by Tony Corden
It took just under fifteen minutes to reach first container, ‘73–94311– 32SI98O1’. Now the difficult part: she had to check inside the box without releasing what was inside and without alerting the dragons. It wasn't enough to check if it was Akia Prime, Leah needed to identify the entity so she could refine her search. Each of the boxes had a locked door with two distinct keyholes and a bio-pad. Also, there was a small slot with a combination lock. This represented a randomised security sampling protocol that had been included to ensure that archived material remained stable and inactive. From her bag, Leah pulled out a small hand drill with a diamond bit, and she began to drill through the locked slot. It was safest to access the highly secure data storage through the Security's pre-installed and insulated sampling port.
Three cyber-minutes had elapsed when Leah felt the drill begin to break through the barrier. She slowed the drill speed and carefully finished the hole. After removing the drill, she inserted a fibre optic cable attached to a small screen and looked inside. Inside the box was an archived world. She could see a globe with several continents and a massive storm system. Leah removed the cable and plugged the hole with a small piece of a kneadable epoxy. Akia had insisted there was no need to release any of the other AI unless she knew what, and why, they had been archived.
Leah refined her search by removing all boxes and crates with a ‘73–94###–’ label. This left her with 436 to check. Leah again noted the closest storage container with a low detection probability, and after checking the position of the dragons, she set off at a run. Two boxes later and she had removed all boxes and cages with either a ‘73–91###–’ or a ‘73–97###–’ label and her target set was down to ninety-five items. The second box had contained a space-themed world and the third was an AI, but from what Leah could tell it was one of the first ones ever programmed. It must have been almost fifty years old. She knew this because Akia had coded the fibre optic instrument to display the sample in a manner Leah would recognise. The figure in the box, looked to Leah, to be bent with age and it looked in need of life support.
Leah again checked the position of the dragons and was about to set off for the next marked storage area, a cage, when there was a loud roar followed by two rumbling growls as the other dragons responded. One or more of the disabled and destroyed guardians had been noticed. As a result, the dragons increased both the speed of their flight and the intensity of their scrutiny. Leah was sure that anyone looking into the beam that was now emitting from their eyes would be blinded. The more disturbing effect, from Leah's perspective, was the effect the roar had on the other guardians. The previously normal-sized rats grew to the size of cats. The spiders became as round as dinner plates. The cockroaches were now too large be stepped on. Each slime had expanded to cover the entire width of a walkway. The goblins and orcs grew several feet in height and armour appeared on their bodies. And the wolves began to hunt in packs.
She quickly recalculated her intended route to the next objective and had to choose a different target because at the dragons’ new speed, she would never have made the original choice. Her new target was further away, but if she moved quickly, she could stay behind one of the AI for most of the way. Leah was two-thirds of the way to the cage and had just ascended a twenty-metre vertical ladder when she detected an orc less than five metres from her and rushing in her direction.
Akia and Gèng had arranged for each expected cyber-attack to appear as a specific attacking sword stroke. Leah had practised not only the correct defence for each attack but suitable counter attacks. The speed of the orc's attack was beyond anything she'd yet experienced, except for when she faced Fiore, and even then she thought the orc was probably quicker, but so was she. The battle lasted less than thirty seconds from Leah's perspective, which worked out to be just over half-a-second in real-time. Either way, it was long enough for Leah to kill the orc and for a rat to leap from behind the orc and bite her on her left hand.
Leah killed the rat with a sweep of her sword and looked at her hand just as the tail of a worm slid into one of the puncture wounds. The rat had infected her. She checked around for other attackers before reaching into her bag and removing a vial of blue liquid. The worm was designed to make its way through her system, clogging her processing and slowing her down until it finally reached the heart. Then it could not only identify her but also bring her to a standstill. She needed to kill it, and quickly.
She could feel it moving under the skin on the inside part of her forearm. She turned that part of her arm to face upward and plunged her knife deep into the place where she thought the front of the worm was—the pain was bearable, though only just. Leah pulled the knife from her arm and just before the blood obscured her view she could see the worm, its head neatly severed from the tail but already beginning to regenerate, transforming her flesh into a new body for itself. She took a deep breath and poured the potion onto the open wound. The liquid reacted with her blood. She felt a flash of heat as the reaction progressed and then an excruciating pain as the potion turned her blood solid. The reaction continued along her vein in both directions destroying not only her blood vessels but also the surrounding tissue including both her radial and her medial nerves. It also trapped the worm within an isolated subsystem and give it no way to escape or cause further damage. She could still bend her arm, but she'd lost all feeling in her hand. She was unable to use either her thumb or her first two fingers, and she’d lost most of its strength.
She was behind schedule, and a quick look confirmed the area she was in would soon be swept by a dragon's gaze. Ignoring the pain, she changed her decision tree by adding the condition that the best path was one which had no wolves on it—there was no way she could use the bow effectively without the full use of her hand. A quick calculation and she headed for a new target, a cage; this was now the most accessible from her current position. When she arrived at the cage, she knelt and very carefully took the fibre optic device from her bag and inserted it between a pair of bars. The cage's surface was not see-through but because the entity inside required some form of constant input, it was easier for her to identify but also easier for her to be noticed. Inside was an androgynous figure lying on a bed. Leah focussed on the uniform and recognised it as belonging to an AI from International Security Oversight.
This wasn't Akia, but the label ‘73–98513–S45O221I175’ reduced the target set to two. One, a cage, was much closer and more central, but the timing between dragon flights was less. The second, a box, was over three hundred metres lower than where Leah was standing and was near the outer edge. What decided it for Leah was the two packs of wolves between her and the closer cage. She checked the time again. She'd been in the cyberverse for six-and-a-half real-minutes. She grabbed her sword, and finding a suitable route, she scrambled down a ladder and hurried toward the furthest box.
Altogether it took Leah just under an hour, according to her subjective temporal awareness, to reach the box. When she arrived, she experienced some difficulty using the drill because of her arm, but eventually succeeded in breaking through the locked slot. Carefully she inserted the fibre optic cable. Sighing with relief, she identified Akia Prime. The AI was being held in cyber-stasis. Leah removed the fibre optic cable. Then, reaching into her bag, she removed a piece of lamp cord and inserted one end through the hole. Taking the drill, she exchanged the bit for one with half its diameter, and although her injured hand hampered her movements, she finally succeeded in drilling two smaller holes through the combination tumbler—one in the centre and the other about half-way between the centre and the outer circumference. Leah stripped the end of the lamp-cord which was still outside the box and inserted one wire into each of the smaller tumbler holes. She then turned the tumbler clockwise.
It had moved through 130 degrees when there was the sound of a spark inside the tumbler and a moan from inside the cage. Moving close to the larger hole she had drilled in the lock, she whispered, "Akia, it's Leah, are you ready to get out of he
re?"
There was silence for a moment and then she heard Akia Prime say, "I can't move, I don't have access to a sustainable power source."
"That's taken care of. You should be able to use that small burst of energy to move close to the slot. I'll open it and give you a ring and a vial of red potion. The ring will sync your memory, and the potion will delete any redundant information that is already stored on your clone. The potion will then compress the rest of your code so I can get you out of here."
Without waiting for an answer, Leah took a tube filled with clear gel and squirted as much as she could into the holes that she'd drilled in the combination lock. The gel was one of Reed's programs—it found and rewrote the permission files. In less than a minute Leah heard a click, and the slot dropped open. She passed the ring and potion through and then started working on the main locks. The locks that required keys she picked with ease, but the bio-pad revealed no data she could use. Akia had planned for this eventuality and Leah reached inside her bag and withdrew a small envelope which contained a glove with bio-data belonging to the Director of International Security. It would open the door, but it would also be flagged within moments. Akia expected that Leah would have less than twenty seconds real-time before the Vault initiated a lock-down. That was only eighteen minutes from her current perspective. She measured the route back to the entry ledge in her mind, and it would be touch and go. If they responded in eighteen seconds, she'd be caught. If it took twenty-two or more seconds, then she might make it.
She checked, and Akia Prime was ready. The potion had reduced her size to that of a four-year-old. Leah took a harness from her backpack and slipped it over her shoulders; with it, she would be able to carry Akia Prime. Leah then placed the backpack on her front. Taking some deep breaths, she used the bio-data, opened the door, and after helping a sluggish Akia Prime into the harness, headed for the exit. She'd only moved fifty or so metres when another dragon roar rang out in the Vault. They had found more evidence of an incursion and had increased security again. With the returning roars of the other dragons, all three again increased their speed along with the intensity of their gazes. The previously cat-sized rats grew to the size of wolves, the spiders became as round as large serving trays, the back of the cockroaches came to mid-shin while each slime began to multiply. The number of goblins and orcs doubled, as did the number of wolf-packs. Leah would never make it.
She stopped, and ignoring suggestions from Akia Prime, she surveyed the Vault looking for a possible hiding place or another exit. She'd just about given up when one section of the Vault attracted her attention. Below her, and maybe a five minute run toward the centre of the Vault was a ladder that descended from a walkway but went nowhere. Nothing was below it, no box, no cage, no walkway. It simply hung in space. Leah hadn't noticed it before because she'd been focussed on her targets, the boxes and cages. With nowhere else to go, Leah headed for the anomaly.
Leah’s arm ached, and Akia was heavy. Leah was getting tired, and even in the cyberverse she could feel her headache. Fortunately, she only had one rat, three spiders and a few cockroaches to deal with. Without pausing Leah began to move down the ladder that went nowhere as far as she could tell. Moving down with Akia on her back was a struggle. Every second step, she had to slide her left arm in between the rungs and use her elbow as a hook to hold on while she shifted her right hand. When she finally reached what she thought was the last rung she was surprised when her feet found another one even lower down. Even though she couldn’t see it, she continued moving down without hesitation. The Vault faded from sight.
Again she peered down. This time she could see the ladder, but once again it disappeared after another eighty metres. By the time she'd reached where it faded from view she was really struggling. Pain radiated from each shoulder and then down both sides of her spine. Her lower back was spasming every time she twisted her body and used her elbow to grip the ladder. Her head was pounding. Again she could feel more rungs lower down. Biting her lip, with tears forming in the corners of her eyes, she continued down.
As the ladder above her faded from sight, she looked down. She’d arrived in an area that was clearly part of the Vault, but its design was very different. It was all on a single level and instead of walkways, everything was connected via a floor. Leah stepped onto the floor and looked around. She could see twenty familiar boxes, though each was at least three times as large as those in the upper vault. These were arranged in a circle around a large hole in the middle of the floor. Seventeen of the boxes had their doors open. They were dark, empty and reminded her of a picture she'd seen once of a crypt. The other three were not only locked, but each was connected to the hole by a fifty-centimetre diameter conduit. Leah could sense packets of data moving back and forth through the conduit. Wanting to escape, she walked as fast as she could toward the hole in the floor and looked over the edge. It wasn’t so much a hole as the start of a tunnel. It dropped only five metres before making a right bend and disappearing out of sight. She was certain that the tunnel led out of the Vault and that would give her access to the ‘Internet’ or even the multiverse network.
She took one last look around the room and then stopped. She stepped back from the tunnel opening and carefully checked the three labels, labels she'd ignored until that last glance. They were ‘55–100001–NKMOODMAM’, ‘63–100002–WARNBOLRSTH’, and ‘68–100003–BDOWAAEALE’. The one that had caught her attention was 55–100001–NKMOODMAM. She removed her backpack and then Akia Prime. Akia Prime was still not able to move or stand on her own. Leah changed the bit on the drill back to the larger one then very carefully made a hole in the familiar small sampling slot. She inserted the fibre optic cable in the hole and looked into the box.
Inside was fitted out like a small apartment. On one wall was an enormous bookcase and sitting on a sofa, quietly reading a book with her feet tucked under her, was Merideth Kodoman. Leah slowly withdrew the fibre optic device and sealed the hole. She checked the locks on the box and then rechecked every detail, fixing it in her memory. She then did the same for the other two boxes. Both held men whose features she studied as carefully as she had for any exam and then without saying a word, she lifted Akia onto her back and dropped into the tunnel.
Leah moved down the tunnel in small steps, each moving her several hundred metres. When she could see the end she stopped before reaching it and moved forward more carefully. There was an empty room with twenty doors. All of the doors were closed but the three conduits dipped under the floor and ran under three of the doors. The doors with conduits had keypads and handles. She was certain that there would be tight security on the other side of those doors so she approached one of the unused doors. She wasn't able to open it, but she was able to lift the security grate which covered the empty conduit port.
Leah brought Akia Prime's harness around to her front and lay the still unenergised AI on the floor of the tunnel. She pushed Akia Prime ahead of her as she slowly manoeuvred under the unused door. Beyond the door was a large busy room with AI constantly moving between rooms. Many of the doors had guards, and it was clear you needed secure identification to enter the room, but the exit was unguarded. Leah could see that each of the three conduits entered this room before heading in different directions. She checked the label on each of the three doors, but they were in code. No one seemed to be looking in her direction, so she quickly pushed open the grate, grabbed Akia Prime and stepped through the exit. A quick check showed she was in the main transfer hub of the Virtual Multiverse Network. Turning around, she looked at the label of where she'd exited, and saw ‘SecureLAN: World Bank’.
Holding Akia Prime tightly, she stepped back through the various levels until she arrived at the door labelled 'The Stork Tower'. It opened and then she remembered nothing for some time.
Leah opened her eyes to see the cover of her Pod opening. From the speakers above her head Gèng said, "Leah, you've been in NREM3 sleep for two hours and forty-seven minutes. Your body
needs food. I contacted John, and he arranged for someone to prepare your lunch."
Leah slowly sat up and got out of the Pod. She blinked a few times, then automatically headed to the shower. As she stood under the warm water her usual state of awareness returned and she asked, "Is Akia OK?"
From the Pod, she heard Gèng say, "Yes, Akia’s clone and prime are reintegrated. She wanted to thank you personally but Security’s reaction to her retrieval suggested the best course was for her to initiate a hibernation protocol to minimise her digital presence as much as possible. She has entered sleep mode until I wake her."
"What reaction?"
"International Security initiated a system-wide security screening of all data transmitted via public networks. Transmission speeds dropped by six percent, and the outcry prompted the International Virtual Security Authority to issue a Public Security Advice which said they had indications that a cyber-terrorist had released a malicious AI into the system with an intent to disrupt or destroy certain public networks. Free Speech and Personal Rights groups are demanding an the end to the screening. Most of the Supremacy groups are demanding sanctions against whoever it is they are superior to. Nationalist groups are blaming the Unification groups, and vice versa. The result is that everyone is watching everyone."
