Cyberdrome (4 page)

It was a Piggyback
module all right—originally designed to allow two people to share one interface
signal. They also allowed one person to eavesdrop on another if you knew how to
modify them. Very few did, of course, which confirmed that Stacy wasn’t just
some hacker working for Klaxon—Stacy was Klaxon.

He smacked the top
of the table. What an idiot—falling for the girl with the see-through top. How
the hell was he going to explain this? He stuffed the module into his backpack
and then saw a familiar face on the TV screen up in the corner. He signaled his
watch to turn up his personal sound.

“It was one year ago
today that the genetically-engineered virus broke through its quarantine in
Utah’s Salt Lake Biomedical Research Facility,” the reporter said, “killing
over 9,000 people in the first few hours. The CDC admits that while authorities
have been able to contain the microscopic machines that carry the plague, they
have not yet found a way to destroy them.

“The research lab’s
parent company, Cyberdrome—the Nevada-based ‘Think Tank’ well-known for its
pioneering work in nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and other
next-generation fields—has never admitted direct responsibility for either the
outbreak or the deaths. Speaking from the company’s Groom Lake headquarters,
Cyberdrome’s Chief Administrator, Rebecca Leconte, told us that founder, Dr.
Mathew Grey, was still hard at work finding a cure for the plague, and
therefore unavailable for comment.”

Alek flicked off the
sound. He didn’t need to hear any more about the sins of his father. He had
enough problems of his own to deal with. He was about to leave when something
on the screen grabbed his attention. He fished the Piggyback module from his
backpack and stared at it numbly. Etched into the side of the device he saw an
oval containing a stylized bird whose wings enclosed a small globe. The image
of his father on the television bore the exact same symbol below his name. It
was the logo for his company—Cyberdrome.

TWO

A
n intense,
pure-white flash hit Maya without warning and she felt every cell in her body
explode. Just as abruptly, the pain ended and she found herself floating in a
black void.
I’m dead
, she murmured to herself.

Finally, light
and substance returned as some sort of door opened before her. Staring through
someone else’s eyes, she saw a brown-skinned woman in a white uniform looking
down at her.

“Rise and shine,
sweetie,” the woman said as she helped Maya to a sitting position. “Do you know
who I am?” she asked.

For a moment,
Maya didn’t know the answer, although the woman’s face looked familiar. When
she looked down and saw her blue, circuit-laced bodysuit, the fog in her head
began to clear. “Angela, right?” she said. At the woman’s nod, she added, “I’m
fine, Doctor.” She tried to stand up but fell backward onto the interface chamber.

“Give yourself a
minute,” Angela said, holding her arm. “You were scheduled for eight hours, but
came out after only two. Is anything wrong?”

“I was only
there for two hours?” Maya asked. She remembered being in the simulation for
most of a day and night.

Angela patted
her on the shoulder as she looked at a display on the wall. “I keep telling you
people to slow down, but do any of you listen to me?”

Maya’s memories
began to flow back into her consciousness, like water pouring into a bowl. She
had been connected to an Earth-based simulation where virtual time passed
ten-times faster than normal. That’s why she remembered spending a whole day on
the planet after just two hours. She felt a bit more in control and even managed
to stand on her own. “I think I’m all right now.”

“Are you sure?”
The doctor looked at the readings on the bio-display above her chamber. “Perhaps
the upload didn’t have time to complete—”

“The upload
worked,” Maya interrupted. “I remember everything now. Twenty hours of memories—they’re
all there.” When Angela looked at her suspiciously, she added. “Really, Angela,
I’m fine.”

“I’ll be the
judge of that, young lady. So, why did you come out early?”

“The investors’
tour,” Maya said as she tried to edge herself toward the door. The last thing
she needed was for the doctor to confine her there for observation. “Dr. Grey
asked me to handle it for him.”

“I thought they
cancelled that,” Angela said as she escorted Maya to the exit, holding her elbow
as they walked. Suddenly, the door slid open and a middle-aged man came running
through, almost crashing right into them.

“Apologies,” he
said. “I saw that a chamber had become available and I didn’t want someone else
to beat me to it.”

Angela sighed.
“It’s ready to go, Dr. Lyman.” When the man stepped past them and climbed into
Maya’s chamber, she whispered, “It’s been like this all week. People literally
fighting for more time in the simulations.”

Maya nodded.
“Well, that’s why they’re building the new chambers, right? I bet you can’t
wait for those to be finished?”

“If they think
I’m going to supervise another 42 people…” Angela’s voice drifted off as she
looked down at her datapad. “Wait a minute. Did you say that Grey asked you to
come back?”

 “Yes. Why?”

“You’re telling
me that you spoke to Mathew Grey in person?”

“Well, not
in
person
. I was down on a planet and he was in the local Survey Vessel. Why?”

She still looked
confused. “Could he have been speaking to you from here?”

Maya shook her
head. “Absolutely not. I was in a Level-10 interface and we spoke together—it
wasn’t a recorded message. Why are you asking me all of this?”

Angela looked
up. “Well, according to my logs, Mathew Grey is not currently interfaced.”

It took a moment
for the doctor’s words to sink in. “That’s not possible.”

At that moment,
an alarm went off and a message came across the intercom. “Code Seven Alert.
All employees return to your duty stations. This is not a drill.”

Maya stared
blankly at the doctor for several seconds as the words sunk in. Code Seven
meant something was wrong inside the simulations. She turned and rushed out the
door.

She took the
elevator up three levels, transferred to another tube, and finally reached the
main control level. After submitting a fingertip scan, she passed through two
thick steel doors and stepped into a brightly lit, circular room filled with
about a dozen people. In the center, a meter-wide transparent column rose out
of a circular console and nearly touched the two-story high domed ceiling. It
looked like a high-tech aquarium filled with glowing green water, except that
the water was actually DNA-based liquid memory.

Rebecca Leconte,
a middle-aged woman with white hair and a youthful figure, stood near the tower
looking up at something Maya couldn’t see. Maya adjusted her contacts to the
room’s frequency and a large floating angelfish appeared in the air in front of
Rebecca. The fish was talking.

“So you see,
Rebecca, there really is nothing for you to be concerned with.”

“Kill that damn
alarm!” Rebecca yelled. When the alarm died, she turned back to the floating
fish. “We currently have over forty people in direct neural interface in this
facility, Ceejer.
I
need to know exactly what kind of threat we’re up against. If you can’t tell
me, I’m going to order their retrieval at once
.”

The angelfish
wiggled its fins, as if agitated. “As I have already stated, Rebecca, my defenses
are more than adequate to handle this situation. I have already ordered my
Sentinels in to capture the rogue entity. If it cannot be contained, it will be
deleted, I assure you.”

As Maya watched
from just inside the door, she saw the fish morph into a large hairless cat.
Whatever its shape, the holographic image was a representation of C.J.E.R.—the
Cyberdrome Jurisdictional Enforcement Routine. It was the program ultimately
responsible for monitoring all life forms inside Cyberdrome’s many simulations,
both digital and biological.

“I think I’m
going to start the retrieval anyway,” Rebecca said, “just to be safe.”

The cat sat down
on the tower’s console and licked one of its front paws. “Need I remind you
that disconnection from a direct neural interface operating at the current
speed requires at least thirty-three minutes?”

A young
technician named Brad spoke up. “We can do an emergency disconnect, can’t we?”

The cat turned
toward the young man. “Thirty-three minutes is the minimum estimated time it
takes to retrieve all neuroprobes from the subjects. Disconnection before
neuroprobes are removed will result in a twenty-nine percent chance of brain
damage.”

The cat turned
back toward Rebecca. “Time in my world is passing substantially faster than in
yours and I expect my Sentinels will have the intruder captured long before you
could even begin disconnection.” The cat paused and stared off to the side for
a moment before continuing. “In fact, my Sentinels are now entering the memory
sector containing the intruder. Please stand by while I monitor.”

The cat
dissolved into a swarm of particles and then disappeared.

Rebecca turned
to Brad. “God, I hate talking to that thing. Why does it have to change into
all of those ridiculous creatures?”

“Ceejer was
never given an Avatar of its own,” Brad replied. “It’s a supervisor program, so
it shouldn’t need one. We think it might have something to do with the fact
that it’s the first supervisor-class ALife grown in liquid memory.” Rebecca
stood there glaring at him, and he quickly changed his answer. “What I meant to
say, ma’am, is that we don’t really know why it does that.”

Rebecca turned
and looked into the green tower. “Can we at least get a visual of the intruder?”
she asked.

The poor guy
looked embarrassed and Maya knew the reason. Leconte was formerly a clinical
psychologist, hired just a few months ago to oversee the Human Interface
Project, but then promoted to Chief Administrator when Mathew began working
full time in the simulations. She was a bright woman, but simply didn’t
understand all the complexities of Cyberdrome’s simulations yet.

Brad cleared his
throat. “Ma’am, the intruder program isn’t inside the environments. It’s in the
Core.” He paused a moment, probably hoping someone else would continue the
explanation. When no one offered, he continued. “The Core’s essentially where
the guts of the programs that run the individual environments are located. Even
though it’s also a three-dimensional construct, we can’t get a visual of it
because our rendering engines are set up exclusively for the environments. If
you give us a few hours, we can
—
”

“You’re telling
me this intruder’s in the very heart of our system,” Rebecca interrupted, “and
we are leaving its defense entirely up to a bunch of programs?” She looked at
him sternly. “Do you consider this a wise decision, Bradley?”

Brad looked like
he was going to pass out, and swallowed hard before answering her. “The
Sentinels are the best programs we have to patrol that region of memory.
They’re actually human-based, artificial life forms, taken directly from the
simulations. They are specially trained to defend the Core and have human-like
adaptability; they should have no problem handling the intruder, whatever it
is.”