Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (72 page)

***

“Jesus, Gabe. What the hell have you done?” Petal said from her position on the theatre table. Enna, James, and Jess surrounded her, staring at him with expressions of surprise. Alpha and Omega hummed in the corner, speaking their secret language.
 

Dozens of cables connected them to Enna’s control desk. Wires from Petal’s and the transcendent’s neck ports snaked into the same control hub.
 

Gabe shrugged; he didn’t want to get into it. “What’s the plan?” Gabe asked, directing it at James and Enna. “You think we can get Gerry out of her mind in one piece?”
 

“The plan’s to use Alpha to distinguish Gerry’s code from Petal’s mind and bring it out into storage until we can do the same with the failed transcendent. We’ll need you to direct operations, though, Gabriel,” James said.
 

Gabe noticed that he didn’t look at Petal and vice versa. He felt the tension between them. He could understand her feelings towards him, but he could also relate to James. The lie, that Petal was a clone of his daughter when in truth she was the clone of James’ sister, was at the heart of the issue. From Gabe’s point of view, he didn’t think it mattered a great deal. The fact that Petal and Sasha were here was what counted, regardless of whom they were clones of.

But then, he had the privilege of knowing his parents, growing up with them in the shelters of Hong Kong.
 

“Are you ready, Gabe?” Enna held a jack lead in her hand, waiting for him.
 

He took a seat by the theatre table and reached out a hand to touch Petal’s face. As much as she was created as a daughter for James, she was as close as he had to a child.
 

Back in Hong Kong, he’d met a girl, a fellow gang member. He got her pregnant, but when he returned from one of his scouting missions, she had gone. Rumour amongst the gang was that she lost the baby and, unable to face him, killed herself.
 

That was something he dared not think too much about.
 

Gabe took the lead, hooked it into his neck port, and connected with Alpha.
 

Jess’s eyes widened as she sat on a stool, her small, deformed legs folded beneath her body. She wore a Libertas uniform jacket of blue and silver. Her hair was in a single ponytail. She looked far too innocent to be involved with this kind of stuff. She should be back in the Dome with the other kids, enjoying her life.

And yet despite that, she seemed calmer and more adept than anyone in the room. She reached out her tiny hand and touched Gabe on the arm.
 

“You’ll be fine, Gabriel.”

“Thanks, Jess. Do ya hear anything? Like Gerry talking or saying anything?” He referred to her unusual talent of being able to listen to data within computers and networks. He suspected she was some kind of cyborg or advanced transcendent. She’d been very quiet about her parents and background or what she was. All she knew, from her point of view, was that she was a normal kid and just happened to have this weird ability.
 

Gabe knew that her parents were most likely responsible for putting something in her brain, a transceiver of some kind, but for what purpose, he had no idea. People did some weird stuff after the Cataclysm, especially in Darkhan, where a lot of tech and skilled people survived.
 

The girl shook her head in answer to his question. “I can only hear static coming from Petal and Gerry. It’s too intermingled. From the server, Sakura is sad.”

“Sad?”

“She misses Hajime since I had to decouple them.”

“I never knew AIs could miss each other,” Gabe said, but then remembered they were more than AIs. When coupled, they were like Gerry or Elliot. In fact, they were the first of their kind: uploaded minds. Like the others, however, they too didn’t make it intact.
 

“Okay, let’s get this going,” Enna said. “Navigate via Alpha, Gabe, and see if you can filter Gerry and Petal. Jess here will listen and let us know if anything unusual happens.”

“Got it. See y’all on the other side.”

Gabe’s mind switched over to an interface mode, meaning that directly within his thoughts he could see and manipulate Alpha’s operating system. He’d done it many times before, when he and Petal had to dispose of AIs and viruses into Alpha’s special storage system. He looked to do something similar, but this time, instead of the AI/virus coming from Petal, he had to go in and extract Gerry’s code directly.
 

Alpha provided a particular application for an operation like this.
 

Gabe activated the data-filtering algorithm that would, in theory, allow the server to distinguish between Gerry’s and Petal’s minds.
 

The program opened up, presenting him with a number of boxes to enter the filtering criteria. Using a sample from Alpha’s log files, he programmed a series of key data points, aligning them to either Gerry or Petal. This would train the filtering program to define the two.
 

He ran the program.
 

Sakura, the uploaded human consciousness that ran within Alpha, performed the task, filling up the memory and using all available processing power. The results trickled in, and Gabe scanned through the files. They were strings of textual and graphical data. At first it didn’t make sense to him. The word strings were scrambled into weird collections, and the images were dark amorphous blended shapes.
 

He programmed a Helix++ decryption program and applied it to the flow of text data. The reason for their strange appearance was that they were a mix of both Petal’s and Gerry’s thoughts. So entwined, he initially saw no way of separating them.
 

Gabe instructed the server to continue filtering the data and to use the results of his decryption programme as rules in order to help separate the information.
 

The server’s processor fans hit max speed, and the core temperature continued to increase. Gabe felt someone’s hand grip his arm, but he continued on, trying to find order in the chaos of the data that was Petal’s mind.
 

Error codes flashed on the server’s display. Gabe ignored them and continued to press on, diving his own mind deeper into the code to try to find something concrete that he could use to prise Gerry from Petal’s mind, but the deeper he went, the more entangled everything became. He found no order of any kind.
 

The code began to mutate and shift.

The filtering program shut down, as did his decryption utility. He felt his mind being pushed out of the server. A great pain sliced through his neck and into his brain, forcing him out of the operating system. The hand on his arm gripped harder, and a piercing scream pulled him out completely.
 

Someone yanked the lead from his neck port, severing the connection. He opened his eyes; a white light obscured his vision. His heart rate continued to increase. He realised then the scream was his.

Jess yelled, “Shut it down! He’ll destroy it!”

When his vision returned, he realised it was Petal who was grabbing onto his arm. She bucked on the theatre table, arching her back, breaking the bonds around her wrists. She pulled the lead out of her neck port and turned on to her side, crunching into a ball as her muscles tensed.
 

James attended to the server, removing cables, but it was too late.
 

Black smoke came from the machine, and its lights went out one by one.
 

“She’s gone,” Jess said, tears tracking down her face. “Sakura’s gone!”

“What the hell happened?” Gabe said, still wincing as his brain felt like it was too large for his skull. Pressure pushed against his temples.
 

“She couldn’t handle it. It was too much. He’s mutated and growing,” Jess said. “Alpha didn’t have enough processing power; Gerry’s too powerful.”

“It’s definitely gone.” Enna referred to the data on the holoscreen. “Alpha’s dead.”

***

Seeing Jess cry nearly broke Gabe. The poor girl climbed off her stool and dragged herself across the floor to sit next to the smoking server. She rested her head against the metal case and sobbed.
 

How does one console the grief for a dead computer, even one with a consciousness inside? Gabe was the first to react. He walked round the theatre table and knelt at the girl’s side. He placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned and hugged him as the tears continued to flow.
 

“It’s okay,” Gabe said. “It’ll be all right.”

“She’s gone,” Jess said. “I can’t hear her anymore.”

Gabe looked to James and Enna at the holoscreen. “Is the memory damaged?” he asked.
 

Enna gestured towards the screen and scanned the flowing lines of data. “No, they’re okay. The power unit is gone, the motherboard has shorted, and the CPU is fried. The memory is good, though. We could transfer it to something else.”

“No!” Jess screamed as she broke away from Gabe, stretching out her arms. “You can’t. It’s all one thing.”

“What do you mean?” Enna said.

“The machine, the memory, it’s all Sakura. The memory’s okay, right? We have to fix it, bring it back. Bring Sakura back.”

“How?” James said. “This is really old tech. We don’t have the parts to do this kind of thing. We could perhaps engineer something similar if we—”

“No,” Jess said. “It has to be the same. It’s like her DNA, and you can’t just go changing stuff.”

Enna sat up from the control table and leaned against the wall. “We need to fix it anyway if we’re to find a way of destroying Elliot. We need both servers fully operational.” She looked to James. “Is there no way of fixing the CPU and motherboard directly?”

“Not that I know of. Even with my equipment back at Criborg I couldn’t do it. It’s entirely different architecture to what we’ve been using for the last few decades. It was a bespoke design by Hajime and Sakura. One of a kind.”

“Well, I’m fucked, then, right?” Petal said, sitting up, nursing her head in her hands, her hair wet and limp with sweat. “If we can’t download Gerry, he’ll mutate and take me with him. Just a matter of time, ain’t it?”

“Um, it might not be,” Jess said, releasing her grip on Gabe’s waist. “Gabe, when you were trying to divide them, I saw something. It wasn’t a mutation or anything. It was, I don’t know, I’ve never seen or heard anything like it before; it’s like it was a new thing, combined from Petal and Gerry.”

“A new thing? Like a hybrid?” Petal asked.

Jess shrugged, wiping her face. She sat silently looking at Petal as if she were scanning her, then finally said, “I can’t hear Gerry anymore—his data and yours is one thing. A new voice.”

Petal remained passive, clearly trying to take in the ramifications. This was unlike anything Gabe had seen before, but then he’d never known it was possible to upload a mind before he experienced Elliot.
 

“How do ya feel?” Gabe asked Petal.

“Apart from the shock of the disconnection, I feel okay.”

“What if...” Gabe looked back at the server, thought about the data he saw, the melding of information and images.
 

“What is it, Gabe?” Enna asked. “What are you thinking?”

“Could it be that Gerry ain’t gonna mutate in a dangerous way like Elliot? Take Sakura and Hajime. They uploaded, and although it went wrong, they’re not dangerous or malicious, are they? They just do their thing inside the servers. What if Gerry’s the same? What if he and Petal are...” He searched for the right word. “Compatible, like synergistically? What if their minds work together? After all, Gerry was the first to be completely at one with his AIA, who’s to say his mind wouldn’t fuse and meld without any repercussions?”

“Interesting,” James said, stroking his chin. “I knew when I designed her internal systems that she would have immense capacity for the secure holding of AIs and viruses. I suppose her altered brain systems could accommodate such a melding if the new consciousness didn’t change too much of her neural system. But let’s not forget my sister died trying to upload her mind. It’s not an exact science. Even I don’t really know the full extent to my creations.”

Gabe winced internally at James’ use of language in reference to Petal. Gabe never saw her as anything but a regular, if not special, human being. The way James spoke of her, it brought to mind nothing more than a dispassionate robot.
 

“What about the fragment of Gerry that fucked up the transcendent?” Gabe asked. “Where does that fit into this? Does it mean that he’s not complete within Petal? Would that increase the risk of him going... wrong?”

“I’m still analysing the transcendent,” Enna said. “But early results show it was a capacity issue. My systems just don’t have the processing or bandwidth to hold something like a fully conscious mind like James’ tech.”

Gabe winced again.
 

“Fuck’s sake, guys, I am standing right here.” Petal slid off the theatre table. “You’re talking like I’m a machine. Have some respect, will you?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, Petal. I’m just thinking out loud,” James said.