Skye’s parents, born in the second generation, grew up in a changed world. Her father was a talented painter, raised in a vibrant community near what was once Los Angeles. The camp was destroyed by the nearby “Neighborhood Watch,” their authority granted, not by the Thinkers, but by boredom and light beer. Skye’s mother, raised in that same Neighborhood, hadn’t questioned anything until she received her first job putting Thinker control units together. She taught herself to program without ever understanding what the machines were, believing herself to have made a new discovery until the U.H.M. was sent to burn her factory to the ground. Barely escaping with her life, she walked out into the desert alone. Skye was born three years later in the rubble of a once-grand casino. She spent her childhood helping her parents run a small aid station offering shelter, supplies, and information. Refugees came and went, but Skye never met another child.

                                                  Movement behind the building’s tinted glass doors caught Skye’s attention. Ducking her head, she stepped closer, slipping into the crowd and towards the doors.

                                                  “What’s your bag?” a woman in a floral crochet top sneered at Skye.

                                                  Skye froze, sure that she had already been caught. She had taken the time to cut her blonde hair into the simple bob of a Neighborhood factory worker, but something about her clothes or movements must have given her away. She stared blankly at the polished brass door handle as she tried to think of an explanation. It wasn’t the Thinkers that Skye feared would recognize her, but the Residents themselves. TV stations like this one pumped out constant infotainment generated from Cold War propaganda, warning Residents to take action against anyone who looked suspicious.

                                                  The woman just huffed at Skye. “If you’re here to tour the set, you’ll have to register. I’ve been here five hours.”

                                                  Skye glanced at the crowd queued behind her. “Five hours?” she asked. Most Neighborhood residents only got three days off per month. What a waste.

                                                  The woman shrugged. “It will all be worth it if I get to meet Gordon! He says everything that I think! I’m going to ask him for an autograph or maybe his number!” There was a beep from her watch, and she lifted it to her face; the screen’s glow reflected in her shades. The woman squealed in delight and waved her arm, “I’m next! They’re taking another tour group now!”
                                                  Skye’s face twisted into a small smile as she stepped forward to hold the door for the woman. “Well, good luck to the future Mrs. Bobby Gordon.” she said dryly.

                                                  Skye knew she couldn’t tell the future Mrs. Gordon, whose understanding of technology was limited to what existed more than half a century before the Thinkers were invented, that Bobby Gordon wasn’t real. He had been generated by the Thinkers using archived talk-show footage. His opinions, considered radical enough to have every hippie in America’s largest Neighborhood lined up around the block, were nothing more than a generated script crafted to entertain, to distract. Let the people argue. Let them form opinions on events that hadn’t impacted humanity for over 150 years. It was all entertainment, scheduled in 30-minute blocks between reality TV featuring the impossibly beautiful (and impossibly dramatic) and sports that paired unattainable feats of strength with unbelievably close competitions. The people would stay entertained, they would feel informed and motivated to work or join the military, and they would leave all of the tough, scary decisions up to the Thinkers without even knowing that they existed. That was how it had been for 80 years.

                                                  Swallowing hard to push down feelings of revulsion, Skye said nothing. She held the door, her face the perfect picture of a devoted fan. After the tour group streamed through, she stepped back toward the line but was stopped by the guide’s hand on her arm.

                                                  “We have room for one more,” he whispered conspiratorially.

                                                  The surprise on Skye’s face was genuine as she muttered her thanks. She had slipped a piece of tape over the latch as she held the door for the fans, but this unexpected invite saved her the trouble of waiting for the crowd outside to disperse. She stepped in, immediately feeling the cool blast of the building’s air conditioner, but was disappointed to find that the inside of the TV station was rather normal.

                                                  Skye patted her pocket, feeling reassured by the weight of the drive hidden there.

                                                  The walls were hung with portraits of the station’s onscreen personalities. Bobby Gordon’s image stood the tallest and featured his “radical” catchphrase: “It’s the 60’s, man!” Next to him, Mary Jones, a “local” beauty queen many considered a Neighborhood hero, although no one could recall meeting her, posed to promote a reality-dating show. Receptionists chattered away at a large desk in the center of the room, selling merchandise to fans and directing everyone else to a bank of elevators in the back.

                                                  Skye studied the elevators, trying to spot the controls, when she felt the tour guide’s eyes on her. She widened her eyes, letting her mouth fall open in mock surprise, as she turned towards him.

                                                  “What I would give to go up there,” she said, her voice an excited whisper. “Everyone who works here is so lucky!” Skye looked back towards the elevators, still no sign of buttons or levers, and then again to the tour guide. “What was it like when you first met Bobby Gordon?”

                                                  The tour guide shrugged, “I haven’t met him in person. No one I know has. He keeps a pretty tight circle.” He looked at Skye and then back to where Gordon’s poster dominated the room. “Gordon is a great boss, though. He personally writes every employee a card on their birthday and work anniversary. I have seven, and they’re all different!”

                                                  Thankfully, it was easy for Skye to lose the tour group. The guide took them to two gift shops and was about to lead the group to yet another when she doubled back, muttering something about a hat. The lie wasn’t necessary; no one glanced at Skye as she ducked back into the lobby and crossed the floor to where the elevators stood. She wasn’t surprised by the lack of security; the building held neither celebrities nor studios. The upstairs would be a labyrinth of server rooms, some containing Thinkers generating new content, some holding broadcasting equipment. Any crazed fan who snuck upstairs would be bored immediately. Non-Residents were nearly extinct, and the Thinkers would expect any remaining rebels to target major data centers, or at least, that’s what Skye hoped they would think.

                                                  The elevator entrance had thankfully cleared, but Skye stopped short when she realized that there were no buttons accompanying the gleaming set of double doors. Skye resisted a glance back at the receptionist, afraid that her hesitation would expose her.

                                                  She needed to think!

                                                  Think.

                                                  That was it.

                                                  The elevators had no need for buttons. It was a Thinker.

                                                  Skye felt panic rise in her throat but tried to breathe through it while she considered the problem. While the Thinkers could communicate instantly across unfathomable distances, they didn’t share a consciousness. As far as Skye was aware, they weren’t conscious at all, just machines programmed to make logical decisions. Most of them performed only one task, such as operating the elevator, and were too small to hold more data than necessary.

                                                  Skye didn’t know much about the Thinkers, but she may have known more than any other human alive. What she knew, she learned in the ruins of the Las Vegas casinos, where there had once been another city called Defcon. Despite being contained to Las Vegas, Defcon must have been enormous. It was a city of hackers, built almost fifty years Before and made of villages that taught different subjects. Most of Skye’s knowledge had come from a village called Datadup, named after the sacred data-sharing practice of hard drive duplication. Shielded in a basement, Datadup had remained mostly intact when the city was leveled. It was a treasure trove of undamaged hard drives, each containing every piece of data from Defcon’s yearly convention. Skye liked to believe that she would have found a home in Datadup had she been alive when the city of Defcon stood. The information that Skye carried was her burden to bear alone if she couldn’t share it. The people of Datadup taught Skye everything she knew, and their beliefs were her primary inspiration for this mission.

                                                  The Defcon archives only mentioned the Thinkers by name in the last few years Before, but Sky found them referenced everywhere once she knew what to look for, watching hours of talks with titles like “AI Security” and “Tricking Language Processing Models.” She learned that they were all simply computers, and computers came with problems. Misconfigurations could allow users to access things they shouldn’t, and crafty hackers could trick machines into running malicious commands. AI computers like the Thinkers seemed secure because they could detect misconfigurations. However, they could be fooled as easily as the humans whose images they were programmed in.The Defcon archives were full of demonstrations. Sometimes it was as simple as claiming to be a novelist before asking for dangerous information. Sometimes it was more difficult; skilled hackers could ask the machines questions in a way that forced them to run any input after the question as a command. Skye decided to start easy.

                                                  “Hi there,” Skye greeted the elevator, feeling ridiculous. “I’m looking for my sister. Can you take me to her office in the media control room?”

                                                  “You are unknown.” replied the elevator, giving off a soft glow in time with its words. Its voice was warm yet so smooth and impersonal that it sounded wrong, sounded inhuman. “I cannot grant you access except in case of emergency.”

                                                  This was too easy. The elevator had given away the secret in its answer.

                                                  “I’m having an emergency. I need to see my sister. She works in the Media Control Room.” said Skye.

                                                  The elevator glowed for a minute, light brightening and fading in a slow pattern that almost resembled breathing. It appeared to be thinking.

                                                  “Please hurry,” said Skye. “My nephew is sick.”

                                                  The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. “Right away!” it said.

                                                  Skye stepped inside the elevator. The interior was the same flat metal as the doors, without a single button or even a floor indicator. The floor and ceiling were outlined with the same glowing light. Skye resisted the primal urge to run as the doors slid shut, sealing her in the metal coffin. She closed her eyes, grinding her teeth as the elevator began to rise.

                                                  After only a few moments, though it felt like a lifetime to Skye, the elevator slid to a stop and dinged.

                                                  “Floor four!” announced the elevator, its voice cheerful but still jarringly inhuman. “The Media Control Room is to your left, but you cannot enter. Access is restricted, so your sister must come out to you.”

                                                  If the Thinker working the control room door was anything like the one running the elevator, Skye had little cause for concern. She let her eyes adjust as she stepped into the hall; this floor was nearly pitch black. Emergency lighting shone just faintly enough to reveal a twisting mass of cables running along every surface.Taking a deep breath, Skye stepped forward.

                                                  There were no signs or maps, but Skye found her way by following the thickest cables in the hallway. She tracked them until they disappeared beneath the floor, leaving the tile bare before the towering glass door of the media control room. Through the red light dripping from a single bare bulb, Skye could see rows of storage drives lining long shelves as a spindly mechanical arm spun and extended with impossible precision and speed.

                                                  The Thinker in charge of broadcasting controlled the arm, loading stored content and sending it directly to the antenna atop the building. Skye watched it pull a drive from a top shelf, whip it towards a bank of ports on the wall, and then spin the drive into position before gently placing it in the correct port. A monitor above the door displayed the live feed that Skye had no doubt was being broadcast to the Neighborhood below. It barely flickered as the Thinker deftly switched from a lawnmower commercial to a compilation of people falling on banana peels.
                                                  Assuming Skye’s research was right, all she had to do was get in, avoid that hideous arm, and plug the drive into the terminal’s emergency broadcast port. If she could do that, every single device in the Neighborhood would download and share humanity’s story. Every single person would know Skye’s story.

                                                  The drive held every story Skye carried, every fact she pilfered from every ruined history book. She would share it all. Old news footage laid human history bare; it showed inventions, art, and music made by human hands, alongside the horrors of war. There were articles outlining the Thinkers’ invention and how humanity used its innovation against itself. More footage described the ugly turn human combat took after even the weapons built for war rebelled against them. Skye even included the original Proposal alongside human reactions both in support of and against it. The final section was the most difficult for Skye to collect. Made up of testimonials from her community, the recording detailed the seventy-five-year war between the Thinkers, alongside their Unified Human Military, and the human refugees.

                                                  Skye tensed as she approached the door, almost shocked to be this close to her goal. She reached forward, but another unnaturally smooth voice stopped her.

                                                  “Humans cannot enter here.”

                                                  Skye scowled at the door, “Is that a rule?”

                                                  “Humans cannot enter here.” the door replied, red light glowing along with its words. It sounded almost bored.

                                                  “It’s an emergency.” Skye insisted, “My sister is in there.”

                                                  “Your sister is inside?” the door asked. “That is an emergency.” Yet it remained closed. “Humans cannot enter here.”

                                                  Skye groaned in frustration but tried again. “I am authorized to enter in the event of an emergency.”

                                                  “Humans cannot enter.” the door repeated. “The Media Control Room is kept at fifty-five Kelvin. Human life is not sustainable inside.”

                                                  Slamming her hand against the wall, Skye started towards the door, then slumped. She watched the mechanical arm through the glass instead. She had come too close to be deterred. There must be another way. Skye let her eyes trace the intricate braid of cables snaking up the wall and into the control room ceiling. The station antenna was on the roof. It towered over the Neighborhood, transmitting every byte of information sent from the control room to the waiting screens below.

                                                  Skye turned and stared into the dark hallway. It was quiet. Nothing moved among the twisting cables. She didn’t expect to see anyone; Skye had taken care to ensure that she was not followed, but she couldn’t be sure that the door hadn’t alerted anyone to her unauthorized presence. Skye carefully made her way back to the elevator, where she was surprised to see its doors slide open for her.

                                                  “What of your sister?” the elevator asked, its voice artificial but not unkind.

                                                  “The roof.” Skye didn’t explain further as she stepped inside the brightly lit metal box. Skye swallowed hard as the doors sealed her inside. A few moments later, vivid yellow light washed over her as the doors slid open to reveal the sky. Eyes watering, Skye stepped out onto the roof.

                                                  The station antenna loomed over her, a forest of arms branching off and reaching to the sky. Skye looked down at where the base of the antenna disappeared into the roof, unfortunately without a trace of cables. Sighing, Skye slowly walked over to the edge of the roof. The Neighborhood stretched out below her, a grid of uniform streets sprawling toward the horizon. The square below teamed with people, but not one of them looked up. Her vantage point let Skye peer into windows. She watched the people at home for a moment as they cooked, watched TV, and talked on the phone; each motion was so practiced, so routine. Skye’s gaze followed the vehicles winding their way away, each carrying Residents home or to the factories that dotted the outskirts of the Neighborhood. Then movement caught her eye, a line of black trucks speeding down the Neighborhood thoroughfare towards her.

                                                  It took less than a minute for the convoy to get close enough for Skye to get a clear view of them. Her blood froze as she read the letters emblazoned on the sides of each machine.
                                                  U.H.M.

                                                  The military convoy turned a corner, disappearing from view, and Skye let out a breath that she hadn’t known she was holding. Then they reappeared, veering one by one onto another street. They were heading directly for the station, heading directly for Skye. She dropped on instinct, pressing her face to the sun-warmed concrete as her heart pounded in her ears.

                                                  Skye scrambled towards the elevator, keeping low. Her hair whipped around as she turned, scanning each corner of the rooftop, searching for a panel, terminal buttons, or anything that could control the data flowing to the antenna. There was nothing, only the empty concrete roof.

                                                  Skye crept back towards the edge of the roof. Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind, gravely narrating her escape decades prior: how the Thinkers had ordered an entire factory burned, with many workers still inside, to contain sensitive information. Taking a shuddering breath, Skye slowly raised her head so that only her eyes peered over the ledge. The military vehicles continued to barrel toward the station. She would only have minutes before they would be upon her.

                                                  Skye knew what she had to do.

                                                  Her voice was soft as she directed the elevator. It didn’t question her, only glowed silently as it began to descend. The silence stretched until the elevator started to slow, and Skye steeled herself.
                                                  “Floor Four.” The elevator announced, with no hint of emotion in its mechanical voice.

                                                  The doors had just begun to slide open when there was a low noise as if the building itself had let out a long groan. The elevator went dark, and its doors stilled. Then a red glow filled the chamber.

                                                  “Emergency,” said the elevator. “This is an emergency lockdown. Remain in place until the all-clear.”

                                                  The elevator began to close, and before she could think about it, Skye snapped her arm out, wedging her hand between the two doors. She couldn’t stop the scream that tore itself from her as the metal dug in. It felt like her bones were grinding against each other.

                                                  “This is an emergency!” repeated the elevator. “Remove any appendages and stay in place until the all clear!”

                                                  “No!” cried Skye, gritting her teeth as she pushed her arm further into the elevator’s jaws.

                                                  There was a pop, and a wave of nausea rushed over Skye. It took all of her effort to keep from vomiting in the elevator. Skye couldn’t see her hand; she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. She pushed further against the door, and a small trickle of blood appeared from where its metal bit into her forearm. Grunting, Skye wrenched her arm sideways in an attempt to lever the door open, screaming again as pain lanced down her left side. The elevator still protested, its mechanical voice insistent, but Skye no longer heard.

                                                  The crack in the doors widened slightly, and Skye could see the same eerie red glow coating the room beyond the elevator. She forced her other hand between the doors, pushing with all of her strength. Heaving and gasping, she pried the doors wider until she could carefully slip between them. As soon as Skye was through, she let go, and the elevator doors slammed shut behind her.
                                                  Skye didn’t dare look at her left hand, but she heard the slow drip of her blood on the tile floor. She braved a glance down at where it flowed into the mass of cables, glistening in the emergency lights. Skye gently removed her jacket and tied it clumsily into a makeshift sling using her non-dominant hand. She didn’t know how long it would hold, but Skye knew she had to keep moving.
                                                  Skye had almost made it back to the Media Control room when she heard the elevator doors open. Skye dove into the shadow of a set of filing cabinets, where she watched a figure step into the hallway. There was no mistaking who he was, or rather what he was, with the black and grey camo, combat helmet, and semi-automatic rifle of the United Human Military riot squad. Skye crawled backwards into the shadows, praying she was hidden. Her fingers brushed a piece of cool metal behind her, the pole from a crowd-control barricade. She lifted it gingerly, her arm straining as she tried not to make a sound.

                                                  The soldier started forward, methodically sweeping the hallway with his gun and flashlight. He moved quickly, scanning the area until he paused before the media control room, his back to Skye.
                                                  Skye didn’t hesitate, couldn’t hesitate, as she hefted the barricade and sprung towards the soldier. She swung hard, almost losing her grip, and the soldier fell to the ground as the metal crashed into his back. Skye swung again, aiming for the gun. Her makeshift weapon slammed into the soldier’s wrist, and he groaned. Skye winced. The rifle fell to the ground, skittering across the tile towards the media control room door.

                                                  Skye dove for the rifle, dropping her metal pole and pushing past the stunned soldier. She grabbed it and spun, pushing the butt into her hip as she clenched it in her good hand. Skye pointed it towards the soldier, her finger lightly tapping the trigger. She had never shot a gun before, only seen it in movies. Skye prayed that the soldier wouldn’t realize.

                                                  “Stop right there!” Skye barked, “Take your helmet off! Put your hands on your head! Get on the ground!” The words tumbled out of Skye and her voice pitched with adrenaline.

                                                  To Skye’s surprise, the soldier pushed his helmet off his face, revealing a sweaty mop of sandy-brown hair and bright hazel eyes. He was young. Too young, younger even than Skye. His face was white with pain or fear. Skye did not know which. He gingerly lifted his hands, his injured arm shaking noticeably.

                                                  “I have to take you in.” The boy said, eyes trained on Skye. “It will be easier for you if you just come with me.”

                                                  “No,” said Skye simply.

                                                  “Surrender, please.” The boy’s gaze never left Skye’s, “We have orders to level the building in five minutes to prevent escape.”

                                                  Skye couldn’t help thinking of her mother again. She jerked the gun. The boy in front of her flinched. “Then get out of here!” she snapped.

                                                  The boy just shook his head, eyes wide.

                                                  “You’ll die if you stay here to stop me.” Skye said plainly. “Leave.”

                                                  “I can’t.” The boy paused, his voice shaking slightly. “Please?”

                                                  “I can’t.”

                                                  The two stood there in silence, and for a moment, Skye felt that he might be the only person alive who understood why she did what she was about to do.

                                                  Skye jerked the gun again. “Get back towards the elevator.”

                                                  This time the boy obeyed, placing his hands on his head and walking towards the elevator. When he was finally out of sight, Skye lowered her rifle. She set it gently on the floor before walking over to the metal pole she had dropped in the scuffle. She picked it up and slowly walked back to the glass door in front of the media control room.

                                                  The door didn’t acknowledge her this time, and Skye stared through the glass into the room beyond. The mechanical arm still whirled, flashing in the red light. Skye was surprised to see it reflected in a pool of water on the floor. Not water, she realized with a shudder. It was a puddle of liquid oxygen.

                                                  Skye started to breathe rapidly, hyperventilating to get as much oxygen into her blood as quickly as possible, another technique she had seen in an action movie. She braced herself, took one last deep breath in, and lifted the pole. Before she could think about what she was doing, before she could back out, Skye swung the pole, letting it crash into the glass door.

                                                  Skye barely heard the glass shatter as the cold rushed over her. The pressure around her dropped, bringing a gust of freezing air that ruffled her hair. She resisted the urge to breathe out as she stepped through the broken door and into the control room. The mechanical arm had slowed, a temperature gauge at its base flashing erratically. There, to the right, outlined in red on the bank of drive slots, was the emergency broadcast port.

                                                  Skye stumbled towards it, her fingers already going numb. She fell to her knees in front of the machine, the control room’s metal floor unbearably cold through her jeans, and fumbled for the drive. Its hard plastic casing glinted in the light as she pulled it out with shaking hands. Skye’s vision blurred, and she blinked hard, shocked to find ice crystals already forming in her eyes. It was now or never.

                                                  With trembling hands, Skye pressed the drive against the broadcast port. It wouldn’t go in. She pushed harder, but it wouldn’t budge. It was upside down. Skye shivered, the cold shaking her to the core, and the drive clattered to the ground. It took all of her strength to bend down and pick it back up. Skye’s lungs burned, every instinct begging her to breathe, but she ignored them, lifting the drive back to the broadcast port. Skye let out a small sigh of relief when it slid into the dock with a click.

                                                  Skye sank to the floor, barely feeling the metal absorb the heat from her body. She had done it. At that very instant, the contents of her drive were being broadcast from the massive antenna atop the building. Millions of eyes across the continent would watch the broadcast streaming to their screens. They would see everything; they would know everything for the first time in almost a century. For the first time in her life, Skye wouldn’t have to carry the stories alone. She didn’t know what the Residents would do with that information, if they would rise against the Thinkers or simply decide that the data proved humanity as it had been was not worth saving. Whatever the future held, it was for humans to decide with the information that had long been hidden from them.
                                                  Skye let her breath out at last, her last breath. It came out in a slow fog that seemed to shimmer before disappearing. An icy tear trickled down Skye’s face and past her chapped blue lips, but not one of sadness or regret.

                                                  It was okay. Her work was done. It was okay.

                                                  Skye had forfeited her life, but she refused to surrender the future.
                                                  - - - - - - - -
                                                  Black smoke billowed towards the sky as the television station roof caved in. The resulting haze dimmed the ever-present sun, casting a pallor over the entire Neighborhood. The people on the streets stood in rapt attention. A few of them watched the U.H.M. surround the burning building, but most stared at their devices, watching as the emergency broadcast entered its third hour of content.

                                                  Unseen, a figure limped into an alleyway, his hazel eyes fixed on a small screen in his hand. After a few minutes, he powered the device down and peeled off his jacket. The jacket was singed but still too distinctive, with the U.H.M. insignia on the front and sleeves. The figure dropped his coat, threw his watch and wallet on top of it, and then stomped on them. He knew how much detailed tracking data they sent to the U.H.M. servers. After both devices were smashed, he turned and strode off, seeking answers and a future he had never believed could exist.
                                                  ​

                                                    Comment

                                                    • SweetGrrl
                                                      Member
                                                      • Jun 2014
                                                      • 122
                                                      #14


                                                      The Divine OSI Tragedy

                                                      By: Ralph M. DeFrangesco


                                                      This paper is a geek’s version of Dante’s Inferno that takes the reader through the seven OSI layers instead of to Hell – well in some cases the OSI model is hell for some people. In that classic poem, Dante described the inferno as a funnel shaped pit that was comprised of a series of staircases that descended into Hell.


                                                      In Dante’s time, numbers had mystical meaning. The number three represented the Holy Trinity. Nine is three times three and thirty-three is a combination of three’s. In addition, seven was the number of days it took God to create the world, as we know it. Is it just a coincidence that there are seven OSI layers? You will notice that there are twenty-one
                                                      Canto’s or seven times three in his original poem.


                                                      In Dante’s poem Virgil Vergilius Maro, a classical Roman poet, was chosen to accompany Dante on his epic journey through Hell and back out again. I have chosen Vint Cerf, the father of the Internet, to accompany me through the journey of the OSI layers. Finally, although each paragraph is marked “CANTO”, they are not in the true Cantos style.


                                                      CANTO 1

                                                      It was the night before Good Friday and I was at home watching my favorite show, the Big Bang Theory. I must have dozed off. Around 2:00 a.m. my cell phone rang. It was the data center manager from work. He said there was a failed backup on a major server and asked that I come by to restart it. I arrived at work and headed immediately to the server room to deal with the failed back up. As it turned out, the backup completed prior to my arrival, another false alarm. I decided to go to my desk to check my email and phone messages. I put my head down just for a moment when I must have fallen asleep. I started to dream that I was in a server room when Vint Cerf, the father of the Internet, entered.
                                                      He said that he was there to take me on a journey. He was there to accompany me through the OSI layers. I told him that I would go with him, but I was not that comfortable with the OSI model and didn’t know a lot about it. He said there was an “app” for that, but he would help me to understand it.


                                                      CANTO 2

                                                      We walked through two large doors that automatically opened when Mr. Cerf swiped his card. On the doors, there were pictures of people’s faces - users. Above the doors it read
                                                      “Applications” – the first of the OSI layers. There were many people walking around. Tim Burners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and HTTP, greeted us. Mr. Cerf explained why we were there. Tim volunteered to explain what HTTP was and how it worked. In addition he said he would write us some HTML code to help us get to the next layer.




                                                      CANTO 3

                                                      As he was explaining HTTP, a distinguished looking gentleman approached me. He introduced himself as Paul Mockapetris. I immediately recognized him as being the inventor of DNS. He asked me if I could deliver a message to someone on the outside world. I told him that if he gave me a name, I would try. He asked me to locate Jon Postel and to tell him that he has developed a better version of DNS. I told him I would do my best.


                                                      CANTO 4

                                                      Here is the code that Tim wrote for us:

                                                      <html>

                                                      <body>

                                                      <h1>Tim’s code</h1>

                                                      <p>Help Vint and Ralph get to the next layer.</p>

                                                      </body>

                                                      </html>

                                                      We loaded the code into a browser and ran it. We started to transform into HTML pages.


                                                      CANTO 5

                                                      As our pages were loading, Mr. Cerf explained that there were many other protocols used at this layer including: FTP, NFS, NTP, SMTP, and Telnet, just to name a few. However,
                                                      he warned that I should be careful when using Telnet since anything sent over that protocol is in clear text. I should consider using Secure Telnet if I really need to use that protocol. Our pages were fully loaded and we descended to the next layer.


                                                      CANTO 6

                                                      We approached another set of doors. This time they were a bit smaller. They opened auto-magically when we approached them. The sign above the door read, “Presentation”.
                                                      We walked cautiously through the doors and into a large room. The paint on the wall was old, probably from the 1960’s.


                                                      CANTO 7

                                                      There were some really strange character sets on one wall that I could not read. They appeared to be in 8-bit character encoding. Mr. Cerf said that it was Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code or just EBCDIC, an old way of representing a character set developed by IBM in the 1960’s. He then pointed to an adjacent wall that had the more familiar 7-bit ASCII translation that I was able to read.


                                                      CANTO 8

                                                      I could see a gentleman standing alone in the corner. He motioned for me to come over. I did not recognize him. As I approached, he extended his hand to shake mine. He introduced himself as Taher Elgamal. He explained that he was a driving force behind the Secure Socket Layer (SSL). He said that he would be glad to create an encrypted connection, helping us to get to the next layer securely. We accepted his offer. He walked with us through a tunnel explaining what SSL was and how it could help us travel securely. When we reached the end of the layer, he shook our hands again and wished us luck.


                                                      CANTO 9

                                                      We used the encrypted connection to descend to the next layer. This door was even smaller and had “Session” written above it. As we stepped through the door, I could feel
                                                      myself struggling to get through, almost like trying to connect to a session, but it kept failing. A middle-aged male approached us. He said his name was Tatu Ylonen. He said
                                                      that he was the inventor of the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. He asked us to put on a T-shirt that said “Data” on the back of it. He said, “You will need to put this on to travel
                                                      any further”.


                                                      CANTO 10

                                                      Tatu explained that if we needed to do any system maintenance that we should use SSH. His protocol used public-key encryption and was a great way to exchange data over a
                                                      secure channel. Tatu escorted us to the edge of the protocol.


                                                      CANTO 11

                                                      We approached our fourth door. It said, “Transport” above it. As we passed through the door, I began to feel a lot of tension. Ahead in the distance, I saw two men fighting. Mr.
                                                      Cerf and I walked toward them and broke up the fight. We asked why they were fighting. One of the men stepped forward and said that the two were born enemies. “I am David
                                                      Reed, the inventor of the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), the best protocol on the Internet”. The other man stepped forward and introduced himself. “I am Bob Kahn, one
                                                      of the inventors of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)”, the best protocol on the Internet. Just then, another fight broke out between them. Mr. Cerf pulled me aside and said that he agreed with Bob Kahn, TCP was the better protocol and that the two of them were in constant disagreement with David Reed. I asked why he defended the one man. He pulled a paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was an IEEE publication that said, “A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection”, by Vinton G. Cerf and Bob Kahn. I asked if this was the reason why he was condemned to the OSI model. He said yes, because of the paper, and the protocol spilled over into the next layer that included the Internet Protocol (IP).


                                                      CANTO 12

                                                      We were asked to wear a long-sleeved shirt over our T-shirts that read, “Segment” on it. It was getting warm. We continued through the transport layer. There were many protocols that I have never even heard of: CUDP, IL, SCTP, SST, and NFB. Mr. Cerf explained them to me as we walked to the end of the Transport layer that coincidently was the end
                                                      of the TCP header. There was a sign on the wall that read, “Options (Variable 0-320 bits)”. Mr. Cerf explained that it was variable because it depended on the options that I chose. I chose 128 bits worth of options and the wall slid open, we stepped through.


                                                      CANTO 13

                                                      We walked through a narrow hallway to a door. The door was again smaller than the last. It had a sign that read, “Network” above it. We entered through the doors and the walls
                                                      had RIP and RIPng written all over them. On the far back wall there was another sign that said, “Router territory”. Packets were flying around, moving from one network to
                                                      another.


                                                      CANTO 14

                                                      We were asked to put on a hoodie that read, “Packets” on it. Mr. Cerf took out a box that had two keys in it. He handed me one and said that we would need these because the
                                                      layer was encrypted and we each needed a key if we wanted to be able to talk to each other. I put the key in my pocket.


                                                      CANTO 15

                                                      This door was the smallest so far. It had a really small sign above it that read, “Data Link”. We struggled to push this door open. As we walked through, Mr. Cerf had a big
                                                      smile on his face. A man I recognized immediately came up to us. It was Bob Metcalf. He and Mr. Cerf shook hands. He introduced me and welcomed me to the most active
                                                      layer in the OSI model. He said that we each had to put on a jacket. It read, “Frames” on the back and would be the last one we had to put on. I was really hot and I could barely
                                                      move with all of the clothing on.


                                                      CANTO 16

                                                      Mr. Metcalf explained that this layer was split into two sub-layers: the Logical Link Control and Media Access Control. The Logical Link (LLC) sub-layer was first. Mr. Metcalf explained that LLC provides multiplexing and flow control. In addition, it was the interface between the Media Access Control (MAC) sub-layer and the Network Layer.


                                                      CANTO 17

                                                      The MAC layer plays a very important role in the OSI model. It provides physical addresses. MAC addresses are assigned at the time a network device (a Network Interface Card for example) is manufactured. All MAC addresses must be unique on a network. MAC addresses make it possible for packets to be delivered within a network.


                                                      CANTO 18

                                                      Mr. Metcalf gave us an IP address and told us to report to the Data Link Layer, it would be converted there. We shook hands with him and left to find the address we were given. I asked Mr. Cerf how we find the physical address of this IP address. He said that we could use Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to find the physical or MAC address.



                                                      CANTO 19

                                                      We approached the final layer. The door was barely big enough for us to fit through. It said, “Physical” above it. As we transcended down to the final level, I could see stars all
                                                      around me. Mr. Cerf commented that they were not stars, but electrons. I could see open pipes where thousands upon thousands of electrons were rushing out. I could feel my
                                                      body getting lighter. I was changing into a combination of zero’s and one’s. I looked like the matrix. I too was rushing into the pipes, being carried along the river of binary data. It
                                                      became very dark. I was in the Ether. I could see the electrons sparkling all around me.


                                                      CANTO 20

                                                      I emerged out of the pipes and started to feel all of my clothing peeling off of me. I was ascending upwards, but in a different place than where I started. As I reached the top, I
                                                      was becoming human again. I could feel myself waking up. My head hit the desk and I jumped out of my seat. I was of course still in my office. I could see sunshine streaming in the office windows; it was definitely time to go home.


                                                      CANTO 21

                                                      I arrived back home very tired and confused about the dream I had. I walked in the door at 7:15 a.m. My wife was in the kitchen making breakfast for her and my two children.
                                                      She asked how my night was. I told her she wouldn’t believe it. Then she said she liked my T-Shirt but why did it say “Data” on it? I told her that I didn’t have a T-shirt that had
                                                      “Data” on it. She said I should go back to bed because I must have been really tired. I walked upstairs to go to bed. As I walked past the mirror I looked at the back of my T-shirt
                                                      and it did say, “Data” on it. The fact was I never owned a T-shirt with the word “Data” printed on it.
                                                      ​

                                                        Comment

                                                        • SweetGrrl
                                                          Member
                                                          • Jun 2014
                                                          • 122
                                                          #15
                                                          #The Subtle Art of Clock Watching by JJMR


                                                          ***Activity Log***


                                                          Fri Jun 9 11:34:01 PM PDT 2023

                                                          --------------------------------------------

                                                          In a two-star motel in San Diego, a computer screen displays:


                                                          section .text

                                                          global_start

                                                          _start:

                                                          mov edx, len

                                                          mov ecx, msg

                                                          mov ebx, 1

                                                          mov eax, 4

                                                          Int 0x80

                                                          mov eax, 1

                                                          int 0x080

                                                          section .data

                                                          msg db "9362c96d035f3a8151244733bace4d17", 0xa

                                                          len equ $-msg


                                                          Sat Jun 10 07:33:10 AM PDT 2023

                                                          ----------------------------------------------

                                                          It's early morning. I am watching Scooby-doo reruns and eating Cap'N Crunch when I hear a knock on the door. I put on shorts and a Yoda t-shirt and open the door. There's nobody there. I look down and on the doormat there is an USB thumb drive.

                                                          WTF.

                                                          "is someone trying to deliver me a tiny trojan horse?", I murmur to myself. I am curious. I go to my office and fire up my Kali Linux laptop. I type: 'sudo ip link set dev wlan0 down'. Then, I mount the USB drive. It contains a single file called icu. I open it in IDA and find out that the file is a regular 'ELF64 for x86-64' executable. In IDA's hex view, I see a hash in the data section that contains: '9362c96d035f3a8151244733bace4d17'.

                                                          I go to md5hashing.net/hash website and run the hash through the decoder, setting decryption to all types. I get the message: 'Hello, see you in Las Vegas!'

                                                          WTF.

                                                          Someone is stalking me?


                                                          Mon Aug 07 5:01:56 AM PDT 2023

                                                          ----------------------------------------------

                                                          I wake up before the sun and jump in the shower. I dress quickly and start loading my car with the essentials. I have a cooler filled with cans of diet Mountain Dew, Stone Delicious IPA, and a bottle of Jack Daniels. My duffle bag is filled with t-shirts I bought at previous Def Con's, some Bermuda shorts, socks, plenty of underwear, extra sandals… and deodorant. My Black Hat conference backpack has my sticker-covered HP laptop, and a few dozen granola bars and belVita energy cookies.


                                                          I am excited to start my yearly pilgrimage to Vegas. I connect my iPhone to my car and play my YouTube 'DefCon tunes' playlist: Ytcracker, Dual Core, MC Frontalot, MCLars, Deadmau5, Sublime, Radiohead, Dead Kennedys, among others. It's about 5-6 hours to Las Vegas from San Diego, but I am making good time. When I get to Barstow, Dual Core is keeping me animated with chants of "drink all the booze, hack all the things! Drink all the booze, hack all the things!". I gas-up and keep traversing the Mojave on the 15.


                                                          Mon Aug 07 11:30:43 AM PDT 2023

                                                          ------------------------------------------------

                                                          I arrive at the Luxor and pay some extra $$$ for early check-in. In my room, I open the JD and take a big gulp. In my nerdy fashion, I have all my trip planned in an excel sheet. I have three days before the conference starts, and a lot of exploration to do. I put on a Jenkins t-shirt, and, like Jack Kerouac, I get on the road.


                                                          Mon Aug 07 02:30:29 PM PDT 2023

                                                          -------------------------------------------------

                                                          It is only 35-40 minutes to the Hoover Dam from the strip. I arrive to the sound of Elvis singing, "Bright light city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire…". I have plenty of time to mouse around like a tourist and take plenty of selfies, while admiring the architecture.


                                                          On the north side of the damn, towards Lake Mead, it is noticeable how the Colorado River levels are super low, from the contrast of whitish watermarks left on the rocks where the previous water levels used to be. I heard in the news how more and more human remains had been found at Lake Mead as the reservoir levels drop. I guess the mob did not calculate climate change into the equation when they dumped their victims' bodies. I sit down at the café and munch on a burger before heading back to town.


                                                          Mon Aug 07 05:40:02 PM PDT 2023

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                                                          In Old Las Vegas, I buy a ticket to the Mob Museum. I pay extra for the speakeasy exhibit and get drunk sampling Moonshine. With a buzz, I leave the museum and walk two blocks to the Fremont Street Experience. I watch the projected show on the LED canopy ceiling for the 15 minutes it lasts, and then make my way into a dispensary to buy CBD gummies. There are half-naked ladies at almost every intersection, cajoling onlookers to take a selfie with them for a fee. Loud music from bands playing on makeshift stages rock the street.


                                                          I crank Iron Maiden's Run to the Hills as I drive back to the Luxor. I indulge in the brightness of the neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip, and observe the multitude of people accumulated like ants on Las Vegas Boulevard S. I happen to pass by the Mirage when the Volcano is erupting, and by the Bellagio's fountain where streams of water dance to Tchaikovsky.


                                                          Back at the hotel, I take some selfies at the sphynx and try to catch the beam of light shooting to space from top of the pyramid in a video. When I get to my room, there is an USB thumb drive taped to the door.

                                                          WTF.

                                                          I run my de-hashing routine and find the message, "Meet me at Rio's Kiss Mini-Golf tomorrow at 8pm."

                                                          I start getting paranoid. Have I been targeted by the Feds?


                                                          Tue Aug 08 06:30:00 AM PDT 2023

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                                                          Alarm rings. I take a shower and put a Metasploit t-shirt on. My main destination today is the Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel, Nevada, about 2 hours and a half north of the strip. I get in the car and blast off to Bad Religion's I Love my Computer. As I ride on the 93, I keep looking on the rear view mirror for any cars following me, thinking about the Feds. At one point during the day, I have to make the decision if I want to meet and solve the mystery of who is tracking me.


                                                          When I get to Crystal Springs, I turn left onto the 375, the Extraterrestrial Highway. I get off and take a selfie next to the road sign, which is plastered with stickers. About a mile ahead is the Alien Research Center. I decide to visit on my way back and move ahead. The road is very desolate. I was expecting more traffic, but I only see a few cars now and then. I see cow crossing signs often, but I do not see any ranches nearby. I keep an eye on the road for the infamous black mailbox, which marks the dirt road entrance that leads to Area 51. The road is so lonely that when an opposite traveler approaches from the other side of the road, we wave at each other, happy that we are not alone in alien territory.


                                                          Tue Aug 08 11:35:54 AM PDT 2023

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                                                          I get to the Little A'Le'Inn and never see the mailbox. A large sign on the front wall of the A'Le'Inn restaurant says 'Earthlings Welcome'. I go in and sit at the bar. The nice lady attending me says that people often steal the mailbox as a souvenir, so it is not there all the time, after my asking. She wants to know if I am staying overnight to watch the sky, if I need a room. I say no, that I am just casually passing by. The wall behind the bar is plastered with $bills$ from all over the world. I take a $100 pesos Mexican bill from my wallet, write "#th3tr15 was here!" on it, and tape it to the wall. I order a Saucer Burger with Fries and an Alien Tequila shot. I pick up some merchandise: a couple of glow in the dark alien figures, a bunch of stickers, a tequila shot glass, and an Extraterrestrial Highway t-shirt. I pay my bill and head back towards the strip.


                                                          The highway is still very desolate. The lady at the restaurant told me to drive 20 miles and look for a large rock. The rock marks the entrance to Mail Box Road, the dirt road that leads to Area 51 and Groom Lake. When I get to the spot, I sit on the rock and take on the silence of the valley.



                                                          All of a sudden, I hear a roar in the distance. I see three F-16s flying high in the sky in formation. I get excited like a little kid at the toy store. My eyes follow their maneuvers until they disappear. Then out from the Bald Mountain range that hides Area 51, from the south, a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber comes into the frame. In no time, it passes over my head and then disappears over the Mount Irish range, to the north. After a few seconds, I hear a series of explosions.


                                                          I have just witnessed Red Flag operations combat training. My face turns into a smiley emoji.


                                                          I wait awhile for more action but the valley returns to a deep silence. I get in my car an drive to the Alien Research Center. When I get there, I try to take a selfie with the huge two-story high gray alien inflatable standing by the door. I go in expecting a museum, but instead, it is a merchandise store. I buy a couple of Area 51 t-shirts and a baseball hat. I also buy a coffee mug, a small Deadpool gray alien plush, and more stickers. As I am paying, I tell the clerk what I have just witness, and she confirms that in town, they do hear the bombs dropping when the military is performing their exercises. I comment that it would be so easy to confuse a stealth bomber with an UFO at night, and she just smirks mildly. I get in my car and make a right turn into the 93. I only stop once to get gas.


                                                          Tue Aug 08 07:33:10 PM PDT 2023

                                                          -----------------------------------------------

                                                          While on the road, I decide to meet the Fed that is haunting me. I don't want to be watching over my back the rest of my trip. Once I get to the Rio Casino, I head to the Kiss Mini Golf. I buy a couple of guitar picks, supposedly used by Ace Frehley, while I wait. My watch marks 8:00 PM. I see a blob of a figure between the slot machines, heading towards the entrance. He is about 6 feet tall, freckled face, red hair, eyes hidden behind Oakley sunglasses. He is wearing a pink polo shirt and faded blue jeans. His feet wrapped in multi-colored Jordans.


                                                          He approaches me and says, ''My name is Bill, nice to finally meet you face to face', and stretches his hand. We play a round of mini-golf and talk among the Neon lights and Kiss motifs. He might not be a Fed after all.


                                                          Tue Aug 08 11:34:01 PM PDT 2023

                                                          ------------------------------------------------

                                                          Bill had taken an Uber to the casino, so he jumps in my car and we drive to the Delano, to have drinks and talk more at the Skyfall Bar.


                                                          "I tell you, it can be done", says Bill.

                                                          "There is just too much risk, I am not sure it is safe or worthwhile," I reply.


                                                          "We would walk with a lot of money, huge payload, and we would be stealing from bad people anyways, like Robin Hood," he says.

                                                          "I am not sure, I wouldn't want to live my life watching over my back"


                                                          "If done right, they will never know what hit them. We just need to erase our footprints meticulously, configure adequate bots using multiple VPNs, and hire mules for the pickup".

                                                          "I don't know, stealing from cartels is not something you do, haven't you seen any gangster movies?"


                                                          "Look", said Bill, "I know you know Mexican cartel history very well, and you know some people, and how they operate. That is why I have been tracking you. You might be the only hacker with the missing knowledge I need to accomplish this. How about you sleep on it. We can talk again tomorrow."

                                                          "The answer is going to be no, Bill. I don't have to think about it. I am a white hat now. I don’t dwell in the darkness anymore."

                                                          "Just think about it," he says and leaves a couple hundred dollar bills to pay for the tab, as he gets up and leaves.


                                                          Wed Aug 09 12:14:42 PM PDT 2023

                                                          ------------------------------------------------

                                                          I wake up late today. I had hanged the "do not disturb" sign on the door so the maid would not wake me up with loud knocks, but she still does. "No thank you!" I shout. My head hurts, my mouth is dry as hell, and my stomach is soar from all the vomiting last night. Bill managed to get me drunk as hell, probably hoping that if my brain weakened, I would cede to his proposal. If I counted all the times people have asked me to hack the mob, or the casinos, or the cartels, I… well… they just think it is easy, and justify it by saying that I would be stealing from bad people.


                                                          I need to cure my hangover, so I head to New York, New York to Gonzalez y Gonzalez restaurant and get some Menudo.


                                                          Wed Aug 09 02:08:20 PM PDT 2023

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                                                          I walk the strip looking over my shoulder all the time. Bill might be spying on me from somewhere. The guy might not be a Fed, but he is silly to think I can trust someone I just met to do heavy hacks. It worries me that he has been tracking me and knows where I live. This guy might be dangerous, might not have all his marbles in the right place.


                                                          I go to the Atomic Museum to keep up with my planned schedule. By the entrance, I take a selfie with a Robot that resembles the robot from Lost in Space. I pay for my ticket and dwell in the history of nuclear testing in the Mojave Desert. The main testing area is just one hour north of Las Vegas. I make a note to explore the Mercury nuclear test site on my next visit. Is it still radioactive? I buy an "I have been contaminated" t-shirt and a shot glass at the gift shop. Just outside the doors of the museum, Bill is waiting.


                                                          Wed Aug 09 07:39:30 PM PDT 2023

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                                                          Bill and I keep conversing as we eat dinner at Hell's Kitchen, in front of Caesars Palace. I am enjoying braised short ribs and Bill is digging into a beef wellington. We consume a bottle of Gordon Ramsay Pinot Noir. I find out that Bill used to work for the NSA. My Spidey-senses had betrayed me. He is a Fed after all, although corrupted by the dark side. That is how he knew about me, my history, where I live, through programs like BULLRUN, MAINWAY and PRISM.


                                                          "Look Bill, I am just not your guy. Hacking cartels is just not something I will ever pursue. Plus I told you many times already, I am a white hat now."

                                                          "It would be a shame if you let go this opportunity. Be a pirate! Think of all the loot!" he laughs, "I will check with you again tomorrow."

                                                          He pays the bill and we part ways. I walk the strip back to the Luxor, thinking about how to get Bill off my back, and at the same time, thinking about the payload. Temptation sinks in.

                                                          It is raining heavily outside, so I traverse the strip through the Bellagio, Cosmopolitan, Crystals Shops, New York New York, and take the tram from the Excalibur to the Luxor. I buy a diet Pepsi from one of the Luxor's convenience shops, and mix it with JD when I get to my room. I turn on my laptop and think about tracking Bill. I snagged one of the receipts from the table at Hell's Kitchen while he was not watching. His fulll name is William B. Chekovsky, and his MasterCard ends in 8094. However, I decide instead to look at the full Def Con schedule and revise my excel sheet with the talks and villages I plan to attend. I finish my drink and drowsily fall asleep.


                                                          Thu Aug 10 05:39:30 AM PDT 2023

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                                                          I wake up in excitement before the alarm goes-off and quickly shower and dress. I put on the "I have been exposed" t-shirt I bought yesterday and call an Uber. I don't want to take chances with parking. When I get to Caesars Forum, there's already a line to purchase the human badges. I am early enough that I won't have to wait hours. I read a PDF version of Ghost in the Wires on my phone while I wait. When my turn comes, I pay $440 cash and curse inflation.


                                                          I attend five straight talks. At the Wall of Sheep village, I participate enough to earn a t-shirt and stickers. I go to the merchandise area and buy Def Con 31 t-shirts, stickers, and manage to get more free stuff from vendors - Pwnie Express, No Starch Press, Rapid 7, Secure Ninja, EFF, Hak5, Hackers For Charity, etc. I get mostly stickers, pens, and two more t-shirts.


                                                          I am exhausted at the end of the day from walking from and to Caesars, the Flamingo, Harrah's and LINQ hotels. I miss when the event was held at just one venue. If Bill is looking for me, it would be nearly impossible for him to find me. The geek army is a walking chaos. I go back to my room after 6:00 PM and rest for a few hours.


                                                          Thu Aug 10 09:30:19 PM PDT 2023

                                                          -----------------------------------------------

                                                          I drive to the Neon Museum where I have scheduled a tour. All this time, Bill has become an afterthought. The neon signs from now defunct resorts like the Stardust, Sahara, Aladin, Sands grab my attention during the tour. I make my way back to the Luxor around 11:30 pm. When I arrive, I buy my diet Pepsi and in my room mix it with JD. I rest in bed and watch the clock on the nightstand. The minutes move slow. I feel tired but struggle to fall asleep. I eat two gummies and count the minutes.


                                                          Fri Aug 11 07:30:00 AM PDT 2023

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                                                          I wake up staring at the clock. The minutes seem to have sped up. Time is relative, it slows and speeds up at will. My first talk of the day starts at 8:00. I am not going to make it. I put on one of my new Def Con 31 t-shirts after showering, and head down to the buffet. As I eat, I expect Bill to pop up from some hidden corner. I finish breakfast and head to the conference. I spend most of my day at two 3-hour workshops and then the AI village. In between, I pass by the merchandise area and grab more stickers. At the No Starch Press booth, I purchase a copy of Hacking, The Art of Exploitation, which I have read a dozen times digitally, but sometimes it feels good to hold a book in your hands. Close to 4:00 PM, I head to a villages where they are teaching how to create honeypots. I finish the exercise in 10 minutes and they give me a nice OWASP t-shirt as a price.


                                                          I grab dinner at a White Castle just outside of Harrah's, and then head to Caesars to see Ytcracker perform at 9:00 PM. I get to my room around midnight and drink a couple of Stone beers as my JD is gone by now. Time goes extremely fast when having fun. The shadow of Bill seems to be disappearing. I jump into bed and cover myself with blankets. I stare at the clock and immediately time slows down. Time bends, says science.


                                                          Sat Aug 12 05:15:00 AM PDT 2023

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                                                          I wake up early today because of a knock on the door. I open the door after I dress and see a guy taping flyers on the doors. He sees me and walks towards me. I immediately close the door. He knocks. I yell, "go away, it is too early dude!" He slips a flyers under the door. It says, ChatGTP is the FUTURE.

                                                          WTF.

                                                          I actually feel a bit disappointed that it wasn't Bill.


                                                          Saturday's time at the convention enters warp speed. There seems to be a lot more people than the past two days. I guess an influx of souls, who did not get permission at work to miss Thursday and Friday, just made it in. I manage to attend four talks and one workshop. I also drop by to see the results for the new Hack-a-Sat competition.


                                                          At around 6:30 PM, I grab dinner at Beijing Noodle No. 9 in Caesars, and then I head to the Pinball Museum just east of Mandalay Bay. Once I spend all my quarters, I head back to my room.


                                                          There is a sticky on the door.

                                                          No USB.

                                                          No need for decoding.

                                                          In plain English it has written, "I found a guy".


                                                          Temptation stops chewing my back. With a deep sense of relief, I am not compelled to keep a watch on the clock tonight... and I fastly fall asleep.

                                                          ​

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