City of Walls: Chapter 10

          Meanwhile, at the other end of the hex, in the basement of an empty building, a trio of figures huddle in silence. Shafts of light litter the ground around them. Small heaps of rubbish lay strewn along the length of the floor. The smallest of the three, Carl, detached himself from the group.

          "Hurry up!" Genie snapped. "Bruce ain't getting any lighter." She shifted the massive weight of their unconscious cohort, while Carl found a chair and brought it over. The inert body was lowered and Genie placed her hand over the slowly moving chest. "Scan". A holo appeared with squiggly lines moving to a rhythmic beat. At the bottom of the view a single line, with very little vibration.

          "What's all that mean? I mean, is he ok?" Carl spout off, as he lay a hand on Genie's arm. She snapped her fingers, disengaging the screen.

          "It looked like all his vitals were ok, but his brain activity is just," she placed her hand over eyes and exhaled forcefully. "it doesn't look good. We should consider bringing him to a hospital."

          "We can't do that!" Carl lowered himself to the ground. "we're in enough trouble as it is. We don't have any more nannites for Bruce, or Mr. Smith, we don't even have any creds. That was the worst boost ever. Empty handed and who knows what kind of agencies are poised to swoop down on us!"

          "Ha!" Genie rejoined while slapping Carl upside the head. "Agencies? Do you really think that Mr. Smith would let anyone get close enough to trace us back to him? If we were being hunted, the second one of his connections," she brought up her hands, twitching the index and middle fingers on both, "got the slightest hint of tracers anywhere, Mr. Smith would terminate us himself." Her brow furled. "But you are right. The second we take Bruce anywhere for help, he's as good as dead. He needs more nannites if he's going to get better." She shook her head, and turned her back on the two seated before her. "Need to get my mind off of this." She took a few steps away. "Tell me again about this thing you saw." She came to a stop at the far side of the room, angled her head towards the ground level window, at that point, motionless.

          "It doesn't make any sense, when I go over it in my head." Carl placed his left hand on his head and began massaging. "When it spoke, uh that's not the right word. I heard a voice coming through my inner ear receiver; which has been programmed to channel feeds from our group only, and is covered by the nannite secure shell. It didn't have a face, just eyes. Eyes covering every bit of it. And swords, one in each hand. It glowed. It was so bright it almost hurt to look at it. Oh yeah, it had these huge wings, six of them, like a bug, but covered in feathers. It has to be a security guard, it has to." His hand slowly lowered. "I almost forgot."

          "Forgot what?" Genie prompted when he did not continue.

          "Spades! When I was going through the girls data, I found a SOA. When I first tried to open it I got an alert. I tried again, and it worked. It was issued by Friedman Inc. That's when the flogging thing showed up. It was a Guardian AI. Had to be."

          "A Guardian!" Genie tilted her head back and began laughing. "Oh you had me worried for a second there." She turned back to face Carl once again." That's how the paramedics were alerted. All it did was send out notification that an unauthorized action was occurring, and signaled its location." She placed her hands on her hips and smiled resplendently at him.

          He scowled. "Don't look at me like that!" He jumped up quickly. "What about those eyes!"

          "Someone with flair designed it." Genie flourished her hand.

          "Or how about when it said there would be consequences? Guardians do not administer punishment. And it didn't just designate its location, it tagged us. It scanned my ID, ran a transponder, and executed something called avenge. I think it followed us, at least part of the way here.!" He began pacing.

          Genie's smile faded. "But, that can't... It's impossible! AIs are"

          "Not impossible." Carl cut her off. " Improbable, illegal, but that kind of thing didn't stop Mr. Smith when he and his partners started this problem with the nann."

          This time Genie interrupted him. "Don't you go down that trail. We have no proof, only suspicions. And suspicious activity on our end gets us nowhere."

          "I still think that thing is our second highest priority." Carl ended his pacing in front of the unconscious form. "I have a fair amount of favors owed to me. No one particularly influential, mind you. But I might be able to scrap something together to take care of Bruce."

          While his back had been turned, Genie had sauntered up behind him. She now put her arms around him, pressing herself against his back. "Thank you, boy machine." She softly whispered into the hair atop of his head.

          Carl began tried to extricate himself from her grasp. Being shorter than the buxom beauty, and weaker due to his own problems with nannites, he struggled in vain. "Genie, look, you and Bruce."

          "Have never been true to each other. We're in a rocky spot." She gripped his arms more tightly.

          "You're hurting." He grunted. She abandoned her maneuvers, and without speaking left for another room.

          Rubbing his right arm, where light purple splotches were forming, Carl shook his head and departed via the entrance they'd use earlier.

          All the while, a program in the background had been recording. Obtaining location, visual, audio, and indexing all of the modrpunks nannite inventory. It remained hidden from the nannites like a trojan. In fact, it had already begun to change the programming for a few.

Vacation

So yaeh, there won't be a new ch. this week. I actually started ch 10 on Friday, but have struggled with every word past the first sentence. So I'm scrapping it, and hopefully this mini-cation will help. I get to go to Houston (which isn't far from here, but I haven't been in over a decade) to see the Johnson Space Center (but I won't see it till after Atlantis lands) then we head over to Galveston, cause I've never seen the coast.
Laters!

City of Walls: Chapter 9

          I wiped the tears from my face and closed the holo screen. Nothing new, all alone again. If the Stockmans were arrested, its best that I not try to contact them.

          I got up from the table and walked through the bathroom to get to the closet. After moving some shelving, lifting carpet, and removing floorboards I found what I was looking for. I knew that other alias was worth it. Sitting on the floor, shoebox in hand, I opened it up and began to sort through documents. Soon I had a small pile of evidence claiming I was Tara Henderson. Shoebox returned, floorboards, carpet, and shelving in their proper place I continued with my contingency plan.

          Paper will get pulped and composted with the building pile. I'll have to break the new digital ID card, toss the plastic, and scrap the circuits. Though the digital IDs were tracked, the new system was poorly created and horribly managed. Many beta testers for the digital ID system were told to keep the old standard IDs, but I'd just moved from Russia, and had no standard IDs for the United States. Creating the two alias' had been simple, My real name hasn't been "on the grid" since I left to live with the Gulfs. I should call Helena, the longer I wait to do it the more hurt she'll be. Grabbing my cup I walked over to my bed and sat in front of the Over View Screen. Bringing up my VOIP client produced two messages, both from Sonja. I better call her first.

          A tap of the screen and Sonja's office line was connecting. "Freidman’s" She replied before looking at her monitor. Her eyebrows jerked up when she did look, "Girl were your raised by wolves? You have the nerve to wait 3 hours to call after you were released from emergency care. Guardian, status report!" She waited for a few seconds staring to a point just behind me.

          "I wasn't assigned an escort or police protection, if that's what you're talking about. And let me explain why I di."

          "Guardian! Reveal." Sonja's dark skin was getting darker.

          "Look, I know your mad, but listen. I was passed out when the paramedic released my to the care of the Goldberg's. I don't know how long I was out. Then when I woke up, I."

          "Oh what was the command."She sighed and began to rummage through a pile of papers on her desk. "Tara, do me a favor and access my SOA for me, I can't get it to work."

          "Huh, why?" I activated the new netlink, now almost charged, tapped through its menus, I'll need to customize these tonight.

          "Silvia called me after I left you those messages. But that doesn't mean you have no manners. Have you even called your aunt yet?"

          "I was just about to when I saw your messages." I found the SOA, and tapped it. I turned the holo screen around so that Sonja could see it.

          "This is authorized user, Fennelweigh. Restart Guardian protocol. This should work." We sat like that for 30 seconds.

          "OK, Sonj, your turn to explain. What is this guardian you keep talking about? This is just a simple document, see?" I opened up the task manager, to strengthen my point. Then saw the active process in the document. "Sonj, what did you do?"

          She covered her face with her hand. "Its kinda an illegal AI. It was buried in the seal. Its protocols were to ."

          "Don't tell me, Mend and Defend?"

          "It sounded like a good motto. Anyway," she lowered her hand to look me in the eyes, "If it wasn't for Seraph, I wouldn't have gotten the alert, or been able to tip the authorities. If capture of the assailants was possible, it would try for that. Since no reports of any modrpunks being brought in, so I assumed it stayed to protect you."

          "And what happens if the AIs programming is over written by a nannite harvester?" I asked, afraid I already knew the answer.

          "If the overwrite is successful, then someone's got a new toy to play with. But I doubt it." She bit her lip, then continued. "You see, I kinda based the AI's personality on a ancient mythological being called an "angel". It has near omnipotent power and is just as likely to appropriate the nannites for itself."

          "It'll steal nannites! That's not the kinda thing an angel would do. And what about the people who are suffering from the glitch? Wouldn't the AI be hurting them?"

          "I don't know. When I wrote the code, I didn't think that something like the Glitch was gonna happen. Seraph probably thinks he's banishing evil spirits. There's no telling what'll happen to the modrpunks. I heard that in Dallas, some have been turning up dead. Some have come forward to be test subjects for a possible cure, but no word on how that's going. Tara, if the ones that were after you this morning come forward, Seraph'll be traced back to me." She covered her head with her hands. Hair normally sleek and smooth, poked out from between her fingers in tufts. She shook. In the short time I'd known Sonja, I'd never seen her so distressed.

          "Sonj, you'll need to brace yourself for the possibility that they die. You could be charged with manslaughter."

          "Frac!"

City of Walls: Chapter 8

          Back in my deck, I walked to the fridge to get a drink. Drink lots of liquids. Water if possible, but anything will do. That's what the note from the paramedic said. As I opened the fridge door, my eyes wandered over to the table, with the brown package on top. Mr. Goldberg had given me his card, "For any questions you might have." I had thought he meant about the new netlink, but now I wondered about what he intended. The chill caressing my cheek brought me back to the matter at hand. All I had in the fridge was milk and water. The water was plain, no added anything. Hmm, biting my lip I bent down to the lower shelf on the door. There it is! My hand reached out to a bottle of chocolate syrup nestled next to a box of baking soda. Once I get some vitamin powder, I'll drink water. For now, chocolate milk it is. Grabbing the milk jug, I continued to fix my drink.

          Sipping my milk, headed over to the nightstand and plugged in my new netlink, connecting it to my Over View Screen and my home network, to begin powering up. I placed a small grocery order at the market down the block. I'm gonna have to put this on tab. Tomorrow I should have the points to cover this. At least they know I'm good for it. Walking back to my table I sat down and opened the brown package. Under the paper was a white card with the letters HTTPS on it. What is this, a website? I turned the card, and was rewarded with a hand written note.

          Dear reader,

What you have before you is a gift from the Historical Theological Text Preservation Society. Specifically, you now have in your possession a preserved copy of the King James Version Holy Bible. This book was created with archival quality paper and ink. It is hand bound in fine leather. Also, in the interests of preserving for future generations, a netlink port is in the rear cover. Thank you for supporting the HTTPS. Have a blessed day!

          Looking at the object, still partially covered in paper, black leather and gold lettering peeked back at me. I never thought I'd see one of these. I put down the card and continued to unwrap the book. I opened the back cover and gazed at the port. A flick of my wrist brought up a holo screen, showing the video file. Taping my finger to highlight it, two tags appeared.

Ac 8:1, Ac 8:4

          Another acronym? Mr. Goldberg said this was the key, he must have recognized those tags. I put the book down and double checked my old netlink. It held 4 items, the video, Sonja's SOA, and two sensitive documents. The order for my new netlink, was now filed at Goldberg's Jewelry Store. I transferred the work info to its proper place, then connected my netlink to the book.

          A holo screen popped up with a request for the encryption key. Before I could try anything the letters began scrolling through the prompt. When the scrolling stopped, Mt28:19Mk16:15Ac1:8 had filled in the key. The screen then went all black. The video had started.

          "Sorry, I won't have time to do fine edits on this, I'm not even sure I'll be able to finish this cut. I hope I will." A familiar tenor could be heard from somewhere off screen. A light was flicked on, and a table covered in papers came into view. A white male, in his 30's sat down behind the table, facing the camera. He smiled and continued. "I hope this missive finds you well, my dear friend Tara. I know that soon, I will not be well. If you have not heard, the Horn family is now in jail. They sacrificed themselves in order to let others flee."

          My mind raced, They're in jail? The others are gone?

          "Ever since the resolution disallowing the congregation of any group that could be categorized 'fundamental, independent, Christians' was passed the Government has been systematically shutting down Churches left and right. Only denominations that agree to no longer function on independent organization are allowed to remain. As you know, that is why Trinity Triumphant was closed. The Horn family will more than likely be released soon. They aggravated the police, but broke no laws. I made videos for each of the family groups, letting them know of places I knew, that did not have a church anymore. Hopefully, by leaving the big cities for the small ones, the Government won't spend its time tracking them down. I've given them instructions, so that they may be able to covertly start new groups. Even if we no longer have the right to assemble as a church, we still have our freedom of speech."

          Instructions for everyone. But what about me? I just found ya'll weeks ago. Tears streamed down my face. I'm all alone again.

          "You may be wondering to yourself, What about me? Since you've only just recently joined us, your knowledge of the Bible is incomplete. I cannot in good conscience ask you to do what our friends are doing. Nor could I ask them to take you under their wing. Tara Henderson, you are a brave and strong girl. You have a good job, Mr. Freidman is a good man. There are also some good folk in town, closer than you think. A friend of mine..." The sound of splintering wood could be heard loudly in the background. A woman's voice called out, "Joseph!" Shouts followed. The man, Joseph Stockman, got up and ran around the table, calling to his wife. "Heather!" The video stopped. The timestamp in the lower right corner read, 09:35:05 03/15/2048. Three weeks ago.