CHAPTER 7 – RESEARCH

"Alex. Alex! Wake up!"

Alex Jacobson, so far sleeping at his desk, lifted himself and looked around, completely disoriented. A young technician named Colin sighed with relief as he finally managed to wake Alex up.

"What happened?" Jacobson yawned and looked at him vacantly.

"Nothing really extraordinary," the technician assured him. "But you know Everett," he sighed, "he's really obsessed with this project."

"Morpheus…" Alex moaned, now looking at the blue interface in front of him.

"Yeah," the man agreed without enthusiasm.

Morpheus… Mere sound of this name made Alex and rest of Everett's staff nauseous. It was a prototype AI, father of his far more advanced successors – sentient surveillance systems. Alex was responsible for redesigning this AI according to Everett's specifications.

Although he didn't expect this job to be easy, the problems exceeded his expectations. Morpheus' initial design was so crude that many things had to be redone essentially from scratch. Two dozens of men and computers were involved in that process and so far the results were unsatisfactory.

"That's madness!" Alex thought, shaking his head. Morpheus was supposed to become an advanced spying program, capable of accessing every place in the network and instant gathering of sensitive information.

Alex observed his colleagues. Some of them were working, others were pretending that they're working, while those most exhausted were doing the same thing Alex did just a moment ago – sleeping at their desks, lit only by the dim, blueish lights of the computer screens.

"You know we are supposed to start first online tests in six weeks?" Alex, not only extremely tired, but also bored to death, intended to resume the conversation.

"Yeah" Colin snorted. "Six weeks. That's fucking impossible."

Alex and three other computer scientists looked at the young technician with interest. It was the first time since Colin started working for Everett that anyone heard him swearing.

"Online tests?" Vincent, one of the computer scientists, chuckled. "That's the best joke I've ever heard. I'd wait twice as long before even considering releasing him into the network."

The men, while talking, didn't notice Morgan Everett entering the computer room.

"You will start the tests in six weeks, as I told you before." Everett's voice made them jump on their chairs. "Delays won't be tolerated. Now get back to work" Morgan, who never missed the opportunity to watch his staff, barked. "I'm not paying you for chatting or sleeping."

Those, who were sleeping, were immediately woken up by their colleagues. Seeing Everett they resumed their work – as did the rest of the staff.

"This guy clearly has issues" Colin muttered.

"Yeah…" Alex agreed.

At the same time, in Everett's laboratories another project was being worked on. A young man lied on the surgical table, under an anesthetic. Three surgeons were performing series of injections into carefully selected body parts. In the meantime, Morgan came to the labs, in order to observe the process. His second secret weapon, according to his staff, was about to be ready in four weeks.

But Everett wasn't satisfied. Although his spies, who were working with Tracer Tong, did a good job in acquiring data, necessary to complete his independent research on nanoaugmentation, it turned out that it happened too late. As a consequence he had to rely on JC Denton, hoping that he'll help the Illuminati in restoring their power. But the same sense of independence and moral judgment that caused JC to change sides and cooperate with Morgan, now turned against them.

Denton. At the mere thought of this name Morgan Everett clenched his teeth. Now he needed someone with JC's capabilities, but also with an absolute, unquestionable loyalty. Morgan's experts assured him that this will be achieved. They assured it was a matter of careful programming and administering the right drugs.

He hoped they are right – loosing an agent, who was supposed to be even more sophisticated construct than the Denton brothers would have grave consequences. He had to make sure everything goes right.

Making sure that the staff is working as planned, Morgan went back to his study. Now, seen by no-one, he buried his face in his hands.

He had to do something to contact Stanton Dowd. And now, when the communications and the entire network were observed by a vigilant artificial intelligence, this task became even harder than ever before.

Everett recalled one more AI project, on which he was working – initially along with Bob Page, while they were still allies. Its was supposed to be used in a completely different way. It was supposed to be a warning and advisory system, which was able to foresee every major disaster. Then Bob Page set different priorities – Daedalus was essentially to become an advanced surveillance system, monitoring the global communications for subversive content.

Still, neither Everett nor Page expected that Daedalus will eventually become self-aware. Later on, it proved to be Dentons' and Everett's worthy ally, but the most ironic thing was that, by creating this AI, Morgan unintentionally contributed to Helios' birth.

For him, contrary to what he told Alex, Helios was a great unknown – a peculiar mix of three consciousnesses. Especially one of them stirred up Everett's fear.

It was Icarus – another AI, designed by Bob Page and absolutely loyal to him. Deprived of ethical constraints and unpredictable, with its series of transmissions it gave both Morgan and JC a good scare.

"Denton, what have you done?" Morgan asked aloud, like a hundredth time.

But this time, in his voice there was no anger, but something different.

It was fear.