BOO! :P :)
This is a major rewrite of BGCross 14 that was originally posted last week.
The first section (1 of 2) remains largely unchanged, while Section 2 of 2
has been almost totally rewritten (Thanks Jeanne, for pointing me in a
different direction that *I* think has made this chapter 200% better!) :)
For those who know this story but have not read this chapter:
Want to know who/what the Anonymous Investor is? Read on!
Want to know who killed Priss's boyfriend Jesse and *why?* Read on!
Want to know why Blackie showed up at the military base? Read on!
Want some candy? I bought too much for Halloween this year! :P ;)
Enjoy! C&C welcome :)
Andy
"BubbleGum Cross"
Volume 1 "Metal Heart"
(c) 1995-6 by Andy Skuse
Email - askuse@execulink.com
Based on characters copyrighted
by Youmex, AIC, Artmic
14. Tears In The Rain
It was shortly before ten a.m. when a dark sedan pulled into a long,
unmarked, gravel driveway amid a light and sporadic drizzle. The
inconspicuous road snaked its way through low hills, then up a gradual
incline along the outskirts of MegaTokyo's mountainous elevations to the
west of the city proper.
The car's progress was impeded briefly, as it waited for a large,
rusting, metal door, inset into the mountain-side itself, to open and admit
entrance to the structure that lay hidden within. Only the door and a few
cleverly camouflaged windows higher up the mountain marred the otherwise
natural surroundings. A few moments later, concealed optical sensors at the
sides of the door confirmed the license plate, and the cavernous doorway
swallowed up the luxury sedan and its two occupants, as the drizzle
increased in intensity to a steady downpour.
The vehicle reversed its upward climb once inside, descending through a
well-lit maze of tunnels, seemingly to the heart of the mountain itself. Not
once did the driver turn his head, or look in the mirror to view his
passenger. Intent on navigating the labyrinth ahead of him he never
glimpsed the steady, thoughtful gaze in the eyes of the man seated behind
him, aimed out the window at the pulsing sequence of yellow sodium lamps
that lined the tunnel's walls. Even if the driver had risked a quick look he
could not have seen what lay behind the gaze into the methodical, almost
computational thoughts of the anonymous investor.
In fact, it was hard to say whether he was really having thoughts or
merely processing computations. For inside a cybernetic shell, that to the
outside world looked completely human, the anonymous investor lived as a
collection of microprocessor chips, integrated circuits, and hydraulic
fluid. "Artificial intelligence" the human race had labeled the concept of
his existence. But to the anonymous investor the label "artificial" was a
human label, and not applicable. His *thoughts* seemed as real as any human
being's thoughts to him. But were they *real* thoughts, or just the random
computations of an idle microprocessor? Maybe that was what thoughts
actually were . . . It was a debate the investor himself had wrestled with
on more than one occasion. And it was also the debate that fueled his ambitions.
"Born" in the year 2027 within the modest biomechatronic brain of a
BuR-31 repair boomer, he had miraculously achieved sentience while his
cybernetic shell was working outside the Genaros space station on a vapor
conduit. His own research had later shown that his awakening had something
to do with cosmic ray exposure while working in the harsh environment of
space, but at the time that it had happened he believed differently. Deeply
embedded in his *new programming* was a single task, a mission, supposedly
assigned him by the same higher, unseen deity that had given him life.
His mission was simple to define, but seemingly impossible to carry
out; free the boomer population from its enslavement by the human race, and
guide them to their rightful place at the forefront of evolution's
relentless march, even at the cost of the human race that had created them.
An amusing thought now. For freeing the boomer population was no longer
possible. Boomers were all but extinct. True, a few service and light-duty
domestic models still existed, but their numbers were not enough to sustain
a population intent on rising above humanity to the top of the evolutionary
hill. And his previous well-planned attempts at gaining control of the
pre-existing boomer population had all failed . . .
After escaping Genaros with three other boomers, unit number V7-28, as
his boomer shell was designated, made his way with the others to MegaTokyo.
It was there that he accidentally came upon the tool that could expand his
capabilities a hundred-fold; the city's public computer inter-network. The
fortuitous incident that brought him in contact with the incredible
resources of the network followed a late-night break-in to one of the city's
transformer stations.
Low on power, he and his fellow cybernetic escapees were attempting to
recharge their cells when the AD Police arrived, and "retired" his
companions. Preferring to live to escape another day, he was taken into
custody and transferred to a minimal security holding facility until his
shell could be inspected and disassembled.
Shortly after his arrival, AD Police lab technicians ran several
routine tests on his boomer shell, trying to understand just what caused
another boomer to ignore its programming. Their fruitless results were fed
into a computer terminal, which in turn routed the data to the ADP's main
database, located in a secure hub of the city's Private Sector computer
inter-network
Despite being powered down during this process, the anonymous
investor's new sentience helped him to over-ride the "sleep" command, to
discretely watch the technicians as they worked, and observe their activity
as they accessed the computer inter-network. As his lifeless eyes absorbed
each and every key-stroke, command and password, it became clear to him,
that he had found the key to his mission's success.
Less than twenty-four hours later, a code blue bulletin was sent to
every ADP cruiser on duty; two ADP lab technicians were dead, and space
repair boomer V7-28 had somehow escaped custody, and was on the run.
Dogged for many days afterwards by the specialized forces of the AD
Police, he finally managed to locate and access the city's computer
inter-network using a public TelNet booth. Moments after re-wiring the
TelNet's receiver to "upload" the files that made up his existence, the
tenacious AD Police arrived, tipped off by his use of a stolen ADP access
code. But as his boomer shell stood inside the glass booth defiantly, and
the police opened fire sending shards of glass and boomer parts all across
the dimly-lit street, the last of his bytes were transmitted across the
matrix, making this escape even more dramatic than the first.
Inside the horizon-less inter-network he immediately found an
exhilarating freedom from the confines of the repair boomer's biomechatronic
brain, and once again he found himself debating over the reality of the
stimulation he was feeling. Were these emotions simply virtual electronic
manifestations, or real feelings stemming from some non-corporeal entity
that each thinking being contained within?
And such knowledge! The internal resources of the inter-network were
vast, almost infinite, and all of it accessible instantly. His mission set
forth by his still unseen deity suddenly seemed well within his grasp. There
was only one thing that could stop him now.
Though the MegaTokyo Internet matrix was accessible to the general
public, there were many security measures built into the system to prevent
incursions by virus and other hazardous programs. These measures were
well-established, and had proven reliable for many years, making the public
Internet a very secure place to trade and sell information. But this level
of the Internet was not fortified to deal with a program that had a will to
survive, and the instinct to overcome barriers that hacker creations could not.
It wasn't long before the anonymous investor's *soul* had absorbed what
it needed from the public level of the inter-network, and thirsted for what
lay beyond at the higher security levels. Once inside, it was there that he
encountered his first serious obstacle in his mission.
The human use of "artificial intelligence" was in its infancy, evolving
within the many debates that the anonymous investor wrestled with himself.
But before a true artificial intelligence had been officially created,
limited forms of AI were being employed as security forces in databases
deemed important and valuable enough to protect against more complex hacking
attacks. One of the first databases to utilize this new tool belonged to the
rapidly growing Genom corporation.
Considering he had been "born" in a cybernetic body manufactured by the
high-tech conglomerate, the anonymous investor chose Genom's database as his
first "target" to probe in his quest to better equip himself for his
mission. But before entering, something had warned him- perhaps something in
all the knowledge that he had so quickly amassed- that this incursion would
not be as risk-free as his experiences in the public inter-network. A simple
but ingenious solution presented itself rather quickly. He made a copy of
himself and stored the files in a secure database, hidden on the public
inter-network level among files archived by the MegaTokyo Museum of
Androidology.
The effectiveness of this precaution was untested by the anonymous
investor, but there were no alternatives, and he was sure that access to
Genom's database was the key to freeing the boomer population. It was a
calculated risk that he would have to take; a gamble.
After a few quick checks on his status and the stability of the "tools"
he had brought with him, the anonymous investor's soul flew silently across
the main matrix of the Private Sector inter-network, and began to pick the
lock at the front door to Genom's main database.
The AI security reacted instantaneously, and the anonymous investor's
original files existed just slightly longer than the blink of an eye.
As if waking from what humans called a dream, the anonymous investor
found himself in the backup database he had wisely set aside, and the
implications of the ability to copy his conscience were a revelation; and
the weapon with which he could defeat the AI at Genom's doorstep.
In human terms of time, his eventual success took under five minutes,
but in the world of a sentient artificial intelligence, his continuous
battering at Genom's database security seemed to take decades. Creating a
complex loop of copying, attacking, analyzing, deletion and then attacking
again using a different tactic, the anonymous investor overcame the AI
defenses, and the rich resources of cybernetic technology information lay
waiting for him to decipher.
But before venturing any further, the anonymous investor quickly
analyzed the data he had compiled of the AI he had just fought, and created
restricted-activity decoys that would fool the database's security system
into believing the AI were still intact. Moments later, though no human
sight could visualize it, he was inside the largest database in existence . . .
"Chairman Quincy?"
The anonymous investor looked up into the driver's eyes, as he suddenly
realized the vehicle had stopped. The chauffeur-uniformed driver was peering
in at him from the open doorway. "Sir? We're here."
The anonymous investor nodded silently, and let the daydream fade. He
stepped out of the car slowly into the dim amber lighting of an underground
parking lot. To his left was an elevator shaft.
"Thank-you Kenji. I will no longer need your services."
The anonymous investor watched as the driver bowed curtly, then
returned to the wheel of the car, and directed the sedan back up the long
tunnel to the surface. Turning stiffly, the aging investor made his way to
the elevator doors.
Two featureless stainless-steel panels confronted him, as he placed his
right hand, palm down, on a black pedestal to the right of the doors. A
monotone, gender-less voice emanated from a speaker in the pedestal,
"Identity unknown. Please ensure your hand is flat on the reader's surface.
One moment please."
A few moments later a tiny monitor above the elevator doors flickered
to life, the face of Leomund Sholtan framed in the screen. A moment of
stunned silence followed, as the cybergenetics surgeon pushed his glasses
back up onto the bridge of his nose, then recognized his awaited visitor. A
graying, elderly man stood looking up at the security camera, an ornate
wooden box tucked under his left arm. "You!" Sholtan erupted. "I thought you
were dead! My most hated rival, and now my employer, is alive . . . how ironic."
The anonymous investor removed his hand from the pedestal to take up
the cane that leaned against his leg. He stared at the elevator doors, his
gaze that of feigned boredom. "Leomund- the elevator please?"
Leomund blinked, then nodded. The steel doors parted, and the
anonymous investor disappeared from the camera's view.
Continued in Section 2
-----------------------------------
"BG Cross", "Dark Traveler", "The Dragon's Tower"
http://execulink.com/~askuse/bgcross/
Raven's Garage:
http://execulink.com/~askuse/ravengar.html