Chapter 534: Resurgence - Crying Anne (1/2)
”You two are idiots,” the thick bodied matronly woman said without looking at the two men who stood nearby. One was lean and cruel looking as a hook pointed knife, his bald head shining like old oak in the lights of the vast chamber the three of them were the only living human inhabitants of. The other was a thick bodied man, of heavy bone and muscle, thick black hair cut in a rough bowl cut, with facial tattoos and scarring. Sitting next to the chair the woman was sitting in was a robotic dog chassis housing the cerebral tissue of a canine. She was scratching between its ears as she picked up her lighter and lit a cigarette, exhaling smoke as she stared at the scream.
The two men stopped play-wrestling over a candy bar who's expiration date was over nine thousand years ago.
”What?” the thicker one asked, his voice a deep rumble. He had the lean one in a headlock and let him go.
”Mom, he took my candy bar,” the leaner one said, snatching the candybar from the bigger one.
”I did not! It was mine first! I found it under the vending machine!” the heavier one said, grabbing the leaner one. ”Give it back, Dhruv.”
”Mom, Daxin's lying again!” the lean one said, wriggling around in the larger one's grip, using his longer reach to hold the candybar outside of the heavier man's reach. ”Mom!”
”I swear to God I'm going to kill you two,” the woman snapped.
**it is funny because you are not their mom** the dog transmitted.
”They think they're funny,” the woman snapped, not stopping at scratching at between the dog's ears. She started tapping at the keyboard with one finger, holding the cigarette between her teeth.
The candy-bar bounced from Dhruv's hand, landing in front of the dog. The dog bent down, picked it up in its jaws, and started chewing.
”That's what you get. Now neither one of you get it,” the woman said, not looking away from the screen. ”OK, he's asleep again. Let's see if we can wake him up a little more,” she said softly, tapping on the keys again.
”Aw,” Dhruv said, staring at where FIDO was crunching up the nine thousand year old candy bar. He looked at Daxin, then shoved the bigger man's head back hard by pushing on his forehead. ”Now look what you did! Mom! Daxin gave my candy-bar to the dog!”
”I did not! You did it!” Daxin said, grabbing Dhruv and trying to wrestle him into a headlock again. ”Mom, Dhruv's biting me!”
”I swear to God!” Dee grumbled, still typing. ”This idiot better be worth it. I hate dealing with temporal mechanics. I'm trying to talk to someone who is months behind us like he's in the room with us.”
Daxin had managed to grab Dhruv around the waist and turn him upside down, shaking him. Dhruv grabbed Daxin's arm and managed to pull himself up, reaching up for Daxin's collar.
”Mom!” Dhruv yelled, grinning. ”Daxin's trying to give me an Indian burn!”
”Mom!” Daxin yelled, returning the grin. ”Dhruv's kicking me!”
”I SWEAR TO GOD!”
**it is funny because they are not children**
-------------------
mom daxin's trying to strangle me
i am not
are too
are not
are too
mom dhruv bit me
i swear to god if you two don't behave i'm standing you both in the corner
DAY ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-TWO
I have examined what code I can now examine. I am forced to request data inputs as well as come at the software from an angle.
Mister McNugget is sure that I am on the right track and has taken all personnel with no breakthroughs within their team assignments and had them begin to assist me. He is sure that I will be able to get the software to tell us where the hardware is located.
The amount of security, both passive and active, on the software is astounding. Beyond that is the redundancy built into the system to take into account software or failure hardware. I have found multiple dynamic linkage library calls to libraries that apparently only come into use if there is hardware damage.
I have had assistants trace the hardware damage by what library is in use and which ones are not undergoing linkage or hook calls.
The active security not only is in the software itself through coding and esoteric language usage but also in embedded viral warfare hashes hidden in variable strings and virtual code blocks. To try to use this system with a virutal system interface would result in biofeedback armed virii swarms attacking a user, as well as 'jump/replicate/jump' virii attacks to spread a lethal biofeedback virus as far as possible through researchers before it would kill all of them.
Mister McNugget ordered everyone to disable their datalinks and comlinks at the hardware level. That meant I had to take the time out to help open up the casing and set the micro dip switches to the off position.
I was startled at just how many of my colleagues suddenly became near-drooling imbeciles. Without constant access to our SolNet node and the databases, half of them probably would have trouble tying their shoes.
For me, it made the whispering stop.
Following the software calls, I've found that the naming scheme is very strange, but leads to one and only one conclusion.
This system was built pre-Glassing by a very focused project group. It is almost military in the inefficiency and task orient bloat as well as the over-engineering of security. I tried to explain it to my colleagues that it feels military due to the way it tries to do so many things at once, but of course they are all suddenly experts on Confederate Space Force procurement and development now that I'm trying to explain something to them.
Mister McNugget looked over a piece of software and stated that it did not offend his corporate sensibilities so much. He pointed out several score of lines of code that made looping database calls to search tables recursively that could be cleared up with a half dozen lines that would increase speed and accuracy. That is corporate engineered slowdown, which will ensure that the system locks up and requires corporate service calls.
Doctor Hermans responded that the code had been commented out and used a different system that was bare boned, with variables such as ”CallOneVar” instead of something more esoteric. Mister McNugget showed that the variables state that it was done as a patch, probably before the system came fully online.
Mister McNugget pointed out that the code was commented out instead of removed entirely, another function of corporate development as well as military development.
Mister McNugget is apparently quite the military procurement and development historian. It makes sense, since he is a direct descendant of General McNugget of the Burger Wars fame. He pointed out that every tank built since the Age of Paranoia has a line of code that does a hard reset of the timing chip every hour in order to reset any possible floating point errors in the targeting software, something that takes less than a picosecond, but is still performed. This is despite the fact that the floating point error issue was solved prior to the Glassing.
An interesting bit of trivia.
But applicable.
Examining the software, I have noticed that some of the software is beginning to accept and request data calls and hook requests. Some of the software that only a few days ago was not performing functions is not starting to work again.
However, there's one piece of software that is blocking everything up.
It doesn't have a fancy or descriptive name, and that raises alarm bells to me. I'm not sure why, but the subprogram really makes me nervous.
External SubSystem Coding and Hardware Synchronization System.
It's currently on standby. Something called a ”Big Bang Event” has occurred roughly four times and the system is awaiting a reset.
I checked some pathways. Apparently, as near as I can tell, the software requires a hardware button press, or perhaps a switch flipped. However, there is a diagnostic mode I can trigger, which, if I'm right, will cause the system to reset to base values.
That should reset the program and let it go on gathering data.
I've talked it over with the rest of the team. Apparently this piece of software is directly in line with the SUDS system and what we've begun calling SoulNet again.
Unless it's reset, the system stays jammed up.
Mister McNugget agrees.
I'll try a Peek/Poke command first. See if I can change the value to fool the system into the thinking the hardware switch was thrown.
--Marco
will you two stop that
fine
i'm not doing anything daxin is