Neil stopped his biting and sipping and looked straight at John. 'You mean the alien code?'
'How do you know about it?'
'It interests me.' Neil replied.
'OK, then yes. I need to have a virtual classroom that is undetected and protected. Do you think you can help?'
'Yes.' He continued with his tea and scone routine.
John sensed there was something more.
'Will you help me?'
Neil looked off into the distance. It was as if he had forgotten that he was engaged in a conversation with another person, in a room full of people, he just simply zoned out. Neil stayed like this for a full minute before returning back to the room. He looked at John again, seeming to size him up and consider what he had been asked.
'Yes. But I will stick to my timetable.'
'Great, I'll see you at my lab first thing in the morning.'
'No you won't. In the morning I shower, clean my teeth and get dressed, then I come here for breakfast. I will see you after that.'
'OK.' John replied, aware of the elementary error he had made. 'I will see you tomorrow when you are ready.'
'Yes, you will.' Neil carried on with his tea and scone. He now had four minutes before he was due back in his room.
John left Neil to his tea and scone and thanked Debbie on his way out. He felt nervous taking such a huge risk but knew he couldn't avoid it. His preference had always been to work on his own but now he was going to have two people working directly with him, and dozens more virtually around the world. He started to hate the aliens, it was their fault, they put this pressure on him. He had been happy in his research. He had been happy in himself. Now he had to engage and interact with others. Worse still, they were depending upon him to perform. He needed to relax, stay calm, and maintain his focus. Just get yourself into the work and forget about everything else, he told himself. The key to happiness is action, not reflection. This, above all else, the clinic had taught him. He held it now as a talisman against the return of the bad thoughts.
In his lab, he started to collect his thoughts and prepare for the next day. He wrote the problem on his whiteboard. Then he realised that anyone could walk in and see what he was working on. Not a good way to maintain security. He looked up a locksmith in Cambridge; they could install a standalone keypad entry and camera system, plus a safe today if cost was not an issue. He assured them it wasn't. Don't know why I didn't think of this before, he asked himself. Because you have had so much to think about!
The locksmith arrived promptly and installed the new system and safe. John watched them like a hawk whilst they were there, monitoring their every move. They were used to it, having worked for banks and other security conscious organisations. Once they had left, John returned to his planning; now he put security at the top of his list of actions. He had to admit it was a long list. He figured he had done enough for today so he locked the box and diamond away in the newly installed safe and left his lab, locking it securely behind him.
John headed over to the bar. He fancied his relaxation in pint form this evening. As he sipped his pint, his mind started to relax a little. It wandered back to what he had been told about the domes. It was as if the wall simply disappeared and then reappeared. A gold dome. The gold box. Both alien. Both could change shape, almost at will it seemed. Another sip on his beer. They seemed to be very security conscious of a large building with cables running out to the domes interior. The gold box had wires in its interior, he had noted. Another sip. The wires ran to what appeared to be the intelligence controlling the box, which in turn was fed by the radioactive disc. He imagined looking down on the dome, from the inside. Both geometric shapes. Both capable of changing shape. Both had a power source he realised. That must be what that building in the dome is, a control and power source for the dome. Then it follows that the dome must be constructed of the same material as the box. A material, which can capture and control Deeth particles. The wall of the dome they had estimated at two feet thick. The box was less than two millimetres thick. Proportionally the dome's wall is thinner than the box, but if they have a much greater source of power then the force exhibited by the wall could be orders of magnitude greater than the box and that had been all but impossible to crack open. John made a note to do some calculations, but he felt confident that the domes couldn't be cracked from the outside.
10:08 02 January [10:08 02 January GMT]
Research Laboratory, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England.
Neil arrived right on schedule after his breakfast. Barry was late. Very late. It was after ten in the morning when he finally showed up. No explanation, just a good morning as he took his coat off. Neil had been rocking backwards and forwards now for the last twenty minutes. John had just told him that morning that he would be working with someone else. The fact that this other person was late as well just added to Neil’s stress and confusion. Neil just couldn't comprehend why someone would be late.
The session lasted the rest of the morning. It was fraught with difficulties at the start as Neil and Barry couldn't relate. That was until the discussion of how the virtual classrooms could be created without showing up to the Contagion.
‘I reckon it wouldn’t take much to re-design my anti-virus program.’ John began, watching his new students’ reactions, ‘we could retrofit it with some kind of secure tunnel to bypass the Contagion and allow global communications.’
‘That won’t work.’ Barry replied.
‘No, it will not.’ Neil added, a second after Barry.
‘Oh and why’s that?’
Barry looked to Neil, allowing him first response this time.
‘The Alien code, Contagion you call it.’ Neil said, ‘It operates in an entirely different manner to your program. Your program is self-aware, that is it has an inbuilt ability to self-monitor not that it shows any signs of cognisance. However the Contagion code works like an arterial network, like the very veins and arteries in our own bodies with different programs working like blood cells, some monitoring, some relaying messages others attacking and defending like White Cells. Running a secure pipe through this would only result in two things. Discovery and destruction.’
‘Plus,’ Barry chipped in, ‘your program is frankly, well a bit shit.’
‘Really? Well you’ve never managed to hack it.’
Barry said nothing; instead, he reached for the projector lead and plugged it straight into his handheld device. The image on the wall blinked into life showing the contents of the device’s storage. Barry stopped on a folder named John Deeth.
John watched in horror and amazement whilst Barry showed how much of John’s personal data he had, it stretched back over two years.
‘Shit Barry. I had no idea. I thought mine was secure, the Phantom never claimed, I mean you never claimed that you had hacked my system. But you always publicised your hacking.’
‘I publicised what I wanted to, no more or less. Plus, it was generally to show how shared systems were not secure. Yours was not shared, so no one else was affected.’
‘OK, point well made by you both, so what do we do?’ John said.
Between them, they suggested that a pipe could be built in the artery only if they could design it to appear as an alien artery and coat it with a vaccine, Alien code that had been deactivated. The question of who would do what was, amazingly, easily answered. Barry wanted to build the virtual classroom network, putting to good use all he knew about hacking. Neil had no interest in classrooms, virtual or otherwise. However using his knowledge of biochemistry, physics, computer science, programming, and networks to capture, deactivate, alter, and utilise the alien code appealed to him.
Now he had set the two of them off John felt that he could continue with his own work. He reviewed his notes from the previous night against the others he had made along the way. It was clear that the box was constructed of the same material as the domes. He downloaded a copy of a ballistics program one of the physics students
had written. It was based on a military program but had been altered and refined to provide much better control of the parameters. He made some educated guesses about the properties of the material and fed these into the program. He created two test subjects in the program. One was a replica of the box, the other, of a dome. He tried impacting the replica box with a high speed revolving drill shaped object. The replica box was unaffected just like the real box. A couple more tweaks and the program was ready. The box withstood impact after impact, even the most advanced military weaponry failed to dent it. He moved outside of normal physical limits. Eventually the box gave way to a quarter tonne, shaped projectile travelling at nine thousand miles per second. Way outside what was currently possible. The problem was that long before the box cracked open the diamond inside had vaporised from the impact of the inside of the box hitting it.
He moved on to the dome replica. This proved even harder to affect. He had to guess at the amount of power it would be using and therefore the resistance the Deeth shielding would provide. The news was not good. Not for them anyway. The dome would easily resist any known weapon. No bullet, shell, explosive device would penetrate it. Not even the largest atomic weapon. He tried impacting the box with electro-magnetic pulses like he had done in the MRI scanner. The box reformed. He applied the same to the dome. It worked. Unfortunately, scaling up to make it work involved building fifty hill-sized electro-magnets and powering them from five large nuclear power stations. He reasoned that the Sunarr might notice them building all this outside their domes. Especially as it would take years to construct even one. The dome could be penetrated by a shell but only if that shell was travelling faster than the speed of light. A lot faster. However take out the power source for the domes and they could, theoretically, be penetrated with conventional weapons. High energy or explosive rounds, but penetrated nonetheless. Somehow, the prisoners will have to cut the power source before any rescue attempt can be made.
24 Constellation I
13:17 09 March [13:17 09 March GMT]
Research Laboratory, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England.
Two months had passed since John had recruited Neil and Barry. In that time they had built a secure, worldwide network for the virtual classroom, overcoming and negating the alien Contagion. They had also become heavily involved in selecting the students and tutoring them. The students were more like them than most. Individuals more committed to understanding, learning and creating than partying. They were the outcasts, loners in the main or they had a few friends who were like them, setting them apart from the other students. A significant proportion were post-graduates working with large defence contractors; recruited through forums for scientific discussion they were needed for Project Constellation.
They worked in cells. None of them had access to any more information than absolutely necessary. Some had made informed guesses as to the true nature of their work, but those that did kept such speculation to themselves believing that this was a secret project by their own government. The work was challenging and rewarding. Days had slipped into nights, weekdays into weekends. The further in they got, the more the game became real for them. The more they could start to see the fruits of their labour. They became hungrier with each success. Barry had taken on the role of mentor. These were his kind of people. He knew what motivated them. The challenge. Just the challenge. Neil became the gatekeeper. He seemed to know exactly who was working on what at any one time, and how they were progressing. He became more computer than person. However, at the same time the magnitude of the job seemed to bring him out of himself. He even started to converse happily with Barry and they had become, if not firm friends, then good colleagues, which was probably as much as they could have both hoped for. Someone to challenge them and push them on, but also someone who understood how they ticked.
The timing had been good for John. He had come under pressure from the faculty to accept the offer of assistance from the Sunarr, the faculty believing that being the first in the world to have this would bring them additional prestige. He had stalled long enough. Once he was happy that Neil and Barry had a handle on things, which had taken a couple of weeks, he accepted the Sunarr offer and they had given him access to one of their Sekkos data devices.
The Sekkos device delivered to John was a standalone system. The Sunarr said that their security systems prevented them giving him access to an online one. The device required no external power and was about the size of a small domestic tabletop oven. There was an open section at the bottom of the front of the device, into which the Sunarr engineer who delivered it showed that John could place his hands. There was no keyboard inside, or anything he could remotely recognise as an input device, instead every movement of his hands was tracked whilst in the device and the system seemed to be self-learning. It had no display screen either; it came instead with a version of the Sunarr communications device. However, this one worked on the visual cortex of the brain. The first time he wore it, it was quite unnerving. It was as if someone had switched on a cinema inside his mind. He could still see everything around him, but at the same time, he could see everything the device was displaying. He felt dizzy using it and had to take some medication for vertigo until he got used to it. The more he used the Sekkos device, the more it adapted to his needs. He couldn't translate any of the Sunarr language, he found it was better to concentrate on something he knew and wanted, a database for example, and the Sekkos would display one labelled in English. He then found he could physically manipulate it with his hands and enter or change information by simply thinking about it when the correct item was selected. It was a little like learning to ski and juggle at the same time, but over the weeks he had become quite adept at it.
The Sekkos device was in a side room, which John had shielded against electromagnetic radiation, having moved it there straight after the Sunarr engineer left. He couldn't do anything about Deeth particles, not yet. If it was actually networked, which is what he feared, and the device used Deeth particles to communicate, then he was screwed. He figured that the Sunarr had probably been honest when they said it was not networked, only because the risk to them of his gaining access would have been too great. Therefore, he figured that he was probably OK. Probably.
John now felt confident in using the Sekkos. He had let his Sunarr contact know that he was ready to take his research further by combining it with theirs. The same Sunarr engineer arrived but wasn't there for long. He opened the case he was carrying and removed a small gold box. He placed this next to the Sekkos, removed a small black device about the size of a credit card from the chain around his neck, and held it above the gold box. The box reformed revealing a diamond inside. He placed the diamond inside the scanning section of the Sekkos and waited a couple of minutes. The flashing light of the scanners ceased and he removed the diamond and replaced it in its box.
Could it be that simple? He wondered, thinking about the alien diamond he had locked up in his safe. Could I just shove it in and find out what it contains, if anything?
The Sunarr engineer left in short order. Now John was in a quandary. He wanted desperately to insert his diamond and see what would happen. He worried that if he did, and information was loaded into the Sekkos he might not be able to erase it and the next time the engineer called he would be found out. Any information he might discover was weighed against the risk to Earth. The risk he judged was just too great, the reward unknown. It will have to wait. At least for now.
He turned his mind to the task in hand. The Sunarr research on gold extraction. He fitted the visual communications device and inserted his hands into the scanner. The research was in two parts, information contained in a database type structure and what appeared to be file types supporting this information. He opened a file at random.
It contained an image of a gold mine. He could see the whole of it, able to fly between the different layers of rock. He could see the veins of gold running between the rock layers. Each of the layers had inf
ormation attached to it and now he could see that they had calculated the exact amount of gold in each layer. Even the intervening layers had the traces amounts noted. He opened another file, it was the same layout, just a different mine. He tried another. This time it appeared to be a sea or ocean, he couldn't tell which. Again, it was marked up with amounts of gold. He knew that there were trace amounts of gold in seawater, but nobody had ever produced a commercial way of extracting it. It appeared that the Sunarr wanted it as well. Something at the back of his mind spoke, but it was too quiet amongst the noise of the display. Instinctively he turned to the database and managed to do a search. It pointed him to a file. He opened it. His blood ran cold, he shivered, and a little bile leapt up into his mouth. He recoiled away from the Sekkos pulling off his headset. He was sweating now, cold drips of fear running down his face. I have to make a call. I have to tell the others.
17:22 09 March [17:22 09 March GMT]
Chester Square, Belgravia, London, England.
Anita showed Jane and George into the drawing room. Jack and Sally were already in there. Now they were just waiting for John to arrive.
'So what's the big fuss then? What's John found? Anybody know?' Jane asked the group, for which she got just shaken heads in reply.
It was most unlike John. Getting information on how he was progressing had always been difficult to say the least. The rest of the group talked almost on a daily basis. They were getting close, nothing really said, just a general feeling that they now had most of the pieces in place. Severine had been exceptional in making contacts. They had groups all around the world now, mostly ex-military, but they had also established contacts with serving officers to make this work. Pre-eminent amongst these had been the American, British and Russian Generals; Colt, Beaconsfield and Ivanskiy. Now they had added officers from South Africa, Australia, Canada, and even China plus a dozen or so smaller countries. All were major gold mining countries. Everything had to go through the wives and in some cases mistresses. Where this was not possible, close female relatives were used instead. The military hadn't yet been told what, exactly, was being planned just that they would need to be ready to fight and when successful take control. Some objected strongly to this, arguing that they would be caught and shot for inciting an uprising and effecting a military coup. Each time this had come up the answer was the same. Yes, that is true, but history is written by the victors. To do nothing would be to hand the world over to the Sunarr. Better to try and fail, than live as a slave.
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