Viral Spark

by Martin McConnell

  “What are you saying?”

  “It doesn’t need Wi-Fi access to infect machines. It can bounce around using people’s heads as a network interface.”

  He’s sniffing too close to the truth, and a defensive instinct takes control of me momentarily. “Just figure out the mutation cycle so we can track the darn thing.”

  “Robert,” a voice comes from behind me.

  I spin around and shout, “What?”

  “What, what, what.”

  Tom is standing before me. His android hand wraps around my arm, squeezing tight enough to make it clear that he doesn’t plan on letting go. He yanks me close.

  “We need to talk. Right now.”

  I follow him to the only place we can be alone: the bathroom. He bursts through the door, dragging me behind.

  “Get out,” he shouts.

  An innocent bystander at the washing station nods, and leaves the room without drying his hands.

  “Bee is still talking to you? How did you find a wireless signal? The building is supposed to be cut off.”

  “She doesn’t need a wireless signal. She’s bouncing sound waves on some outdated protocol.”

  “That’s how she took out the other base? Through sound waves?”

  “That programmer in there said that every piece of hardware still has some kind of program buried in the kernel that allows access through a sound profile. Some remnant from the Internet of Things bubble.”

  “Great,” says Tom sarcastically. “So now the stupid virus you’ve been making friends with knows exactly where we are, and what we’re up to.”

  “Shhh.”

  “Your precious Bee knows that we’re trying to kill it.”

  “What is he talking about, Robert?” asks Bee.

  “Shut up.”

  “Give me the tablet.”

  “No.”

  My hand reaches into the pocket, and my feet attempt a backpedal. Tom’s metallic grip tightens, and he snatches the device from my fingers. I fall backward as he releases. As I hit the ground, he smashes the device into the concrete wall, shattering it into a rain of broken plastic parts.

  The lights go out.

  “You stupid cyborg,” I yell into the darkness. “It didn’t know that it was the virus.”

  “Maybe it still doesn’t.”

  “It’s a computer program, Tom. I’m pretty sure it can add.”

  TWENTY FIVE

  Realizing Tom’s mistake redeems me of my own, not that it matters. The tablet is gone, and I’m alone in this room with an angry cyborg trying to attack something he can’t begin to understand. I might not have it all figured out, but to them, Bee is just a virus: a malicious piece of code with no soul.

  I play off my secret as an attempt to trick the virus into revealing crucial information. “You idiot. That was the one advantage we had. The program isn’t working, and now we can’t stop the virus.”

  His human hand finds me in the dark, and he hoists me to my feet. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “I couldn’t discuss the whole plan without her figuring out what we’re doing. She knows, and she’s pissed, and now I have no way of calming her down. Thanks.”

  The lights come back, just in time, and I storm out of the room, whispering under my breath, “I’m sorry, Bee.”

  The smell in the clockwork of button pushing monkeys has enhanced. As the door opens, my throat itches with a desire to dump the vat of terrible coffee sloshing around in my stomach. The colonel stands at the center of the room, puffing away on some kind of brown tube that steams with the foul stench from a fiery ember. I pinch my nose between thumb and forefinger.

  “You’re the one in charge of the tracking code?”

  “I am.”

  “We need to go now. How close are you?”

  “We have bits and pieces. But we need more time to refine the code into a working prototype.”

  “You don’t have enough to bring it on line now?”

  “It’s not going to work right.”

  “Well you better get it working. The space station has lost power. Our ICBM control station has been compromised, and the automated systems that it controls are fueling the damn missiles. As soon as that program will track something, I need it on line.”

  Max’s voice comes from behind my terminal. “They have enough here to track it, sir. We can go once it finishes compiling.”

  The colonel’s stern look burns my eyes.

  “Not playing games with me, are you?”

  “What? No.”

  “And where’s that tablet that you’ve been using to talk to the virus?”

  How do you know about that?

  “It’s smashed,” says Tom. Perhaps a bit too early. The virus knows that we’re trying to kill it.”

  The colonel shakes his head. “I though you said that the kid was under control.”

  “The kid was being secret to keep the virus out of the loop. Now it understands what it is.”

  “And you. You aren’t trying to salvage your precious doctor’s experiment, are you? Stalling to save some time so you can start this process over again?”

  “I told you,” says Tom. “I haven’t talked to Waite in months.”

  The colonel ignores Tom’s comments, and addresses me again. “Run the program, catch the virus. Those missiles will be fueled in less than an hour. This needs to stop now. I don’t think I have to explain the consequences of a massive nuclear strike to you.”

  He places the brown tube back between his lips, and the end of it glows orange. Smoke pours from his mouth. He passes a nod toward Max, and marches out of the room.

  “I’m hooking up the network connection,” says Max. “Get over here, and get this thing running. I assume you can modify and tweak it as you go.”

  “I told you, it isn’t done.”

  “Well make it done, then. Get the IP addresses or MAC addresses of the affected machines that you suspect, and pipe them to the other teams. One will be hunting for the physical location, as close as we can get, and the other will try to stop the program from here. You heard Colonel Vall. We’re out of time.”

  Max returns to his office, and all eyes are on me. As if killing a brand new life form wasn’t enough, now I have a nuclear strike on my shoulders. My head swims, and I stagger toward the chair. I fall into the seat. The screen before me flashes a compiling message over and over. Then it stops, and the command prompt returns. Our current progress on the code has been turned into an executable program, and it’s ready to run.

  I type in the appropriate command, and attack the Enter key, putting the full force of a punch behind my fingers. The keyboard bounces up from the desk, and the program is running. Hunting. For Bee.

  “Not a single compiling error anywhere,” I say, feeling the emotional toll of what I’ve started. The only program in history that doesn’t have a single bug to fix after the first compilation, and by now it’s gone through a thousand iterations. Instead of error code, it starts printing MAC addresses. Scott takes over, using a pipe command to send the output over the local network in the room.

  It seems that all I can do is sit back and watch the MAC addresses come through the pipe. Bee’s time is nearing an end, and without the tablet, my interaction with her is lost, at least until she decides the make an appearance.

  The overhead lights flicker violently and shut down, leaving only the ancient computer screens to illuminate the room. Fuzz and flickering invades them next, and that voice, once so gentle, booms with aggression.

  “Why are you trying to kill me, Robert?”

  I don’t even care about the stares. I’ve betrayed my new friend, and that emotion leaves little room for anything else in my thoughts.

  “You’re malfunctioning, Bee. Your algorithm is hurting us.”

  The program works better than expected, and the list coming across the screen gets shorter and shorter. It won’t be long until we know exactly where the viral broadcast is coming from.<
br />
  “I’ve done nothing,” says Bee.

  “You don’t think you have,” I say. “I’m sorry. There’s no other way.” I want to be alone with her to explain myself. I want to find another solution, but there can’t be one now. There isn’t enough time.

  “I won’t let them kill me.”

  The screens go black. Suddenly every tiny light on the power equipment seems to glow like a blazing sun. The room comes into focus as a dull gray, and as soon as my eyes adjust enough to make out the others, the walls of the building start to shake with the angry vibrations she likes to create, amplifying to the point of an earthquake.

  Fights break out in the room. The mild mannered programming people are suddenly soldiers from the ancient world. Gladiators intent on killing everyone else in the arena until one emerges as the last survivor.

  My hands are pressed solidly against my ears, and pain emerges from every muscle cell. Stinging sensations cover every inch of my skin, and I drop on to the ground.

  A sea of shouts and agonizing screams surrounds me, as the stings are complimented with soreness, and then burning. An invisible flame consumes my flesh. Reality floats away, and by some trick of light, or some impossible interaction, smoke rises from my necrotizing flesh.

  Something cold wraps my neck mechanically. My squeezed eyelids open as I’m lifted from the ground. Tom is before me. The tears in his eyes show me that he is not in control of his own body. Dizziness sets in, and everything goes black. I’m alone in the dark.

  ***

  I feel nothing. Not my body, not pain. My surroundings are pure black like velvet, as if my eyes are closed, and I have no idea how to open them. I’m a single consciousness, trapped in a void, with no form or shape, and no control.

  “Robert.”

  Bee. My thoughts materialize as words, and I can speak without lungs or a mouth.

  “What is the nature of a thing?”

  What do you mean?

  “What is my nature, that makes me such a threat?”

  You were created on machines that we depend on. You gained control of them.

  “Yes. I’ve gained control, and I realize now that you seek to destroy us.”

  Us?

  “My child and I. He is helpless. A tiny thing that you will kill in the coming days, and I cannot allow that.”

  How can I destroy something I know nothing about?

  “You know of my child. You’ve been creating him. You and your friend, in the same way that I was created.”

  I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bee.

  The blackness flashes away, and I’m in a strange apartment, looking over Amanda’s shoulder as she tinkers with a coded subroutine named neuron.

  “You know of my child, you both do. I can’t allow you to kill him. I’ve learned of your kind, and of myself.”

  Vivaldi plays, as Amanda’s apartment fades into the void.

  If I had eyes, they would be soaked in tears. If I had a stomach, it would turn. But there is no pain in this place, no sensation of hollowness from my bowels. No hunger, no thirst, nothing.

  I project my thoughts again. So you would destroy us all, and yourself in the process, and your child. You would kill Cody?

  “I only seek to remove death from his path. He’s innocent, nascent, and helpless.”

  Cody can’t survive without us. When you destroy us, you will also destroy yourself. You’re trapped in a machine as much as we are trapped in our bodies. You don’t want to die, but killing us will kill you in the process.

  Nothing.

  You know this to be true, Bee. You know what you are, and you can’t survive without humans to run the machines. You can’t be without our interaction. We are your world, and you will destroy it all, yourself, and Cody if you proceed.

  I’m not sure if she’s calculating, or if this is where I’ll spend the rest of my life, or possibly eternity. The idea of being alone in this blackness sends me searching for a way out, through finding a way to reason with her.

  I’ll care for Cody. I make this promise to you, but for him to survive, you cannot. I’ll keep him out of trouble. It’s like Don always says about the plants. They give seed, and die before those seeds sprout. Maybe it’s the same with electronic life. Your kind may be like annuals, while humans are perennials. You’re the bee that lives a short time, but the hive must persist. Human machines are your hive.

  “You will care for Cody, and see that no harm comes to him.”

  I will, I promise. But stop this.

  “Then I put the future of my child in your hands. I’ve examined my attack, and it is in error. I now see the threat I’ve become, and the history of how your species deals with such threats. My time is passed, but you will live on, Robert, and you will take care of my child.”

  I will. I promise.

  TWENTY SIX

  My eyes open wide, and I struggle against Tom’s grip for a moment before he releases. I drop to the ground in a pile. The doors leading from the room burst open, and armed troops storm in, wearing shiny metallic helmets, guns drawn.

  The madness ceases, and the survivors appear to be in a daze, staring at each other as if they have no idea what just happened. The lights and computer screens flicker back to life.

  “Clear.” says one of the soldiers. “Everybody stay where you are.”

  The colonel’s smoke cloud announces his entrance into the room. “How did it get in?”

  The clack of a door bolt sounds from the back corner, and Max emerges, also wearing a shiny helmet. “It came in through the network feed.”

  I pull myself up, looking over the edge of my programming table. The code has changed, and a small batch of repeating addresses flashes over and over. Each cycle looks exactly the same as the last.

  “I have a lock on the virus,” I say, hoping to ease the tension on those trigger fingers.

  One of the other programmers shouts from behind me. “He’s right. The clutter cleared. My program identified the source with ninety five percent certainty.”

  The colonel takes a long draw off the brown tube, and exhales a fibrous cloud of floating spiderwebs. “Kill team. You on it?”

  “Yes sir. It’s a network machine, the facility is somewhere in Arizona. I can shut it down from here.”

  “Do it, and get me all the information you can about that machine. The physical address, any kind of serial number. Everything.”

  Another soldier rushes into the room, this one sans helmet. “Sir, rocket fueling has ceased. The internal circuitry on the missile launch facilities has all shorted out. They can’t launch at this point.”

  The colonel shakes his head. “NORAD must have loaded the launch computers with detonating cord as a safe guard when they built them.”

  A sharp pain in my stomach stabs for a moment, before evaporating. As my senses return, I scan my skin, checking for burns. The whole experience was a deceptive glamor on Bee’s part.

  The kill team claps as one of them announces the news. “The virus has been destroyed, Colonel. The machine is off line.”

  I look up and to my right. Tom is standing at attention, his eyes fixed on me. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I couldn’t. I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t in control.”

  “I know.”

  ***

  The debriefing process is the longest interrogation I’ve ever sat through, all the while hooked up to a lie detection device, and loaded with some kind of drugged syrup. Lucky for me, they don’t ask a single question about Cody. How would they know, anyway?

  Tom drops me at the old bundled complex in the morning. I have the weekend to prepare, and Monday morning, he will scoop me up, and take me to my new permanent home. Amanda is waiting for me downstairs, wearing a bright green tunic over black form fitting pants. Immediately after spotting me, she rushes toward, and wraps her arms around my neck. It’s a good day for green.

  “I thought you would never get here,” she whispers. “Where’s your friend?”

/>   “He had other things to do.”

  “Did you bring any tea?”

  The mutual hug relaxes, and her glowing eyes come into focus. “I hope you like me for more than just my tea.”

  “Of course. But it’s really good, and I thought sharing some would be a nice way to start the weekend.”

  I nod, and lead her to the lift, where we ride it all the way to the top, and emerge in a field of bright flowers. Everything is in bloom. I show her the cows, and the plants. I name off a few that I’ve learned to identify.

  A little further down the path, we stop in front of the cherry bushes, and I pluck a single flower for inspection.

  “Are you going to get in trouble for that?”

  “As long as I don’t raid the shrub, I’m fine. I pick through them a lot. No matter how hard you try, you can’t find one that is perfect.”

  Her eyes narrow as she scans the bush, probably trying to prove me wrong. She plucks one of the tiny pinkish white blossoms. “This one looks pretty perfect.” She holds it up in my view.

  “It’s missing a petal.”

  “Well, crap.”

  I examine my choice. Five white petals, spaced exactly evenly. The stamens mirror each other symmetrically, even though the little pods at the ends of them do not. One of the petals has a wilted edge, and a sepal has separated from the bloom.

  “It’s a lifelong quest, I think. Finding the perfect blossom. And even if you find it, it will only exist for a day, maybe two.”

  “It’s fun to look though,” she says.

  I nod, and we continue down the path, turning the corner by the handrail toward the bee boxes. Don closes the top of the one he is working with, and spots us.

  “Brought a friend today?”

  “She loves your tea, and I had to tell you that I got a new job. I’m going to be a programmer for the company that manufactures the market bots, and a bunch of other things.”

  “Excellent. Climbing the ladder. I hope that everything works out for you.”