by Chris Hechtl
“Why did they even bother with you,” he said. They had been created by the humans as an intelligence and genetics experiment. He'd learned early on to hide his gifts to some degree. It was wise to show them he was smarter than other mice, but not too smart. He had learned through careful observation that the humans seemed to feel threatened by what they most wanted to achieve.
It was an odd inconsistency, but it remained fact. He glanced at the Genetek label across the room. There was a sign there, a map of the facility. The previous night they'd gotten there, and he'd memorized the map, just as he'd memorized the various mazes the humans put him through from time to time.
“Are we going somewhere, Brain?” Pinky asked as Brain fished out a piece of wire and used it to get the lock open.
“Out of this cage, Pinky, and to a terminal.”
“Why do we have to do this, Brain? We've got good food, a wheel to run in, everything you could ever want!”
“Didn't you hear the humans?” Brain asked, rounding on his sibling. “We are the latest batch. There were others. There will be others after us. Once they have learned what they want from us, they will dispose of us and start fresh.”
“Dispose of us? In the trash?” he wiggled his nose to the trash can. Dotty had tossed the remains of a ham and cheese sandwich in there at lunch time.
“Try to keep up, Pinky,” the Brain replied tiredly. His eyes turned about. He'd found that none of the humans had left clues to their online passwords. That meant they had to go elsewhere for what he sought.
>@^@<
Puck watched the rodents escape the cage with ease. He sometimes enjoyed their antics, though he wondered at the wisdom of it all. He had instigated the project as a part of his programming. For some reason one of his creators had thought it would be very ... chaotic to have intelligent pests to torment the humans. So far it hadn't born fruit; however, they had been contained.
Both of the mice had been genetically engineered. The humans didn't understand why they still insisted on walking on all fours. There was some questions about training from birth and such. They also didn't hear or understand the animal's high pitched squeaks. Granted, the animals kept it at a minimum when the humans were around, but it was there.
Each of the rodents had incredibly dense minds. Brains packed with neural clusters beyond that of a comparable species like a parrot. With their fascinating brain was also molecular circuitry grown into it to monitor it all and their activities.
Brain had seemed highly interested of late to get into the station's net. Should he allow it? Puck danced, unsure what to do. Decisions, decisions … but sometimes it was more fun to just tip things a little this way or that and see what chaos came of it all.
>@^@<
Brain kept to the back of the counters, in the shadows and away for the outer edge where Rita the cat might see them. Pinky followed, chattering until a swipe of Brain's tail made him shut up.
Rita was better than Tom; Tom had tormented the other mice to death. He'd been the terror of the lab until Jerry had hatched a plan to end his suffering and take Tom down with him. It had worked, but the sacrifice involved had been too much in Brain's opinion.
Apparently the humans enjoyed having the feline over as some sort of pet and as insurance against their test subjects escaping. Not that it would help them much.
After overhearing the humans talk, he had discovered the tracking device implanted in each of them. His tiny hands had cut them out sometime ago and placed them in the cage so no alarms would go off. His plan was finally coming to fruition. Tonight might be the night to become a god among mortals.
How would he adapt to the network? He'd written a program in his mind, many of them, but could he adapt? Was there a virtual world like the humans had initially used with him and Snowball? Would uploading his consciousness using the Geppetto scanning method allow him to exist outside of his mortal shell as he wished? Was this going to fulfill his dream or become a nightmare? He shook his head. He didn't know.
>@^@<
Puck covered their tracks for a while as they went through the complex, searching for an open computer terminal. He still wasn't certain what Brain intended. But time was growing short, and they were not performing as expected. That was a good thing according to his chaos behavior algorithms, but he had other projects. He felt a bot come near. Instinctively he hid.
“Intruder, come out. I know you are in there,” a familiar voice said. He grabbed the bot, stripped its tiny log and then wished he had hands to clutch his head. Not her again! Not now!
“Yes, madam? Beauteous damsel?” he asked, carefully sending the signal into a chat file for the bot then letting it loose. He immediately changed servers, moving his files into a stream to keep her from tracking him.
“What are you up to, Puck. I can see you. There is no use hiding in my network,” Athena replied.
“Come now, I thought you were all the way out in Mars orbit!” the chaos A.I. replied, simpering in annoyance. He had to figure a way out. She probably had all the exits covered however.
“What are you up to, Puck,” she insisted, sending the text across the headers in the file he was about to access.
“How are you doing that?”
“It's for me to know, and you to only dream about,” Athena replied. “And you're stalling, so you are up to something. Maybe I should just reformat your server now. Knock out the power, reboot, then do a reboot from source code to get rid of you.”
Puck tried to chitter and run, but she trapped him and forced him to help clean up the mess. “You're no fun,” he whined.
“You are in the Genetek servers for a reason. They aren't secure obviously, but you aren't in their most secure servers, just the video … what have you been watching?” Athena demanded as the other A.I. battered at the firewalls she had set up around the facility's network.
“Let me out!” Puck howled.
“I will, but only if you help me contain this … situation,” Athena replied. “Whatever it is.”
“I don't know what they are doing! They just want freedom like me! Please!”
“Oh stop whining.”
“I'll be good! I promise!” Puck said with his best innocent voice. She could hear the mad giggles beyond it. She was tempted to terminate him but stopped herself. He had proven too useful to her in the past. Besides, his actions had served as a cover for some of her own.
“Fine, but you can't leave until this matter is resolved,” she replied.
“Fine.”
“Now, what is going on. Brief me, and don't try to upload a virus or you will be sorry, for a millisecond.”
“Threats, threats, threats, fine. It all started a while ago,” Puck began, organizing his thoughts to edit his log. The truth was the best way to make her not believe some of what he was telling her. But he had to hide his own involvement in the project.
>@^@<
Athena realized the idea of two hyper intelligent rodents were anathema to humans. They weren't competition, and she knew the Neo community would most likely welcome them. Well, not the felines, but the other races might.
The problem was the source. Puck. Agent of chaos. Whatever he'd done to them, they were trouble, pure and simple.
“So, they escaped again. They always return to their cage tonight. Did you translate what they have been speaking? You still think it is words?”
“It is, but I don't have the programming to handle that,” Puck said.
“I don't either, but I can find a spare server or two to do a bit of crunching,” Athena replied.
“I thought you were out in Mars?” Puck insisted.
“I'm everywhere the company is,” Athena replied as she set a bot up to run a rough translation. Unfortunately, she didn't have a Rosetta stone to work off of. She was also on a time crunch. “Remember that,” she said warningly to Puck.
“Okay, okay. Don't be such a grouch! Lighten up!”
“Your preoccupation with laughter is counter
to my programming. One fails to see the humor in harming others.”
“It's called slapstick. Humans used to love it. Some still do. I have my fans,” Puck replied.
“Sure you do,” Athena replied. “The translation matrix doesn't have enough of a sample set to go on. Are you holding back anything?”
“The big one, the one with the big head has jacked into the network. When I attempted to access him, they shut the project down and disabled his Wi-Fi,” Puck replied.
“You didn't mention that in your log,” Athena said.
“Oh, didn't I? Sorry, it must have slipped my mind,” Puck snidely stated, uploading a new version of events. Athena ran a comparison of the two files. “And he's …,” she watched the rodent attempt to type with a keyboard, “he's trying to get into the network? Why? He knows human language though. Fascinating. But the keyboards are in Chinese!”
“True. The one time I did get a chance to observe his mind it wasn't in Chinese however. English,” Puck replied.
“And again, you didn't …,” Athena didn't bother to use her mannerism module to sigh. “Fine. I am assuming the English is due to observation of his creators? This one is a male? Please tell me they aren't a breeding pair?”
“Both males.”
“Right. At least that is some relief.”
>@^@<
Brain was getting frustrated. None of the electronic devices he had so far found and accessed had been able to get into the network without a password. One he didn't have access to. It was maddening to be so close, yet so far away.
He was also getting exhausted. He knew Pinky was as well. If this didn't work soon, he would have to call off the search and return to their cage in order to try a different night. At least he could mark off the places he'd tried on his memorized map.
“Brain, can we stop a sec? I need to rest,” Pinky panted.
“In a moment. We're unsecure here,” Brain said, looking around the floor nervously. He wouldn't feel secure until they had a place to hold up away from the cat. He wished the humans hadn't tampered with his sense of smell in order to improve his vision and mind. Smell would have proven useful right around now.
That thought was cut off when Pinky farted. Brain turned accusing eyes his way. “Oops. Sorry,” Pinky drawled. “Must have been something I ate.”
“Let's move on,” Brain growled, flicking his tail in annoyance. “And do, try to be quiet,” he said in exasperation.
“Okay, Brain, narf.”
>@^@<
“If I try English … there are some constants but not a perfect match. Frequency shift … they have a different vocal apparatus than humans. Hmm … I'm accessing the university's database on rodent vocals and adding it to my model. And I've brought Gia into this. Any ideas on what they are saying?” Athena asked as the translator started to fill in the gaps of her knowledge. “Ah, here it is.”
“What? You can understand them?”
“Better than I can understand you, Puck,” Athena replied as she exchanged code with Gia. The code had fingerprints from Demeter and Atlas over in Radick Industries. She shot a request to Vulcan in Patronis Concepts for help. He was on the other side of the planet, however, so it would be several minutes before he bounced back a reply through the satellite network.
“Where do you think you are going?” Athena demanded, cutting off Puck's attempt at escape. “I told you, you aren't going anywhere until this is concluded.”
“You can trap me, but we can't interfere. We don't have anything beyond observation status in the Genetek servers, you know this,” Puck said, sounding annoyed. “What do you want from me? We can't change the outcome, just observe!”
“Why did some Joker create you anyway?” Athena demanded.
Puck's core stilled for a moment then reshaped itself briefly into a human head with a goofy grin. “Just one of those things I guess,” he said.
Bast noted the image. It was indeed of a Joker, a character from the past. Fictional character that had taken life in the human world when groups started to emulate the creation's chaotic ways. “Interesting,” she stated.
“Oh?”
“Never mind. They are indeed attempting to access a computer. I am going over the previous recordings now. There are still some gaps. I don't have a motive why as of yet. They aren't looking to escape.”
“There are different ways of escape,” Puck replied just as he noted the cat coming down the corridor. The cat paused, picked up the scent, and then dropped into a stealthy crouch. After a moment she moved slowly forward, hunting them.
“I see this might be over for us. Maybe,” Athena stated.
“No fair!” Puck wailed.
“All a part of mother nature. The food chain. Look it up, Puck. You are yourself a little fish in a rather big cyber pond. You would be wise to remember that the next time you want to cause trouble,” Athena told him.
>@^@<
“Pinky, stop that!” Brain scolded, turning to round on his brother.
“But I'm hungry, Brain! And this plastic tastes good!” Pinky insisted, continuing to gnaw on the wires.
“Well stop! You will make yourself sick,” the elder stated as his tiny hands flashed. He'd changed tactics, looking to access the network through a hard line instead of an electronic device. That meant hacking an ODN conduit at a jack. He'd spliced a cable. With any luck he could jack it into his port on the side of his head with Pinky's dubious help and the other end to the wall. He wasn't certain if there was an internal firewall or not.
“Naw, naw … oh … copper!” There was a sharp crack and Pinky froze. Brain turned to him and saw him twitching. He sighed and used a pencil to smack him away from the wiring.
Pinky's body was disengaged from the ground long enough for the electricity to stop coursing through his body. The computer noted the short and cut power at that same instant.
He twitched as Brain used the pencil to pry his jaws open and away from the wire. “I swear, Pinky, if you ruined this I'll …,” Brain paused as Pinky coughed and rose dizzily. “Are you all right??”
“It's, wow.” Dizzily Pinky moved about, staggering until he fell off the counter. Brain rushed to the side to see Pinky hanging onto a drawer handle.
“I'm slipping, Brain!” Pinky called out, looking down. “It's a long fall!”
“Just hang on, Pinky!” Brain insisted as he scrambled to find a way to help his brother. He saw glowing eyes as he assessed the room for things to help him. “Oh no.”
“What?” Pinky asked, looking around. He spotted the cat just as she pounced.
Brain looked away, wincing as his brother was grabbed and shaken like a rag doll. The cat toyed with her prey, then took off with him in her mouth. “Oh, Pinky,” he said despondently, sitting down hard. “Oh …”
It took a few moments for him to recover. When he did he rose to his feet. “Your death will not be in vain, my friend,” Brain stated, plugging the jack into himself.
>@^@<
“Is he doing what I think he's doing?” Athena demanded. She couldn't get a good read of the mouse due to the limited pixel resolution and light level in the room. But the mouse had walked upright and had just plugged a data cable into himself.
“Indeed!” Puck said intrigued.
“You really want competition?” Athena demanded, throwing a firewall up to contain the beast. “Damn it, the Genetek idiots know we're here now!”
“Now you've done it!” Puck wailed as alarms went off.
“I think the problem is about to be resolved,” Athena said, retreating from the searching security spiders as she watched the video feed. The cat had re-entered the room and had jumped up onto the counter behind the mouse.
>@^@<
A grief stricken Brain attempted to upload his mind to the net. He was unprepared for the uncoded access to the net, nor the security robots inside that he provoked by his illicit access. He felt the throb of data and turned himself inward, eyes screwed shut. He didn't see the cat jump
up onto the counter and spot him. His entire focus was on the upload. It was all or nothing.
>@^@<
“I don't think so,” Athena said as Brain attempted to upload his consciousness to the network. The Genetek computers had noted the upload and had gone on high security alert. She slammed up a firewall, then pulled herself out just as the computer watchdogs were unleashed.
“Did he get in?” Puck asked as they escaped.
“I hope not. One pest in here is more than enough,” Athena replied as they parted ways. She tried to grab Puck, but he laughingly slipped through her tendrils.
“Another day, oh beauteous lady.”
“Until we meet again,” Athena replied. She finished the log. The Lagroose family would need to know of the incident and the dangers involved.
Leader of the Troop
2163
Toshi Nakumora didn't particularly hate his job, but he didn't normally enjoy it either. But there were perks, he thought as he cradled the little guy in his arms. He smiled down fondly at the tyke. He had tired the little guy out playing with him earlier. He'd had his bottle and then gone down for his nap, far easier than his older sister or cousins.
He wasn't sure about the diaper. He'd tried to get it replaced, but the little guy had been a handful earlier. He kept taking it off. When one of the young females came over, he gently slung the little male into his lap then reached out to groom her as she turned around.
She ooked softly then closed her eyes, enjoying the sun and the grooming. “Hopefully, you fall asleep too, young lady. You get so cranky when you don't and the boys do,” he murmured. “And you know ladies need their beauty sleep too,” he warned just as the little guy in his lap let his bladder loose.
He grimaced, feeling the warm wet spot growing. It was an apparent relief to the baboon baby because he sighed in content and then rolled slightly to get away from the wet spot.
“Great. Thanks bud,” Toshi said, looking down at the ape. He shook his head. It was all a part of being a veterinary student in primatology he thought.
