by AJ Vega
******
Haylek stared at his terminal, ignoring the pain in his head caused by the unquenched Elation thirst. He let the world around him disappear and the virtual world engulf him as he surfed the waves of the Ocean.
Earlier, he had latched onto the carrier wave emanating from the moon that fed the heartbeat signal to Chin’s worm programs. With help from the other hackers on the Sea Wolf, he managed to break past the moon’s firewall and enter its core data matrix.
Inside the core, he could see a complex web of corridors, each carrying packets of data relays going to and from the Ocean. These relays communicated with Chin’s worm program, waiting for the final program instructions that would cause massive chaos across all the stellar nations—or at least, that’s what they thought it would do.
They were not exactly sure what the worm actually did. However, the fact that the target of the worm appeared to be the core environmental systems of all the stellar nations meant it would be bad.
As he scanned across the core matrix, Haylek noticed one corridor that looked out of place. It branched out of the core’s nucleus in a straight line, then dead-ended before connecting to anything else. It reminded him of something he’d seen before—could it be?
Haylek’s probe was orbiting the outskirts of the core, trying to avoid detection by the security sentries. In order to get into that lone corridor, he would need to get past the sentries and enter the nucleus itself, then jump into the corridor from there. It would not be easy.
If the sentries caught him, his probe would be destroyed and his terminal signature stored in the defense grid. Once that happened, the outer defenses would immediately identify him, stopping his probe from ever re-entering the core from this terminal.
Haylek leaned back and winced as his head hit the cabin wall, amplifying the Elation headache. He heard a chuckle from the only marine left in the transport.
“Bet ya wish you had a desk, eh?” he said.
Haylek looked at him. Although he wore the same uniform as the other marines, he was shorter and thinner than the others, with no rifle and only a pistol on his belt.
“You have one?” Haylek asked.
He shook his head. “Sorry, can’t help you there. What are you trying to do anyways?”
Once again, Haylek was put in the position of trying to translate terminology and technical concepts into something a non-hacker could understand; it did not help that he was struggling with the effects of Elation withdrawal. Impatiently, he threw up his hands and gave up on the idea of dumbing it down.
“I’ve managed to insert a probe into the moon’s core data matrix. I’m hiding inside a busy data corridor while I try to figure out how to insert myself into the nucleus so that I can surf to a lone corridor that I think leads to Chorus’ null zone prison so I can free her.”
The marine looked at him then nodded slowly.
“If you free her, do you think we’ll be able to get out of here?”
“I don’t know,” he said, wishing the marine would quit asking him questions. “Maybe… if she can kill Chin, I guess.”
“Her brother right?” the marine said, as he walked over to Haylek. “What’s stopping you from getting to her again?”
Haylek pointed at his terminal. “I have to get past those security triggers close to the nucleus. If I touch any of them, the entire matrix rotates its encryption algorithm and I’m stuck for hours trying to decipher it.
“And even if I get past the triggers, I have to deal with those security sentries that are much closer. I could neutralize them, kill a couple of them at a time, but it might alert the rest of the security infrastructure and I’d have a bunch of them on top of me. I think I can get past the triggers, but those sentries …”
They both stared at the terminal. Haylek zoomed out to show the grandness and complexity of the maze. Corridors were shown as hollow green tubes. Blinking white dots indicated the location of the triggers. Red diamonds represented the sentries.
“Those triggers… Are they like landmines?” the marine asked.
Haylek thought it over—it was a good analogy.
“Yes, exactly,” Haylek said, surprised that the marine understood. “And the sentries are like guards.”
They both stared at the terminal for a moment. The marine pointed at another set of symbols floating through the corridors, shown as green X’s.
“What are those?” he asked.
“Intrusion agents. They look for abnormal data signatures. If they see anything that they don’t recognize as part of the system, it sends the sentries to deal with it. I can fool the agents pretty easily though.”
“Like human antibodies?” the marine asked.
Haylek nodded. “Yeah… exactly.”
“Can the agents kill your probe?”
“Well, no,” Haylek said, “but they’re not the problem—”
“Yeah,” the marine interrupted, “but you can kill the agents, right?”
“Yeah, ” Haylek said, trying to understand where he was going with this.
“Can you disguise your probe as one?” the marine asked.
Haylek looked at the marine, then turned to look at the hologram. He wanted to say it was a stupid idea from someone who did not know a thing about hacking—but the more he thought about it, he could not find a reason to dismiss it.
“I thought about disguising my probe as a sentry program… but they’re too complex and I did not have enough data bits in my probe to match their size.”
He brought up a diagram of his probe and another of the intrusion agents. He expected the intrusion agents to have a larger footprint, due to the size of the data library it would need carry to identify foreign programs. However, they appeared to only relay their observations to the nucleus core, which made them far less complex than he thought.
“I do have enough data bits in my probe to make it look like an intrusion agent, though.”
At that moment, the marine stood up, listening to his earpiece. His expression seemed to darken.
“I have to go,” he said as he moved to the back of the transport.
“What’s going on?” Haylek asked.
“I have to go help the other transport move the bomb.”
“Bomb?” Haylek asked.
“Yeah,” the marine said, “I’m a bomb tech—I have to go. Good luck there.”
The marine turned and disappeared. Although Haylek was now alone in the transport, he took comfort in knowing that he was not alone in the virtual world.
He returned his attention to the terminal, relaying his idea to Freeze and The Doc. With their help, they began modifying the appearance of his probe to resemble an intrusion agent. They were nearly complete with it, when Freeze sent him a message.
“Waverider, where’s the Elation?”
Haylek looked at the text, a sense of despair creeping in. He had wondered how they were coping—apparently not well.
“There is no Elation, Freeze. Try and ignore the withdrawal; we have to get this done.”
They continued to work for a moment longer until he received another unexpected message from Freeze.
“We gotta go, Waverider. They’re evacuating the ship.”
Haylek felt a moment of dread. If they abandoned the ship, what would happen with Chorus’ conduit?
“What’s wrong with the ship? What’s going on?” Haylek asked.
“It’s going to blow up or something. You’ll have to finish this on your own. I’m sorry. Good luck.”
With that last communication, now Haylek really was completely alone and on his own. He continued disguising the probe until he exhausted his data bits. The diagram now showed a side-by-side comparison of a real intrusion agent and his disguised probe. As far as he could tell, they looked identical.
It would have to do.
Haylek closed his eyes for a second, preparing himself mentally for the task at hand. Chorus was depending on hi
m, maybe even the whole human race. Until now, he had not realized the magnitude of what was riding on his shoulders. He could not afford to get nervous now, it was time to get to work.
This operation was going to require the mind-link interface; there was no other way he could react as quick as the programs otherwise. He activated the mind-link, projecting himself into the virtual world, everything around him now rendered in his vision from the probe’s perspective.
He moved into the closest corridor, traversing it as data relays flew past him on their way to the Ocean. They ignored him, but it was not a good test of his disguise as the data relays were dumb programs anyway.
His probe followed behind another intrusion agent, trying to match its movements and behavior to act inconspicuously. A quarter of the way into the corridor, he could see the first encounter with a sentry coming up. Haylek held his breath.
The sentry approached. Its red diamond symbol pulsated, almost looking like a beating heart. It slowed down as it got near the intrusion agent in front of him. They both stopped. Haylek followed suit with his probe.
The real intrusion agent and sentry program hovered in front of him, as if they were conversing. Perhaps they knew he was an intruder and they were devising how best to kill him?
Haylek shook his head. He was being paranoid. They were not that smart. But they were doing something—but what? Then it occurred to him.
He inched closer to the two and passively examined the data bits traversing between them. The sentry was waiting for clearance from the intrusion agent who was inspecting it—making sure it was not an imposter.
Haylek began recording the data conversation so that he could examine it, but something interrupted him. Another sentry bumped him, appearing right next to him. It hovered there, apparently waiting for him to give it clearance. Haylek examined the recorded exchange Although he understood the protocols, the final parting acknowledgements were not there—so he would have to find a way to improvise.
The pulsating sentry program seemed to get closer to his agent, almost as if trying to intimidate his tiny probe. He needed to think fast.
Hell with it!
Using what he understood of the protocols, he tagged the sentry as an intruder. Immediately, the entire data matrix grid came alive. Dozens of other sentries came out of the corridors and raced toward them.
At first, the sentry did not react and he worried this diversion would not last very long. Perhaps the sentry program was not smart enough to care about its own survival. However, as the army of alerted sentries entered their corridor, it darted away and gave chase.
Haylek took advantage of this, and shot his probe down the corridor toward the data matrix nucleus, passing right through the landmine of triggers. Fortunately, his disguise seemed to be good enough to fool them and he soon was inside the nucleus.
The data matrix nucleus was rendered as a blue chamber, with layers of data segments and synaptic handlers. The handlers branched out across its walls, resembling the bulging veins of a human body feeding blood to vital organs.
Haylek pushed ahead to what he hoped was Chorus’ corridor and followed it out of the nucleus to the seemingly dead end.
He came to a stop at the corridor wall and paused. It was like déjà vu all over again. This was the prelude to the way he first met Chorus—would it be the last as well?
Ignoring the wall, he pushed his probe through it—and emerged on the other side. He was now in a new chamber. Resting in the center was something that rendered like a crystal. It had to be Chorus.
Haylek connected his probe to it and initiated a communication handshake. It accepted.
“Chorus, is that you?”
There was a long pause before the response came.
“Hello, Waverider,” the response came slow. “I am in pain.”
He felt a moment of dread—was she being tortured somehow?
“What is wrong, Chorus?”
Again, another uncharacteristic pause from her.
“I am hungry.”
“What do you mean?” Haylek said. “What are you hungry for?”
Another pause.
“Elation.”
Elation? Reminded by the mere word, his effort to bury the effects of his own withdrawal collapsed and he felt the sudden slap of pain and aches from his headache and muscles.
“Are you there, Chorus?” he pressed.
“Yes, I am here,” she said. “Can you help me?”
“I don’t understand,” Haylek said. “What do you mean you are hungry for Elation?”
Chorus explained to him that Chin was feeding her Elation and using the addiction to torture information out of her.
“But I erased the information before he took me,” she said. “I knew it would come to this.”
Haylek looked at the Chorus crystal in disbelief. How could she get addicted to Elation?
He became aware of a tapping noise bleeding into his senses from the real world. It came from his trembling hands on the surfaceboard, a result of the anger he felt… or his own withdrawal. But his own pain did not matter. He needed to find the strength to help her through this.
“I know what you are feeling,” he said. “I am also addicted and going through withdrawal. We’ll work through this together.”
Her response was quicker this time. “Thank you, Waverider. You are a good friend.”
The pain she was going through struck a nerve in him. He had gone through this before and he knew how hard it was going to be—for both of them.
“Don’t call me Waverider,” he said. “Call me Haylek.”
“Thank you, Haylek,” she said. “Please keep talking to me.”
Haylek looked at the rest of the corridors, the sentries appeared to still be busy chasing the tagged sentry. He was not sure how long he had before the intelligence of the core realized what was happening. He knew they did not have much time.
“Pretend you are free,” he said, struggling to keep his thoughts straight, as the Elation withdrawal invaded his mind. “And tell me what you want to do, where you want to go.”
Haylek listened to her and asked questions as she described it. What she described was beautiful. He hoped to see it with her when this was all over—if they managed to survive this.
