Chapter 3
I still don't remember very much about what happened immediately after that. Medics standing over me, flashes of conversation, the dark olive green of what looked like circuitry.
"…found during the last patrol."
"Single bit errors…we'll have to compensate."
"The energy patterns…I've never seen anything like it."
"Corruption…sectors one, five…one-thousand twelve! We're losing her!"
"Copy the data. We have to stabilize…"
My next clear memory was waking up – re-initializing – in a tiny room that was empty aside from the diagnostic cot I'd been put on. It wasn't the lab, and it wasn't the hospital, the two places I expected. It was far too quiet and empty to be "right." The human world is a lot more chaotic, disorganized, and random. Objects don't necessarily have to have a reason for being in a room, and we can't just shut off our furnishings when we leave. The other thing that stood out at the time was the feeling of something digging into my back. Yes, I know what it is now, and what it meant, but not then.
"Do not try to move." The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
The wall in front of me seemed to slide open and two women walked in – the taller one wearing a gauzy, emerald green ceremonial-type gown with a gold shimmer, like fiber optics were woven into the cloth. A thick greenish-gold half-mask covered the upper portion of her face and extended up into an elaborate headdress. The shorter woman was in neck-to-ankle body armor similar to what the techs three labs over were designing on the new computers, but patterned in a way that resembled a circuit board. Most of the circuitry was in the same emerald green, but with paler green highlights.
"Let me guess. I'm not in Kansas anymore." Falling back on sarcasm helped; at least it kept me from freaking out while I tried to put the pieces together.
"No, you were always in Washington DC, not Kansas. This server is located in the Department of Defense research laboratory," the taller one answered. Clearly, she was the one in charge, and the one in armor was a guard of some kind. "Your upload was unexpected and difficult. While my medics have done what they can, there have been complications."
There was something about the way she spoke and the word "complications" that did not set my mind at ease. "Maybe rewind a little bit. Where am I? Who are you? And how did I get here?"
The guard looked at the woman in charge. "She's trying to obfuscate. Let me take her to interrogation."
"Four, that will be enough. She poses no threat to us now."
The guard wasn't placated. "Are you willing to stake the lives of everyone on that?"
A pointed look from the woman in the gown shut the guard up. By now, the woman in the gown was also starting to sound vaguely familiar, though I still couldn't place it.
"An attack by insurgent forces disabled the safety measures and a power surge caused a misfire of the Shiva prototype. You are inside the Citadel on Lab Server Three. We've done our best to treat your wounds, but the correction algorithms were not as developed as we hoped."
And that's when I recognized the voice. "You're Ma2a?"
"Math Assistant Two, yes. I prefer to be called by my full designation. And this is my Champion, Mercury Four."
The whole situation brought up so many more questions that panic was off the table for the moment. "So, I'm somehow inside the lab server? The Shiva was what brought me here? How is that even…?"
"When you digitized matter, where did you think it went?" Math Assistant Two asked.
I scowled, trying to remember the way I explained it to people who didn't have a theoretical physics doctorate. "We convert matter at the atomic level to equations, and then reassemble it when the equations are reversed. The whole process is based on the idea that matter can be broken down into data and..." That's when the answer clicked into place. "The mathematics behind it are based on being able to access a parallel dimension outside of conventional space-time, and that the matter would be stored there until reassembled."
"Yes. This dimension is our home," said Four, still eyeing me with pointed suspicion.
Working for the Department of Defense was certainly a culture change from Encom, and not an entirely welcome one. Encom didn't have protesters just down the road from the gates calling the workers inside butchers, baby-murderers, and imperialists. It certainly wasn't my first choice, but this was my life's work, and they were the only ones still interested. The Shiva Laser could revolutionize transportation, communications, medicine. It could save lives by having critically ill patients digitized and transported instantly to a hospital, or even allow for genetic defects and cancer to be cured the same way you'd clean up recorded music. Unfortunately, I wasn't a naive grad student, either. I knew why the military signed off on the idea; using it to transport bombs and soldiers undetected and within seconds. That seemed a less likely possibility after the end of the Cold War, but…
Mercury, never underestimate humanity's greed or interest in warfare. We all got a very good reminder of that with Thorne and his handlers.
"So this is a parallel dimension that rides on top of human computer networks. And I'm talking to computer programs. Meaning the matter that's 'me' somehow got uploaded..." And that's when another revelation set in. "We've never had organic matter come back intact. Not since…" The thought of Master Control brought up enough bad memories to stop me from completing that sentence.
"During your upload, there was some signal loss, single-bit errors." Math Assistant Two explained. "Before the decay became terminal, we fitted you with a disc and copied all the neural patterns and memory sectors…" She tapped the disc on my back. "We did all we could. It was not entirely successful."
I should have found all this to be creepy. Instead, I was too busy wondering how that process worked. Yeah, I had been a scientist too long. "What does that mean?"
"You are stable. As long as you remain here, you should be able to carry out your runtime without issue."
"But she doesn't belong here," Four pointed out. "And she's too dangerous to be sent back. She knows too much."
It still didn't feel real at the time. It was like any nanosecond, I'd be waking up on the floor or a hospital bed, and this would all be a bizarre dream. Four's eyes narrowed as she looked me over. It was obvious that she would have preferred that I didn't survive.
"A User was uploaded, Four," Math Assistant Two warned. The way she said it, I could hear the capitalization. Again, I didn't know its significance at the time, but I needed to find out.
I was still thinking about which questions were safe to ask when the building shook, knocking me out of bed.
Four growled. "They're really bold to be attacking the Citadel."
"Dispatch the system guard. Four, take a medical team and evacuate civilian casualties."
"And our 'guest?'"
"Doctor Bradley, come with me to my dock. It's the most secure area."
Four looked ready to start a loud and prolonged objection, but obviously knew this wasn't the time or place for it. Math Assistant Two reached out her hand and I took it.
Mercury, one of the things that makes humans very different from Programs – there is no return from backup, no re-installs. Yes, I know. That makes what Jet did all the more terrifying. For obvious reasons, I don't want to think about that. However, it means that, despite ourselves, we have a powerful instinct to live, and that instinct got the better of me. I had to live long enough to know what happened to me. I had to know why.
The difference between Math Assistant Two's citadel and mine is that mine belongs to a relatively peaceful system. The Department of Defense is a place where Users make plans to wage war on other Users; Programs designed to combat the Programs of other nation-states. There was little beauty in its design. The halls were crowded and narrow – green-circuited soldiers in armor rushing one direction, civilian scripts rushing the other way or cowering against the walls. The crowds parted like a zipper as Math Assistant Two and I passed. I was nearly deafened by the roar of an explosion and the sound of falling rocks. The glow of the walls faltered for a picosecond and came back on. "Who's attacking us?"
Math Assistant Two answered. "The insurgency that was also responsible for your upload. I must reach my dock to command the forces outside."
The same rebels that caused the Shiva to malfunction? I filed the information away. If I had enough pieces, I'd solve the puzzle of what happened to me and why.
Math Assistant Two had a dock that was a lot like the one I have now – a large room with the pillar of light in the center and the clamps on either side, tall to the point of being unable to detect a ceiling. The only other colors were the thin dark green lines that framed the walls, and gold highlights in minimalist geometric mosaics. The only other feature of note was an opaque green and gold cylinder, roughly two meters high and a meter and a half in diameter by human scale, over by the right-hand wall.
Math Assistant Two strode up to her dock, stepping in and letting the light activate and envelop her. On the far wall, a screen appeared from thin air, depicting an overview of what I correctly assumed was the citadel and two sets of figures – the majority in green, and a handful in a very dark blue – not the cyan of Encom, but nearly blue-black.
"Rebels in sector eighteen. Deploy forces to intercept."
What I saw on the screen looked like the overview of a video game. Math Assistant Two directed the green forces – calling out formations, directing squads to take position, and giving the order on when to start firing. The large quantities of green figures surrounded the blue, cutting off escape routes.
"Squadron Alpha, the insurgents have been contained. Open fire."
One blue figure flickered out. Three green figured followed before another blue was destroyed. Blue and green traded fire for a short time, but the blue figures, vastly outnumbered, were soon overrun, leaving only green on the field.
"Insurgents neutralized, Math Assistant," came a heavily distorted voice over a PA system.
"Very good. Damage report?"
"They set off a pulse bomb in Residential Sector Three in addition to the one on Citadel Wall. We are reading two hundred and eighty casualties so far; seventy-seven fatalities. Evacuate the sector?"
"Yes, for now. Take the wounded to medical center Theta. Screen all discs for signs of subversive code; I suspect the rebels choose to hide in plain sight. Quarantine and de-rez any deemed suspicious. Send repair teams to sector three to repair the damage they left to the wall."
"Understood, Math Assistant."
"Who are these insurgents? What do they want?"
"They were the ones who sabotaged the laser and tried to kill you, Doctor Bradley. They are heretics – malware that refuses to comply with lawful User instruction. A system cannot tolerate rogue elements like them. That is all you need to know."
"There has to be a reason why they're doing this. Terrorists always have a reason."
Her face was hard to make out with the mask in place, but somehow, I could feel her disapproval and annoyance. "Reason is irrelevant, Doctor Bradley. They disrupt the system's functionality and have caused hundreds of deaths. The fact their attack was intended to kill you should be enough information to know they are hostile. I brought you here to protect you from them."
Again, I thought of the protesters I had to pass on my way to the gate. It never stopped feeling like a compromise. When I was a student at CalTech, I was gladly on their side. So was Flynn at the time – and yes, this did cause issues with Encom's defense contracts. It almost made me ineligible for my security clearance, but I grit my teeth and toed the line by giving proper lip service in support of the military's mentality and playing down my college protests as youthful stupidity.
I was tempted to quit so many times. Not only did I dread what the higher-ups planned for the Shiva Laser, but the work was lonely. I couldn't be there while Alan struggled through the chaos at Encom after Flynn vanished. I wasn't there to watch my son grow up. I'd talk about wanting to walk away, but Alan could always convince me otherwise. The Shiva was my life's work. I owed it to Gibbs. My son was doing all right and understood why his mom had to be away. Even if I did quit, someone else would continue the work – someone who maybe didn't have as developed of a conscience as I did. Alan would always point out that even if the Shiva Laser was used as a weapon, it was a weapon that should be in hands we could see rather than ones we couldn't.
So, every time the protesters were outside the gate, I'd take a deep breath and keep on pushing past, convincing myself I was doing the right thing.
You're right, Mercury. Users do have a lot of questions, but it's when we stop asking them that we get ourselves into trouble.