Act 1: Beating Heart
Segment 2: New Year, New Life
Chapter 2-12: Where The Skies End
Title derived from: Where the Skies End by Starset
In a restless search for new opportunities and new ways of living, the mystery and the promise of distant horizons always have called men forward.
"Makoto!" Professor Brian Mackenzie beamed. "Over here!" Disregarding the fact that he was clearly Caucasian, his shaved bald head and large blonde beard would have stood out anywhere.
"Professor, good to see you."
"And you as well. Ah, Rei came with you. Good, good." The university café was quieter than usual, since all the students were off for a few more days.
"I hope we're not taking too much of your time," Makoto apologized. "You must be busy."
"No, not a bother at all," the Professor laughed. "The graduates take care of themselves; they almost don't need me! Sit, sit, please." He gestured to the empty chairs. "I'm always happy to talk about research." His bass voice and gentle demeanor gave Rei the impression he could make a great Santa Claus. His students were lucky to have him.
"Thank you, Professor," Rei bowed, and sat alongside Makoto.
"So," Brian took a sip of his coffee, "you were interested in the simulation side of the research?"
"Yes, we wanted to know how you got here, what projects are in progress, all of that."
"Ah… how I got here." He smirked. "It's childish, really." Makoto and Rei blinked. "I always loved stories as a kid about alien worlds. Why are we alone in this universe? It can't possibly be."
Rei nodded. "You're talking about the Fermi Paradox?"
"Yes indeed." He set his coffee down. "And I remember as a kid I tore through all the fantasy and science fiction I could get my hands on. When I got my hands on a Windows 3.1 PC as a teenager in school, I went right to work trying to make life happen in my little box." He shook his head, amused. "Of course, it was too tiny to work with, but I hoped one day I could make a little box of life in my machine."
"And then you discovered distributed computing in university?" Makoto asked.
He nodded. "It immediately opened my eyes to a new level of simulation possibilities. And I got inspired, as well, by some friends who were studying biochemistry. I asked them – does life need to look like ours? And they said, no, it doesn't have to. So I knew I had to study the possibilities with my code." He took a sip of coffee. "And after a lot of debugging and late nights, here I am, Ph. D. in hand, helping other people do better than me."
"You… you don't do a lot of research anymore?"
The Professor smiled. "I still do, of course, just not a lot. I realized shortly after my thesis defence that I really loved working with people on these projects and I didn't really care for being the first one to discover new things, so I decided to form a research group instead." He raised his eyebrows at Makoto. "You know, a TA said you were a good fit."
Makoto laughed nervously. "Really?"
"Mmhm. Have you considered it? It is your final year, after all."
"Uh… I have, a bit."
"And you, Rei?"
She sighed and gave a half-smile. "I don't know either. It's hard to know, I guess, after being heads-down for so long."
Brian nodded. "Truthfully, I also stuck around in the academic world because the continuity was nice. And, Rei, you lead women-in-engineering, don't you?" She nodded. "I'm sure they'd like to have you for a bit longer."
"It's very tempting," she agreed. "But with you? I'm not sure I have the credentials for that."
Brian laughed heartily. "Half of my students are from engineering!"
"Oh!"
"Engineers are great graduate students in their own way, you know. They love to problem solve first before trying to get too involved in the little details. I like to say, every theorist needs their engineer to keep their eyes on the horizon."
Makoto elbowed Rei. She slapped his arm away, trying not to giggle. "Try me," she threatened playfully.
"Oh, I might," Makoto laughed.
"Anyway," continued Rei, "what are the grad students working on now?"
Brian's face turned to a concerned look. "Well, they would be working on a new version of our latest design for an ecosystem based on many-nucleotide life forms, but…"
"Oh. But?"
He grimaced. "I … I feel for them. Every time we've tried to restart it, we get strange data back."
"How so?" Makoto frowned.
Brian shrugged. "The ML models go haywire, cache data gets altered, our nodes flicker in and out of connection, all sorts of shenanigans. I've asked the university's security team to investigate, but they haven't found anything. They're just as confused as we are."
Makoto and Rei looked at each other. This was sounding familiar. "You think someone's targeting your research group?"
The Professor shook his head. "Maybe, maybe not. Whoever or whatever it is isn't leaving a consistent geolocation. That's why I'm starting to think it's not an attacker from outside, or even inside the university. It might not be an attacker at all." He sipped his coffee. "But we've reset our nodes and even shifted our service providers a few times just to make sure. It always happens."
"All of your research projects?"
"No, thankfully, only this one, Prometheus. But it is the biggest one." He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "If it continues like this, I might have to pull the plug."
"Oh no!"
Brian sighed. "It seems like something about it is permanently corrupted. Perhaps a part of it can be salvaged, or maybe the engine needs another overhaul. I'm not sure. We could rewrite the whole system, perhaps, a version four, but we've already done that once. I don't want to subject the kids to that again."
Makoto drummed his fingers against the table. "You changed data centres?"
"A few times," Brian agreed, "but we're back on university servers now."
"Anything weird in there?"
"We're not allowed inside," Brian shrugged.
"Not even you?" The Professor shook his head. "I guess the university really does keep their hardware secure. Did the university's IT team say anything either?"
"They didn't find anything weird, yet, but it's only been a few days since our last traffic shift." He paused. "You seem deep in thought."
"Ah!" Makoto was surprised. He had been, but he didn't want to give away any secrets. "Just concerned, is all."
Brian laughed. His broad shoulders shook. "You should join the team with that kind of dedication!"
"Heh, you're right. I guess I should," Makoto replied.
"And Rei, you give it some serious thought yourself, okay?" She nodded. Brian finished his coffee. "Well, any thing else you'd like to know?"
Rei raised her hand. "Why the name Prometheus?"
Brian snorted. "Hah! I was being arrogant, that's all. Have you heard the story?" They hadn't. "The mythical ancient Greek man, Prometheus, who steals the knowledge of fire from the Greek Gods for humanity, so that they could grow and flourish on this earth." He sighed. "I figured myself at the time the same kind of person, in my youth. I suppose this is my eagle now."
"Eagle?"
"Prometheus was punished by the gods by being chained to a stone so that an eagle could come and peck his liver out over and over," Brian answered. Rei cringed. That was a bit more gruesome than she expected. Also, Hawkmon looked a lot like an eagle. That was a bit closer to home than she wanted. "I should have picked a better name, right?" Brian laughed.
"Hm… maybe," she replied.
He was still amused by his own poor choice of names. "Hee hee hee, too late to change it now." He held his hands out. "Anything else?"
Makoto shook his head. "I'll see to applying formally," he replied.
"Good! Good," Brian said, stroking his beard. "Well, if you're on your way, might I say, always aim higher and higher, my friends, to where the skies end. There is always something new in the distance!"
"Of course, Professor!" Makoto stood up and bowed slightly, along with Rei. Brian watched them with a twinkle in his eye. They would be back soon, wouldn't they? He had a feeling they knew something more than they were letting on. He shrugged. If they did, it wasn't his place to know. He closed his laptop and packed it away.
"So, how did it go?" asked Satsuki. "How was he?"
Makoto set his bag down in the foyer and stretched. "He's a great guy."
"Are you going to apply to join his graduate students then?"
"Yep!" Makoto popped off his shoes.
Gabumon looked up. "Did he say anything suspicious?"
"Gabumon, I don't think this is about whether he did anything wrong. But, I do think his research is being affected."
"Oh?"
Makoto grabbed a drink from the fridge and popped the can open. "He said his research team was working on some project called Prometheus. I looked into it afterwards." He took a sip. "It's about biological simulations, just like Ryuta suggested." He pointed. "That guy, let me tell you, is going to go places."
"You're not the first one to say that," Satsuki admitted.
"Well, maybe if he tried harder."
She snorted. "Also not the first one to say that too."
Makoto shrugged. "I can't blame him for wanting to take life easy, I guess. Anyway, where was I? Right. The guy's research group is running some ML models on many-nucleotide ecosystems, but he said their stuff kept glitching out, no matter what they did. They even rewrote the whole thing at some point, or at least that's what he said."
"I see. So…"
"I don't know much else, sorry, sis. But if the data centre is on campus…" He had a glint in his eyes. "I think we can sneak in there."
"It's not locked up?" Satsuki inquired.
"Oh, no, it is. We might be able to get into the lobby, and I'm not sure much else besides that. But! You have Gabumon."
Satsuki blinked. Gabumon replied, "Right, if their programs are having problems… it should mean there's an abnormal Junction there!"
"Exactly." Makoto took another sip. "Don't know how bad it would be, sis, but…" he trailed off. "Best you guys go as soon as you can."
"Like, tomorrow?"
"I'm not sure. Do you think it would be better if you tried to blend in with the other frosh or should you guys go before there's too many people around?"
Satsuki pulled a face. She wasn't sure either. "Gabumon?"
"I think we should minimize the number of people who see us."
"Okay, then." She rubbed her calves. They were still sore from biking all the way down from the top of Sumida to the edge of Koto. Kazuhiko was more fit than she thought, at least, but they still stopped twice to stretch out his legs. It might have been too much. Oh well. She tapped at her phone.
• • • • • • •
Sumida Tamers
Tokuda Satsuki
Makoto confirmed something is up at his university
Should go see if there's an abnormal Junction there
13:15
Nagatomo Asuka
Rei said the same thing
13:16
Segawa Takaharu
Guess we're going!
When? Today?
13:17
Shimizu Kazuhiko
Please no www
My legs are still dead…
13:17
Tokuda Satsuki
Same!
13:18
Shimizu Kazuhiko
This was your idea Satsuki! wwwww
13:18
Segawa Takaharu
(ノ_∠。) I can't believe this
Should we go today anyway?
13:19
Ishida Yuuka
I think so, yeah
13:20
Koyama Ryuta
Hey, don't worry about it, you two.
We'll take care of this
13:20
Tokuda Satsuki
Thanks, sorry about the timing
13:21
Ishida Yuuka
np! Recover well
13:21
Tokuda Satsuki
thx
13:21
• • • • • • •