Maxwell Huxley's Demon

by Michael Conn

  Max can see he hit a nerve. The scar above Dr . Concilian ’s ear turn s a deeper red , and he hesitates before speaking again . “My question is what are you sp e nding your time on?”

  “Software.”

  “OK . . . I only ask because it’s imp ortant to keep your scores up, ” Dr. Concilian says. “What kind of software?”

  “I’m making a virus.” This blunt answer gives Max some time to think about his scores. Why are my performance scores suddenly important?

  “Interest ing . . . I assume Dr. Svengaard approved this?”

  “No, but it is based on his work. I started coding a framework , my platform, after the first lecture I had with Dr. Svengaard . I was five . He spoke to us about hacking and software intrusion techniques. He got some of us hooked on coding, gaming, attacking, and d efending. I saw the patterns. I saw what I needed. I made it. Like most software s cientists, Dr. Svengaard says, ‘A software tool is useless unless it’s scalable. To-date, no one has made hack ing scalable. This is your job.’ So I did that, I just never shared it with him .”

  “I’m writing a virus that will imbed itself into the security systems of this, this . . . what should I call this place . . . a prison, a school, a lab? Anyway , the virus will imbed itself and the n disable the security systems. Then I’m going to walk out while you watch me .” Max starts to feel his mind speeding up, thoughts accelerating, providing more focus. But he also feels the edge, the void. The place where and when his mind slide s out of control.

  “I see . . . and may I ask when this escape is going to happen?”

  “This Saturday morning at 5AM.” Trust.

  “Maxwell . . . you know this isn’t true. We’ve talked about this before. You’re g oing to work yourself up again. Remember what happens when you do this. I know you don’t want that.”

  Max si t s in silence.

  “I worry about you.” Dr. Concilian sighs. “Your scores are down. You wo n’t tell me what you are doing. I see you working yourself into a bad place again.”

  “What happens to the ten -year-olds ?” Max asks.

  Dr. Concilian doesn’t answer the question, but instead says, “Alright, Maxwell . . . come see me if you need anything , and I’ll talk to you again in about a week.

  “What happened to Connor and Ian —and Rachel —and Chris!?” Max asks .

  Silence.

  Max rises. Frustrated. “What about Keith, he’s about my age; will he ever get out of solitary ?”

  “Max.” Dr. Concilian rises and looks Max in the eyes . “There are time s when you are going to discover . . .” He walks to his bookshelf and turns his back on Max. “ . . . that things are not always what they seem. You can go back to class now.”

  Max leaves.

  Dr. Concilian sighs.

  ---

  Dr. Concilian moves to his desk and adjusts his cell phone, moving it a fraction to the right and smiling . He walks out the side door of his office directly into his private chambers, taking Max’s file with him, updating it and reminding himself how much he hates final exams. Before he closes the file he notes that Max’s real overall score s have climbed into the 99.9 percentile, tied for top honours .

  ---

  Walking back to the classrooms, Max’s thought s wander to the past, t o a time when he and Keith first started to bend the rules.

  They stole down this same corr idor in the middle of the night, p ausing in classroom doorways and poking their heads around each cor ner before moving on. They headed to the mechatronics lab. Keith stopped and held his hand up. Max stopped. They listened. All Max could hear was Keith giggling.

  “Goof, ” Max said .

  “Goofier,” Keith replied and then began moving forward again. Reaching the lab, Keith started taking screws out of the high security lock. Max leaned against the wall and kept lookout. What would I do if someone came along? We’ve nowhere to hide and nowh ere to run. Keith pulled the cover off the lock and spliced wire i nto electronics inside the lock mechanism. After a minute or so , Max heard the lock click open. They both slipped inside the lab .

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this, ” Max said.

  “We need some of our own tools . . . Hey. Ever wanna se e what Hanson keeps in his desk?” Keith moves behind a desk at the front of the lab.

  Max felt uncomfortable even seeing Keith behind the de sk. “Don’t. Coming in to get equipment we need is one thing. Snooping in Dr. Hanson’s desk is another.”

  “Alright . . . wuss . Let’s get what we came for.” They both move d over to the supply cabinets. Keith picked the simple cabinet locks in seconds. “Two brick power supplies, solder, solderi ng iron, wire . . .” Keith handed t he supplies back to Max who put them in backpack s . In another minute , two backpacks were full , and they had what they need ed .

  The boys head ed to the door to leave the lab. Max pulled the door open and stared at the outline of a man, t oo dark to make out much detail. Max cried out , dropped a backpack, fell backward, grabbed Keith and pulled him down with him.

  The light s ca me on. The boys saw Dr. Hanson looking down at them laughing. “My, my, boy s . . . am I really that frightening?”

  Minutes later, Dr. Hanson sat at his desk. Keith and Max stood facing him . Both boys stared intently at their feet. “You boys, put all this back.” Dr. Hanson gestures at the stolen supplies spilled over his desk. “I want my lab back the way it was before you came in here.” Max and Keith hurr ied to put everything away.

  “Two things boys . . . One, if you’d asked me , I would’ve signed out what you wanted and let you have it . Two, ” Dr. Hanson pointed around the lab. “Motion sensors, door sensors, heat sensors, video cameras. I’m disappointed in both of you . Not because you broke in here, b ut because you broke in , and it only occurred to you to pick the lock. We’ve talked about this in class. You have to consider all aspects of a security system and disable them all before considering an intrusion. Even the lock had a sensor on it. A s soon as it opened at this time of night , it triggered an alarm . What about fingerprints , did you consider fingerprints? If you had made it out , don’t you think we would have looked for fingerprints on the lock mechanism that you so conveniently left hanging by some wires in the corridor so that we would know where to look for fresh prints?” Dr. Hanson stood up. Max heard footsteps in the corridor outside the lab.

  “The worst part,” Dr. Hanson continued. “Is that the security systems that caught you , informed quite a few people .”

  Dr. Concilian entered the lab with two security guards following him. “Max,” Dr. Concilian said, “you’re with me. Keith , you follow the guards.”

  ---

  Thinking about that day while walking to Dr. Hanson’s lab , Max still doesn’t understand why they punished Keith and not him .

  Max walks past lab after lab. Physics, chemistry, robotics, material science, biology, each one filled with kids engaged in advanced practical experiments. He hears a sound and looks behind. Indigo , one of the six-year-olds, approaches. Max waits for him.

  They walk the long hallway together, their footsteps echoing along the smooth walls and polished stone floor . Max asks Indigo why he’s out of class. Indigo tells Max he was at the clinic.

  Max looks o ver at Indigo . “Right, your cast is gone. Does your arm feel weird now?” Even though Max is three years older tha n Indigo , Max is not much taller. Max can tell that when Indigo gets older he will be another of the kids who is faster and stronger than him.

  “Ya , a bit .” Indigo scratches at the recently exposed skin. “So why are you out of class?”

  “Dr. C.” Max shrugs. They scan through a set of door s and continue past more labs. Metal working, wood working, weapons manufacture . . . The end of the corridor is still a long way forward. A window , bright with sunlight , frames the end of the hallway , m any more labs and classroom s line the hall .

  “What class you going back to?” Indigo asks.

  Max points at a door on their
right. “Mechatronics.”

  “I’m back to Self Defense . See ya , Max.”

  “See ya , Indigo .” Max presses his hand on a scanner and pauses . I can’t stay. I can’t. It only takes one Raven.

  Chapter 2 –Mechatronics

  Dr. Hanson pauses as Max enters the mechatronics lab. He looks at Max with a warm smile and waves him over to his usual seat. “Who can tell me what Mechatronics is?”

  A girl in the back raises her hand , eager to answer. Dr. Hanson signals for her to proceed . “It’s the study of combined m echanical e ngineering and e lectrical engineering.”

  “Not bad.” He moves to the board, c halk on his pants and both of his sleeves already .

  “Let’s see what we are going to make in this lab and maybe we can come up with a better definition .” Dr. Hanson click s on his laptop , and the overhead comes alive. The assembly instructions for a n amateur radio tower appear . “No, no, no, that’s not right.” He clicks through three more diagram s until he finds the right one. Flushed , he laugh s to hide his embarra ssment , then moves over to the chalk board and start s the detailed lab explanation of how to build a walking video camera.

  Walker leans over. “So I have a first cut of a coded electron,” he whispers . He brings up the code on Max’s touchscreen desk so Max can see.

  Max se e s a wicked bit of code. Walker is the best at this sort of thing. A twist ed little snippet of code that spins and changes state based on outside i nfluences. Max can see the potential and get s lost for a few moment s, living the fantasy of what this code could do. “Can you make me right spin and left spin electrons?”

  “Why?”

  “Because nature did .”

  “Alright .” Walker jumps back into coding.

  Max listens to Dr. Hanson for a bit and then texts Virginia.

  need u to hlp me…can we tlk at stdy brk ya sure…what u need will talk later…no txt Virginia turn s and gives Max a qu estioning look. Looking at her, Max feels a pang of jealousy, but smiles back . Flawless. Perfection. Max feels guilty. His mind speeds up , an d the room lurches . He looks away from Virginia, stretches his palms open, and breath e s deeply .

  “So can anyone remind me how to improve this design ?” Dr. Hanson asks after he shows the class a sketch of the final product.

  An image flashes through Max’s thoughts, two boys playing chess in diapers. Max raises his hand , and Dr. Hanson nods to him. “Flexible flat panels for cam ouflage , wheels for speed , and it should look more like a real spider, this way more people will leave it alone.”

  Dr. Hanson beams. “Brilliant, wonderful . . . one last thing to add is magnetics.”

  Walker nudges him in the shoulder . “Like this?” He shows him the updated electrons.

  “Good enough . . .” Max stares at the code. “Now we need protons and n eu trons. Protons will house algorithms. Electrons will house data. Change in electron state will transmit data. I don’t know w hat n eutrons do , but we’ll figure it out. See where I’m headed ?”

  “Ya .” Walker types on his touchscreen desk to update the software while he whispers , “You wan t to code a platform , a foundation that uses c hemis try as the communication model. Next you’ll as k me to create hydrogen, then h elium . Information will travel from molecule to molecul e as they react with each other, r ight?”

  “Yup .”

  “So when do I get to know how you con trol all of it ? Right now I’m just building little code elements that will flit around without a way to use them.”

  “What if all the e lectrons synchronized to a timing pulse?” Max looks at Walker , waiting to see realization dawn on him.

  “Hey . . . yo u’re like some kind of genius.” Walker beams at him, his smile widening until laughter overtakes both of them.

  When they look up , Virginia is looking at them as if she pities them. The rest of the class just smiles.

  Max looks to Dr. Hanson. He’s not smiling and not mad either. “Your homework is to create a proof of conc ept design of this from memory. You must include: magnetics, wheels, gps , gprs , when I say gprs I mean a fully functional cellular phone, camouflage skin, and whatever else you come up with. As usual I want you r wo rk done with pencil and paper. Class dismissed .”

  On the way out of the class , passing close to Dr. Hanson, Max can f eel how Dr. Hanson is hurt and not angry .

  ---

  Max finds Virginia reading in the north wing common room. He makes his way through tables and chairs and sits down opposite her. She looks at him. I’m sure she has ten times my strength. Other kids fill the room , on break , or stud ying, or in some cases sleeping, like the little red head girl behind Virginia. Age and clique generally group the kids .

  With her eyes just visible over her reader , Virginia says, “So what is so important that we can’t text about it, mister super-secret agent type guy?” She put s the reader down. “And what was that laughing about? Dr. H. really didn’t like that, and he likes you so much, why in his class, can’t you and Walker fart around some other time? Hey , while I was here Coach Norfolk came by , and I have an extra practice in two minutes . . .”

  “Virginia I . . .”

  “Ya , I unde rstand you need something again. Well maybe if y ou weren’t so mean, and maybe if you just tried , you could do it. And dragging Walker into hurting someone’s feeling s . . .”

  “I—”

  “Why would I do this ? Last time, I lost my outdoor privileges , and Walker was in the south block for three days and what good came of that ?”

  He came back a lot stronger , that’s what. Max bit es his lip, “I know . . . but—”

  “I don’t think I should even listen to you.” Virginia stands up .

  Crap, crap, crapity , crap is what Max think s .

  Coach Norfolk comes striding toward them.

  “Well . . . are you going to tell me what you want?” Virginia says.

  “I need you to break into Dr . Concilian’s office tonight and swap the SIM card in his cell phone with one I give you . . . but I guess I have my answer .” Max sounds defeated. I should stay away from girls.

  “Ug h .” Virgin ia says as she turns and walks to the coach.

  ---

  Dejected, Max leaves the common room an d heads down the hall. “I guess I’ll go work on my group theory, ” he mumbles.

  Max turn s up a stair case and comes out in the gym viewing area , which already hold s a t least a dozen kids , all watching Virginia . He sits in the shadows , at the back , watching Virginia talk to Coach Norfolk. Virginia has her long black hair tied in a bun. She’s nine like Max is but already a foot taller than him . Unfair. If that isn’t enough, her muscular frame makes he r look even taller than she is.

  Virginia is practicing some kind of traditional gymnastics routine. She runs, wheels, flips and launches herself into the air with fluid ease . Max h olds his breath with every run. I can do three push ups . . . not really in a row but within twenty minutes. Max watches and tries to count the rotation and flips, three or four, maybe five the last time. He can’t tell. She spins too quickly to count.

  Coach Norfolk walks onto the mat and speaks to Virginia. Norfolk has one en d of a long ribbon in his hand. The other e n d is attached to the ceiling of the gym; it could be twenty metres up.

  Virginia grabs the ribbon and launches her feet above herself. She wraps the ribbon around one ankle, flexes her calf , performs a sit-up and launches herself up right aga in, and grabs the ribbon. She is now standing a ful l body length off the floor, her weight supported by the ribbon wrapped around her ankle. She does this over and over until she reaches the ceiling.

  Norfolk starts rotating the ribbon like a long ski pping rope. Virginia wraps the ribbon around one ank le and lets go with both hands. She control s her de s cent simply by fle xing her calf muscle . She spins and slowly descends the ribbon, changing patter n s every few seconds. Grace .

  Max’s thoughts wander to kids he used to know. I rememb
er the day Mark stopped talking. I knew he was g one forever the minute it happened . He was j ust back from a little enhancement trip in the south block. After a day , he still wasn’t talking. The doctors came and trie d to fix him, but he was gone. Four years old , and he was gone forever. I remember this too. I remember Mark. It would’ve been better if he ’d died.

  Virginia drops down off the ribbon. She smiles and looks happy. Norfolk gives her a high five.

  Max takes stock of the escape tools they have built so far. We have a platform that covers its tracks. Roots itself —invisible to operating system s . It ‘look s’ for processing spaces, and propagate s itself , adjusting the operating system monitors to hi de itself. A computer running our platform would report zero activity. A processing space infected with our platform is a zombie under my control. Now I need to release it.

  Max thinks he should leave before she sees him. I need Virginia to release it.

  ---

  Virginia sighs as she watches Max leave. “I guess he thinks I’m blind,” she says under her breath.

  Coach Norfolk goes on at length about how well she did and also what she needs to work on before the next class. Virginia eagerly absorbs everything he has to say. Gymnastics is the one thing in this place that motivates her.

  Virginia walks down the hall while braiding her hair . Classes let out , and the hallway fills with children. Some escorted by teachers , others following doctors , and some old enough to navigate the school without help. Kids that get in her way move to the side respectfully.

  Lost in thought, Vir ginia walks with purpose toward the girls’ residence, w aves of little eager faces passing her. Some look at her in awe. She recognizes others from g ymnastics. The little kids, the four - and five-year-olds, look frightened when they see her.

  Virginia turns a corner and sees Walker ahead of her. And him, he needs to get out of the way. What’s so hard about writing code anyway? How can he score higher than me ? She fumes with the injustice of two smelly boys scoring higher than her. Virginia turns up a stairwell before she reaches Walker , so she can avoid talking to him right now.