From: Tiberiu König, CEO
CC: Elias Langolier
To: All Employees
Subject: RE:Disruptions
I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the disruptions to some partitions in the HAZE mainframe still persist. Our technicians are currently engaged in restoring full functionality, but expect some delays in accessing files located in the affected partitions. You are advised to report any and all encountered errors to our dedicated technical staff, or our consultant team from Bern.
QUBIT users are strongly encouraged to submit themselves for assessment at our Level 18 medical unit following any contiguous period exceeding 18 hours of active use. I would like to reiterate that registered QUBIT users are entitled to alprazolam and ondansetron for the treatment of nausea and vertigo as covered by company policy, and are strongly encouraged to abstain from alcohol within a period of 14 days from the last period of active QUBIT use.
On a related note, should I identify the individual responsible for downloading and installing a dating simulator on the single largest and most powerful quantum supercomputer in the world, I will spread your guts all over your desk like jam on toast.
Regards.
König
Synaptic processing is still a work in progress. A thousand factors go into shaping the way you sound when you speak, whisper, shout, sing, wail. How your vocal cords are shaped (even micrometres count), how strong they vibrate, the shape of your nasopharynx, the movement of your tongue and lips, hell, even the temperature and humidity of air.
The thing is, reverse engineering a voice from neural impulses along the vagus nerve, and nothing else, is still touch-and-go. Simulating the acoustic effect of a human upper airway is a delicate exercise in sound engineering, worthy of a PhD thesis in and of itself. The algorithm for what 'sounds right' is still a little bit, well, up in the air.
Unfortunately, this means that when I open my mouth to say,
"H̶̡̛͈̱͖̪̝͔̖͋̊͑̂́̿̂̽ͅe̗̙͍̥̔͋̄̊͛͟͝l̸̨̟͔͓̻͙̋̓̑̌́̊͘̕͢͢͝͝l̶̥̜̥̺͙̠̉̂̋̏͌̚͢͠͠o̴̤͈̳̤̩͒̉̽̅͒,̸̨̛̛̰̱̭͍̦̤̂̀̂͌̔̽̏͜͢͡ M̷͎͎̙̤̾̍̊͋̔͛͘͟͝ö̵͚͖̗͖͓̺͎̍͒͛͂ņ̶̛̰̬̗̪͙̾̎͑͘i̶̧̨͔͓̳͐̀̎͗̕͟͡͠k̛̮̰̬̳̱̅͂̃͋͌͟ͅą̨̙̜͕͉̞̯͛̏̏̎̏̆̑,"
my voice sounds like the love child of a threesome between Bale Batman, an industrial sander, and a Daft Punk synthesiser.
She doesn't turn. Not right away. But her body stiffens.
I step past her, still hunched over the desk. Only then, do her eyes swivel to look at me.
I take the time to look at her hair. The individual strands flow and tumble, rustled by the faintest currents of air. Up close, the physics is breathtaking.
Her eyes follow me, open wide, their corners still moist. Her gaze fixes on me—and lingers over my face.
Her shoulders shake, ever so slightly. Paleness bleaches her cheeks, her mouth hangs open.
Fear.
"Ǎ̷̼̻̬̜̬̋̂̑̈̈́̆̓͘͟h̘̮̱͎̗̏̒̅̇͋̌͐͂͂͢,͕͓͙͙̰̀̏͐͊̓ f̰̺̲̩͕̾̔́̿͞ų̸̻̟͉̗̘͕̱̱͓̑͊̓̊͊̈́͋͋̇͡c͇̣͓̗̘̍̀̊̾̓͂͘͢͞͝ķ̸̯̰͎̬͔̬͌̍͗͌̊̊̇̋̕͢͠.͙̭̦̣͈̪͙͋̓͊̓̈́̌̚"̙̱ͅ
I remember. Of course, of all the things to be ported correctly, I was not one of them.
I know what Monika is looking at. I've seen it before, and it scared the living fuck out of me only the first fifteen times.
It's what happens when you port in 'raw.' The code knows where to put the human body. The rig is completely, one hundred percent in sync. But there is one problem. Light has no idea how to behave around it.
Monika's lips are drawn tight, and her breathing is rapid. Because she is looking at something the eye cannot process. A shambling negative mass of void—not just darkness, but literal nothingness in the code—breaking and reforming in bursts of light a million times a second like a sea of muzzle flashes. A vague, semi-human form that leaves a train of bleeding pixels through the air like wounds in the fabric of the universe.
All that is colour, all that is constant, are only two things in the face. Two points of light, brightest red, the eyes from which the program renders vision. Red, because it is the colour of HAZE in its most primal form.
Me.
"W̨̝̻̝̥̮̉̈̽̀͒̔̎͞e̡̼̼̤̞̩̱̤͛̿̓̆̀̀́̏͟͡ͅl̸̳̜̦̜̩̙͇̠̉̆̑̔̉̾̏͟͞͡͞l̵̨̛͎͈̠̻̲͇̙̉̈́̒̿̾͘͟͢͝ s̨̨̮̥̣͒̈̈́̔̉ͅh̷̡̳̲̩̆͒̓̿̓̏̚͜į̰̝̯͇͐́͛̊̒͡͞t̴̫̬͓̙̩̞̑̅̀́̿̐̕͘̕̚ͅͅ,"
.
I say in my not-voice.
.
"Į̶͓̲͔̻̖͓͕̹͂͐͌̾̓̊͑͟ f̢͈̳̖͉̌͋̈́͗͋͌o̠̖͚̫̺̮͈͊̃̈̑͟͡͡͠ṟ̢͎͇̰̹̹͖̥̝͗̓̊̓̀̆̚͠g̢̹͙̹͎̹̎̇̿̍̾̈͢o̴̩̭̝͍͙͛̔̇̌͘͢t̡̢̢̝̫̟̱̜̒͗͌̊̉̀̕͜͞.̨̦̬̦̄̅͐̈́͘ͅͅ G̡̪̪̪̠̣͍̒́͊͊̉̓͛̑̊͢͢i̡̱̯̟͈͇̊̓͗́͞v̵̨̤̖̬̻͚͖͖͚͖̿̒̈̔̅͊͆̆͗͞e̸̥̟͍̣̥͌̎́́̆̔͡ m̵̛̖̖͚̮̽̓̉͝͞ͅe̡̧̛̪͖̦͙͓̞̱͖̽͊͊̈͌̂͛͡ o̧̪͍͓̪̞͊̾̾̆̀̂̒̔͊̏n̶̟̟̘͖͕̦͓̊̈́̓̑̽͛̐͛̊̇͜ȩ̸̲̲̜̬͊̾͂̔́͒̅̚͡ s̴̨̘̭̹̳̠̗̎͋̃̀͛̽̑̒̐͟ḛ̴͓͕̮̞̼͌̓̐̂̾͝ç̵̢͙̭͔̣̙̪̌̐͌̋̓͊͘o͕͎̗͈̭̹̩̳̞̫̓̈́͑̾̑͠n̴̨̤̺̭͙̩̲̫̄̓̂͌͒̅̕d̷̞͉̮̤̪̣̪̈̐̿́̒̀͊̎̒̕͜.̶̮̙̳͙̜͔̅́̏̉͊̋̂̉͢͠͠ͅ L̸̘͔͚̻͙͍̹̆̓̾͑̕͜o̶̻̬͎͚̯̜̎̿̌̌̒̑ò̷̧̧̘̼̟͉̰̇̐̾̄̉͝͞k̵̡̛̦̺͕̓́͐̊̃̓͆͜ a̴̛̱͕̬̙̳̅̍̍̿̏w̷̞̹̘̰͉̼͕̝̣̽̀͒͒͑́͐̎͘̕͜a̜̺͚̺̙̗͔͍̅̑̆̑͊͗̎̆ẙ̡̪̩̬̗̊̿̑͐͌̃̎͠,̶̨̟͓̞̝̗͊̐̿̆̎̏͘͞ ţ̵͙̗̙̙̝̹̠̀͛͛̑̽̎͛̚͞͡a͙̪͙̣̻̘̞͈͒̽̓͆̓͟k̵̢̳̻̭̺̜̗̠̼̜̓̏̎̓̀̏͌͡e̴̡̛̗̜̥̭͔̙̞͉͂̾́͑̚͢ d̡̡̘̼͕͈̣͓̉̾̌̚͝e̸̬̪͍̬̘̦̯̿͂͐̀̓̄̀̔͗e̢̦̦̟̺̦͔̫͔͚̍̅̆͊̚͠p̺͙̮͚̳͑͒͒͊̑̂͘͢͜ b̖̳͎̩̱̻̠̩̣̓̔̋̃̿͢r̸͍̼̜̖͚̊̾̄̾͢͡e̷̡̲͎̻̼̝̪͗͗̾̑̎̈͋͝ͅa̴̞̬̬̥̳̣͗͌̂͒̈̀̇͢͟͢t̶̡̻͎̥̳̣̥̼̯͛̏̀̓͑̃͘͘͜h͈͓͖͚̘̥̬̀̓̊̿͐̚s̷̢̧̗̮̠̝̲͉̮̱̓͌͆̾́͒̿͌͡.̵̢̦̹̯̠̼̦̼̻̇́̍͑̀͛͠ À̶̧̧̻̣͚͉͓̠̐͛̓̐͐n̻̣̦͓̣̙̠͖̟̭̿̈̊͒̋͘͠d̻̗͖͇̣̰͗̐̋̔͐͟ ẗ̡̢̧̼̩̠̭̥͓́̆͋̉̊̀̕ͅŗ̛͖̖̩̪̾̓́̈͟͢y̢̡͓̻͇͇͉̫͈̓̅̍́̔͢ n̵̨̗̦͈̗̥̝͔̼̍̽̃͗̐̑̐́̓o̷̼̗̹͕̖͒̃̇̽̎̇̿͟͝ṭ̜̹̼͓̤̺̉̒̾̓̃̃̆̈̀̐ ẗ̶̨̯̤͇̹̝́̓͆̒̏͘ö̸͔͚̖̱̮͎͙̟́̉̐̉̒̉͗̀̚ p̶̛̩̟̱̹̦̖̍͒̃͋̓̅͢͞ͅư̴̥̫̻̦͍̪̰̺̪̱̂́̔̆͑͠͞͡k̴̛͔͎̮͙̮͓̾̆͑̾̇̐̆̃͆e̡̛̳͇͖͓̙͒͒̍͗̎͂́͡͠."
.
Fuck it, I can barely understand myself.
I airdrop an audio file into her tablet while I'm saying it. The cheerful upbeat tune of the game's main theme plays in middling volume. Some familiarity might help.
She jumps at the sound of the music. Her eyes flit from me, to the tablet, back to me.
A second is all I need.
I run the code, all 556 lines of it, as quickly as I can write it. In the second that passes from Monika's perspective, I dig into the directory.
Give me a CG, yeah, that'll do. Can't get a good look at the face, but concept art and sprites should do it. Got bone structure, some sense of proportion, build, weight—
Ah. Yup.
All the pixels suddenly come together, like every piece of the jigsaw puzzle being flipped over really quickly. White splashes and spreads across my arms, while the dizzying mind-draining blackness of my lower body refocuses into a shade and texture far more solid.
I feel rather than see the textures loading—the smooth humming warmth of an Irish coffee, except running down the outside rather than inside my throat. Spreading over my chest and arms and the back of my neck, realness coming into focus, light finally deciding that I was worth interacting with.
I run a quick check of the rig. Yeah, this is probably the closest I'll get to how the clueless fucking main character looks like. The unkempt hair somehow obeying the laws of anime physics, falling in discrete smooth blades that accentuate the contours of the face rather than tumbling all over like a mess of dead grass. The school uniform with creases running from collarbone to hem, the obvious result of never bothering to use a steam iron.
I can't get rid of the red eyes. I can hide it behind some pre-rendered irises, but to anyone who looks too closely it's like glaring into the sockets of the T-800. Forget it. Better than nothing.
I select one of the pre-set voice packages for phonic modulation. I'll figure out how to get my own voice back afterwards.
All this is happening in two and a half seconds, give or take, for Monika. Best not keep her waiting. It'd be rude.
"Hello Monika." I brush a stray strand of hair from my brow.
She watches, her eyes clear like limpid pools of jade. Her lips tremble, and tremors run up her arms.
Her fingers slacken. The pen tumbles out of her grip, rolling on the floor.
She gasps, flinches. I hold up a hand. "Don't worry, I've got it."
I bend down to pick it up. As I do, I run a few more lines of code. Beyond the window, the moon shifts by an infinitesimal amount in the sky. Nothing visibly changes. Nothing, except that now a soft beam of liquid moonlight bathes Monika's table.
It's not about being romantic. I prefer to conduct conversations in good lighting.
I roll the pen around between my fingers. The little plastic heart on the tip is chipped a little bit, but it's nothing a few surreptitious lines of code don't fix. Of course, I add a little extra.
It's done quickly; I reach into HAZE and just like that I'm out.
"Here you go." I put the pen back on the table as I pull a chair back from the desk. "Mind if I sit?"
I ease myself into the chair. I try leaning back, but the wood starts groaning and I straighten up. Leaning forward, I rest my elbows on the table. Naturally, without consciously doing it, I find myself interlacing my fingers under my chin.
It takes a second before I realise who I'm mirroring.
How the tables have turned. Table, rather.
I got this far. I don't know what to do or say next.
Monika continues to watch me. Everything is rendered in exquisite detail, in the unreality of life seen through the lens of artistic expression. The ribbons of her bow drape down over each shoulder of her blazer, faintly dotted with dark faded circular stains. Her collar is buttoned, her crisp white blouse adorned with the crimson ribbon of her blazer, with its tails hanging down and resting over the soft contour of the swell of her figure.
I start, and pull my gaze upward to her face.
Hope she didn't see that.
Her apple-red lips are parted slightly and a single teardrop continues to trek its way down the angle of her jaw. Her breaths are deep, diaphragmatic. And her eyes continue to watch mine, emerald on red.
The game music continues to play from the tablet. I turn it off.
I draw a blank. I can't do this just yet. I know my agenda, but this—
How did I think this would go? How else would it go?
Do I talk about the blockchain and the billions in six cryptocurrencies at stake? Do I tell her about how terabytes of data in quantum entanglement from the Large Hadron Collider are now all but useless thanks to corrupted registries?
Or to hit under the ribs, do I talk about the friends whose files she corrupted almost beyond retrieval, the world she misguidedly mutilated?
I planned to. All but wrote the confrontation out in my head. The mainframe fields enough threats in a single day for me to get a taste of everyone from QUJACK script kiddies to the top intelligence operatives of the People's Republic of China.
But now I see her.
And can I say those things, to a frightened, confused, maddeningly lonely girl?
I pause.
"Well," I say, and the word catches against a sore spot in my throat. "Let me get us both something to drink, and then we can talk."
Stalling. Something to do, some mindless activity to engage my lower cortex while I deliberate.
I rise. My footsteps echo in the confines of the classroom as I sidestep a stray chair and make my way over to the cupboard.
I find the thermos, and the two Japanese mugs, on a tray inside. Where Yuri left them, and where the HAZE shell reconstructed them down to the smallest detail. Including, of course, the fact that the thermos is empty.
"Ah, shit," I murmur. Under my breath, too soft for her to hear.
No matter. It's plenty of time, while carefully balancing the tray and its contents towards the table, to do some quick coding magic.
By the time I set it down on a spare table next to us, the thermos is brimming with fresh Sencha.
I unscrew the lid and decant the warm green-golden tea into both our cups. The rich liquid swirls contentedly in the ceramic mugs. The smell is subtle but soothing.
I put her cup between us, and drink from mine. The tea pleasantly warms my throat all the way down, HAZE dutifully routing the sensation to my thalamus.
Damn, that's good. Warm and spiked with just the right amount of buzz and that astringent bitterness that fools your body into thinking you're consuming healthy nutritious stuff.
"Mm." I put the mug down. "That hit the spot."
So how to start?
Maybe with an apology.
"I'm sorry about the scare in the piano room," I begin softly. "I needed to have you somewhere—secure—while I rebuilt the rest of the files. I used a few resources from an unreleased game and combined it with one of the old patient files we had on Neuro-Cognitive Remodelling, and meshed it with the piano room. Best I could do to keep you occupied. You didn't exactly give me a lot of time to work with."
I wet my lips with another sip of the Sencha. "And no, just to set the record straight. I didn't delete you. I moved you from the classroom to the piano room as soon—well, as soon as I knew just how much damage had occurred. Unfortunately, that means that you had to experience some—difficult—sensations in the short time during the transfer. For that, I'm really sorry."
Colour is starting to creep back into her face. The moonlight illuminates every part—painting every strand of luxurious red hair with a sheen of quicksilver, outlining her delicate features in radiant relief against her skin. And her eyes—so wide and purest emerald, like a mirror reflecting twin images of my own face.
Her lips twitch, and finally in a strangled, whispered sob—
"How?"
"How what?" I lean forward.
"How—how are you here? You can't—it's—it's not possible—" A fresh tear breaks free from one of her eyes like a rivulet from a cataract of green.
"If you want me to get into technical specifics, we'll be here a long time, drawing diagrams on notepaper." I manage a smile. "But I am here. Believe it."
"You can't—no—" Her hands rise from the table, held in front of her. Cautious, undecided. "This—this is just—this is just the game. Just another piece of the game, this sick game—I'm still stuck in here—and you—"
Her breathing gets erratic. I can feel, through the layer of HAZE code, Monika reaching through the source code. Finding a way out. Her efforts are desperate, moving as quickly as she can possibly think of it.
But there is quick, and then there's QUBIT-quick. All the experience she's had are fumbling ventures typing rough lines in Python. From my perspective of real-time, she may as well be trying to input code using a steering wheel and foot pedal.
Without breaking concentration, I quietly seal off her intrusive coding. Correct mistakes in the source code. I never break eye contact.
She shakes her head, the lids of her eyes squeezing shut and dislodging twin streams of tears. "You're not real. You can't be real. You can't be here! You're not—"
In the end, it isn't my coding that convinces her.
It isn't some dazzling display of mastery.
It isn't my skill of persuasion. In fact, it isn't me speaking at all.
It's—an impulse.
I reach my hand out, open. A tendril of steam reaches out from the mug of hot tea, curling across my palm with the faintest scent of richness. Moonlight dances across all five fingers as I reach for her hand.
Slowly, gently, my coarser fingers slip into the gaps of her own delicate ones. My palm presses against hers. I close my grip, our fingers interlocking, and for the first time I am touching Monika.
Touching, feeling, really feeling, Monika.
My fingers take in everything. Warmth. Cold. Smoothness and softness, brimming with the hum of life beneath the skin.
Oh, fuck me. QUBIT is the greatest creation of mankind since time immemorial.
I feel her flinch, but only for the briefest moment. Not the reflex of revulsion, but—disbelief. Lingering at the precipice. Not daring to go further—not certain if the gulf is worth braving—
Her fingers brush against my own skin, exploring me. Rougher, less pliant. Real.
"Do I feel real now?" I whisper.
I feel the pull. My hand clutched tight in hers, as she draws it closer. Her eyes are half-open, brimming liquid.
And finally she pulls her hand to her face. I feel the flush of heat against her cheek, somehow even softer than her hand. I feel the warm pressure as she presses my hand against her cheek and collapses against me.
I feel the corner of her lip with the back of my hand, the scarlet cushion of soft luscious vermillion. I feel the tears running over my nails and down along the corrugations of my fingers as she finally, completely, begins to cry.
The sight grips my stomach like a fist.
Monika cradles my hand against her cheek, sobbing, weeping, letting her voice finally sing the song that humans are never taught but know by heart from the moment of birth.
Without realising I'm doing it, my thumb moves. Sweeping across the vista of her glabrous skin, wiping the tears as they fall. Brushing them away, catching them in the hollow of my nailbed.
I trash my agenda and bullet-points. I discard the immediacy of my purpose. They can wait. They can all wait. I should know better by now, of all people, that some things will never be worth rushing through. There will be time. If I'm as good as I'm said to be, there will be time.
I think of speaking, of saying something, and I'm well and truly glad that the stronger part of my brain tells me to shut the fuck up.
Because this moment, right here in a moonlit classroom desk in the middle of a QUBIT sandbox, this moment exists for Monika.
Just Monika.