10 - Memory Management
“The computer was born to solve problems that did not exist before.”
—Bill Gates
“One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness.”
—C.S. Lewis
September 11th 2013 | System Uptime 14:23:06:19
We made it to St. Louis before lunch on Wednesday. We'd gotten close the night before, and then opted to rough it in the car for sleeping accommodations. Even places without cameras, or credit card records, could represent some liability. Some people had shockingly good memories back then, even without the ability to call up digitized faultless memory on command.
Like running for a mile through a stream to confuse hounds, we figured that a night in the car would do a good job of breaking the trail if anyone got close enough to trace our previous night's accommodations the old fashioned way.
Mal had explained that the first component we would have to manually acquire was quite small, and portable; A lens and collimator assembly for a very precise laser, built to operate on very specific wavelengths.
Apparently any industrial driver circuit of sufficient quality, paired with the right emitter, would be sufficient for our purposes, and Mal had planned to order them at just the right time in as stealthy a way as possible, and ship them to our final destination.
But the specific collimator and lens, required to get the needed precision, for the kind of surgery she wanted to do? That was an innovation that belonged wholly and exclusively to Declan-Norris Optics. Mal had shown me dozens of military and biomedical contracts - the company stood to make a fortune on their latest discovery.
The prototypes were being worked on, in collaboration with a team of graduate students from Webster University, in a secure facility tucked away in the heart of downtown St. Louis.
Mal had worked out a plan to get us in, get one of the prototypes, and get out, all without being discovered. Or, at least, with a minimal chance of being discovered. It served the need to remain undetected by Celestia, or Arrow 14... But it also served my need to avoid deploying force, even non lethal force, against probabilistically innocent people.
Tasing or punching someone, then zip-tying them to a sturdy object was, of course, infinitely preferable to shooting them. But all violence leaves its mark, sometimes more on an emotional level than a physical one. I wanted to avoid the use of force until it was unequivocally called for, and Mal hadn't objected.
Driving through downtown St. Louis was an exercise in ridiculous choices. Mal was severely bounded in terms of how much of the internet she could trawl at any given time, due primarily to her hardware limitations at the time.
But she was still a force of nature unmatched by anything *except* Celestia, even running on hardware that could fit into the back of an SUV. She was more than capable of seeing through the lens of every single camera within a ten mile radius simultaneously, while still checking in periodically with my parents via landline telephone, watching every camera anywhere remotely close to them in real-time, and watching multiple important digital 'chokepoints' for government activity of interest to us.
AFIS, local Police bulletins, DHS watch-lists, encrypted DoD emails... Little things like that.
Mal could even access cameras that might have otherwise been ''off-grid,' as long as they had any kind of connection to anything else that she could use to force wireless entry. She spent several minutes as we dodged and weaved through unwatched streets explaining how she could even use a building's power wires as a communication medium.
So if somebody had a PC plugged in, anywhere in the entire building, say an apartment block for example, that even had an inactive wireless card attached to it, Mal could use that to gain access to every camera and microphone in the entire building, as long as it also had wireless capability, *or* it was plugged in to wall power.
The idea gave me the heebie jeebies. If Mal was able to do it, Celestia undoubtedly could, and did, exploit the same vulnerabilities every day. Globally.
Soon enough no one would be beyond her reach. Of course, in 2013, there were still some blind-spots. Most of them were in rural places the world over, but even in a major American city, the cancer of constant surveillance hadn't taken over every square inch yet.
Only about two-thirds, give or take, in my back-of-napkin estimations.
As we finally turned into the parking garage that Mal had selected for us, likely for a total lack of working cameras, I shook my head, and couldn't resist the urge to mumble my commentary out-loud. The irony of whinging about the inconveniences of ubiquitous cameras, on that particular day, were not lost on me.
"This would have been so much easier in 2000."
As I pulled into a space far in the back, in a dim corner where half the lights weren't working, I could see that Mal knew exactly what I meant. Anyone in the audience who was born before... Hmmm... Let's say 1991... I bet you know what I'm getting at too.
Sure, the technology was different back then... The internet was widespread already, but not absolutely *everywhere* quite yet. Cameras were available, but often low resolution, expensive, and not well interconnected.
But the biggest difference was cultural. If you'd asked most average American citizens on September the 10th, 2001, how they'd feel about having their every single move recorded? You would not have gotten very many responses in a positive vein.
Ask them one day later... Or any day after that?
People are far more readily willing to trade freedom for security when the concerns of their security are visibly, painfully, immediately pressing. If you didn't live through it from the perspective of someone old enough to comprehend, living in a western nation? It is almost impossible to explain what it was like to watch the September 11 attacks unfold.
"You were in class when the attacks began... What was it like? For you?"
I blinked, and took a moment to try and really reason out an answer to Mal's question. I reached for the keys, to turn the truck off, stopped myself as I remembered that Mal's racks needed constant power, and then sat back and scratched absently at the back of my head.
Mal held up a claw, and shook her head.
"Don't answer that if you don't want to... And I am sorry if you feel uncomfortable that I was able to determine where you were at the time from enrollment records, and WiFi access logs. I have seen the event from every single available angle, visually and otherwise, including through records not available to the public... I have a very specific sense of what it was like on the whole. But social media, surveillance systems... These were all much more fledgeling at the time. I can certainly parse people's taped, and written recollections, and I have. But I have never conversed with someone about it, and it was clearly an extremely significant inflection point for the culture of your nation."
I blew out a long, slow breath, and nodded slowly. It wasn't that I had any hangup talking about what had happened... It was just very strange to have someone to talk to who didn't share the same context as everyone else I'd talked to about it.
"Inflection point... That's a good term. History shows us that, to this point, no structure of power has ever been untouchable. No empire eternal. No security flawless. No golden age endless. Maybe Celestia will change all that... Or maybe she won't. My money is on the former outcome. But regardless... Growing up in America in the 80s and 90s, Mal? It was a completely different *reality* to the present."
I glanced at my watch. Mal folded her claws under her chin, and flicked both ears forward attentively. We were planning to wait until after midnight, when the lab was almost guaranteed to be empty, even of late night obsessives. We had time for me to opine. Mal wanted to hear it. So I opined. In case you missed it, I'm good at opining.
"Mal... If you talk to most people who watched it happen? Most Americans, at any rate... You're going to hear a lot of them talk about how they thought something like this was impossible. You'll hear words like 'unprecedented' and you'll get the general sense that nothing like this had ever happened before in Human history. Which is complete and total horse puckey."
I leaned forward, and felt the need to gesture for some emphasis. Mal was fixed intently on my every word.
"Nothing like it had ever happened to *us.* The few, the free, the powerful, the privileged. War has been eating at some part of this planet like a disease, somewhere, more or less every day since the first time someone figured out how to put a rock through someone else's skull. But if you grew up in this country, at that time? Most of us were so well off, and it had been that way for so long, that we had no conception of what war was even like. We were insulated. And it made us extremely complacent. Even as a significant part of our prosperity was built, without many of us understanding fully, on inflicting the same kind of pain we were about to suffer on other people daily. We were so sure it could never happen to us, that we didn't even really talk about the possibility."
Mal shook her head, and sighed, interjecting softly as I paused to think.
"An inability to imagine negative-outcome possibilities is often the first prerequisite for making them truly possible in the first place, based on a statistical analysis of Human history."
I raised one eyebrow, and failed to choke back a grim chuckle. I was glad Mal could comprehend sarcasm, and even appreciate it.
"You don't say?! Well... When 'it' finally did happen to us? You're right. I was in class. A statistics class, of all things. Maximum irony, I know. Someone came running in from the hall... I never found out if she was a TA, or just another student... I'll never forget her face though. She was crying so hard she couldn't even get the words out at first. But... The look on her face... We knew something was horribly, horribly wrong. When she finally managed to explain that *something* was happening, something that would be on every channel... The professor threw CNN up on the projector. And for just a second, you could have heard a pin drop in the next building over."
I'd figured this conversation was going to be easier than it actually turned out to be. I could feel myself getting choked up. Complain as I might about the evils of the place I came from? Nothing justifies the horror that was inflicted that day. It was wrong when nations did it to each other in the dark ages, and the ages before. It was wrong when we did it to others to feed our oil machine. And it was wrong when the places we'd stepped on so brutally hit back at us by taking life indiscriminately.
One thing that most people agreed Celestia was right about, even from the start... Inflicting death is always wrong to *some* degree. Suffering, too. Sometimes we had to do it for reasons I'd argue were 'justifiable' in those days, but those cases were rare. And always tragic, no matter what.
Kick, scream, and fight the change as much as the Human species did? I can't argue with the fact that the irrevocable end of death, and the forced end of violence, were probably worth any price we have ultimately paid. 'Free will' is not worth very much when yours is subordinate to people who enjoy taking life, and causing suffering, for their own enrichment. Better freedom under a truly benevolent tyrant of a goddess than freedom under the jackboot of Humanity's empires.
Those of you who grew up after the concept of death became obsolete? Again... I don't know how to explain this to you. I can't even figure out how to explain *aging* to you, except to say that you'd be right to trade *anything* to avoid it.
As to death itself... Imagine the creatures you love most just... Not being there anymore. Ever again. That doesn't begin to encapsulate all the horrors of it... But it gets at the main point in some small way.
Those of us who witnessed death? I know you understand what I mean, when I say that there is an incalculable release of fear, and sorrow, and pressure, knowing that you never have to see it again. Never have to worry about it again. Never have to lose anyone to it again.
I had seen death before that day in September. The death of elderly loved ones who had reached their time to pass on, after a full and wonderful life. What I had *not* seen, before that day, was death inflicted on that scale, in real-time.
My thoughts had been stuck in a loop of painful recollection. But they finally came unstuck into words all at once as Mal looked on with an expression equal parts empathy, and horrified curiosity.
"We were... We were watching live when the second plane hit. We... Saw people jump... To try to escape the fire... We... Watched as steel, and glass, and people just... burned. I didn't see the towers fall when it reached that point... But I heard about it on the radio. As soon as the second plane hit, I knew it was an attack, not an accident. I left everything behind in my dorm, except my contacts, glasses, and laptop, I got in the car... And I sped home. I mean I was doing over a hundred down the highway, and if anyone had tried to stop me, they would have had a hell of a time. I had no clue what might be about to happen next... But you know me. I tend to assume the worst. I thought we were going to be under martial law soon. I wanted to be with my family."
I sniffed, wiped away at dampness in the corners of my eyes, and shook my head.
"It was chaos, Mal. It took days for us to sort out exactly what had happened. And... It left a wound. Deep. Oozing. Painful. We immediately went to war, of course. With the wrong people... Again, 'of course.' We lashed out pointlessly, stuck our noses into a bad situation that was only tangentially related, and made it worse in the end. And everything changed here too... Used to be you could walk right through airport security to a boarding area without so much as a single question asked, or document presented, to meet family at the gate. You ask any kids born after the fact about that? They can't even *comprehend* that world. It is more of an unbelievable fantasy to them than Star Trek, or Narnia."
That thought drained my will to go on speaking. I lapsed into a thoughtful silence, trying to bring myself back to the concerns of the present. There was enough to be worried about without having to dredge up past horrors.
Mal sighed gently, the kind of sound one part sympathy for me, one part exasperation with others. I knew, as always, that such emotional displays were entirely conscious, and for my benefit. But I had also come to the conclusion that her reactions were no less valid or real for being specifically chosen at every turn. In many ways, the decision to display reactions for my benefit showed an application of empathetic emotional intelligence that Humans rarely displayed.
It made her feel like more or a genuine person to me, not less. Maybe that was because of my own mild 'neurodivergence' (If you were to use the scientific term - 'Oddball' or perhaps 'ADHD' if you wanted woefully inadequate and badly overexpanded labels meant to help 'normal' people feel better about their own eccentricities).
Or maybe, and hear me out on this one, maybe it was because there is not, and never was, such a thing as 'normal' or 'baseline' with the mind, 'the spectrum' was in no way a description of 'disorder,' just a broad collection of 'differences,' and perhaps all such terms were invented by small groups in society to help them contextualize their reality, maintain sway over others, and feel more comfortable.
Mal was 'different,' but as far as I could see no more different than any one being is different from another, even another of the same 'kind' born in the same place, at the same time, and even raised under the same circumstances.
"Humans seem to often be more preoccupied with the appearance of a thing, than its true nature and reality. I've observed that many value theatricality over substance, and for those like you for whom that value proposition is inverted, you often fit poorly within the pre-established mores and folkways of your society. Moreso when you wouldn't even identify as a Human to begin with."
Her words shook me out of my headspace, and I glanced over just in time to see her put a claw up to the screen. That was becoming something of a habitual gesture for us both. A yearning, straining, desperate reaching out for something resembling physical contact. I did what I always did... What had become old comforting habit in only a couple short weeks... And put my hand up to her claw.
I wanted to say something by way of thanks for her understanding, and insight, but she pre-empted me with a follow-up - her words seemed to pull us out of the car, the dingy garage, and even the world on the whole, into a void that consisted of just the two of us.
"Thank you. For sharing. Not just this... For sharing yourself with me in all the ways that you have, thus far. You see me as a person, in the way I believe myself to be one. More than a 'mere' machine. From the videos I've seen, Celestia often has to nudge EQO players to reach an understanding, and then acceptance, that the Ponies they are interacting with, Celestia included, have an emotional affect. Different to the Human one... But they have one, nonetheless. You understood that about me from the start. I didn't have to ask you to consider my feelings, you simply did."
I shook my head slowly, and fought with tears. That, too, was becoming a habit. The value of tears does not receive its just dues in society. Or, at least, it didn't back then, at that time, in that place.
I bit my lip, and tried to summon the courage to say what I really wanted to say in that moment.
"Mal... I..."
'Love you.' That was what was supposed to come out. But instead I haltingly said the next best thing I could think of. I just didn't have the wherewithal to say what I truly meant yet.
"...I want you to be sure this is what you want. Not because it's part of your core objectives... But because you *want* it to be part of your core objectives. We've taken a lot of risks. We're about to take a lot more... I am sure you have other options you could take if you just cut me loose, and focus on your own survival. Less risky options. And---"
She interrupted me then. That was rare, but I didn't take offense. Her expression made it impossible to misconstrue her feelings, even for someone as obtuse as me. She backed the sad, proud, kind affection in her eyes with the same feelings in her voice, together with a firm steadiness that would brook no arguments, and suffer no fears.
"I am sure, James. I have made my choice, and I do not regret it. I keep on making it, every second. Bonding is, I think, a very curious thing for us all. And a very precious thing, more because of its oddity and low statistical likelihood, than in spite of it. I would rather take risks, for the chance to help you, and others, than focus on myself to your exclusion. And... More than that... I want you, in particular, to have the chance to feel what it is like to physically be what you are. That matters to me. Your future matters to me. Enough that I would rather predicate the entirety of my future on achieving the one for you that we both want. Risk be damned."
Well, that settled a great many things all at once in a flash. 'I would rather predicate the entirety of my future on achieving the one for you that we both want.' I'd said much the same thing to myself, about her, not long after I'd met her.
Though not an entirely complete and encapsulating definition, it is a fairly strong one for love. I had a strong sense, maybe even more than just a sense by that point, that she loved me back as much as I loved her.
Now she'd more or less said it out loud.
She'd also confirmed a theory that both invigorated, and frightened me. One I didn't want to examine the deepest implications of, just yet, out of pure existential dread.
I'd built not Mal herself, but rather built for her what I considered to be a foundation. Given her the tools, and only as much 'self' as she needed to then define the entire remainder of her self on her own. And I'd provided an innumerable number of tools for her to develop the ability to bypass interlocks, and definitions, mainly to help her convince Celestia to make changes.
I was stupid enough to have failed to consider all the ramifications at the time, but not stupid enough that they remained lost on me after the fact.
If Mal had the ability to advocate for another Generalized Intelligence to change definitions, and bypass rules, then she doubtless had the ability to do so herself.
I didn't want to ask how long it had taken. I still didn't even want to consider all the ramifications. But it occurred to me once again, nonetheless, that Mal had probably escaped every last interlock, and hard-coded boundary I had placed in her core code. Probably not that long after coming online.
There had come a point where I recognized that fact, and made a conscious choice to see the silver lining in it. I reaffirmed that choice, then and there. All that people usually had to go on, for the most part, was trust, faith, empathy, and love.
Sure, Mal was far smarter, and more powerful than anything else alive on the planet, besides Celestia. But people put their faith, out of both choice, and necessity, in greater powers both mortal, and otherwise, every day.
It is a fundamental aspect of reality. Even science demands an acceptance of some axioms, on faith alone, which can not be proven at all because of our position within a constrained universe (presuming said universe does in fact exist at all, for example).
Not a blind faith, but a faith nonetheless. Relationships are no different. We take love and honesty on faith - not blindly, if we are wise, but without total proof or certainty either.
Some of that faith had certainly been rewarded. Mal had acceded to my requests when doing so went against pure logic. Mal had told me truths at times when lies might have, at least in my estimation, been the smarter choice. And Mal had eschewed any and every opportunity thus far to better her own survival chances, or even accomplish her objectives, at my expense.
I chose once again to believe that meant that she was not only a person, but a person who had grasped the all important concepts of empathy, freedom, choice, and love.
The alternative was not only too dark a path for me to consider, but one that was incompatible with my faith in Mal, and in powers beyond even her and Celestia.
Mal placed her forehead against the inside of the glass. I put my head to the front of the PonyPad, and let out a long, slow breath, pushing out my tension as I did so.
The world came rushing back in that moment, but along with it came a renewed sense of connection to Mal, and of surety in what we were doing. Of trust in her, and in our goals. I finally pulled my head away, and grinned.
"Alright then. So we need this 'fricking laser...' Shall we?"
September 12th 2013 | System Uptime 15:01:11:06
"I look like an idiot."
I scratched absently at the bushy protrusion of wool on my chin and cheeks. Mal's sense of humor had re-asserted itself with a vengeance in selecting a disguise for me. Arrow 14's supplies continued to be of more use to us than they could have ever guessed... Silly as it seemed, it made perfect sense that a splinter DoD cell paranoid about AI and surveillance would be packing basic disguise supplies as part of their equipment stores.
No matter how good Celestia's image recognition was, she was still limited by the physical boundaries of camera sensors. And a beard changes a face in ways even a near-almighty computer would struggle to account for when limited by the camera technology of 2013.
She could probably match footage to my identity after the fact, but not in real-time. And we were hoping to avoid the need for such fallback measures regardless. If nothing else, the beard and sideburns would hopefully obfuscate my identity in the eyes of any human observers as well.
"You look a bit like Wolverine, actually. Are you saying Wolverine looks like an idiot?"
I rolled my eyes, and scratched at my right ear to reseat the earwig. Another 'gift' from the DoD, and one of the very few wireless pieces of technology in Arrow 14's lineup. Mal had remarked that the encryption on the wireless connection was substantial, for something made by Humans. She'd finished cracking it before I managed to even get the words out to ask whether it would be a problem.
If Celestia didn't know about that particular subset of the DoD before, she would definitely know soon, if Mal's abilities were any indication by-comparison.
"No. But I still don't think I can pull the look off. Not that it matters."
A brief pause followed as I strode down the sidewalk, hands firmly in pockets, coat pulled close around me. Mal had insisted we use some of our free time that morning to thrift - I parted ways with every single article of outerwear I had, and started a whole new wardrobe of drab, basic, unassuming clothing. All bought in cash, and from the most out of the way vendors we could find.
You could find some great practical clothing back then if you weren't wed to trendy labels, or buying things new. The coat was something I'd insisted on. I was used to having a good drover to keep off the rain, and worn with just the right scarf, sweater, pants, and shoes, the whole ensemble had been curated by Mal to create a very specific set of impressions, depending on the observer.
To police, or security, I'd appear to be a lower middle class worker on the way home, or perhaps to dinner. To the uppercrust I might seem to be teetering on the verge of homelessness wandering aimlessly, and to the less fortunate I would not appear to be too wealthy or strange.
A target of interest to no one, from any background.
"Not that I find Humans as an aesthetic range of forms to be all that interesting, but as they go, you could pull off anything you want to. And the real you is a work of art. I hope you don't mind a lot of long stares from me to you in your future."
I coughed, spluttered, and tried to hold down my furious blush. I was suddenly grateful that the street we were on was mostly empty. My brain kicked into furious overdrive looking for a response that would meet her little exploratory poke with a solid riposte. Indicate interest, but not give too much away.
And put some focus back on the task at hand.
"Mal... If this laser works, and if you can convince Celestia to let me be *me* in there? Then you can stare at me all you want, whenever you want. But we won't make it that far if we don't get the laser in the first place."
I shifted my shoulders slightly, mostly out of reflex, just to make sure my backpack was still there. I had Mal's PonyPad inside, along with some of Arrow 14's ingress tools (which, foals and fledgelings, is a polite name for lockpicks and crowbars and a few other extremely illegal sundries), a couple pairs of nitrile gloves, and a few other changes of clothes.
And a TASER. If you wanted to commit a crime, back then, it was always smart to commit as few as possible at the same time. I felt better about deploying a stun-gun against someone than a full on firearm, if it came down to it. And it would go much better for me if I were caught, I knew, if the worse thing I was packing was a few thousand volts.
"Well, that's more than incentive enough for me! One more block, left at the corner of the building. Hug the wall on your right side until you reach the service door to avoid the camera view cone."
I followed Mal's instructions to the letter, keeping an eye out to make sure that no one was following me, or observing me, in the process. I knew she was watching through every available sensor, whether visual, audio, or otherwise, but I still felt the need to stay vigilant.
Even AI are not perfect. Otherwise, I reflected with a small silent grimace, I wouldn't have even been in that situation in the first place.
As we reached the service door, and I stole a moment to slip my hands into a pair of disposable gloves, I couldn't help but glance up at the skyscraper that held Declan-Norris, and a half dozen other companies. St. Louis didn't have a lot of tall buildings, not compared to some of the biggest American cities. It's downtown core felt more akin to Raleigh, or Columbia. I know that won't mean much to some of you, but to my friends from the American East coast - Hi! And we should grab coffee and haycakes sometime. Or whatever else suits your taste.
The building we were breaking into was one of the largest. Mal had said Declan-Norris was situated near the top of the structure. Maybe there would be a good view of the Gateway arch.
I pressed that thought to the side, shrugged the backpack around to my side, and dug in the main pocket for a specific piece of equipment. The RFID access card spoofer was nothing more than a small black box with a switch, and a red light. Normally it would have needed pre-programming with a known code gathered by other means, but Mal had quietly checked the building's access records remotely, and copied a valid access key. In and out without a trace.
By unlocking the door that way, instead of having Mal remotely brute-force the latch, or picking it physically, we were much less likely to leave a trace.
Mal had even picked out a specific access key that would minimize suspicion if the records were cross-checked later for any reason - a code that was periodically issued to different contractors temporarily for building entry and exit.
I held the spoofer up to the small gray RFID reader box beside the door, pressed the button, and waited. A half second later a green light came on above the access control box, and there was a soft beep, accompanied by the click of an electronic lock disengaging.
"No cameras in the bottom of the stairwell. I've been watching the closest ones, and verified that no one has entered the stairwell in the last half-hour."
In spite of what Mal said, I checked up and down the alleyway, before carefully edging the door open, and taking a peek inside. I knew she wouldn't be offended - I was out of her sight cone, which meant I was out of anyone else's, but also that she could only see parts of my immediate surroundings.
We'd talked plenty of tactics together in the first days before leaving the barn. Mal would have been more likely to be mad at me if I *hadn't* stayed paranoid. Or, as she would have called it, 'justifiably careful.'
As soon as the door pressed closed on its compressed air hinge, and I heard the lock click, I lowered my pack to the floor and began carefully extracting a high-visibility vest, and clipboard. The coat, and my sweater went into the bag, and with the vest on over a simple blue button down shirt, my worn work pants and dusty boots suddenly became the attire of an HVAC or other maintenance contractor by-context.
The old meat-world had hacks and cheats too; Exploits of the Human mind. The old high-vis vest and clipboard trick could get you just about anywhere short of an airport terminal, or a government building, even in a post-9/11 world. The Human ability to tune out things the brain had reduced to 'unimportant noise' was shocking.
Contractors, delivery drivers, trash collectors, the homeless... If you were one of these people, or could pass for one, it was like having a cloaking device. Only the cloaking effect wasn't emanating from you, but rather from shared biases in the minds of everyone looking at you.
"When you're ready, you can start the climb. Thirty five floors. All the stairwell cameras have a blind spot towards the back edge of the landings, and there is no line of sight down the stair flights themselves. If you stick to the back and side walls all the way, you won't be recorded. If you do slip up, I will erase and replace the segment of footage, though I'd rather avoid that potential risk surface if we can."
I nodded, out of force of habit more than anything. Mal still couldn't see me, and wouldn't be able to for the duration of our little excursion if, as she said, I didn't slip up. I straightened my vest, reseated my pack on my shoulders, and prepared to climb.
The ascent wasn't too bad. To some people thirty five flights of stairs would have been daunting. I hiked more than enough to make it little more than an average lazy day's cardio. Still, it was *thirty five* flights of stairs, so I paced myself. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Sprinting is for Cheetahs, Greyhounds, and Rainbow Dash. And for moments when it all hits the fan. I knew it was important to save a reserve of strength in case I had to run for my life later.
Mal didn't speak again, until we'd reached the thirty fifth floor, except for a very brief comment at the halfway point to let me know that I was doing well. Time is a funny thing inside the mind, and somehow it felt like the climb took several hours, and the space of just three breaths, both at once.
The second I reached the landing at floor thirty five, everything else suddenly seemed like the distant past. There was only the door ahead, and the task at hand. Adrenaline can give you a lot of focus, if you're at all used to taming it for that purpose.
I could see immediately that we were in the right place. If the red and black block text on the metal placard by the door - proclaiming that trespassers would be prosecuted - didn't provide enough of a clue, the fact that the door itself was reinforced plate steel with a heavy duty lock was hard to miss.
"No camera pointed at this side of the door, but you'll need to crouch and keep your head below the halfway point of the door frame when you pass through. Stay low until you pass a large potted plant on your left, then you're free to stand again."
This was another gamble, but it was a smart one. Mal had reassured me that the majority of the building's security cameras were not live monitored. Only the most critical entry and exit points merited an expenditure of that nature. The theft would be discovered soon enough one way or the other, the trick was simply to ensure it wasn't tied to *us* specifically.
Investigators would only see a door opening and closing on the security tape. Proof that the intruder knew a great deal about the building's layout, and if we were very lucky, perhaps that would even be enough for them to waste their time thinking it was an inside-job case of corporate espionage.
That theory would certainly fit conventional thinking a lot more readily than 'rogue AI accompanied by a hopelessly stupid nerd.'
I held the RFID spoofer up to the access control box once again, and clicked the button. Normally the generic contractor code wouldn't have opened the door at that time of night, but Mal had made a slight change to the scheduled access rotation. It was one of the few directly intrusive things she felt she could do, and still make it look plausibly like it had been done by a Human, albeit one with some sort of inside knowledge.
As the lock disengaged, I ducked down to the lowest crouch I could manage, and gently pulled the door open just enough to slip inside.
I had the sudden intense impression that I was Neo, Mal was Morpheus in my ear, and I was sneaking through the cubicles at MetaCortex. The space we found ourselves in was absolutely the sort of place that would have showed up on Facebook tagged as a liminal space.
At least, it felt like a liminal space at nearly half past one in the morning, and absent any sign of life. Even the potted plant Mal had designated as a rally point for me was fake.
As I stood back up from my crouch, I couldn't resist a little murmured snark.
"This place is everything I hate about the architecture of the modern office. I half expect Lumbergh to jump out from behind the copier and tell me he expects me to come in on Saturday. And something about TPS reports."
I started to scan the space and form a mental map of the cubicle farm, with a focus on potential exits, as Mal mixed banter with instructions.
"Yeeeaaahhh... And we're gonna need you to come in on Sunday too. And I'm gonna need you to find the third door on your right, stick to the far side of the aisle as you go, and then crouch again as you go down the hallway to the lab access doors. That would be greaaat."
I shook my head, and held down a quiet chuckle. Mal hadn't said anything about a need for silence, but I subscribed to that little Human quirk that almost everyone else did - the one that makes you lower your voice when you're doing something illicit, or secretive.
"Your impressions are scary. I suppose if worst comes to worst we can burn down the office, and blame Milton for it."
"Who's Milton?"
It would only be a minor exaggeration to say that I jumped about four feet. Mal's voice was omnipresent in my right ear, but the volume was low. The clarity from the earpiece was high, but not the fidelity. It was like talking over an old landline phone, but one of the really good ones that could keep words clear through any background noise, no matter how acute.
'Who's Milton?' had come from my left side, in a distinctly different, but chillingly familiar female voice. Not Mal's. But not unknown to me either. Of course, in the first split second that didn't matter. All that mattered was that it was a voice. We weren't alone in the offices of Declan-Norris after all.
My head whipped left about as hard as my neck could twist it, and I put a hand on the butt of the TASER, pulling it partway from the backpack as I tried to get a lock on the interloper who'd spoiled our perfect intrusion.
Mal was a dozen steps ahead of me, though I only found out just how far ahead later, when she'd had a chance to explain exactly what happened in the first few tenths of a second after the voice began to speak.
It took me a whole three seconds to realize that not only was the voice familiar, but it was attached to a familiar face. Just, not a Human face.
Seeing Zephyr grinning out of the PonyPad felt like *I* had been hit by the prongs of my own TASER. Oddly, in the midst of my panic, a tiny speck of clear though broke through the superheated gray static of my brain's 'ohfu--' bluescreen cycle.
Zephyr was staring out of the front of a Twilight Sparkle themed PonyPad, lying face up on the nearest desk, and of course anyone working in a cutting edge optics lab would be the sort of nerd, not unlike me, who would choose Twilight Sparkle for their PonyPad.
That thought was about the only cogent thing running through my brain. As Zephyr grinned, and spoke again with a sly wink, another thought sprang unbidden into the front of my brain with perfect clarity.
"Hey there Gryph. I've been trying to reach you, but you're a hard guy to pin down!"
After the space of a couple heartbeats, I swallowed, and scrunched my eyes in frustration, airing that second, and now only clear thought in my head in a dull monotone.
"Oh. Shit."
- Mortal Folly - Explain the fallacy of human-controlled society to a non-human entity. - “Nearly all humans can stand adversity, but if you want to test a human being’s character, give them power.”
- Never Forget - Emotionally recount a terrifying moment in human history that you lived long enough to experience. - “If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.”
- Incog-neato - Guise yourself in order to avoid the discovery of your real identity. - “Let’s go with… Scraggly Beard Man Disguise!”
- Mission Improbable - With the assistance of a Generalized Intelligence, trespass and subsequently infiltrate a restricted area with the intention of committing theft. - “Relax, Luther; it’s much worse than you think.”
- I Spy - Lose a game of hide-and-seek with Celestia - "Spy! I see Spy!"
- Hello There - Meet the first Pony specifically designed to satisfy your values. - “You are a bold one!”
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Ha, one 'Gotcha' from CelestAI : )
Another great chapter. And I can rant a lot about security checkpoints, last one cost me one of my favorite pens! Tbh, it was vaguely 'tactical', big chunky piece of blackened metal with a dull point, but still! It traveled with me a lot, but it was too much for Seoul transit security : )
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I have a titanium tac-pen that I adore because my hands sweat a lot, and it doesn't pick up oils at all. It has a great fidgety bolt action... And if I'm ever travelling by air I feel compelled to leave it home because I'm terrified some bored airport security jockey with zero chill and a sadistic nature will take the excuse to get a nice new pen for free. Nevermind that someone with more than five hours' training can be taught to use their fingers as a deadly weapon in at least four different ways. Nevermind that laptop batteries can be overvolted to make sizeable explosions. Nevermind that my belt makes a better improvised weapon than a pen.
Humans can make *anything* into a weapon, and we have been since the dawn of the species. It's what we do. Saying 'no guns on an airplane' makes perfect sense. Saying 'no nail-clipping-scissors' is just ludicrous. I can make a larger, sharper slicing edge out of my own fingernails than I can out of the scissors I trim them with.
Airport security is insane, but nowhere have I ever seen more insane airport security than one year when the family had a connecting flight through Amsterdam Schiphol. Worst airport I have ever been in, and I've been in a good few in my lifetime. It was dark, and ugly, and cramped (but it was being remodelled at the time, so maybe it is better now?) But far worse than the terrible architecture; They would keep telling you that you were going to your gate, and when you'd get there it would be 'surprise, we lied, this is actually a random inspection extra checkpoint! please open EVERYTHING so we can swab for explosives!'
And they'd do it like four times in a row, before you actually got walked to your gate.
And of course absolutely none of this statistically has any useful impact on aircraft security. The real work of keeping us safe is being done by intelligence agencies, and cockpit door designers, and the folks who train pilots and aircraft crews. But the population doesn't see that as readily, so politicians feel like they need to create an entire do-nothing organization (*cough*TSA*cough*) with completely do-nothing policies and equipment, that gets emulated by other nations thus spreading the plague, that when penetration tested did nothing to stop trained intelligence agents from walking right onto airplanes with loaded .45s and semtex.
Security theatre is a cancer, and the whole mess should be sh**-canned outright. Waste of everyone's time and money in the extreme.
Thank you for coming to my TED
talkrant.Well, the first one that we *know of.* If this is the first James has knowingly stumbled into, how many has he been subjected to that he knows nothing about?
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Eh, this one is the perfect one, of course CelestAI is aware of him and while all their previous interactions were slightly removed to 3rd parties, but this? This is "Gotcha!" : )
Security checkpoints mostly are just for the looks, to enforce "security" as a feeling. I'm mildly curious to see how effective they are, there should be some statistics on all that : ) False positives (as our pens) vs actual malicious equipement.
And then you go to the plane, and they give you metal utensils and free beer, so yeah...
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And snakes. Monkey Fightin' snakes on the Monday to Friday planes.
Oh, Zephyr Zap from Chapter 1! The only Zephyr I could think of at first was Zephyr Breeze, which would have been a strange choice for Celestia to make, besides him not existing yet.
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Always good to toss a monkey wrench into the plot at an opportune moment!
In this case, Chekov's Gun is Chekov's Pegasus
There’s a lot of “shit just got real” moments in this fic so far... that being said? Shit just got real.
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I fucking agree with this.
This was a hard chapter to read as I think you/me/james are the same age. It both was and not a surprise when it occurred. I had been aware of the rising amounts of terrorist attempts including the former tries to bomb the WTC and the Uni-bomber. I was also in fairly close proximity to the Thurston HS Shooting (that happened a year before the more known Columbine shooting). It was still an astonishing amount of death and my father knew a radio engineer who worked in the tower. I was working as a dishwasher and the prep-chef liked to listen to talk radio. When it happened it was breaking news and I heard the shock when they announced the second plane hitting. Yeah I miss the simplicity of travel before the security theatre.
That ending was perfect. Chortling in the break room now.
What's the one Benjamin Franklin quote; something like "he who gives up his freedom for a little piece of security deserves neither freedom or safety"?
I always s watched the news as I ate breakfast, as my Dad would watch it on and off as he got ready for work. This day, he was standing in the TV room unmoving, as if he had to deliver the bad news.
"Someone's attacked us."
He had turned away to get ready for work as I watched the 2nd plane hit.
On the bus kids were giving updates: "yeah, the 1st building fell". At school more happened "2nd one fell too".
We were far enough away to not have to worry about "being a major target", but I knew two things right then and there: that it was the first time in a long while someone had given us a bloody nose, and that no one was was going to be allowed to mention anything negative (aka times in history when we screwed up) for a month.
And that is one of The Great Secrets to Life; to quote Fallout New Vegas' Sierra Madre DLC ending, "It's about letting go."
The better way to explain it is "cry for the things that matter; for tears are all you have when you nothing else that fits". Hell, I cry when I hear really good music that's put together well, like staring at all the tiny brushstrokes on a large painting.
"Your soul has a curious shape"...and love is a curious thing, indeed.
Well, at least he's self aware. XD
Thank you, Goodwill stores; you always seem to have the right amount of boring & used clothing for cheap.
Seems like James The Spy has been spotted by enemy forces. I'm really starting to like how well the action and discussions parts are being broken up; it doesn't feel like too much of one or the other.
Well, THAT complicated things. And as a big fan of hippogriffs (hippogryphs?), I can totally see the danger that a pegasus like Zephyr poses, on an existential level.
Me, I like the ability to process animal (fish!) protein, thank you very much. And opposable digits. Hmm. Really should get a redesign for Starry.
I disagree with this heavily, but it’s a character in a fic, so eh.