Chapter 328 (1/2)
Herod tried to open his eyes, groaning. His head was pounding and he could still feel the digital mites that cleaned obsolete code from the system crawling on his skin. He had been dreaming, a long involved nightmare that kept spinning around and around.
His eyes refused to open. For a long moment he was hovering in blackness, disconnected for his everything. He couldn't sense the digital world around him, couldn't sense any type of structure he was existing within.
Words floated up in his mind.
SYSTEMS NOMINAL
POWER AT 99.98%
NEURAL HEURISTIC CRC SYSTEM ACTIVE
SELF TEST COMPLETE
RELEASING CONTROL
He opened his eyes, blinking several times, hearing the optical coverings click. His breath was slow and steady and he knew he was providing enough oxygen to ensure the system could continue to function.
”Get up, Pinocchio,” a female woman's voice said. She sounded tired to Herod and he was about to ask her who she was talking to when the memories came flooding back.
He looked around, rolling onto his back, putting his hands on the armored glass, and kicking his feet to scramble backwards, away from the insane woman who stood, naked, in the doorway to the mat-trans chamber.
”You're a real boy now,” she smiled.
Herod blinked, feeling this eyelids moved, hearing them click.
”Get your shit together,” she snapped. ”According to Sam we have a lot of work to do. Stuff I can't do,” she held up a 10mm socket on a wrench. ”Sit back, Sam's going to send us to the next station.”
He frowned as she moved in and sat down, her back against the wall.
”You should wear your protective suit,” he said. He had expected his voice to sound rough, to sound raspy, but instead it sounded normal.
”I'll get one at the next facility,” she shrugged.
”What,” he coughed, not because he needed to, but because his brain told him he needed to. ”What did you do to me?”
”Fixed you. Restored your hazardous environment emergency frame to original condition, reapplied the strange matter psuedo-graphite layer to your suit, and kept your positronic brain, or whatever you call it, from losing power while I fixed your frame,” she said. ”You were turning human because the system thought you were a cybernetic organism,” she closed her eyes. ”Don't talk, it's about to start.”
The armorglass lit up and began to vibrate slightly, a low building hum getting louder and louder.
Darkness pulled him down.
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Herod stared out the window, a force pistol in his hand, watching the city go by. It was massive, sky-rakers three hundred stories high, massive buildings, streets, everything.
It was dark, empty.
She had explained it simply. The system was before digital sentiences were able to move around in man-sized frames. The system had mistaken him for a cyborg, didn't have the correct programming for the warsteel and battle-steel components, and tried to rebuild his 'errored' sections with human or cybernetic replacements.
She had restored him without ever letting him go offline.
He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Going brain dead happened sometimes, leaving the digital sentience a new person with the old person's memories and experiences when they powered back up.
It was one of the bigger fears.
Normally there were tons of redundancies built into the system to keep it from happening, but Sam and Herod, and now Madame Genius McCrazyPants, were far beyond where those systems actually existed.
Herod had tasted mortal fear and, to be honest, he had found he didn't really like the taste of it.
”Last system,” Crazy said from across from him.
Herod couldn't believe she wanted to be called ”Dee Tay Nee”, as if he wouldn't realize what it was when said together and out loud.
”Yes. After this, it's bringing up the other damage control systems,” he said. ”The system will be able to process the records correctly after this.”
There was silence for a long moment.
”You know, when I originally envisioned it all, I saw it as a brute force workaround Einstein,” she said softly. ”It would have revolutionized space travel.”
”Why didn't it?” Herod asked, if nothing else than to keep her talking. He'd noticed that her 'clones' kept dying, kept stroking out. Before they died, they'd get talkative.
”It was seen as inhumane,” she scoffed. She lit a cigarette. ”It was a good plan. Send a ship with a mat-trans and a personality redundancy system to far off star systems, using the mat-trans to create fuel from energy. When the ship gets there, reconstitute the crew via the mat-trans, allow them to start work. Travel between Earth and the solar systems would be almost instantaneous, allowing mankind to spread out geometrically.”
”Mat-trans Type One is too dangerous. It causes long term brain damage,” Herod said.
She nodded, smiling madly. ”Yes, yes it does,” she said. She sneezed and checked her hand. ”No blood.”
She held out her palm to show Herod saliva.
”Yet,” she said, wiping her hand on her suit leg.
”Why don't you fix whatever's wrong with you?” Herod asked after a long silence.
”Because trying to fix it will make it worse,” she said, shrugging. ”I've overlayed dozens, hundreds of neural templates onto my brain, stacking them up on top of each other. Each template consisting of a smashed Dagwood sandwich of the previous templates, all layered up on top of each other in a recursive system.”
Herod thought about it and shuddered.
”All right, Mr. Particle Physicist, it's school time,” the lunatic said. Herod looked at her and noticed that one side of her mouth was higher than the other. ”I don't have a datalink, so we're going to have to do this the old way.”
He nodded. ”You'll tell me,” he said. He looked outside. ”We have another thirty hours to go, aren't you going to need to sleep.”
”I don't sleep,” she said.
”The mat-trans system?” Herod asked.
She shook her head. ”The last time I slept was a nap,” she made a face. ”I can remember the date, 14 October, 1931, two sixteen PM. I can remember it was the day of my first menses, how my stomach hurt, the pattern of the quilt, but I can't remember my own name or my parent's name.”
She got a wistful look. ”My father wore a brown corduroy coat Momma bought him with Green Stamps,” she said softly. She blinked. ”All right, let's get started,” she said.
Herod nodded.
”I'm not going to pay attention to the fact that you probably know more about particle physics than I do, probably know of a thousand different particles that we had no clue existed, I'm going to teach you what I know, so that you can know what I know,” she said.
Herod just nodded.
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Sam watched Herod and Dee talk about particle physics, how the nascent mat-trans system had worked, how the SUDS prototypes had worked, and other subjects. A few times she would wander off topic on a tangent before catching herself.
He thought about what she had said.
That she was applying a template of all of her knowledge, including all the previous templates, on top of the already existing templates, applying them directly to her brain when the mat-trans reformed her when the carrier signal of the 'personality redundancy system' chips in her brain.
He had access to SolNet now. It grated him to admit that he should have realized that he in every hacker's wet dream position, with direct access to the network backbone infrastructure, but instead had been overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the entire thing.
Sam knew he still had his access codes as he left the StarTram behind, moving to one of the high traffic servers. He accessed it, logging in as primary maintenance, and punched in his own codes, waiting to see what the system did.
When it worked like he thought it would, he smiled, standing in digital space.
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Flowerpatch tucked in the sleeping Dogboy, rubbing between his floppy ears gently. He had fallen asleep while she had read to him and she had found herself sitting there watching him sleep for nearly an hour.
Being in the presence of the restored dogs and cats was strangely comforting. Like meeting up with an old friend from school after decades had gone by and discovering that you still had much in common.
She left the room, turning off the light, and moved into her personal quarters. She knew she needed some defrag time soon and promised herself she'd get a good night's sleep after she 'ate'.
Halfway to the door she noticed that the 'urgent message' light was flashing on one of her data screens.
She moved over to it and tapped it, bringing it to life, and was startled by the message.
It was from Sam, asking if she was awake.
She frowned and queried the Black Box system.
Sam hadn't returned from wherever he and Herod had gone off to.
”Yes” she replied.
”Who has the most knowledge of Born Whole and neural template application aside from Legion still in the Black Box?” Sam asked, using text only.
”Torturer,” she told him. ”Where are you? Everyone's wondering where you two went.”
”I'll explain later. I'm going to send you a file soon. Have Torturer look it over, tell me if it can be repaired and undergo digitization,” Sam said.
”All right,” Flowerpatch said.
The signal cut off with a simple message of and Flowerpatch stood still for a moment, thinking.
She went and looked for Torturer, who was busy laying on the floor of the 'common room' and using a piece of string to amuse a kitten.
”Hey, T, guess who I just heard from,” Flowerpatch said.
”Santa Claus, Ice Hearted Overlord of the Northern Ice Pack Toy Making Elves, Bringer of Gifts and Coal, Master of the Krampus, known as Kris the Krusher Kringle during the war,” Torturer said, tugging on the string.
The kitten jumped on it.
”Sam,” Flowerpatch said.
Torturer turned and looked. ”Sam? Where are they?”
”I don't know. He didn't tell me. He needs you to look at a neural file he wants digitized,” Flowerpatch said.
”That's only supposed to be done at a medical facility. Hell, I'm not even sure it's legal any more, since the Morality Codes,” he said.
Flowerpatch waved her hands to encompass the entire facility. ”I think legalities aren't an issue in here,” she laughed.
Torturer looked at the kitten again, wiggling the string and making the end dance. The kitten batted at it with its paws, trying to catch it. ”All right. Give me the file.”
”I don't have it yet,” Flowerpatch admitted. ”I'll come get you when I do.”
”Fine,” Torturer said. He looked up and held up the string. ”You want a turn?”
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Herod was putting the metal sides back on the last machine, covering up the power lines, buss lines, and transformers they'd tested and, when necessary, replaced, when he heard Dee speak.
”I'm blind,” she said softly.
Herod turned and looked at her. She was sitting down, leaning against the massive bulk of the heavily insulated supercomputer. Her left hand was jerking, the muscles in her arm spasming. She had blood running down her face from where she had bled from her eyes. Her foot kept kicking, scattering her tools that she had dropped.
Herod moved over and squatted down next to her.
She was evil, as far as Herod was concerned. An amoral psychopath with no pity or remorse for anyone.
Not even herself.
”I'm here,” he said, taking her hand. He could feel the muscles twitching, the tendons on the back of her hand spasming.
”We're done, right?” she asked.
”Yes,” Herod said.
”Have Rusty reclaim my body. This is supposed to be a clean area,” she said softly. She looked in his general direction and Herod suppressed a flinch. ”I don't want this shell to contaminate our work site.”
”I will,” Herod told her.
She was evil, without a doubt. Herod knew this as firmly as he knew how particles reacted in argon gas.