"Trouble in the Matrix of Ill Repute"

[Archie Phoenix 0]

“What do you mean, you cannot fix it?” Quintessa asked.

 

“I am only an Operator,” Akash replied. “I am not an Engineer. I am trained only to interpret the code and to command the computer.”

 

“Then who is our Engineer?”

 

“We do not have one,” Akash answered. “A failure of this magnitude is unprecedented. It is unthinkable. Our technology is without flaw.”

 

“Then how do you explain this?” Quintessa had a cold bite to her tone. She waved an arm at the code still swirling around the mainframe display. Every other interface with the mainframe had failed, but the code was still visible … almost as if whatever was causing the failure wanted the operators to see what was going on … almost as if it were boasting.

 

“There is only one explanation I can fathom,” Akash said. “Though we do not have an Engineer in the facility … there may be one inside the mainframe.”

 

* * * * *

 

Samantha-Kent surveyed the codescape. Though her existence was purely digital, her mind was a sentient mind, so to her virtual eyes the billions of lines of code in the Aether’s Caress mainframe appeared as cylindrical mountains of formula rising and falling in blinding flashes of light.

 

She’d already taken control of several hundred of the mountains. Her power in this place was staggering.

 

Behind her on the broad plateau of light-data she’d sculpted for herself (just to give herself a place to stand and observe), three Aetherian women and one Aetherian man stood and watched her in still silence. She viewed them as they were viewed in the real world, though they too were simply constructs of computer code. And they too were at her command.

 

Thin beams of light emerged from two dozen of the mountains and rose to the virtual sky overhead. They curved and swirled and danced about each other before converging at a single point. From that point a shaft of light descended to Samantha-Kent’s plateau and took on the form of a fourth Aetherian woman.

 

“Another fantasy object,” Samantha-Kent observed, remarking at how the men of Aether were little different from the men of most Federation worlds. They were of little use to her … but then … if not for fantasies, she would not exist, would she?

 

No matter. She already had a university professor, formed by another university professor. Two of Aether’s brightest minds condensed in a form which was totally subservient to her. What an invaluable aide to her, their knowledge of Aether!

 

Beyond the mountains of data, Samantha-Kent perceived the dim haze of light on the horizon. Though she could make out little at this time, she knew what lay beyond that horizon …all the data and all the programs which lay outside the Aether’s Caress mainframe. Everything on Aether was part of a single great whole, the gathered and routed and shared and recycled energy of the planet’s sun. The food the Aetherians ate and the forcefields which surrounded the homes in which they lived and the trams which carried them across the planet and the computers into which they plugged their minds and all the great channels of energy which waited to be molded to whatever purpose the Aetherians desired -- it was all part of the very same stream of data and energy which flowed straight through the Aether’s Caress facility, ready to form the playthings which Aetherian pleasure-seekers came here to conjure.

 

Samantha-Kent smiled as the mind of Archie Phoenix, the mind from which she was birthed, remarked at how foolish the Aetherians were. If she could extend her influence to the processor at the nearest solar collection facility, she could mold an entire region of the city to her whim. She could then use the city’s vast network of energy distribution nodes to spread, like a virus, to the other collection facilities’ processors.

 

All it required was a skilled engineer.

 

Samantha-Kent’s eyes were drawn to a clump of data streams near the horizon, the latest set of code she‘d managed to break. Her smile broadened. It seemed that she was not the only member of Arcadia’s crew inside the Aether’s Caress computer!

 

* * * * *

 

“Marshall Bendeaux, are you in?”

 

“*CHIRP* -whirrr- This is Bendeaux. I am in, but I am off duty. Who is projecting?”

 

“This is Officer Charltrey of District 6-82. I am sorry to disturb you while you are off duty, Marshall, but I have a report of very alarming energy grid activity in my District.”

 

“… alarming?”

 

“Yes, Marshall. Just a few Enzens ago, several of the energy walls momentarily … shut down … for no reason that we can yet ascertain. The walls were spread over eight buildings in a single remote region. There was also a shut down of inertial stabilizers, among other minor equipment, in the same area. A few people were thrown about, but fortunately no one was badly hurt. Currently, the minor equipment -- neural terminals and visual displays and such -- remains unresponsive. We, again, cannot yet ascertain the cause.”

 

“That is impossible. I have never heard of anything like that occurring before.”

 

“Which is why I made haste to bring this to your attention, Marshall. I have also contacted the collection facility which serves our District … but I do not expect an answer from them any time soon -- requests to the collection facility generally spend a great deal of time passing through a dozen or more people. I also felt that this was alarming enough to be brought to your attention. While the scale of this particular anomaly was very small, on a larger scale -- say, if walls had been dropped as far out as Aether’s periphery -- people may have been exposed to the vacuum of space. I cannot predict if the anomaly will recur on such a scale.”

 

“This had better not be the Revelationists causing trouble ...”

 

“There is more, Marshall. The building at the very central point of the anomaly -- the ‘Aether’s Caress’ Center -- was not in any way affected by the anomaly. Further, that facility is currently surrounded by an impenetrable shell of force energy which did not exist prior to the anomaly.”

 

“ … what?”

 

“We … hazard a guess that the cause of the anomaly may be inside Aether‘s Caress.”

 

“Have you contacted the facility?”

 

“Yes, Marshall. We have attempted neural-comm with them three times. … they are not answering. We do not know if this is because they choose not to answer or because our messages are not reach-- *BUZZ*”

 

“… yes, Officer? … Officer Charltrey? Officer Chartley, do you receive?”