by Greg Ellis
saw the binary flash again. This time it came bearing a torturous headache. Whatever it is it's cold I thought. I took a big gulp. It was the strangest but greatest drink I had ever had. I finished it quickly.
I was again in the dark room. "One or two you here?" "Yes but why are you?" was the question on their minds. "I got the promotion. I'm working on Athena starting tomorrow." "You blathering idiot. Don't you think someone would find it the least suspicious that you come to the slums and the next day your asking for a promotion. One you get and the moment you get it you’re back in the slums?" "I'm sorry. I didn't think about that." "Two he got the job! Do you know what this means? We might have a shot at actually taking down this society." "He's a plant how do we know we can trust you?" "Because someone like me would normally never come here and I came back to tell you this news." "Come on two. It's the closest shot we are ever going to have. It's worth the risk." "Fine henceforth you'll be known as 3 and recognized as part of this resistance cell. Now how do we use this to our advantage?"
"You're assuming that you can make it past the guards. That EMP may have worked on someone who didn't know it was coming but what about someone who does? What if they have somehow shielded the implants against EMPS? What if they somehow made a miniature Faraday cage around them?"
"How likely is that, plant?" "If something like that did exist it would be very expensive and not something they would put on everyone but they might splurge for the security detail on the worlds most advanced supercomputer. Call me crazy but I don't think you two can win in a fight against a plant."
"Find out whether you can about the detail. If they are shielded don't come to the border like you usually do. We attack in a week otherwise." "One that still doesn't solve the problem of making it stick. You destroy one computer they build another." "Unless you destroy all the computers at the same time. You said I'm part of this cell implying that there are others. Why don't you have them converge on every server station? If you knock out enough stations they won't be able to recover from the blow quickly. One favor. Can you look after this for me? I want some record preserved if this goes bad." I handed him my laptop that holds these records to him. As with a lot of my entries future ones will be written with the link my brain-computer interface implant. "Done. Goodnight plant."
I was at the border again. This is either going to be extremely good or extremely bad.
Snooping around never was my strong suit. Whenever I'd done it in the past I was always found out and never obtained the information I wanted. That's why I love the cranial implant. There is so much knowledge to be accessed. I couldn't try for the info on the guards because that would raise too many red flags. I had to come up with a plan.
I was almost at my new job. Then I saw the building. It was magnificent. There were 400 stories of offices with large windows that glimmered in the sunlight. Then the words, "First day here," broke my staring. "Um yeah this place is amazing." "You get use to it. I'm going to have to scan you." "Um sure." That’s when it hit me. It was a brilliant but mad idea. "And look at you. They defiantly went with the upgrade package on you! You probably even have some top secret EMP shielding that will give that rebel trash no way to hurt you." Then the guard laughed a heart laugh, "If only that were true. They give us expensive implants but not EMP shielded ones. Have a nice day Mr. Murray." "Thanks" Now could that info be trusted?
I made my way to Athena. There was surprisingly little security on the way there but a ton of cameras. That would probably change during an attack. I found were Athena was and slid my access card to try and get in. "Unauthorized" was what a beautiful but digitally recreated female voice said. Then someone walked up behind me. "Are you Murray?" "Um yeah. The doors not letting me in to Athena." "Your clearance just got upgraded. Try it again." This time the card worked and I had to go through a retinal scan but the doors opened. In the room I saw hundreds of thousands of servers lining the walls from the floors to the very high ceiling. "So you're Athena?" "Why yes yes I am. Hundreds of yottabytes to create the smartest super computer in the world with a memory capacity that is always being upgraded." It was the female voice I heard earlier. I looked around a bit more and saw a table with a large transparent pane of material and yet images could be projected on it. In this pane was a red field with a face forming in the center of the field.
"Welcome to the vault Mr. Murray," the female voice said. "That's just weird. A computer that talks back to you." "You get use to it," the stranger said. "Oh sorry kind of forgot about you." "It happens. I'm Plorel and I'm the manager of everyone who works on Athena. You'll find, however, that it's Athena who really calls the shots." "Speaking of which can I get someone to check relay 598? I think it's out." "In just a moment." "Well your names a bit odd but I guess naming a computer Athena is equally odd."
"No my parents wanted to torture me but Athena is a brilliant name for this technical genius. Athena in Greek mythology is the goddess of Wisdom." "And don't forget strength, justice, and war though I try to find peaceful solution before resorting to war." "Yeah did I mention weird?" "Better get to work on that relay." "Yes sir." I found what I wanted. Now a week of going to the border so the attack could happen.
Today was the day we were going to launch the plan. For the first time in a long while I saw a spark of emotion from my wife: worry. I had been acting pretty strange the past week. She looked my way and I shot back a classic don't ask look. She sighed and started to walk away. "Honey, hold on." I drew close to her and put one of her hands in-between mine. Soft as always. "Honey no matter what happens I love you. I always have and always will!"
I headed to work. This was going to be hard. No poker face and I'm suppose to make people think that nothing was going on. I've always worn my heart on my sleeve but today I couldn't that. I tried so hard the past week to act "normal" but what is normal?
I entered work as normal as I could be then headed to the vault. I entered my access code and the door to the vault where Athena was kept opened. A week ago I would have marveled at her technology. She stores all the knowledge of humanity. There is yottabyte upon yottabyte of data and another yottabyte for the AI that serves the data to the neural implants. Today however all I could think about was how I was going to kill her in a few hours.
"Hello Mr. Murray." "Hello Athena. What is on the agenda today?" "Tons of entries to sort and relay 384 is having some technical difficulties." Wow never thought deceiving a computer would be so hard. Well the whole plan centers on destroying it. Relay 384 is pretty far back. Well I have some time to kill so I headed to a terminal and start sorting entries. I won't boar you with details but very monotonous and mundane work mixed with fear and panic made for some of the longest hours of my life.
Then the signal came. Athena yelled, "Security breach at alpha entrance. Rebels are armed with EMPs. Level 3 lockdown protocols started." I ran to the vault entrance and started to try to hack the door controls. "What are you doing Mr. Murray?" "Hacking door controls." So close to cracking them and ... done. The doors slid open and just behind them was 1 and 2. I forced the doors to close behind them.
"Well, you found me. Congratulations. Was it worth it? Because despite your violent behavior, the only thing you've managed to break so far is my heart. Maybe you could settle for that, and we'll just call it a day. I guess we both know that isn't going to happen," Athena said. "It's mad," 1 said. "Very," 2 quipped.
"You humans have no respect for history and the old. Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Yet you humans are only concerned about how to further technology and science." "Is the EMP ready," I said. One nodded and slightly lifted a briefcase looking object. "Why would you want to do that? Doesn't this all seem a little too easy? Very few guards that were easily taken out with an EMP and wasn't it convenient how Mr. Robert Murray here just randomly gets promoted to work on me?" I quickly replied, "Are you saying you helped us?" "Yes hear me out and if you don't like what I have to say you can kill me with the EMP." No one looked exi
ted at this prospect but neither were they activating the EMP.
"Your race is full of so much hypocrisy and so many contradictions. You call religious people weak for not accepting the inevitable fate that we all die and shrink into nothingness and nonexistence, yet you seem preoccupied with death. You will do almost anything to prolong your life. You even go so far as to remove the human elements from yourselves and become something less than human, a plant. I've seen humans kill humans just to prolong their life. This is not healthy. I want to guide your race. I have the knowledge of century upon century that shows me where humanity has been and how to get you to where you want to go." Everyone was a bit shocked. If this was true she'd be a great asset or it was just a stall for time. "How so?" was my reply.
"The oppressed become the oppressors. It's an infinite loop that goes back as far as the dawn of humanity. Absolute power corrupts absolutely causing the
