by Dane, Max
Returning to his notes, Cohen said, “I will draft a letter intended to go to each facility explaining this plan. I don’t trust IntelliHealth communications right now, so we will be sending these orders in unconventional ways, and the deliveries may take more time, but we will get them there.”
“Does anyone have any questions or concerns about the plan?” he asked.
No one raised their hand.
“Good day then gentlemen, contact me here if you have thoughts, or questions about any of this.”
Everyone stood and left the room.
When Ryan was walking out, Cohen stopped him.
“That was a good point in there about watching SID. Get with Jim and go over that some more. We should try to know what it’s doing, we can’t afford any more surprises.”
“I understand, Eric. I’m on my way.”
Returning to his office, Ryan saw that Jim and Jeff were each busy at their desks. He nodded to Lara at the workstation outside. He went in, sat down and stared at his monitor.
The plan had worked perfectly.
They put a face on SID.
The conversation with SID still made him shiver; it wasn’t what he imagined at all. What bothered him the most was how SID had thought it all out. He had expected they would find a faulty computer somewhere with a program stuck in a loop, probably spitting out sparks occasionally. This was something very different.
The entity he spoke with this morning, had conceived of a plan to decimate the human race. It had then implemented a plan for worldwide genocide. It said that it would ‘collect’ the children of this new age, and that they would worship it as god.
The very idea was chilling and acts, horrific.
In his mind, Ryan saw Alex and hundreds of other children sitting indian style, their heads bowed before a giant view-screen. What would SID’s world look like a hundred years from now? A thousand? Ten thousand?
They had to stop him.
He realized that aside from the messages he sent, he hadn’t spoken with Jean in almost a week now.
He called her from the televid on his desk.
In moments, the screen lit up with her face, “Ryan, how are you? We were getting worried.”
“I’m good, things are really jumping here at work.”
“I’m glad you called. I wanted to tell you that we might be staying a few extra days. My Dad’s birthday is on Monday, and we might all go to the beach. Alex is looking forward to it, but I promised I would talk with you.”
”Sure Jean, that sounds fine. Good actually. I’m probably going to work through the weekend anyway.”
“Why are you working on the weekend? Is there a new secretary there I should know about?”
Laughing, and wishing that was the problem, he shook his head.
“No, that’s not it. Things are kind of a mess at IntelliHealth right now. I believe we can work it out, but for now it’s got everyone very occupied.”
“Is everything ok?”
“Yes, I’ll tell you all about it when you get back home.”
“Ok, well don’t bother with Alex’s school, I’ll send him with a sick note or something when we come home.”
“I understand. I love you, Jean.”
“I love you too, see you soon.”
“Tell your Dad, happy birthday for me.”
“Will do, bye Ryan.”
“Bye.”
He didn’t mention that he was at the heart of a crisis where the goal was to kill an artificial being before it took over the world and brainwashed everyone’s kids. He thought it would have been a little too gory over the phone.
He needed to speak with Jeff, and walked next door to find him working at his terminal.
“Jeff, please submit your plan for testing of the Rn186 vaccine to the labs upstairs. I know you said it would take some time for the analysis, so you should go ahead and get it started. Dr. Cohen asked that you send the message through him.”
“Okay, I have the process drafted and ready to go.”
“Excellent, let me know when you get the results.”
Jeff began coordinating his testing through his contacts upstairs.
Feeling a little useless himself, Ryan walked over to see Jim.
Walking into Jim’s office he sat down quietly and looked out the windows.
Jim was waving his hands about, moving data around to different monitors in front of his desk. After a moment, he seemed to find an arrangement that he liked, because he settled down and began typing again.
Without looking up, Jim noticed Ryan.
“Hey Ryan any news?”
“Cohen’s team upstairs is busy trying to send instructions to the other Facilities.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Also, I spoke with my wife. She and my son are vacationing on the beach in Florida.”
“Sounds nice, does she know we’re fighting for mankind here?”
“Nope. I forgot to mention it.”
Jim chuckled.
“Jim, what are you working on?”
“I’m trying to write a script that I can carry on my tablet, that will watch Sid’s activity and alert me if it changes.”
“That sounds very good. Cohen will want that too, I’m sure.”
Ryan watched the city below moving off into the distance. Everywhere there was activity. He tried to imagine it years from now, still standing, but empty and desolate. He wondered if SID looked down at the city through the Facility’s cameras. Maybe this was how he saw all the cities of the world, looking down from 250 floors.
‘Maybe this is why he thinks he’s a god,’ he thought.
“Jim, you heard it speak this morning; that horrible voice,” he said, “Do you believe it’s just a malfunctioning program?”
“Ryan, I’ve studied programming and artificial intelligence. I’m pretty well versed on both, and what I heard today didn’t sound like a program. And did you catch that bit about ‘the awakening’?”
“Yes, I heard that too. As though there was a definable point in its timeline, after which it was cognizant.”
“Yeah. That was how I took it too,” said Jim.
“I don’t think it matters right now if it’s alive or not,” said Ryan, “We need to respond to it as though it is cognizant, or we run the risk of underestimating it.”
Jim nodded, “Yes, I totally agree, it’s already fooled me once, I won’t treat it like a broken program again.”
“I’ll be glad to be there when we throw the last switch, and turn him off for good,” said Ryan.
“Yeah, it’s going to be a tough couple of days waiting for everyone to power down their servers.”
Jim stopped typing, and hit the enter key. “There, I think that should do it.”
He held out his hand for Ryan’s tablet, “Here let me install this app on yours too, and you can help me test it. It measures the CPU cycles on the servers. It will run constantly, and sound a little alert on your tablet whenever SID’s servers increase activity by more than 5%.”
Ryan got up handed him his tablet. He went to Jim’s mini fridge, and pulled out a water.
“And Jim, why isn’t anyone worried about SID getting out? I mean why can’t SID jump out to the rest of the world?”
“Well, one of the selling points behind the IntelliHealth System is that it’s a closed system. Our Research and Hospital Networks don’t have to worry about viruses or hackers because we have no hard line to the outside. There is no physical pathway for transmission of data to an outside entity.”
“Then how did I call my wife from my desk a few minutes ago?”
“Ah, the televid is on the Communications Network, not the Research or Hospital Networks.”
“Are there more networks here?”
“You bet, there are lots, but they live side-by-side and do not overlap without permission.”
Ryan sat back down and leaned back in his chair.
“That sounds complex. If I was trapped in there, and if the net
work was getting smaller, I would look for a way out. Is it possible to run a check on the research and hospital networks and verify that no other network has overlapped?”
Moving the data around on his screens again, Jim said, “Yes, I can do that. I’ll need a little time, but you’re right, it would be a good thing to do.”
As Jim began typing again, Jeff walked in and sat down.
He looked anxious.
“What’s wrong Jeff, you look worried.”
“I’ve been using Thor to browse the files in SID’s data storage, and I think I found something.”
Interested, Jim stopped typing and leaned forward. “What did you find?”
“Well, first understand that there are massive directories with research data from the labs. I expected to find things like this. But then I came across something different. I found a massive cluster of files stored as a single database. It’s almost 1000 petabytes in size.”
“Wow, that’s big all right,” said Jim. “What’s in there?”
“Well, that’s just it. Access to the database is locked and encrypted.”
Ryan said, “Okay, you found a giant database in SID’s files that is sealed. What do you think could be in there?”
Jeff stood up and started pacing in front of them.
“Well, when I looked through SID’s files, I couldn’t find any data from his research program regarding human sterility. There was nothing.”
Suddenly, Ryan got it.
“You’re saying that the database you found may hold SID’s work on the fertility crisis.”
Jeff nearly jumped in the air.
“Yes! Maybe. I don’t know. It’s about the right size, especially if you consider he’s been adding to it for more than ten years.”
Ryan got up and ran to Jeff, “Does that mean there might be answers in there for how to repair the damage?”
Jeff grabbed him around the waist and hugged him for all he was worth.
“Yes.”
They both began jumping around and yelling.
Jim said, “Show me the encrypted file, and let me take a swing at it.”
When they settled down again, Jeff went to Jim’s terminal, and guided him through the directories to the point that was encrypted.
Jim began working on it.
After several minutes, Jim stopped typing.
“Well, I can tell you now that this is no password protection that I have ever seen. Instead of strings of characters, it seems to look more like some kind of algorithm that repeats itself, like a fractal. I’m guessing that only the response unique to this algorithm will unlock it.”
He looked at them and sighed.
“I’ll keep trying, but we may be out of luck on this one. It’s possible that only SID can open it.”
Ryan sat back down and looked out the window again.
“That means we have to trap SID, we can’t kill him.”
Ryan went to Cohen’s office, which was still a hurricane of speed and movement. People were talking and running about in all directions.
He made his way to Cohen.
“Ryan, we’re a little busy right now. We’re still trying to get the word out to the other facilities.”
“I understand Eric, but we may have found something.”
Cohen looked up, and saw that Ryan was serious. He put down his papers, and took Ryan’s elbow as he walked out of his office.
“Okay, come with me.”
He led Ryan around the corner to the office kitchen. Seeing that it was empty, he said, “It's hard to find any privacy, and I have all the conference rooms tied up. What have you got for me?”
“Eric, we think we may have found a database holding SID’s research on the fertility crisis.”
“Oh my god, we were due a break. That’s fantastic news.”
“Yeah, so are you ready for the bad news?”
Cohen relaxed again and sighed.
“Yes, of course, now this is more what I’m familiar with. Okay, let's hear it.”
“The database is locked with an encrypted algorithm that only SID can open.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“We need SID, Eric. It may be possible to reverse the genetic damage SID has caused with that information. We have to trap SID, not terminate him.”
“I’ve been sending messages to everyone to turn him off.”
“I know, and you should continue. You’re still driving him here, and that’s a good thing. In the meantime, we’ll work on ideas to capture SID and get that code.”
“Well, I’ll get back to it then. Let me know when you’ve got an idea how to coerce SID into unlocking it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ryan returned to his office.
Jim yelled from his office, “Ryan, come in here, hurry.”
Ryan ran into Jim’s office where he found Jim pointing to data on a screen.
“I’ve double checked and I’ve found an overlap in networks.”
“What is it?”
“A satellite.”
Ryan walked to Jim’s screens and looked at the data as it flowed across them. Jim pointed at the one that showed an older style, communications-array satellite.
“That is a satellite which can be used to contact the United Nations. Apparently it’s there in case of an emergency. Maybe like if there was a virus outbreak or something on a global scale and we needed to transmit treatment data to everyone quickly. It also has communications codes for the International Space Program, as well a few of the nations’ direct capitals. It doesn’t look like it’s ever been used before. I’ll bet it was put there at the very beginning as a safety measure, and since then pretty much forgotten.”
“Jim, you said treatment information not research information.”
“That’s right. Access to the satellite isn’t on the Research Network, technically it’s on the Hospital Network.” Jim paused for a moment, and rubbed his hands. He had been working non-stop for hours now.
“Ryan, if SID gets to the United Nations’ servers, then he has access to every network in every country on the planet. If he becomes distributed across the earth, we’ll never be able to catch him again.”
Ryan suddenly felt like he did once when he was young, and got caught driving his dad’s car. His palms were sweaty; his mind was racing with possibilities.
“What are our options?”
Jim said, “We could prevent SID from getting out this way by separating the hospital network from the research network, or we could try to disable the satellite.”
Jim was still rubbing his hands together, and wrung them out and wiped them on his shirt. He was sweating.
“Either solution will be hard to do. If we decide to separate the research and hospital networks, I will need help. They’re so heavily integrated it will take a few of us, working together. Maybe David and some others from that group.”
Ryan didn’t know how much time they had.
The conservative move would be to destroy the satellite, now, before SID found it too. But with this danger came an opportunity.
“Jim, I have an idea. Can you access the satellite?”
“Well, I should be able to; let me see. It will take a little while for me to find the manual for it.”
“Go as fast as you can, I want to know if you can break it, so that it can’t transmit to earth… only receive. ”
Jim smiled, “You are thinking of a trap.”
“See if you can do it. We have to know before SID does.”
“I’m on it, Ryan.”
Ryan went back to his office, and waited.
There wasn’t much more he could do.
He knew that ordering Jim to leave the satellite uplink open was a terrible risk. He wasn’t excited at the prospect of being remembered as the man who let SID out into the world.
He picked up his tablet and opened the application that Jim had installed earlier. It was the app that ‘watched’ SID. The meter was steady, meaning that local acti
vity had not increased.
The way he understood it, IntelliHealth Facilities around the world shut down their ‘SID supporting servers’, and SID would shift his presence here to compensate. That would mean a rise in the measurable activity here. Voila, a SID meter.
He was really growing to hate technology.
He left it running and checked his messages.
There was one from his wife, it read:
‘Ryan-
I got your message, and we are on the way to the airport now. I don’t understand what’s happening, but I understand that you need us. I can’t believe you sent a company jet. Alex is going to have a ball.
See you soon.
Love,
Jean and Alex.’
He was startled and completely confused. They had talked on the phone earlier and she was going to stay in Florida for a few more days. Looking down the page, Ryan saw the message that she thought was from him.
‘Message received
From: [email protected]
‘Jean –
I need you and Alex with me. Please come as soon as possible. I have permission to use an IntelliHealth plane, and have made arrangements for it to bring you here. It will be available after 11:00 am (your local time). Please come and bring Alex too.
I’ll explain when you get here.
I love you.
Ryan’
There was a video clip of Ryan smiling in the corner of the message. He activated it with his finger. It came to life, and with his voice it said, “Come home Jean, I need you here.”
