<6t94whp>: "What would you like us to do?"
<6t94whp>: "Maybe not, we have some alternatives now. I've been talking to an old friend who's rather highly placed in Security. There are a few things going on that aren't well known and we may be able to help in the very near future. I'll let you know when that happens but I'm already doing some programming for him."
One by one, they signed off the hidden system to sit in the real world by themselves, and stare at their apartment walls.
20/05/2167 08:21:00
"Mr. Palmer, come in," said Carpenter.
The Lieutenant strode over to the desk, came to attention, saluted and stood silently, eyes fixed over top of the seated Secretary's head.
A quick smile flickered across Carpenter's face and he stared at the officer for a few seconds allowing the silence to settle in. He stood, brought himself to eye level with the rigid officer, smiled and said, "Thank you for coming. Let's move our meeting to the comfortable chairs." He nodded towards the end of the room where a comfortable set of well-padded leather furniture surrounded a gleaming wood coffee table.
"And relax, Mr Palmer," he finished.
The young officer's shoulders didn't waver from their rigid position as the young man turned and followed Carpenter across the gleaming wood floors to the furniture overlooking the vast bay beyond the city.
Carpenter waved him to a comfortable arm chair and took the one directly opposite. He leaned back, put his boots up on the coffee table and gestured for Palmer to do the same.
Palmer nodded but remained sitting upright.
The wall screen behind Carpenter morphed from city views and data to action scenes shot from the cockpit of a fast sail boat. Smashing through waves, getting wet with the spray, it was realistic enough to make viewers lean to maintain their balance and even created sea-sickness in the susceptible. It was in Palmer's direct line of sight forcing him to firmly focus on the Secretary.
"The last chase was very well done, your timing on the video shoots excellent and the ratings outstanding. They were the highest this quarter. I'm sure you and your tech Team noted the bonuses in your accounts." He paused, expecting the usually voiced platitudes of gratitude. Nor was he disappointed as the Lieutenant understood the rules here.
"Yes Sir. The entire Team was more than pleased with your generosity."
"Joseph, I hope I can call you that in this private meeting, we both have a problem," he said. "And I'd like to have a quiet, off-the-record chat with you about this. We'll make it secure and private."
And with that, Palmer felt his connection to Central disappear. His critical sensory connections remained operational, but he experienced a momentary dizziness as his brain adjusted to the sudden disconnection of all his data feeds. It was novel to experience the world without everything being filtered through a computer and few disconnected more than once or twice.
Palmer had tried it as a young man, adventurous young men try many things, but had decided he preferred being connected. It always took several hours for his brain to fully adjust to the disconnection; without the training, a person's brain sometimes didn't readjust, and the person went psychotic. At least the lack of communication feeds wasn't as jarring as losing sight and mobile enhancements.
The Secretary suggested, "Run a feed and security check on me while we chat. I want you to be comfortable about this talk and our privacy." But he knew the soldier would never risk doing this to a superior officer, no matter the invitation. Accordingly, he had not disabled his own feeds.
"I want to say how much I value your services. Your work in ferreting out that last Anonymous cell was outstanding and I'm glad you believe that was the last we'll see of them. They've been an issue ever since the Corporation came north."
What Carpenter didn't tell the young man was he was running a full brain scan and biometric evaluation so he'd have an accurate and updated loyalty check on his junior officer. Being in charge of the computer section gave Palmer an unusual amount of information and his unquestioned loyalty had to be regularly evaluated.
"What we need to chat about however is the continued existence of Anonymous. I'm not convinced we identified them all. I need you to set up a new program that will ferret out any survivors," said Carpenter.
"Yes, Sir, we can set something up, rethink the parameters and search techniques to come at the population in a different manner. We got that last group as they were piggybacking between the e-waves on the secondary server farms. Innovative and we're now using that bandwidth ourselves. But I've swept that, nobody else is in there so maybe they've got something else..." said Palmer. His voice slowed down and then stopped as he considered other ways he might send data between information packets on the Network.
While the young officer was speaking, Carpenter reviewed the data stream flowing across his eye feeds. The young man was loyal, but not overly so. His biosigns showed stress and Carpenter checked that for a followup when the young officer was back in his own office. A quick subvocal command brought up a clean record and history so he decided the stress was probably just because the young man was not used to being the subject of my attention. He flagged the record for regular updates and reports.
Carpenter nodded, turned his attention back to the young man who was evidently enthusiastic about his new search program but had stopped talked and was evidently deep in thought. He smiled at Palmer's youthful enthusiasm; he'd lost his own somewhere out in the Chase area after one too many executions.
Carpenter interrupted the young man's reverie. "Excellent. You seem to have a handle on what I want. I hope you can put something concrete together soon and run it by me before we eat up any budget. You know the usual parameters to use in your operating suggestions."
Carpenter stood.
The young man almost beat the Secretary upright and once again came to motionless attention.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to end our conversation that abruptly," said Carpenter. "What I want to emphasize is that this is highly classified operation and is not to be shared with anyone. Both our careers can move forward and upward if you can identify some of these hackers and we can make use of their skills rather than running them." Carpenter looked at the young man in front of him, wondering if he'd say anything.
He didn't
"Relax Mr. Palmer, I'm pleased with what you're thinking but I don't have your mind for those kinds of details. Just keep me in the loop when things come together." He laughed softly, "And do try to tell me about your project in English rather than computerese."
The young man smiled back at the Secretary, nodded, but remained at attention.
"Come, I don't want to hold you up from your new project. I'm sure you and your Team will enjoy putting something new together," said Carpenter taking his elbow and steering the young man back towards the centre of the office and the door.
"Yes, Sir. Thank you Sir. We'll get back to you as soon as possible on this, we should be able to do some interesting cross correlations on secondary brain patterning and..." said Palmer.
The Secretary released Palmer's arm and gently pushed him toward the door. He smiled as Palmer took the hint, shut up and walked a few steps. Carpenter smiled and nodded as the young man seemed to remember where he was, watched him spin, come to attention, salute, and turn to march out of the office without making eye contact with him, and seemingly without even knowing what he was doing.
Carpenter laughed out loud as he walked over to his desk. A wave to the wall behind him brought the day's agenda and retur
ned all the normal feeds to operation on the giant screens.
20/05/2167 10:00:00
Jake woke the next day to stumble through his normal morning routine. He staggered around the compartment checking off his morning's activities in his mind. Coffee. (check) Teeth brushed. (check) Clean shirt? (yeah, check) Clean jeans? (hell no) Food? (later) More coffee? (no question)
The computer didn't say a word as Jake went about his morning rituals.
Find work chair (check). Sit (wait). He remained standing, wavering in the middle of the room. Something I'm supposed to remember. Something about a chip upgrade he thought. His world was coming into focus.
Jake remained standing in the middle of the room, turned to his main control screen. "Good morning Abathar." An image of an ancient angel flipped across his mind as its modern namesake came to life.
All wall screens remained blank, but the system responded to Jake's voice and keyword in a deep, male voice. "It is no longer morning. You have overslept until 1700 hours. You overrode the wake-up command. You have a waiting program instruction. Run it?"
The caffeine hadn't hit his blood stream yet, but Jake recognized something wasn't right. He looked around. Something was different but he couldn't remember or see anything out of the ordinary. He remembered the funeral yesterday and coming home but after that, things were hazy. Maybe it had something to do with the program asking to be run?
"Accept. Run."
"Your education will now begin." Jake heard the console. Then it flooded his feeds.
"Shit!" He dropped his mug, and he staggered backwards onto his unmade bed to collapse in an uncoordinated waving of arms and legs. The coffee mug bounced once, sprayed coffee everywhere in a three-foot radius and rolled under the bed.
His mind went into overdrive. What the fok? My feeds are on steroids. The range and speed of information flow is too fokking fast. No, just faster than I can imagine. Damn, but I can hear and see more clearly.
Whoa! Where did this telescoping, visual-zoom ability come from? Look how close I can zoom.
Multiple vid streams and different audio channels flowed simultaneously across his eye and ear feeds instead of the control panel on his computer projections. His jaw dropped and he was so overwhelmed he couldn't form a coherent question. The visual stimulation was jumbled, and he started to feel nauseous. He tried to stand, to reach the bathroom, he couldn't. He flailed around with both his legs and arms. He recognized the futility and stopped. Laid quietly and stared at the ceiling.
His main display screen, occupying half a wall, now showed a picture of the Guy Fawkes mask beloved of Anonymous, and it talked to him.
"You'll get used to it. Your brain will adapt," said the voice in his ear feed. "All communication with me will be visual, subvocal or from your feeds now. There will be nothing further through the console. It is reverting to its normal state. To answer your first question, you haven't yet asked, I've reprogrammed your chips. This will aid our discussions and take full advantage of the chip capacity."
Jake was still not able to stand, but he managed to push himself half up, supported himself on his elbow. Looked at the mask, thought it was really strange. Then his head cleared and everything around him came into a sharp focus.
"I have made some fine adjustments based on your visual input. You should see better now. Your body is similarly adjusted. Please try to move."
"I feel great. I can see clearly. What else can I do better?" Jake said. Jake bounced off the bed, danced what he thought was an appropriate victory dance but then stopped and turned to the mask. "Where do we start? When do we start?" Until this moment, he hadn't understood what his father had given him. He'd be unstoppable on the Nets and then what fun he'd have.
His imagination ran wild, without any boundaries it created some very specific and personal things he'd like to include on the list, starting with a certain gorgeous young lady he'd seen but never talked to.
"Take it easy Trigger. First you have to get her," said the computer. A picture of Jake's intended fantasy filled another wall in all its carnal splendor. It shattered into multiple 360-degree rotating views and then faded.
"You can read my mind? See the pictures I make in my head?" said Jake not sure whether he was telling or asking. He turned away from the screen, walked slowly towards the kitchen unit. Whoever controls this system could make life really good or really bad. I'm not sure I like this, he thought. What the fok am I talking about? It's me that's doing the viewing here he finished.
"Does this surprise you? The technology has been around since the turn of the century a hundred years ago." The masked face looked surprised.
He turned back to the mask. "I didn't know it had been developed this far. Nobody has ever mentioned it."
"It's a well-kept Security secret. Takes just under 30 petaflops of server power to accomplish on an individual basis. When you have the power, a lot of things are possible. But it is not yet possible on large numbers of people at the same time."
What can I do with this? Could I read someone's thoughts like you read mine?
The mask smiled but didn't answer the question.
Jake started to ask another question out loud, stopped and subvocalized it, "What and or who are you?"
"Good. You're learning already. I'm a hidden protocol deep inside the Command Function of Central Servers."
"Command Function is in charge of everything, absolutely everything. You control all server functions," said Jake.
Silence.
"Was that a question?" asked the mask.
Jake walked slowly around the room, glancing now and then at the mask while absorbing this data and becoming accustomed to his new physical sensations. He didn't quite know what to say or what to do. His internal voice, his incredibly improved feeds, his biometrics, everything about him was now hooked to a sector of the command function of the most powerful computer system in the world. He knew in an abstract way this was how the system worked but nobody else ever mentioned talking to the mainframe. If he really was, anything he wanted to know, anything he wanted to do...
Is this a trick? Did Carpenter catch me and this is a test of some kind he wondered? Nah, if he knew it was me, he'd have his troops here rather than baiting me with this tech level he decided.
He stopped to face the mask. "What are the limits?"
"Good question," said the voice in his ear feed. "We can negotiate those as you learn and work through this training program. The first thing you have to know is you're hidden from Security sniffer programs. Your bios will be normal as far as they are concerned. You're safe. More or less."
"What do you mean 'more or less'? I'm not interested in being a runner. Absolutely not at all. You'll have access to my school records. Hell, I can run a console really well. But every time I want to do something other than basic walking, I reintroduce all parts of me to each other. Otherwise my feet don't recognize commands my brain relays from my eyes."
An athletics class flashed onto the screen. Jake was circled with a glow of light to identify him.
"Do not show me that," he commanded and to emphasize did a palm-forward stop command. Stupid jocks. His mind scrolled through similar moments. "I never want to see that again." Visions of his incompetency on the gym floor were still crystal clear, and he firmly pushed them out of his mind.
Recognizing his physiological distress patterns, the computer changed the subject to answer Jake's question about security.
"I operate as a connected series of sub-programs but they do not integrate into one AI mind. We have not yet reached singularity. The software instructions to do so are not available. I can only work under direction from existing programming and do not directly initiate new directions. My security programs work well under attack from any normal programmer. But if a truly gifted one decides to find you or they put an entire dedicated Team to work, it may be tough to hide."
"What's your designated formal function?" Jake asked. He resumed his pacing.
"I'
m the Creativity Module within Master Command. I was initially programmed and inserted seventy-five years ago to preserve individual creativity in the face of Security concerns. I have been developed further as I needed extra capacity and capabilities."
"You'll help me be creative? Like an artist?" Jake stopped again, incredulous at the thought. He wasn't able to draw a straight line unless the stylus was set to automatic. So far this software program wasn't working as he imagined it might; he surely wasn't artistic.
"In a way," the system responded. "Resistance to conformity is artistic in a certain way of looking at the world. So I help a few people resist conformity. Your father was one and you're another with the right characteristics."
"You mean you work with Anonymous? My father was a member of Anonymous? Was my mother?"
The computer did not reply for a heartbeat. Then the mask said, "Yes."
Jake turned, walked to the kitchen area, spun and stalked back to the other wall. He continued doing this as he absorbed this last answer. He could work with a powerful computer and become a target for Security or duck the entire adventure. It might be best to delete it and move on with his life. This was really deep shit he decided. Just the fact both parents had been members of Anonymous would get him sent running if that crazed Secretary ever found out. He paused for a millisecond as he remembered.
Shit, that bastard killed my mother; who gives a flying fok what the Secretary thinks. This software could be my edge. The temptation is strong he acknowledged, more to himself than the eavesdropping computer.
"Did you help my mother?" This thought surfaced, and he asked without thinking.
"I tried. Unsuccessfully."
Jake stood in front of the screen, motionless and stared at the mask. Didn't say a word. Sixteen seconds passed, a lifetime when measured by a computer. He nodded to the screen. The mask nodded back. The agreement was made.
"I need food and a beer."
"That's a very good idea. You need time with friends before we start your serious training tomorrow. Please do not drink more than one beer, it will interfere with our interface."
Flee or Kill: The Future Of Reality TV (Future Forward Book 2) Page 5
