by G M Steenrod
Cassie pointed at the disk and steered it to different areas in the screen. She moved it into the trees. Then she gestured it up into the sky. She pulled it down and into the shadow of a bench. A feeling would tell her she could work the disk into the scene properly. The feeling wasn't there.
She prodded the disk with her brush to reshape it. The disk became elongated. She pulled at it and the data tendrils emerged from the disk and swirled about. With its new shape, the disk looked much like a spider. A large silver spider, hiding in the shadow of a park bench.
“That is oddly menacing,” Cassie said aloud.
The spider shape moved across the scene's manicured lawn toward the trees like a spider would.
“Okay, that shouldn't be happening. It has to be the algorithm.” Cassie poked at it with her brush. The spider turned toward her in response. Its face had become more spider-like.
“Odd,” she said, her voice strained.
Cassie gestured at it with her hand to move it. The spider trembled, but didn't move. A definite malfunction of the algorithm and the second cpu. She gestured at it again. The spider trembled and then split in two.
“No! Not at all,” her voice was a mix of rising anger and fear.
She impulsively scrambled back from the spiders. Their movement was an illusion created by changes in perspective and image size, she knew absolutely from the tens of thousands of hours she had spent in scene design. Her brain was on fire with the threat she felt though.
She scrambled up a small rise to get some form of high ground advantage. She could feel the dirt and old leaf fall slip from under her shoes as she did so. Something had gone seriously wrong. This type of experience only really occurred under Supps. Could she have been drugged? She struggled to remember what she had eaten or drunk. It had been hours. Ingestion wasn't the preferred method of taking them, but if Supps had been in her food, they would have kicked in hours ago. The spiders moved steadily toward her.
She gestured again to stop them. They trembled, but nothing happened. Rather than risk another split into a horror scene of spiders, she grasped her brush like a blade. Her mother's training flowed steadily into her. Large, silver spiders had never been part of the training, but eyes, while there were a lot of them, were still eyes. Fury filled her, and she waited, huffing.
Bump. It was a pressure on her right leg. Strangely compelling given the threat she was under.
Bump. Bump. Again.
She looked down. Through groggy eyes she could see Samuel bouncing off of her right calf with his paws. He barked at her.
“Samuel?”
Cassie opened her eyes fully. “I was asleep?” Adrenaline bubbled sharp and prickly through her. The scene was the same as in her dream, except there were no spiders. There was only the circular silver disk hovering before her.
Samuel shifted his small pug body between the disk and Cassie, and barked as fiercely as his small frame allowed. His lips were drawn back to expose his teeth. He pounded the ground with his front paws in warning.
Cassie could feel it too. The disk radiated a primal threat. The disk was round now and lacked the elongation she had seen before. She must have fallen asleep unawares sometime in the process of her work, but the time line felt wrong.
“Samuel, it's okay!” She reached down to calm him with her hand, but he growled in response.
“Alfie, all screens off!” The outdoor scene went off instantly. The disk shuddered and then blinked out. “It was a product of the complex algorithm closing down,” Cassie reassured herself. It looked too much like it was alive and resisting the command it was given.
Samuel turned to Cassie's leg and sniffed about her feet. She seemed alright. He calmed down. Cassie picked him up to assure him.
As the adrenaline left her, her mind cleared further. Something remarkable had happened. Samuel had accepted the glyph fully; whatever horrible impression it was, he had accepted it. It had worked cross-species as well.
This was farther than the glyph had ever come.
She had held together too. Better than at any time before. Cassie's search for the glyph had changed her. She was stronger and tougher.
Her objective had been simple: to get a semi-functional example of a glyph to study—to maybe even understand what she was doing. She had done that. It was unfortunate that the first example that had been created was a horror. She could examine it forensically without impact, reading the code, data, and glyph symbol for connections. Tuning a glyph always produced the greatest understanding of the glyph. Her mother might be able to do it as a dry, intellectual exercise. Cassie couldn't: she had to work with it live. Cassie reminded herself that Ada's approach had failed. Hers was more valid.
Today was a great success. She would learn a lot from the glyph. It was not a step she could build directly on, however. She could isolate the glyph, and put safeties into places in case she was thrown into sleep again, but it was dangerous. Variations of the glyph would also likely be dangerous.
Cassie ran through the logic in her head, and the time line. She had been working on the first glyph for months before adding the second cpu. She had spent 8 days working on it since the second cpu came online, but after months of prior work. That had yielded a dangerous glyph with unexpected power. It was like trying to build an antique combustion engine, and just learning that things could explode.
The logic was simple. It would take her at least a decade to get to a workable, safe prototype at the current rate. Adding a third cpu would boost her computing power, but there was a diminishing return she had to deal with. She could only divide the task so much. With two CPUs the division had been natural. She also had to conceal her quantum's action on the Ether as it scraped data. The footprint with another scraper would get exponentially larger.
She needed to talk to someone. She needed to talk to her mother.
Carrying Samuel in her arms, she went to the kitchen, where she put him down onto the marble floor. There was a classic, pre-environmental collapse Bordeaux in the wine cupboard. It was one of the last great wines before Bordeaux became a poor wine region. It was an ideal bottle for today.
Today was a time to celebrate. Her mother had always said, “Celebrate your victories. It is a reward for your accomplishments, and a promise for more.”
“Mom, I want to talk about a friend,” Cassie said to the air. It was a trigger phrase. Security protocols activated. Links to the Ether closed. Alfie went to a minimal state. Her hired security shifted subtly to a greater state of alert.
***
The screens around her shifted to a wooded scene with a lake. It was an area near Cassie's grandparents home, known for its small streams. Ada appeared on the screened pillar. To an outsider, it would look like the kitchen was located outdoors.
A wine glass, full, and matching Cassie's was in Ada's hand.
“So, Baby Girl, you've made a breakthrough?” asked Ada. The Ada routines had read her features expertly.
“Yes, I've made a jump of some sort. The new glyph has a depth to it that I wasn't expecting.” Cassie briefed her mother on the event. Ada's routines weren't able to read the logs from trials directly. They had been isolated by the security protocols, and Cassie had not yet updated her experimental journal.
“That is fantastic! You've taken it much farther than I ever did and in such a short time!” Ada swirled the wine in her glass. She had a proud predatory look on her face, like a cat that had just caught a bird that had wandered too close. Cassie recognized the look. It was not a common look from her childhood, but it was memorable.
“Part of it was the new algorithm, but a large part of it was the increase in computing power,” Cassie responded. Cassie was being modest. The algorithm for running possible combinations, guided by increasingly likely combinations, was a major innovation. She had modeled her own process for generating scenes and building emotive glyphs with the algorithm. It was a step that Ada could not have ever taken.
“You don't need to be m
odest, Baby Girl. You were brilliant, and in a different way than I was brilliant. All the computing power in the world wouldn't have moved me to the point that you are at.”
Cassie drank her fine Bordeaux, concentrating on its notes while she blushed. Her mother's simulacrum was a beautiful feat of design by Ada. It had also grown more accurate and intuitive over time since Cassie had first activated it. When this was all over, some form of the software would need to be released to the world.
“What's next? Are you going out for a fine meal, or are you going to screen your handsome man? Your grandparents were always fine meal people for a celebration.” Ada was probing gently. Cassie had grown attached to the Ada software, but because of the security issues, Cassie didn't casually consult with it. She used the standard simulation for such purposes.
Cassie was celebrating, but she had also been deeply disturbed by the event. It was dark. She needed to change the direction of the exploration. Emotive glyphs were used in the horror and combat simulation markets all the time. This event had been different than those glyphs.
“Do you know what your next step is yet?” asked Ada.
“I need to find another glyph to work on. This one had a lot depth to it. It even fooled Samuel,” the implications of that achievement hit her profoundly as she said it. Samuel had always been a penetrative critic of her scenes. Cassie had found a bridging experience across species—a much more universal tool.
“But...” Ada gradually pulled the words from Cassie. Cassie was reluctant to take a step back after such a successful gain.
“I can't work directly with this trial anymore. It's going to cost me months, maybe even years of time.” Cassie had been bright and intuitive in achieving this first success. She had also been lucky. That luck might not favor her again.
“You can't worry about such things, Cassie. You found it once. You'll find another, assuming that another exists. You have plenty of time.”
“I don't want to wait, Mom.” The words slipped out. Maybe it was the Bordeaux.
“Is there a reason you are so eager? It seems to me that you could finish it at anytime,” said Ada.
Cassie tapped the counter absent-mindedly with her index finger. She had been through this train of thought before. There was no compelling reason for her to be driven. She was financially sound. There was no indication that she was being out-competed. There was no time sensitive deadline.
She felt that it would bring her closer to a solution for her mother's death. She felt that she was under threat, because of the project. It seemed that the threat would ease if she completed the project. Those reasons were motivators for her, but it wasn't the driving force.
Cassie simply felt she had to finish it. It was her nature. It was also her nature to take much longer on a project than expected.
“Mom, there's no good reason. I just feel as if I must get it done.” Ada paused briefly. Internally her routines were comparing Cassie's statement with a personality profile. Ada had been built to aid Cassie and keep her moving forward in a happy and healthy manner. The delay would cause Cassie enormous discomfort. It had been a long time since she had had a meltdown, but there wasn't much more that Cassie could do to support herself against the stress. A restart would place her at significant risk of a breakdown requiring both drug and screen therapy.
“Well, Baby Girl, splitting the tasks among more CPUs isn't really an option. You're the bottleneck for that,” Ada said matter-of-factly.
“Thank you very much, Mom,” Cassie replied, pouting.
Ada noticeably rolled her eyes at Cassie. Cassie knew better. She knew it even as she pouted. The research for the glyph was dependent on feedback from Cassie. Creating more parts to be operated by more CPUs wouldn't overcome the limit in the feedback that she could provide. The only potential gain was in causing the current parts to operate more quickly. Further tasks division couldn't achieve that. Cassie would still provide the ultimate limit, but the the sensory stacks could be made more responsive to her suggestions.
“I think it's time to talk to Auntie,” Ada said. Cassie nodded. The logic was straightforward.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Whisper
A tunnel of data, impermeable, reached through the amorphous mass of the Ether. The greatest advantage when it came to security in the Ether was anonymity. The mass of data and the continuous flow of billions of people and billions of machines interacting made any single interaction difficult to locate.
The tunnel was vulnerable at its origin, which was known. Its terminus was negotiated by the tunnel itself. It chose to snake among densely crowded streams of traffic, running along side them. Dipping, and turning, breaching toward the surface at a micro-seconds notice. It was present, among the brightest lights, but ran unnoticed as an echo to the lights.
A wrist band blinked a dull purple. With a curious finger swipe, the tunnel reached its terminus on a screen.
“Hello, Ada.” Trago smiled at the image of Ada before him on the wall.
“It's good to see you, or the closest to you that I imagine can be simulated?”
“Yes, Trago, my lovely. It's the best I could do,” Ada responded.
“Who said that ghosts didn't exist?” said Trago. Ada laughed. It was delightful to hear her. Trago felt an immediate pang of sadness, and struggled to conceal it.
Ada showed concern for him in her eyes. It was an expression that Trago was familiar with from their time together. As with most humans, Ada had a look of concern she used to non-verbally express concern. With Ada, the look always had an individual slant for each person, animal, or plant. Trago believed that the sensitivity behind it was one of the reasons Ada was able to create glyphs.
“You never had much of a Pai Gow face,” Ada said.
Trago realized immediately that Ada had custom coded the module to respond to him. She had selected facial expressions from their personal history, and private references from their conversations. The effort behind the work in the simulacrum had been substantial. He was touched, but more curious.
Cassie came onto the screen beside her mother.
“Auntie, you two can poke and prod each other later!” chided Cassie.
“Cassie...” started Trago, his voice corrective.
“Are you telling me your fondest desire is not to find out how the simulacrum ticks?” asked Cassie.
Ada laughed.
“Of course, you want to know, Trago. I would too,” added Ada. Her face had a wry smile. With a few key expressions, Trago was drawn in immediately. He felt himself trusting her.
“Ohh, you have a new glyph.” Trago identified the effect compelling him, more refined and powerful than the ones from his time with Ada. Ada had advanced the technique in the interim to her death.
“Auntie,” said Cassie, “we can catch up in a little bit.”
“It seems you went to a great deal of trouble in setting up this conversation. I suppose we should get to it, Baby Girl.”
Cassie briefed Trago on the broad strokes of her work. Ada contributed background at points. Trago could see the opportunity that the project would provide to anyone who brought it to market first. It had the promise of great wealth with it. That type of wealth, even in the era of Baron hatred, presented an enormous risk. People would kill for this type of credit. Trago felt the risk flowing from them to him, and impulsively wanted to find some way to end their conversation.
Trago was a strange combination of fear and courage, Ada knew.
“Trago, we've put in excellent security measures. You're safe,” Ada said, addressing the issue before he spoke it.
“I get that. It's a small contact, and you've left out valuable details particularly about how you are building the new glyph system.” Trago was talking himself back into confidence. He didn't really know enough to have anything of value. Ada...Cassie had been very careful about what she shared. Having just the thought of a new glyph system wasn't valuable.
“Cassie, what do you want from m
e? How can I help?” asked Trago.
“How can I make it go faster, quietly?” responded Cassie.
“Your conclusion that dividing the task further won't help is mostly correct. You won't get the type of gains that you want doing that.” She would get modest gains, but Trago knew Cassie as a young child. Patience of that sort was not her strength.
“You have to do a large processing pull from the Ether and use a Quantum to distribute the pull and secure it. You could increase the rate initially by about 25%.”
Cassie frowned at the number and pouted subconsciously. It was a break from her controlled appearance.
“Hold on, Baby Girl. That's to start. When you first came up with the tools you are using—brilliant work by the way--” Cassie brightened with the complement. Trago was sincere. While not the technical mind that Ada was, Cassie had created something that any of the many highly-educated technicians on his staff would struggle to build in a year of work.
